The Syndicate

reposting from the random thread

insertnamehere wrote:
tin man wrote:currently rewatching every season of survivor. just finished australia so 2 down, 30 more to go lmfao.

current ranking
1 borneo
2 australia
You have no idea how into Survivor I am. BULLETPOINT RANKINGS!

3- Pretty good, nice setting, kind of boring
4- underrated, first instance of real Survivor strategy, Boston Rob's best time playing
5- dark, weird, and less interesting in execution than it is in theory
6- has a really good cast, but some weird controversial confessionals
7- MY FAVORITE SEASON! This one seriously has an awesome cast, and the game plays out amazingly. plus it has my favorite player!
8- verrrrrrry controversial among Survivor fans. This is the darkest, murkiest season of Survivor. Expect everything that can go wrong, to go wrong
9- kind of underrated, pretty good
10- i don't like this one as much as some people do for a pretty big reason that you'll find out if you watch it, but it has some good characters
11- super duper underrated, awesome characters and a kickass setting
12- this one has the craziest, most bizarre cast and the best tribe in Survivor history (character wise)
13- this is the infamous "race twist" season that's actually pretty boring in actuality
14- i need to rewatch this one
15- another one of my favorites. great cast, and pretty much the last cool location in Survivor history
16- a great strategy-heavy season that is a little predictable in a couple of ways
17- one of my favorites just for pure random WTF-ery. This is the game at its least predictable
18- a good solid season with a handful of really strong characters
19- this is where things get a little hairy. this is when we first meet the most controversial player in Survivor history, who comes back multiple times. I don't think very highly of him, and I'd advise you not to believe the hype.
20- this is Survivor making an all "all-star" season work really well, as opposed to whatever the fuck All-Stars was. Also features my favorite player.
21- underrated and very unpredictable
22- this is survivor's dark age. All of these seasons are really boring and shitty. I'd probably advise you to skip most of these.
23- skip if you can
24- skip if you can
25- DON'T SKIP THIS ONE. It's not the best season ever, but it's a really solid one and a return to form
26- skip if you can
27- still need to watch this one. i was honestly kind of burned out on the show at this point
28- A FANTASTIC SEASON! just a really good one with kickass characters and kickass strategy. this is when things start turning around for the series
29- another REALLY GOOD season. this is one of the unpredictable ones with an astoundingly good cast (John Rocker excluded)
30- a kind of ugly season, with bullying, class warfare, and a super obvious winner.
31- probably the best "all-star" season with an awesome cast that seems selected for superfans like me, and some great moments
32- the most recent one, which i'd say was a pretty solid season with some big villains and big heroes all of which do worse than you expect

based on what you listed, I think you're gonna love Season 11 and 12, specifically 12 if you haven't seen either of those before. Any Survivor viewer who hasn't been introduced to the charms of Mr. Shane Powers, Mrs. Courtney Marit, and Mr. Judd Daughtery is one that I pity.

The only one in your top 5 that I don't completely get is Amazon. Yes, Rob C is great, but he also has some cringey moments and the whole battle of the sexes thing was done much better in Vanuatu. (Season 9) Also, I'm not a fan of how the editors portrayed the winner. In a lot of ways, Jenna is the OG Michelle from Kaoh Rong. Let me be clear, I think that Jenna is an interesting person who deserved her win, but I think that the editors made the decision to not show us that, and it hurts the season greatly.

Also, I agree that Second Chances could have been edited better, but I like it just as an all-stars season just as much if not more than Heroes Vs Villains. I'm not one of those people who's completely bored by strategy, and I loved a lot of the characters. Kass <3 Keith <3 Varner <3 Fishbach <3 Jeremy <3 Abi-Maria <3 And, what the hell, Spencer <3 (but only because he lost)

I'm excited for you to get to Seasons 5 and 8. Not because they're really good seasons, because they definitely aren't, but because of how dark, aggressive, and downright bizarre they are.

Those seasons are bad and uncomfortable in a completely different way than the "modern" bad seasons.

Also Marquesas <3

Scotty wrote:
Golden wrote:
insertnamehere wrote:The only one in your top 5 that I don't completely get is Amazon. Yes, Rob C is great, but he also has some cringey moments and the whole battle of the sexes thing was done much better in Vanuatu. (Season 9) Also, I'm not a fan of how the editors portrayed the winner. In a lot of ways, Jenna is the OG Michelle from Kaoh Rong. Let me be clear, I think that Jenna is an interesting person who deserved her win, but I think that the editors made the decision to not show us that, and it hurts the season greatly.
Agree about Amazon. I've never really gotten the love.

