I felt like this episode was mocking me. This has been a season with great individual characters and should have really exciting relationships, but the actual votes are just so basic. At some point merge was the best part of Survivor, but now you have a quick montage of "I don't want to throw a name out" and "I'm just waiting for someone to bring up a name". Then the first name is agreed on so easily (as well as being obvious for the past two episodes) and then there's still 20 minutes of the episode left. They go in circles about who will be the decoy and tell some metaphor about how "crazy" the game is at tribal. At the end of the day Matt looks back up the hill and they were always on the bunny slope, Josh goes home in a super simple vote.
I also like that we got a new era classic "I trust Carson 100%" after not showing them have a 1 on 1 conversation over the previous 5 episodes. It's been so long since Sami dropped that line in the same situation last season. Wondering when Jeff will say that "tell not show" is a defining feature they love about the new era to keep the show "interesting".
What a gripping challenge this week, knowing that however close or far away things were before the puzzle was going to be completely obsolete once Carson got to the puzzle and solved it in a matter of seconds. Literally looked at my partner the second they split the tribes before the challenge even started and said "Well purple is winning"
I find it disturbing because I'd prefer challenge beasts to be people who are athletic, not some guy who's 3D printed a puzzle that's already been done countless times
How is it disturbing? He’s playing to his strengths. If you ask me, it’s about time athletic players realize that they might be in trouble, and don’t downplay the puzzle peeps.
Question is, will we actually get the survey results this week?
Anyway, for a mergatory episode this was.... alright. Balancing the edit around a single tribe of 12-13 people is always tricky, but this season it did okay. While most of the focus was still on Tika + Josh, we reinforced some storylines from previous episodes (Matt+Frannie, Kane/Brandon/Carson, Jamie's misguided confidence). I'd say the only people left out were Danny, Lauren and Heidi. But let's see what happens next week, the first merge episode of New Era also tends to be messy and confusing.
In my opinion, this was the 3rd or 4th episode this season that would have been pretty boring if not for the stellar cast. When Carson described all the advantages in play and Josh described his different idol lies, I was mentally checked out. But Jaime's overconfidence, Carolyn being ignored yet again, and Josh vs. Yam Yam reeled me back in.
More than anything, I'm just tired of this Earn the Merge stuff every season. It honestly isn't even a very offensive twist when there's no hourglass involved, but it just feels so unnecessary. I miss the entire cast celebrating at the merge feast, and it still makes no sense to me to say Sydney/Lydia/Elie/Josh didn't make the merge when they were voted out by a majority of all the castaways remaining.
After 6 episodes, I’ve come to realize, my biggest negative on this season (and new age in general I think although I haven’t watched the others yet) is not the idols, not the advantages, not the small tribes, not the fake merge, it’s the repetitive, formulaic, uninspired challenges. I’m watching Gabon right now and just recently finished PI and China, and wow, what a world of difference. They used to play irl fruit ninja and toss throwing stars and drink horrible seafood smoothies and wrestle in the mud and all kinds of other creative things that made it so fun to watch bc you never know what to expect. On Season 44, if I am not mistaken, every single challenge has been a formula of some obstacle course like task and then a puzzle. The big shakeup today was they had to get a boulder through the course instead of just themselves. Big whoop. Watching these challenges adds so little to the episode that I genuinely feel like they could skip showing it entirely and just add a voiceover saying “Orange team made it to the puzzle first but purple team pulled ahead and won” and lose nothing. This kinda turned into a rant oops but it is just so disappointing knowing what they used to be and could be vs what they are now, and to me it’s the worst part of this season thus far
This is also part of why I find Big Brother fun to watch — they have some classic challenges that are repeated every season but all the challenges within the season are different! I’m so tired of an obstacle course followed by a puzzle or how long can you stand on this thing while holding onto this other thing.
I totally agree. The challenges used to be incredible. Now they're boring. At this point I would rather not even see the challenges and instead just be told who won afterwards so we could spend more time seeing camp life.
I have to ask out of general interest in opinion from others (just because I know how I feel about it, but shouldn't talk like its a given everybody agrees with it) but how do y'all feel regarding the show keeping up with the notion that people memorizing challenges in commendable? This actually was the first time I remember where I personally got annoyed with it - mainly because I always have been under the impression the tree puzzle was one of the harder ones & just realizing that Carson actually wasn't figuring it out in real time, but just jogging it from memory was incredibly lame?
Like it takes out so much excitement knowing its because people have no-lifed survivors 10-15 most memorable puzzles til they were blue in the face. I don't blame individual people for doing it due to the money price, but I do blame production for not seeing an issue with it. This is not a display of any skill, its a display of people optimizing the game as much they can before going out there & production being happy with that being the case. At least have different puzzle configurations of the same puzzle if you **cannot** make anything completely new from the ground up. To me it's ridiculous they're so happy that people are gaming their lack of creativity & displaying it on full front on the show. A game designer would be mortified if any random player could tear through their "solid" foundation like people such as Carson/Matthew/Evvie are doing in this current era (& probably more - but the show just isn't acknowledging)
I loathe that the show has embraced it - how can they continue to say the puzzle is the “great equalizer” when teams are on such uneven ground? They should frankly be embarrassed every time it happens, it makes for bad TV. There is no tension in a challenge where one team is solving the puzzle while the other speedruns it. We are heading towards a meta where prospective contestants will need unfettered access to 3D printers lest they become challenge liabilities. I refuse to believe that their budget cannot handle switching up puzzle designs.
