Survivor: Fiji (1 Viewer)

CBS announced today that the next season of Survivor debuts on February 8. The cast announcement is this Friday (1/12).

I'm still curious if that 19th contestant is a man or a woman...or both.

Would anyone be opposed if I started up the HTF Challenge Thread? We didn't have one last season which was a shame...

I wouldn't be opposed, although I don't think my vote counts . I would dig being in the challenge though.

From what is posted on wikipedia, (and of course I do not take everything on there at face value) one female competitor spontaneously quit a day before production began and it was too late too recast. Hence, the extra cast member is male.

Not sure what's going on with the casting how they keep getting people so ready to quit on the game at a moments notice...there are PLENTY of people who want to be on the show, some from outside the U.S..come on!

Sure, go ahead, and once you start the thread, I'll make it a stickie thread.

I thought they had alternates picked just in case of such an occurrence?

Eh...better than the Cook Islands premiere, but that really isn't saying much.

This is the first time in a long while where I've completely despised someone pretty much right off the bat: Dreamz. Ugh.

Yawn......I switched over to The Office at 8:30. That's the first time since I started watching the show that I haven't finished an episode. Who got voted off anyway?

I do not like this "Have versus Have not" option which is new this year. Basically it appears 1 team is penalized for half the season for losing 1 challenge early on. I also wanted dreamz to have an early departure.
Best
Greg

We don't know this yet. My guess is that the "priviledged" campsite will go to the tribe winning the immunity idol each episode. Doing so adds a lot to the drama, plus it's unlikely that a tribe will throw a challenge simply to rid themselves of a member as one tribe did last season.

Anyway, I liked the start. I certainly don't see it in any negative way. As always, it takes a while to know the contestants. I would have liked to know a bit more about the person who quit at the last moment and whether he/she faces any penalties. How does someone who must have watched several seasons of Survivor not know what he/she may be facing? Thousands of applicants are hopping mad.

Here's the quitter.

I am hoping the winner of each immunity challenge would get use of the nice pad (during separate tribe phase of the game) until the next challenge. At least that's the way it is in The Apprentice this season (also exec produced by Mark Burnett).

Dreamz is pretty dumb, yapping and stereotyping people outloud.

Too bad Jessica got bounced (mainly for failing on her piece of the puzzle in the challenge). Didn't really like Erica's "that sucks" attitude after learning that her tribe was starting from ground zero for losing the challenge.

It never pays to be perceived a leader early in the game (Silvia).

> My guess is that the "priviledged" campsite will go to the tribe winning the immunity idol each episode.

That's what I assumed, too. This is the same twist that The Apprentice is using now.

The note said the immunity idol was back at camp, but which camp?

Was this the first episode ever that (spoilerized if you want to guess)
didn't have an opening credit sequence?

Yes and no--it was the first without any opening credits, but some episodes in season 12 featured an abbreviated version that didn't have any pictures of contestants. Apparently it was cut because the first cut of the premiere was 12 minutes too long.

True - but it will be interesting if they do keep the teams at the one camp to see how that would effect the game. I can see the "haves" actually being rather disadvantaged, simply because things may be so easy and comfortable for them that they almost become lazy and complacent, and don't manage to succeed in the challenges - and then the "have nots" could actually find themselves in a better place.

So, quick survey. Does anyone actually like Dreamz? (Personally, I hated him has soon as I saw his name - especially that bloody Z. And he did nothing to convince me that my assessment was wrong.)

And, a word of advice to Sylvia. If a person doesn't know a word like "askew", I'm pretty sure he's not going to know "orthogonal".

I loved Jeff asking Rocky to just choose one nickname and stick with it. (And incidentally, while I can understand his desire to be known by his name rather than a nickname, really, when you have 19 people to meet and get to know, that type of nickname really is terribly helpful at least in the preliminary stages).

Regarding the camps:

There is a rumor that at some point early on, the 'haves' camp is given the choice between giving up their camp or voting someone out.

Great episode tonight...much better than last week. I wasn't a big fan of Erica but she was entertaining so I'd wish they'd kept her.

Yao-man feeling up Sylvia for the idol was hysterical, as was accident-prone Boo.

The "Next week" on the website confirms that at the reward challenge, the medical team comes in--I'm guessing that it's Gary who "didn't want to die on Fiji" since he's the only Moto male I can really see having a serious health issue. Possibly Boo, but then again I doubt they'd have made light of all his injuries tonight if that were the case. The way Cassandra said it, it sounds like he's pulled out of the game, but the website also says there is an immunity challenge, so perhaps this takes place of the double boot episode.

The immunity challenge is, for the first time in four seasons, a gross food challenge which I always love.

(Admin note - Spoilers added)

I also noticed that the rules for the hidden idol have changed. If I recall, Jeff said it must be played BEFORE the votes are read and is only good down to the final five.

Which is an interesting twist, because you can trick the HII holder into not playing by pretending they are safe when they are actually on the chopping block.

I don't have the energy to do Separated at Births but here's a list of our nicknames for the Survivors:

Alex - Furio
Erica - Macy Gray
Boo - Puddy
Anthony - Tiger (Woods)
Dreamz - Lamarr (from Revenge of the Nerds)
Earl - Hootie

They've finally found the way to use the idol to best effect, in that the player has to actually choose to play it (rather than pulling it out as a Get Out Of Jail Free card).

Now, was I right in my understanding that Erica was actually right about the puzzle piece?

Nope. The way I saw it, when they listened to her and tried the piece, again, it still didn't fit. So, not only was she wrong, she was really loud about it.

I would have still kept her around, voting out Sylvia, but my vote doesn't count.