Survivor - Samoa (1 Viewer)

[Inspector Hammer!]

The first seasons honesty and simplicity is what I liked most about it, they didn't purposefully cast anyone blatantly sadistic like Russell, they just came up with a novel idea and gathered a group of average people together to live and work together on an island and we watched what happened.

I think that any new fan of the show owes it to themselves to go back and see how this phenomenon began, to see how the show has changed from then to now, I wasn't prepared for how different it was, most of the shows staples were in place but some had yet to come along.

And man, that Colleen Haskel was a real cutie.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by Inspector Hammer!
In this new season, people land on their home base and immediately start hooking up in alliances. In season one, they didn't even know what alliances were--let alone even think to use the word to describe the cliques that were forming among the cast. It is an evolutionary watch. Real 'must-see TV" for any Survivor fan.

 

[Brent M]

I'll chime in and say not only is season 1 a must see, but season 2 in the Australian Outback was even better. Obviously there have been other great seasons in the show's run, but those two really stand out as a couple of the very best.

 

[Lucia Duran]

I love that Russell has come to stir up some crazy S%@t! it's going to be fun if he can last a while. I love that he is completely making up stuff and doing what he can to be annoying and ruin the fun for everyone else. Sometimes it's good to have people play the game differently. I am all for it. I despise him, but I love him at the same time.

Russell is different from Coach in that he doesn't actually believe these outlandish stories he tells, he is obviously doing it for s#$ts and giggles, while Coach truly thinks he is a Dragon Slayer/jungle/rennaisance man. Coach was delusional. Russell is just bored!!

 

[Lucia Duran]

Kudos to the seperated at birth Survival version!

 

[Hanson]

Brandi Chastain & Betsy

Back off Sun, Haskell is mine! There's never been a Survivor cutie like Colleen. I even bought a ticket to see The Animal in the theaters. Did you ever do that Sun? Huh?

 

[Mike Frezon]

 

[Patrick Sun]

I'll settle for my Dolly lust (she who leveraged her status as the deciding vote into a far-too-early exit from the game).

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Hey, Hanson, this will be a three way battle for Colleen, you've got Hammer to contend with, too.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Hanson, amazing how you find this stuff.

Uhm, would love to watch Season One, but I'm not
going to buy it right now (provided it is on DVD).

Any other means for watching it online?

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

It is on DVD, I rented it from Netflix.

 

[KevA]

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

So, here we are. A new season of SURVIVOR, my third
one since talked into watching it three years ago -- and I
am psyched. Always been one of my favorite shows
despite my feelings its scripted to a small extent.

Ron: What do you mean by "scripted to a small extent"? Do you think the producers manipulate things in the voting such that certain people stay? Something like that?

As far as I'm concerned, Russell is an unfortunate aspect of reality TV these days. That is, in order to gain viewers and create a buzz, you have to have a "nut" on the show causing chaos, and so on. It can be entertaining, but it can also ruin the "average person" concept of these shows. I'm hoping Russell (who is not very good at hiding his alliances) gets kicked out quick. He probably wouldn't mind that as he clearly wants to be a celebrity and probably actually doesn't want to be away from civilization for too long!

 

[MarkMel]

Check out the end of the show credits. There are writers on the show.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I refuse to believe anyone outside of Probst receives anything written to say. I don't think this out of any sense of naivete but a sense of the incredible lawsuits that would be faced by CBS and Mark Burnett.

I could see where there are writers who might review the "dailies" of the activities on the island and see what's happening and help Probst form his line-of-questioning for tribal councils. He might also be given written prompts on how to set up challenges and explain situations, etc.

But I will go out on a limb and say, in no uncertain terms, that the outcome of the show is not "scripted" in any way. This is NOT the WWE.

And if it turns out is IS the WWE, I will be first in line for a class-action suit for being duped all these years.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I think when contestants say they are given a certain "edit" on the show, that's part of the writing of the social narrative of the show in terms of how the footage is cut together to lead the viewer in one direction or another to keep the suspense up for the viewers before heading to tribal council, but the outcome from the social interactions and the challenges, and the votes, are not scripted.

 

[MarkMel]

I should've clarified that I think that when given hundreds of hours of footage - it is put together in such a way to tell a certain story. I'm sure that's what the writers and editors are there for.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Major groaner of an episode, only because I'm rooting against Russell, and he keeps on with the upper hand.

Yasmine is an unbelievable personality in terms of no awareness of she comes across to people, and then there's Ben, the wild child who doesn't apologize for anything he does and doesn't care how his actions affect others. How do the producers find these people?

 

[Mike Frezon]

I really did not like tonight's episode.

I'm with KevA about Russell. I think the producers did a disservice to the show and fans by selecting him...assuming that they knew what they were getting. Watching Survivor with Russell is like watching a scripted show. He's not real therefore it's not real.

And as I've said on a number of occasions in past seasons, I HATE those kind of rough, physical challenges. Gosh, they sent a 60+ year old man to the hospital. No $&*#. What did they think would happen? And all that idiot cares about is that he took it like a man. I couldn't believe the way bodies were flying around in there. It's amazing there weren't more serious injuries. It's almost like the producers don't realize that they are using real people on their show. Did they let her bring make-up for her luxury item?

 

[AnthonyC]

This has probably been the worst first two episodes of any season besides Fiji. Honestly, everything about this episode was just so freakin' negative it was unbelievable. I pretty much have nothing to add to Mike's post...but I'm going to anyway.

 

[Mike Frezon]

And as someone who is also a fan of some other reality shows (Amazing Race, Biggest Loser) it is sad to see the producers feel compelled to always be "pushing the envelope" to make things bigger, crazier, etc.

In this year's BL, they took this year's cast (many of them woefully out-of-shape and 400+ pounds) and the very first thing they did was put them in a competition to see who can finish first in a one-mile race up a CA beach. Gosh. Surprise. Two of the contestants ended up hospitalized--one a 60+ year old man who was severely dehydrated and the other a woman who was hospitalized several days.

Are the producers of these different shows gunning to see who can be the first to actually kill someone?!? It all seems so irresponsible.

Come to think of it, didn't a contestant end up dying during the filming of a foreign version of Survivor several months ago?

That challenge in this week's Survivor definitely seemed to be irresponsible.

Frankly, too, I was also surprised they went ahead with an elimination after the old guy got medically removed from the game.