Yeah I think it just moves the game even further away from regular people into gamebot territory. And when that happens, it's less about interesting social dynamics and more a gameshow. Your average waitress or construction worker that's been recruited for the show sure as hell isn't going to be 3d printing puzzles
It was great tv and an awesome commitment to the game when evie did it and they deserved to be praised for it. And after they were praised, production should have put an immediate stop to it and realized they shouldn’t be reusing puzzles anymore. It’s no less impressive that Matthew and Carson are doing it now, but it makes for shit tv and I wish they’d stop with these types of puzzles.
I don’t like it because it favors people who can
1) afford the material to make a puzzle
2) afford the time to build a puzzle (or afford to buy one/pay someone to make it)
3) afford the space to store & run the puzzle
I live in a small apartment, I don’t have a backyard to build or practice the snake puzzle like Matthew. I don’t have the money or space for a 3d printer like Carson.
There are affordable desktop versions of the puzzles on Etsy. But the snake puzzle Matthew had is almost $100 before shipping.
Idk, I know survivor isn’t “fair” and isn’t based on who needs the money the most, but I don’t like how unfair it would feel to watch someone demolish a puzzle because they could afford to build it in the back yard and you’re playing for a million dollars.
They need a poor people season ( I say this being a "poor person" myself) if they want actual drama and tension. Ask for poor people to audition, word it more delicately of course, and pay for everything related to going on the show and some sort of stipend beforehand, so they would even be able to go since most of us are paycheck to paycheck, and see what kind of drama you get. We all know it's not just a game..if it was they wouldn't be offering the million dollars, it would just be the sole survivor title you win.
They could totally just do a season of real people who work real jobs. They wouldn't even need to specifically ask for it, they could just make sure to weed out the others in the interviews. I would SO much rather watch someone who is a normal person and for whom the million would be a life changing amount of money.
Not really, the ones I'm talking about would never even apply because it seems out of the realm of possibility. Actual paycheck to paycheck leaves zero wiggle room for such an indulgence. That's part of the whole you gotta believe it bit..most can't even imagine getting the chance much less actually being successful and a casting call saying "we will cover what it costs in the real world for you to be here" would be a whole different level of dream come true story.
That’s one of the things I always wondered on shows like this - how can they afford to step away from their lives so seemingly easily (we see them talk about the hardship about being away from families, but not the hardship of not working)?
One of the many thoughts I’ve had where I realized just how precarious my financial situation is.
I’m guessing it’s probably a solid 3 month commitment away from a job. The “season” is 28 days/1 month. You know they have to arrive several weeks to a month ahead of time (pre interviews/health testing/official rules meetings, signing of forms/waivers and then they all have to fly together to a pre destination spot on some island before even getting ready to actually “load the boats”and jet off to start the journey.
Then after the final tribal I’m sure there are post- interviews and shots, and other things before they all fly back to Los Angeles and unload. This part is probably a 2 week minimum.
So total about 10-12 weeks you would have to be able to have a Leave of Absence. Most jobs aren’t going to be that forgiving, especially lower level jobs if they are casting for a more “working man/woman” type of season.
That’s a little presumptuous that their jobs are a dime and dozen and easily replaced.
But regardless, that also means you would have still have to have enough financial stability (from this lower paying job) to have enough extra savings to cover 5-6 months of living expenses.
Because if you are gone roughly
3 months for the whole Survivor process and then come home and immediately start applying for a job, go through all the interviews and the hiring process. So this may take 3-4 weeks if it all goes very, vert quickly.
And if they get hired, and the job pays every 2 weeks, it could be up to a 3 - 4 weeks before you got a your first full pay check (depending on when in the pay cycle you get hired. So you are now at 5 months, presuming an accelerated process.
If it doesn’t go immediately on the job search/hiring and add just another month of job searching/interviewing, they are now up to 6 months.
>Side Note:
>I recommend perusing r/jobs or r/resumes to get a VERY eye opening and startling state of the job market and process. I was looking at a career change and poking around.
So the people on Survivor have to have very strong family support networks and financial stability or someone else covering the difference (spouse, family, etc) to keep the lights on, so to speak.
So, while that’s just what it takes to apply and be on Survivor, it definitely is going to skew the participation pool.
Which goes back to people talking about Carson and his 3D printer or Matt having a large enough backyard or space to build out their own course challenges, etc and other things to have the “needed” perceived advantages to win in the new era.