The season I love that other people don't is Cook Islands. Also Caramoan to some extent.
Amazon was epic because of that giant trek through the jungle to their camp. Literally wading through poisonous snakes and crocs and any other dangerous animals in the jungle for miles. It fucking drained everyone before the game even really started. If I were on that season I would be like , "are you fucking kidding me, you want me to do what?" But at the same time, it's a hefty testament to the title of survivor.

Cook Islands I need to rewatch but I seem to remember some great strategy played in that one.

the season with the big trek at the beginning was Guatemala, not Amazon

@Scotty

I disagree with almost everything you said about Russell and juries lol :yay:

Russell Hantz is not a good player. He never was a good player. I'm not saying "oh he was rude to everyone but he managed to manipulate them anyway." I'm saying Russell Hantz sucks at manipulation, strategy, and basic social graces. He managed to build up a sort of bizarre delusion to himself, and production fell for it anyway because of him bumblefucking his way to the end of HvV. He's basically *TOTALLY EDGY POLITICAL REFERENCE* the Donald Trump of Survivor.

I've maybe had this argument online and offline dozens of times. Instead of going point by point, I'm just going to link to Mario Lanza, my favorite erstwhile Survivor pundit, and his hilarious Funny 115 list of the 115 funniest things to ever happen on Survivor. Russell's two separate inevitable downfalls takes up two spaces. In fact, Russell's HvV game is number 2.

http://funny115.com/v2/50.htm

http://funny115.com/v2/2.htm

And here's a great link deconstructing the "this game is flaaaaaawed! bitter juries!" argument that was written oddly enough, around Season 14, way before Russell even played.
http://www.funny115.com/psychologyofajury.htm

Scotty wrote:What, in your opinion, is his main downfall? Yes, he is delusional. Yes he could be compared to survivor hitler for his lack of honor and respect, but are those characteristics his downfall?

He voted people out at the very moment that they would be angriest at him, while treating them like absolute shit on the way out. He also often voted people out for little to no strategic reason, mainly just for insane paranoid reasons. Case in point, in HvV, he turned on Danielle who up until that point had been one of his closest allies, because he thought "she and Parvati are too close." He then pulls some transparent BS to try and get Parv to vote for her, which immediately blows up in his face. At Tribal Council, Danielle then starts begging him to say why he wants her out, causing him to start trash talking her to the point where tears are streaming down her face. ALL IN FULL VIEW OF THE JURY. I'd say that whole situation is indicative of his gameplay.

What is the single most important aspect of winning the game in your opinion?

Making strategic moves in a way that still makes people respect you.

I will not disagree that Russ's worst performance was doing the same strategy in HvV since it worked very little in his first attempt, but barring him being a delusional troll, I can understand his thinking that he got jipped from the win with newbies, and maybe in a season of all-stars, they'll respect his ruthless cunning.

They did not. And no one will reward gameplay like that, based solely on how he went about it. But. My point is that it is due to bitter juries, and not necessarily the "way the game should be played"

When did he ever show ruthless cunning? All he had was dumb luck, paranoia, delusions, and an Apocalypse Now-style descent into madness.

It's people like Russell Hantz that make me say "Thank God for Sandra Diaz-Twine."

And I'm agnostic!

Scotty wrote:And let me be clear: I like when the moral person win above the retches. But only if they showed any form of play. Russel played the game. Natalie? She got a tan and made a million dollars. That's how I look at it. They gave the money to someone who wasn't a horrible person, and for no other reason than that.

I disagree with your core assumption that "Russell played the game and Natalie didn't so hooey" Russell wasn't playing Survivor in Samoa and HvV. He was playing "I'm Russell Hantz! Fuck everyone!" Whereas Natalie was stuck on a tribe with an egotistical loon who she realized would be easy to manipulate into acting like a petulant man-child and pissing off everyone else. Luckily, he was also too dumb to realize that whenever he went on an angry nonsensical way-too-personal tirade, she'd be right behind him, apologizing and bonding with the people who were sent home and to the jury.

I Agree they should have shown more Natalie, but at the end of the day, what would they have shown? What did she do in the game besides not rock the boat? That doesn't make good TV.

I would love to see more of her directly playing Russell and intentionally buddying up to people he pissed off, which is what she did according to interviews with pretty much everyone from Samoa EXCEPT Russell Hantz.

Let's talk Coach. Is coach a good or bad player?

Ironically, in his first two seasons where he was an awful player, he was maybe my favorite male castaway due to how goddamn hilarious he was. However in South Pacific, he actually tried to win the game, and was much less interesting as a result.

