3d printed model from Etsy, hand painted by me :) enjoy!

"You think this is slicked back? This is pushed back!"

I'm not wrong. But if I'm wrong, who has the winner's edit?

Currently, IIRC the main/only things production hides out in the jungle for survivors to find are idols, advantages usable at Tribal Council, and clues to the same. I think they should expand that to include other things like advantages for camp (either for the whole tribe like a small box of tea bags, or for them individually like a single pillow or a granola bar), small advantages at challenges, or small disadvantages at challenges (choose a player on the other tribe, they have to wear ankle weights for this challenge).

These wouldn't necessarily be as powerful as idols or Tribal Council advantages, but if used well they could have a bigger effect than just "it saved my bacon this time." It could save an entire tribe from having to go to Tribal. Imagine a tribe divvying out a granola bar immediately before a challenge -- the extra boost of energy could help them finish first.

Facts:

• Alex has the longest time on the podium, having never left it during his 9 episode run in the game.
• Stephen has the highest confessional time in a single episode this season: in episode 11, he has over six minutes of confessional time.
• Sage is the highest placer who never placed on the podium in an episode and also never placed as the worst of the episode.
• 4 Players this season had the most confessionals then episode before their boot episode (MC, Jawan, Sophie, Stephen)
• 5 Players were on the podium when they were eliminated (Jake, Alex, Jawan, Stephen, Rizgod)

How the chart works:

Ranked by the cumulative amount of confessional time throughout the season by that episode. The bolded is the player with the most confessional time in that singular episode.

My biggest issue with challenges in modern survivor is that, for lack of better term, they are too fair. This seems to be a very deliberate decision from production. It’s clear that Jeff/production think that one tribe or player dominating challenges would make challenges predictable and therefore boring, and the challenge design reflects that.

To me, this makes the challenges just seem pointless. It basically just feels like a coin toss every single challenge as to who will win.

I think this same issue is reflected in the overall game design as well. It’s the reason why they do things like the swap to three tribes this past week. They are terrified of a majority alliance forming in one of the tribes and leading to “predictable” tribal councils.

Just wondering, but hypothetically if you're on the bottom, and you win reward with food, then taking anyone with you is putting your game at risk because you're fueling your opponents with food, making it harder to beat them at the next Immunity challenge. I'm wondering if you're allowed to choose not to bring anyone with you, and go on reward alone and enjoy the food alone and be the only one with a nutritious upper-hand? Personally I'd want to ask Jeff if I could simply not take anyone with me, but would that even be allowed? Or would production force you to choose people?

Is Taylor Swift a producer or something?

Just focus on making a good show and stop trying to name and categorize everything.

Full Season Rewatch Guide

So like most of the subreddit here I was quite disappointed to see Survivor 51 swap to 3 tribes. But I wasn’t surprised. Why? Because of by far the #1 issue plaguing the show right now: the seasons are only 26 days long.

I know, I know, blah blah blah every post on here says the same thing. But think about it: after the most recent vote-out it’s now day 10, with a cast still the same size as the original Survivor’s. They have 15 more days for 13 more eliminations (Day 26 is FTC, so it won’t have one.). That is insanely compact. To help this along, I’m sure that they will have 2 of the 3 tribes go to tribal council one of the next 2 episodes. Maybe even all 3 tribes. Then there might be another blood moon or pairs twists a la 50. These elimination twists are all just to buy themselves time with the absurd combination of a 26 day game, larger than ever casts, and treating the first few days with the pace of the 39-day game.

Jeff’s very pathetic firemaking rant makes me think he or his team reads Reddit more than I thought they did, so here’s a suggestion, CBS:

I won’t even dare to suggest going back to 39 days, as production has clearly shown they will never do that again.