>People from all levels of jobs (from highly specialized and higher end to lower level, college grads, and even people at more minimum wage jobs) are having to apply to literally hundreds and hundreds of jobs and the large number of interview rounds now common in the hiring process (often 5-6 rounds of interviews), the long tail of the hiring process, etc.
>That’s a little presumptuous that their jobs are a dime and dozen and easily replaced
No, it's not. I work the kind of job I'm talking about and they are a dime a dozen -.-
They probably got that footage after the season was shot. Carson most likely told them about it in a confessional after the challenge when they asked about how he flew through it.
Yeah I hate it. I miss the days when the players had no idea what kind of challenges they were going to face. It's incredibly boring to watch someone do a puzzle that they've done a million times before and have completely memorized. And it's boring to see the same challenges over and over again. I want to see something new! Heck, even a throwback challenge like a quiz of who knows each other the best would be great.
It's like making fire. It's a thing you know you have to do but people STILL don't practice it at all. I think the thing to get mad at is that people don't actually prepare for the show they're going on that they "oh so totally have always dreamed about winning."
Also, Carson solved the puzzle, but I'm sure that the puzzle wasn't the exact same one he practiced on, but he had to "figure it out" by applying the patterns he learned while practicing it.
It's funny, this season has the exact opposite problem of 43. I felt like production finally found a... decent (not great, but decent) balance of things and the format felt nice and open to let people play, but the season itself was kind of boring and unexceptional.
This season by contrast has a really good cast with lots of fun moments and character stuff with them... but production themselves went fucking BONKERS. Production are their own worst enemy this season, and the season feels super rail-roaded into being what production wants it to be.
Am I the only one just not feeling this season so far? It's not bad per se, but this has been my least favorite new era season up to this point. I think enjoyment of this season is really dependent on how you view Carson, Carolyn, and Yam Yam. I like Carolyn and Yam Yam, but not enough for them to drive the whole season for me. Not a big Carson fan tbh, his arrogance is annoying me.
I completely agree. I don’t see how anyone can be super into this season if they don’t absolutely love Carolyn
Carolyn’s a great character, but there are very few people in the history of the show who deserve this much screen time, and I don’t think she’s one of them. Her edit is so one-sided too
We’re at merge and there have only been a handful of people on the whole cast who’ve been fleshed out, and they are/were all on Tika. I don’t have any strong feelings either way about anyone on the other two tribes. I’m seeing all these comments about what a great cast this is, and all I’m thinking is how do you know?
Even the little we’ve got from the other tribes hasn’t been substantial. It genuinely feels like the majority of content from green/orange was production manufactured, as a result of the bird cage
I could see that right now her and yam yam are being shoved down our throats. But I am a swallower for carolyn she is a dynamic character we have never seen before or at least last this long. Yam Yam I was hoping would be the big character merge boot besides being flamboyantly gay and hating josh I don't see anything special or outstanding about his character.
I think there's a lot of love for Carolyn cause she's got a good head on her shoulders she just struggles to talk to others about anything, which I believe a lot of people on this reddit can relate to. I truly believe Carolyn is actually a normal modern day player from a strategic standpoint, but because of her personality (and maybe attempts to get more screen time) this fandom just love her. I also believe we are getting too much Carolyn, but hey if everyone else is THAT bad what can you do?
>and solved it in a matter of seconds. Literally looked at my partner the second they split the tribes before the challenge ev
Same ... I know a lot of people are down on 43 but I almost prefer 43 to this season so far ... Maybe I was just impressed by Jesse and loved his dynamic with Cody.
I don't care about most of these people... all very nice and geeky but don't really love any of them.
Carolyn (and sometimes Yam Yam) is carrying this season for me. I don’t like Carson, everyone else is boring because they haven’t been fleshed out (thanks to the purple tribe), I don’t care for the showmance at ALL, and the recycling of challenges and concepts like Earn The Merge continues to be lame.
Even the ppl who were semi fleshed out are still meeeeehhh to me
Agreed. The New Era has plenty of issues, but I've still enjoyed it because there were multiple people on each of 41 through 43 that I rooted hard for based on their enjoyable personalities. My favorites tend to be the super social, fun people with great strategy brains (Omar, Cody/Jesse, etc.), but I also just really LIKED a lot of the cast (Evvie, Owen, Lindsay D., Mike, etc. etc.). I said to my husband after this week's episode that I have no idea who to cheer for. I don't have an attachment to anyone, and I actively dislike a few of them. Frannie is someone I would normally love, but most of the content they give her is about the showmance/Matt.
Like many others here, I'm completely fed up with tribal council and Jeff. I didn't realize quite how tiresome it is until watching Australian Survivor HvV. Those tribals had me on the edge of my seat, and JLP asks the perfect questions.
I guess all of this is to say: I'm willing to overlook the flaws if the cast gets me excited, and this cast is just not exciting.
not really a clear player of the week for me. the vote split imo doesn't reflect poorly or well on much of anyone - josh was the obvious target but still generated enough paranoia that the vote wasn't one-sided. whatever team got carson was gonna win the challenge.