Going back to Mario Lanza, who proposed that there are 7 concrete facts about Survivor Juries. To see him get into detail about each one, go to this link: http://www.funny115.com/psychologyofajury.htm

JURY FACT #1: It is impossible to master Survivor, because a jury will be made up of players with different motivations every time. And there's no possible way you can control that variable.

JURY FACT #2: The only objective in Survivor is to have a jury that wants you to win. There are no other objectives!

JURY FACT #3: You cannot win Survivor without the help of other people. No player has ever cast four votes for himself in the final Tribal Council.

JURY FACT #4: Survivor is a social game. No player ever won with a jury that hated his or her guts.

JURY FACT #5: A jury will vote against someone just as often as they will vote for someone.

And here's the most important one:

JURY FACT #6: There is no such thing as an inherently unfair jury. A jury (by definition) can only be reactive. The jury did not exist going into the game. They were created because of things that were done to them during the game.

JURY FACT #7: No two juries have ever voted the exact same way.

<3 Peih-geesus

tin man wrote:making process through africa! HOPEFULLY i will be done tomorrow or monday at the very latest.

i just had a question ~ why did brandon vote for kelly and not lex? i just watched that episode and i dont really get why he would choose to be a fifth with a pretty solid foursome

Brandon in general is kind of mediocre. His best moment was his epic date with Frank, which hopefully you've seen at this point.

HOW DID I MISS THIS

It's been a while since I saw Africa, but I remember Lex striking me as a complete calamity of a person in a kind of interesting way. Maybe it's my kind of bizarre affection for the grim misery of All-Stars poking through.

Ethan is such a goddamn nice guy tho. He's literally the only person who comes out of All-Stars looking better than they looked before. Plus all the recent stuff with his charity work and his cancer scare...

I watched Marquesas a few months ago and LOVED it. It somehow managed to make me come around on Boston frickin' Rob, about whom I have a theory.

BR is one of the rare players who is infinitely less fun to watch when he's actually controlling the game and winning. See also Tyson Apostol and Coach.

Marquesas has maybe the best string of episodes I can think of, so I'd advise you to hang in there tin man.

Also, T-BIRD WAS ROBBED!

Quin wrote:I'm like 3 or 4 seasons behind on survivor. I used to watch it religiously but not so much now :/

My ultimate favourite survivor is Jane from Nicaragua

ick no

I really really disliked her. probably my least favorite person from that season

I'll say this much:

without Vecepia, there would be no Sandra

zoe "work hard, play hard" zanidakis is a goddamn survivor legend

here's her amazing website:

http://www.allzoe.com/index.html

i mean, just look at this stuff!

Professions & Occupations:
Commercial Fisherman and Charter boat Captain
Hotel Owner & Restaurateur
Business Entrepreneur
Television/Radio Personality
Entertainer
Motivational Speaker
Seafood Connoisseur

Education & Certifications :
High Seas of the North Atlantic
USCG, Captain 100 GT
Certified Open Water Scuba Diver
Maine Central Institute
Life's Lessons while growing up on Monhegan Island; a small, remote island 12 miles off the coast of Maine.

Experience
15 years commercial lobster fisherman, 13 of which skippered my own lobsterboat.

Proprietor of Monhegan House, a hotel and restaurant on Monhegan Island owned and operated for several generations by my family. Sold in 2000 to focus more on other pursuits.

Co-produced, co-designed and marketed my 2003 “A Year in The Life of Zoe” calendar, designed to be functional and picturesque as well as informative, inspirational and entertaining.

Contestant on popular national and international reality television series, Survivor. I appeared in every episode of the fourth installment, Survivor: Marquesas, which aired on CBS from Feb. 28 to May 19, 2002.

Guest on numerous national and international television and radio talk shows, including CBS Early Show, David Letterman and Rosie O'Donnell show as well as local and regional television news broadcasts, mid-April through August, 2002.

Acting classes under the direction of Drew Grindstaff of Four Winds Pictures, Inc

I needed to have a "Year in The Life of Zoe" calendar yesterday.

I will never need another website.

Everything from the John boot to I think maybe the episode before the finale is just gold.

John is a great example of a Survivor villain who seems like an awesome guy in real life, and his last episode is the first time a majority alliance got broken up.

This season as a whole represents a lot of crucial steps forward in terms of strategy, and I've heard it be called the most IMPORTANT season of Survivor. I still think that's the first, but, you know.

Sean is maybe my top dream returnee? The fact that he hasn't come back even though he's reportedly up for it is a shame.