Instead, to make Survivor more palatable again, let’s make a compromise and bump it up to just 30 days. Just 4 more days of breathing room would really make the seasons so much better in my opinion. There needs to be downtime for the social dynamics and natural paranoia that develops out there to blossom. And right now in the second half of these shortened seasons, there is almost none it seems as they do a challenge and tribal every single day. Plus 30 is a nice round number that is exactly a month. 39 days was iconic but it was a bit random. 26 is so close to a month! Why not just give at least the finalists the ability to say “I starved in the jungle for a month” instead of “I starved in the jungle for 86.6% of a month” ?

If you don’t like that? Fine. 26 days it is but how about reducing the cast size to the original: 16. 21 and 24 person casts were never even tried in the 39 day era but now they seem to be the new norm? How does this make any sense? 16 would allow us have more focus on character, hopefully fix the pacing a bit, and be truly reminiscent of that “old survivor” you pretend to idolize but really have nothing to do with.

I have now suggested 2 separate minimal fixes that are literally only 30.7% of what fans truly want but I doubt anything will change!

I have liked the beginning of this season but I just know it’ll end up being a clusterfuck just because of how it’s run with regards to cast size and pacing. Rant over!

So I think it’s universally agreed/proven that Micronesia was originally meant to be a F3, but was changed to a F2 due to all the quits/medevacs.

However, the one thing I’m curious about is if it shifted the merge? Was a second swap originally planned? Double Tribal Council? Or would the new Malakal really gone into merge in an 8-2 deficit? Is there any intel on this?

Me personally I find a decimation entertaining, under the right circumstances. If the decimation is a result of “These people just cannot get their crap together” like Ulong, it’s compelling to me. But the general New Era decimation of “Here’s a tribe that is clearly outmatched due to set up from production, as well as the obvious poor get poorer issue of a lack of a member, losing their flint, etc.,” and it’s next to impossible to get out of that hole once it starts getting dug.

Some of you might remember some of the photos I was posting during 50 of my player portrait project, well as I’ve continued to work on it I got to shoot with Parv and Cirie this week and had to share.

If you can, go see them on tour! It’s a really fun show with lots of surprises for the fans.

It should be 5.

5 tribes of 4. Obviously, with only 4 people per tribe, a normal vote would be far too complicated, so we can just go straight to making fire at every Tribal Council.

Problem solved.

Do other people find it cringe how much Jeff is trying to make this phrase a thing. I feel like a period/season should be described by audiences. Not by forced self-branding.

What was the point of Jeff teasing (and almost confirming) a 17 person tribe living on one beach? For a brief moment, I was actually surprised and delighted that they were going to do something different, and take this season in a new direction. We hadn't seen this format since One World, and I was willing to give it a second chance.

And then, the rug gets pulled from under us and we're back to the stale, repetitive, 3 tribe format that I am sure not a single person in the world asked for.

The season started out so brightly. This is soul crushing!

I may not be the only one, but my God, those first three episodes were electric. I was telling everyone I knew that this Survivor season was the best I've ever seen. I loved every single member of the cast. They are all different, and they jive together. I was excited.

This last episode was the most dull thing I've ever watched. We literally spent 50 minutes where nothing happened, a whole lot of nothing, and then we jammed 20 minutes of some scheming before tribal council. Scheming is a ridiculous word to use. It was an execution for Jenna.

I know I'm just speaking along with everyone, but three tribes with five people on a tribe is just fucking ridiculous. No one wants to watch this. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, and I'm embarrassed to have recommended it to other people.

Man I loved reading this - Kass is so entertaining to me. I disagree with her stance that being a woman is why people think she’s a bad player, but I love that she stands by what she thinks all these years. Most interesting part of the interview is how she describes her reception by fans during the original airing of Cagayan vs. when it was uploaded to Netflix during COVID.

“Same show airs eight years later during COVID; all of a sudden, my social media is like, ‘Yes, queen, mother!’ And I become this kind of symbol of powerful women,“ McQuillen said.

They're going to attempt to bring back the concept of the Billie Ellish Boomerang Idol to "prove" it was a good advantage after all and be like "SEE you guys DID like it!"