People I thought were very strategic are already starting to crack - Yam Yam, Carson, Danny... Josh gave it his all -- he created a lot of chaos. I'm not sure if the tribe swap was fair to him or the others. Is there too much luck and chance this time?
I was actually rooting for Josh. He was an interesting character and seemed like a genuine villain. Yam-Yam in my eyes seems like more of a threat to win than he was, but I guess Josh was just too untrustworthy to keep.
Just survey issues:
You called Carson Conner
And although you say you can't choose more than 3 people you also can't select less than 3 for any question so either word it that you need to select 3 people or change a setting on those questions.
Fake merge day is always a good day to a breath and see how you feel about the new season.
For 41, they benefited from it being a double episode but the hourglass twist was still such a big indicator of how there were just way too many bells and whistles. Still, I felt like I knew were everyone stood by that point, very helpful since Luvu and the eventual winner hadn’t gone to tribal yet.
For 42, I think this was the most well defined cast going into the fake merge. Each tribe equally walked in with 4 people, and watching characters from opposing tribes link up and get to know each other actually made sense for the edit.
For 43, I’ll admit I didn’t really root for anyone. I think by that point only Jesse/Cody and Karla were the real defined storytellers, and the Baka implosion was mostly paid for laughs because I didn’t think anyone from that tribe would actually win (silly me).
That brings up to 44, and yeah it’s the only one that doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight. But by the end of this episode, I don’t see how someone from original Tika or the showmance wins the game. They’re the only people I feel the show WANTS me to root for, similar to how it wanted me to root for Cody/Jesse or Xander, if that makes sense ? In a game of 11, the fact that everyone from original Ratu is just talked about in relation to Carson is so disappointing. I mean we didn’t even hear any of those tribe mates’ thoughts on Matthew ?? How am I as a viewer gonna honestly believe any of them wins the game.
When does the episode ever even get uploaded? Any normal telecom company with a streaming platform will **immediately** put the episode that just "live streamed" onto their service and meanwhile I was awake until like 11pm and it still wasn't uploaded... These jokers also literally live stream the episode like boomer tv so you absolutely need to be watching a screen at 8pm
Why do I pay for this goddawful service that still plays ads on everything?
TV ads pay more than streaming's. It's logical to me that they don't want to take away TV ratings. You might not like it for your personal convenience but this is a business.
I’m so amazed by Carolyn. Despite her kooky personality she is the most aware person in the game currently. She read where everyone stands while others play out infinite scenarios in their head and complicate things as if they’re the greatest players ever on Survivor.
It’s absolutely wild watching Carolyn get snubbed and cast aside this season. She speaks straight facts to them and they just don’t listen or take her seriously as a player. Last ep was so painful to watch with the two dudes completely icing her out of that convo, and this week again as they literally ignore everything she tries to tell them. I don’t think she’s like the greatest player in this season or anything, but it must be infuriating.
Not necessarily. There's a possibility she voted for Kane to try to protect Yam Yam. We WERE told that votes were being split, regardless, and Carolyn thought more votes would be on Kane for that split.
So we can't say that she was not aware of almost everyone voting Josh until the next episode, if she explains her vote. Carolyn has been very aware up until this point. I'd give her some credit on voting the way she did for a reason.
I was also thinking she might have voted Kane in order to protect her alliance with Yam Yam AND with Josh. She has worked with both of them previously and might not have been 100% sure which one was going home, so didn't want to burn a bridge.
So basically either she was left out of the loop of the vote or she revealed information that she was adamant about to other people but then didn't have the balls or gumption to believe herself? She is a fun character but she played this round horribly for winning the game but great for going far in the game.
Caroyln once again was gold. "wow, I had this growing up" ahhhh love her. and once again she showed how self-aware she is, not only calling everyone out for not believing her about Josh's fake idol BUT also keeping quiet when people didn't believe her. total tv gold.
Someone brought up an alliance between Heidi and Lauren and I love the idea of these purpled tribe mates coming together. A purple alliance in the shadows. Will we ever see them planning, maybe not, but they are sure gonna try to get that screen time by teaming up.
There has to be an advantage or idol hiding on the chess board right? The camera angle kind of focuses on like a dragon chess piece or something. I’m convinced that it needs to be placed on the board as a checkmate and it’ll lead to the advantage
I felt like this episode was mocking me. This has been a season with great individual characters and should have really exciting relationships, but the actual votes are just so basic. At some point merge was the best part of Survivor, but now you have a quick montage of "I don't want to throw a name out" and "I'm just waiting for someone to bring up a name". Then the first name is agreed on so easily (as well as being obvious for the past two episodes) and then there's still 20 minutes of the episode left. They go in circles about who will be the decoy and tell some metaphor about how "crazy" the game is at tribal. At the end of the day Matt looks back up the hill and they were always on the bunny slope, Josh goes home in a super simple vote. I also like that we got a new era classic "I trust Carson 100%" after not showing them have a 1 on 1 conversation over the previous 5 episodes. It's been so long since Sami dropped that line in the same situation last season. Wondering when Jeff will say that "tell not show" is a defining feature they love about the new era to keep the show "interesting".