I have a bit more of a spot in my heart for Gabriel, mainly because he represents Mark Brunette's original idea of the show, everyone working together and creating a new society, being snuffed out in the most pathetic way possible. Plus the dude himself has been through a lot of shit, and the fact that he made it through that and managed to be on Survivor, and has gone on to be maybe one of the nicest ex-Survivors in real life, makes me really respect him.

I agree 100% with your season ranking, but I'd have Vecepia at the bottom of the winners ranking. Yes, I feel like she's underrated and a lot more entertaining than people expect, but Tina and Ethan are both people I see as Survivor icons and symbols.

Golden wrote:Big Tom and Lex were great choices in allies. Both of them were all about loyalty, and they each would have stabbed the other before stabbing Ethan.

All-Stars puts a biiiiiig asterisk next to this and many other things.

tin man wrote:update: changed my sig to one of the best moments in survivor history

That's pretty good, but I would've gone with Changa:

tin man wrote:i've been trying to watch a season a week but i was really busy this week and now i'm only on episode 3. hopefully i will be done soon lol.
thailand pre-merge isn't that bad actually, the attack zone was amazing

just got to grindgate and it's just very uncomfortable though

ATTACK ZONE!

Say what you will about the rest of the season, but I'll always defend Robb Zebacnik.

post millenials vs. gen x bump

Golden wrote:I'm going to be blogging Survivor from next season.

I'll post more closer to the time, but it would be neat if those of you who are Survivor fans came along and read my ramblings

Ready for the Sierra/Troyzan power couple to take over the island?

Scotty wrote:GAME CHANGERS

ok how did Sierra change the game? She voted off her Mom? So what? I accidentally left my mom at a gas station on a vacation and you don't see me getting any medals.

But seriously am excited about seeing some familiar faces next season. Looks to be a pretty cutthroat one.

Ozzy should be voted out first, if they're smart.

Sierra Dawn Thomas and Ciera Eastin are both on the next season. Ciera's the one who VOTED OUT HER MOM according to Probst.

Sierra was in Worlds Apart and did literally nothing. Waste of a space.

Scotty wrote:
insertnamehere wrote:

post millenials vs. gen x bump
Spoilers from this past season:
Spoiler: show
Jess's rock draw pissed me off. What a shitty way to go. I was rooting for her.

As for last season, what a heart wrenching story from Adam. During that last 2 episode arc it was clear he was being set up for a win from the edits, and I was being really put off by his sob story. But to hear that it was all true and his mother actually dying at that time is awful, and I'm glad he won. 100%. What a great gesture to give a quarter of his winnings to cancer research as well. I thoroughly enjoyed that season for the most part, even if Hannah existed and made some boneheaded decisions that impacted/blindsighted some of my favorite players.
Linki; ohhhh right. I don't even remember that Sierra lol.

What has anyone with the homophone of Sierra done in this game worth noting?

Ciera (the mom voting one) pulled a pretty amazing blindside on Andrew Savage in Second Chances.

Golden wrote:So it begins:

http://www.truedorktimes.com/s34/martell/

I'm offically blogging Survivor, guys. Hope some of you who are Survivor fans will come along and read from time to time.

Congrats on hitting the TrueDorkTimes big leagues!

I'm definitely gonna try and read it every week. I can't get enough of online Survivor coverage.

If any of you all don't already know about it, Mario Lanza's Funny 115 website about Survivor is a goddamn masterpiece, and he's releasing his third iteration about seasons 21-30 right now.

http://www.funny115.com/

Definitely a must-read for Survivor fans, along with the Golden Ticket.

(I also love the hatch door map banner.)

My Sandra avatar accurately describes the amount of days until Game Changers.

My top three guesses for who wins:

Spoiler: show

But seriously...

Spoiler: show

PEARL ISLANDS = BEST SEASON

Spoiler: show

Spoiler: show

Golden wrote: ↑Mon May 22, 2017 12:29 am OK, well try season 13 (Cook Islands) on for size.

*SPOILERS SPOILERS RICO DO NOT READ*

Ew, really? Not to pick a fight with the site's premiere Survivor expert, but the twist in Cook Islands is dumb, the editing is so lopsided that seemingly half the cast is barely shown, and IMO the strategy is nothing to write home about. Yes, it has the introduction of a few big Survivor characters, but even then, all of them go on to be much more interesting in later seasons. I would have recommended Marquesas, Panama, China, or Palau before that one.

Anybody watching this season?

Haven't really had my socks blown off yet by it, but there's some potential in the cast.

The Syndicate

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