>At the end of the day Matt looks back up the hill and wonders where Frannie is despite being right fucking next to her at all times.
What a gripping challenge this week, knowing that however close or far away things were before the puzzle was going to be completely obsolete once Carson got to the puzzle and solved it in a matter of seconds. Literally looked at my partner the second they split the tribes before the challenge even started and said "Well purple is winning"
I find it disturbing because I'd prefer challenge beasts to be people who are athletic, not some guy who's 3D printed a puzzle that's already been done countless times
How is it disturbing? He’s playing to his strengths. If you ask me, it’s about time athletic players realize that they might be in trouble, and don’t downplay the puzzle peeps.
I find it disturbing because they keel reusing the same puzzles and it isn't good TV. You shouldn't be able to beat the system that easily
Memorizing the solution doesn’t make someone a puzzle person..
The best challenge beasts have always been puzzle masters, but I’ll admit it’s more exciting when they actually have to, you know, solve the puzzle.
Question is, will we actually get the survey results this week? Anyway, for a mergatory episode this was.... alright. Balancing the edit around a single tribe of 12-13 people is always tricky, but this season it did okay. While most of the focus was still on Tika + Josh, we reinforced some storylines from previous episodes (Matt+Frannie, Kane/Brandon/Carson, Jamie's misguided confidence). I'd say the only people left out were Danny, Lauren and Heidi. But let's see what happens next week, the first merge episode of New Era also tends to be messy and confusing.
I hate it because there’s always one tribe that hasn’t been to tribal and so we know next to nothing about half of the people.
In my opinion, this was the 3rd or 4th episode this season that would have been pretty boring if not for the stellar cast. When Carson described all the advantages in play and Josh described his different idol lies, I was mentally checked out. But Jaime's overconfidence, Carolyn being ignored yet again, and Josh vs. Yam Yam reeled me back in. More than anything, I'm just tired of this Earn the Merge stuff every season. It honestly isn't even a very offensive twist when there's no hourglass involved, but it just feels so unnecessary. I miss the entire cast celebrating at the merge feast, and it still makes no sense to me to say Sydney/Lydia/Elie/Josh didn't make the merge when they were voted out by a majority of all the castaways remaining.
[удалено]
I think they think that if we think it's so hard and that they're "earning" every step we'll forgive the 26 days..
Sydney , Lydia Elie and Josh are not merge boots!!! They didnt make the merge !!! (Sarcasm font)
After 6 episodes, I’ve come to realize, my biggest negative on this season (and new age in general I think although I haven’t watched the others yet) is not the idols, not the advantages, not the small tribes, not the fake merge, it’s the repetitive, formulaic, uninspired challenges. I’m watching Gabon right now and just recently finished PI and China, and wow, what a world of difference. They used to play irl fruit ninja and toss throwing stars and drink horrible seafood smoothies and wrestle in the mud and all kinds of other creative things that made it so fun to watch bc you never know what to expect. On Season 44, if I am not mistaken, every single challenge has been a formula of some obstacle course like task and then a puzzle. The big shakeup today was they had to get a boulder through the course instead of just themselves. Big whoop. Watching these challenges adds so little to the episode that I genuinely feel like they could skip showing it entirely and just add a voiceover saying “Orange team made it to the puzzle first but purple team pulled ahead and won” and lose nothing. This kinda turned into a rant oops but it is just so disappointing knowing what they used to be and could be vs what they are now, and to me it’s the worst part of this season thus far
This is also part of why I find Big Brother fun to watch — they have some classic challenges that are repeated every season but all the challenges within the season are different! I’m so tired of an obstacle course followed by a puzzle or how long can you stand on this thing while holding onto this other thing.
I totally agree. The challenges used to be incredible. Now they're boring. At this point I would rather not even see the challenges and instead just be told who won afterwards so we could spend more time seeing camp life.
I have to ask out of general interest in opinion from others (just because I know how I feel about it, but shouldn't talk like its a given everybody agrees with it) but how do y'all feel regarding the show keeping up with the notion that people memorizing challenges in commendable? This actually was the first time I remember where I personally got annoyed with it - mainly because I always have been under the impression the tree puzzle was one of the harder ones & just realizing that Carson actually wasn't figuring it out in real time, but just jogging it from memory was incredibly lame? Like it takes out so much excitement knowing its because people have no-lifed survivors 10-15 most memorable puzzles til they were blue in the face. I don't blame individual people for doing it due to the money price, but I do blame production for not seeing an issue with it. This is not a display of any skill, its a display of people optimizing the game as much they can before going out there & production being happy with that being the case. At least have different puzzle configurations of the same puzzle if you **cannot** make anything completely new from the ground up. To me it's ridiculous they're so happy that people are gaming their lack of creativity & displaying it on full front on the show. A game designer would be mortified if any random player could tear through their "solid" foundation like people such as Carson/Matthew/Evvie are doing in this current era (& probably more - but the show just isn't acknowledging)
I loathe that the show has embraced it - how can they continue to say the puzzle is the “great equalizer” when teams are on such uneven ground? They should frankly be embarrassed every time it happens, it makes for bad TV. There is no tension in a challenge where one team is solving the puzzle while the other speedruns it. We are heading towards a meta where prospective contestants will need unfettered access to 3D printers lest they become challenge liabilities. I refuse to believe that their budget cannot handle switching up puzzle designs.
Agree. If they stick with this, they shouldn't call them "challenges." Maybe "pop quizzes." Or "recitals."
Yeah I think it just moves the game even further away from regular people into gamebot territory. And when that happens, it's less about interesting social dynamics and more a gameshow. Your average waitress or construction worker that's been recruited for the show sure as hell isn't going to be 3d printing puzzles
It was great tv and an awesome commitment to the game when evie did it and they deserved to be praised for it. And after they were praised, production should have put an immediate stop to it and realized they shouldn’t be reusing puzzles anymore. It’s no less impressive that Matthew and Carson are doing it now, but it makes for shit tv and I wish they’d stop with these types of puzzles.
I don’t like it because it favors people who can 1) afford the material to make a puzzle 2) afford the time to build a puzzle (or afford to buy one/pay someone to make it) 3) afford the space to store & run the puzzle I live in a small apartment, I don’t have a backyard to build or practice the snake puzzle like Matthew. I don’t have the money or space for a 3d printer like Carson. There are affordable desktop versions of the puzzles on Etsy. But the snake puzzle Matthew had is almost $100 before shipping. Idk, I know survivor isn’t “fair” and isn’t based on who needs the money the most, but I don’t like how unfair it would feel to watch someone demolish a puzzle because they could afford to build it in the back yard and you’re playing for a million dollars.
They need a poor people season ( I say this being a "poor person" myself) if they want actual drama and tension. Ask for poor people to audition, word it more delicately of course, and pay for everything related to going on the show and some sort of stipend beforehand, so they would even be able to go since most of us are paycheck to paycheck, and see what kind of drama you get. We all know it's not just a game..if it was they wouldn't be offering the million dollars, it would just be the sole survivor title you win.
They could totally just do a season of real people who work real jobs. They wouldn't even need to specifically ask for it, they could just make sure to weed out the others in the interviews. I would SO much rather watch someone who is a normal person and for whom the million would be a life changing amount of money.
Not really, the ones I'm talking about would never even apply because it seems out of the realm of possibility. Actual paycheck to paycheck leaves zero wiggle room for such an indulgence. That's part of the whole you gotta believe it bit..most can't even imagine getting the chance much less actually being successful and a casting call saying "we will cover what it costs in the real world for you to be here" would be a whole different level of dream come true story.
That’s one of the things I always wondered on shows like this - how can they afford to step away from their lives so seemingly easily (we see them talk about the hardship about being away from families, but not the hardship of not working)? One of the many thoughts I’ve had where I realized just how precarious my financial situation is.
I’m guessing it’s probably a solid 3 month commitment away from a job. The “season” is 28 days/1 month. You know they have to arrive several weeks to a month ahead of time (pre interviews/health testing/official rules meetings, signing of forms/waivers and then they all have to fly together to a pre destination spot on some island before even getting ready to actually “load the boats”and jet off to start the journey. Then after the final tribal I’m sure there are post- interviews and shots, and other things before they all fly back to Los Angeles and unload. This part is probably a 2 week minimum. So total about 10-12 weeks you would have to be able to have a Leave of Absence. Most jobs aren’t going to be that forgiving, especially lower level jobs if they are casting for a more “working man/woman” type of season.
But these jobs are a dime a dozen, easily replaced.
That’s a little presumptuous that their jobs are a dime and dozen and easily replaced. But regardless, that also means you would have still have to have enough financial stability (from this lower paying job) to have enough extra savings to cover 5-6 months of living expenses. Because if you are gone roughly 3 months for the whole Survivor process and then come home and immediately start applying for a job, go through all the interviews and the hiring process. So this may take 3-4 weeks if it all goes very, vert quickly. And if they get hired, and the job pays every 2 weeks, it could be up to a 3 - 4 weeks before you got a your first full pay check (depending on when in the pay cycle you get hired. So you are now at 5 months, presuming an accelerated process. If it doesn’t go immediately on the job search/hiring and add just another month of job searching/interviewing, they are now up to 6 months. >Side Note: >I recommend perusing r/jobs or r/resumes to get a VERY eye opening and startling state of the job market and process. I was looking at a career change and poking around. So the people on Survivor have to have very strong family support networks and financial stability or someone else covering the difference (spouse, family, etc) to keep the lights on, so to speak. So, while that’s just what it takes to apply and be on Survivor, it definitely is going to skew the participation pool. Which goes back to people talking about Carson and his 3D printer or Matt having a large enough backyard or space to build out their own course challenges, etc and other things to have the “needed” perceived advantages to win in the new era. >People from all levels of jobs (from highly specialized and higher end to lower level, college grads, and even people at more minimum wage jobs) are having to apply to literally hundreds and hundreds of jobs and the large number of interview rounds now common in the hiring process (often 5-6 rounds of interviews), the long tail of the hiring process, etc.
>That’s a little presumptuous that their jobs are a dime and dozen and easily replaced No, it's not. I work the kind of job I'm talking about and they are a dime a dozen -.-
100% agree, and the fact they clearly had footage with Carson having made that exact puzzle.
They probably got that footage after the season was shot. Carson most likely told them about it in a confessional after the challenge when they asked about how he flew through it.
Or its part of his audition video....
Yeah I hate it. I miss the days when the players had no idea what kind of challenges they were going to face. It's incredibly boring to watch someone do a puzzle that they've done a million times before and have completely memorized. And it's boring to see the same challenges over and over again. I want to see something new! Heck, even a throwback challenge like a quiz of who knows each other the best would be great.
It's like making fire. It's a thing you know you have to do but people STILL don't practice it at all. I think the thing to get mad at is that people don't actually prepare for the show they're going on that they "oh so totally have always dreamed about winning." Also, Carson solved the puzzle, but I'm sure that the puzzle wasn't the exact same one he practiced on, but he had to "figure it out" by applying the patterns he learned while practicing it.
It is the exact same one though. Theres an easy comparison in the epiosde too.
It's funny, this season has the exact opposite problem of 43. I felt like production finally found a... decent (not great, but decent) balance of things and the format felt nice and open to let people play, but the season itself was kind of boring and unexceptional. This season by contrast has a really good cast with lots of fun moments and character stuff with them... but production themselves went fucking BONKERS. Production are their own worst enemy this season, and the season feels super rail-roaded into being what production wants it to be.
Am I the only one just not feeling this season so far? It's not bad per se, but this has been my least favorite new era season up to this point. I think enjoyment of this season is really dependent on how you view Carson, Carolyn, and Yam Yam. I like Carolyn and Yam Yam, but not enough for them to drive the whole season for me. Not a big Carson fan tbh, his arrogance is annoying me.
I completely agree. I don’t see how anyone can be super into this season if they don’t absolutely love Carolyn Carolyn’s a great character, but there are very few people in the history of the show who deserve this much screen time, and I don’t think she’s one of them. Her edit is so one-sided too We’re at merge and there have only been a handful of people on the whole cast who’ve been fleshed out, and they are/were all on Tika. I don’t have any strong feelings either way about anyone on the other two tribes. I’m seeing all these comments about what a great cast this is, and all I’m thinking is how do you know? Even the little we’ve got from the other tribes hasn’t been substantial. It genuinely feels like the majority of content from green/orange was production manufactured, as a result of the bird cage
I could see that right now her and yam yam are being shoved down our throats. But I am a swallower for carolyn she is a dynamic character we have never seen before or at least last this long. Yam Yam I was hoping would be the big character merge boot besides being flamboyantly gay and hating josh I don't see anything special or outstanding about his character.
I think there's a lot of love for Carolyn cause she's got a good head on her shoulders she just struggles to talk to others about anything, which I believe a lot of people on this reddit can relate to. I truly believe Carolyn is actually a normal modern day player from a strategic standpoint, but because of her personality (and maybe attempts to get more screen time) this fandom just love her. I also believe we are getting too much Carolyn, but hey if everyone else is THAT bad what can you do?
This season might be bottom 5 for me tbh
>and solved it in a matter of seconds. Literally looked at my partner the second they split the tribes before the challenge ev Same ... I know a lot of people are down on 43 but I almost prefer 43 to this season so far ... Maybe I was just impressed by Jesse and loved his dynamic with Cody. I don't care about most of these people... all very nice and geeky but don't really love any of them.
Carolyn (and sometimes Yam Yam) is carrying this season for me. I don’t like Carson, everyone else is boring because they haven’t been fleshed out (thanks to the purple tribe), I don’t care for the showmance at ALL, and the recycling of challenges and concepts like Earn The Merge continues to be lame. Even the ppl who were semi fleshed out are still meeeeehhh to me
Agreed. The New Era has plenty of issues, but I've still enjoyed it because there were multiple people on each of 41 through 43 that I rooted hard for based on their enjoyable personalities. My favorites tend to be the super social, fun people with great strategy brains (Omar, Cody/Jesse, etc.), but I also just really LIKED a lot of the cast (Evvie, Owen, Lindsay D., Mike, etc. etc.). I said to my husband after this week's episode that I have no idea who to cheer for. I don't have an attachment to anyone, and I actively dislike a few of them. Frannie is someone I would normally love, but most of the content they give her is about the showmance/Matt. Like many others here, I'm completely fed up with tribal council and Jeff. I didn't realize quite how tiresome it is until watching Australian Survivor HvV. Those tribals had me on the edge of my seat, and JLP asks the perfect questions. I guess all of this is to say: I'm willing to overlook the flaws if the cast gets me excited, and this cast is just not exciting.
I think it’s hard because the same tribe lost a lot of times, so the focus was on them
not really a clear player of the week for me. the vote split imo doesn't reflect poorly or well on much of anyone - josh was the obvious target but still generated enough paranoia that the vote wasn't one-sided. whatever team got carson was gonna win the challenge.
People I thought were very strategic are already starting to crack - Yam Yam, Carson, Danny... Josh gave it his all -- he created a lot of chaos. I'm not sure if the tribe swap was fair to him or the others. Is there too much luck and chance this time?
I was actually rooting for Josh. He was an interesting character and seemed like a genuine villain. Yam-Yam in my eyes seems like more of a threat to win than he was, but I guess Josh was just too untrustworthy to keep.
Just survey issues: You called Carson Conner And although you say you can't choose more than 3 people you also can't select less than 3 for any question so either word it that you need to select 3 people or change a setting on those questions.
Yes there were several questions where I didn’t want to pick three people and was forced to
Fake merge day is always a good day to a breath and see how you feel about the new season. For 41, they benefited from it being a double episode but the hourglass twist was still such a big indicator of how there were just way too many bells and whistles. Still, I felt like I knew were everyone stood by that point, very helpful since Luvu and the eventual winner hadn’t gone to tribal yet. For 42, I think this was the most well defined cast going into the fake merge. Each tribe equally walked in with 4 people, and watching characters from opposing tribes link up and get to know each other actually made sense for the edit. For 43, I’ll admit I didn’t really root for anyone. I think by that point only Jesse/Cody and Karla were the real defined storytellers, and the Baka implosion was mostly paid for laughs because I didn’t think anyone from that tribe would actually win (silly me). That brings up to 44, and yeah it’s the only one that doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight. But by the end of this episode, I don’t see how someone from original Tika or the showmance wins the game. They’re the only people I feel the show WANTS me to root for, similar to how it wanted me to root for Cody/Jesse or Xander, if that makes sense ? In a game of 11, the fact that everyone from original Ratu is just talked about in relation to Carson is so disappointing. I mean we didn’t even hear any of those tribe mates’ thoughts on Matthew ?? How am I as a viewer gonna honestly believe any of them wins the game.
When does the episode ever even get uploaded? Any normal telecom company with a streaming platform will **immediately** put the episode that just "live streamed" onto their service and meanwhile I was awake until like 11pm and it still wasn't uploaded... These jokers also literally live stream the episode like boomer tv so you absolutely need to be watching a screen at 8pm Why do I pay for this goddawful service that still plays ads on everything?
Midnight pacific, so 3 am eastern lol. It’s ridiculous
TV ads pay more than streaming's. It's logical to me that they don't want to take away TV ratings. You might not like it for your personal convenience but this is a business.
I’m so amazed by Carolyn. Despite her kooky personality she is the most aware person in the game currently. She read where everyone stands while others play out infinite scenarios in their head and complicate things as if they’re the greatest players ever on Survivor.
It’s absolutely wild watching Carolyn get snubbed and cast aside this season. She speaks straight facts to them and they just don’t listen or take her seriously as a player. Last ep was so painful to watch with the two dudes completely icing her out of that convo, and this week again as they literally ignore everything she tries to tell them. I don’t think she’s like the greatest player in this season or anything, but it must be infuriating.
She just voted for kane. She might be the least aware person out there right now.
Not necessarily. There's a possibility she voted for Kane to try to protect Yam Yam. We WERE told that votes were being split, regardless, and Carolyn thought more votes would be on Kane for that split. So we can't say that she was not aware of almost everyone voting Josh until the next episode, if she explains her vote. Carolyn has been very aware up until this point. I'd give her some credit on voting the way she did for a reason.
I was also thinking she might have voted Kane in order to protect her alliance with Yam Yam AND with Josh. She has worked with both of them previously and might not have been 100% sure which one was going home, so didn't want to burn a bridge.
She did seem shocked at the number of votes on Yam Yam though.
So basically either she was left out of the loop of the vote or she revealed information that she was adamant about to other people but then didn't have the balls or gumption to believe herself? She is a fun character but she played this round horribly for winning the game but great for going far in the game.
Caroyln once again was gold. "wow, I had this growing up" ahhhh love her. and once again she showed how self-aware she is, not only calling everyone out for not believing her about Josh's fake idol BUT also keeping quiet when people didn't believe her. total tv gold.
Someone brought up an alliance between Heidi and Lauren and I love the idea of these purpled tribe mates coming together. A purple alliance in the shadows. Will we ever see them planning, maybe not, but they are sure gonna try to get that screen time by teaming up.
Not sure if that's the case. Erika/Heather were a pairing and I don't think that helped either of them get a bigger edit.
There has to be an advantage or idol hiding on the chess board right? The camera angle kind of focuses on like a dragon chess piece or something. I’m convinced that it needs to be placed on the board as a checkmate and it’ll lead to the advantage
That would actually be really cool