This thread's usually up and going by now less than a week out...did the Rob vs Russell concept kill interest? Or was it RI?

http://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/cast/

Coach & Ozzy return, as wildly rumored in May. Redemption Island is back. Russell Hantz's nephew is in, because they are going to keep going to the Hantz well. ("Inspiration in life: Jesus, because he died for me.", "SURVIVOR contestant you are most like: Probably Colby, Johnny Fairplay, Russell and Brandon." "Reason for being on SURVIVOR: Financial freedom and to show everyone there is more than one side to the Hantz family other than being mean." ) A lingerie football player and former Playboy cover model, a "Baseball/Dating coach" (wtf?), a fifth place finisher from Nashville Star, and a mortician from Grand Prairie.

Back to Samoa where they shot Samoa and Heroes v Villains, because apparently that little roped off square they are allowed to hang out in is pretty awesome.

I'm already pulling for Rick, the Utah rancher, just because he has a 'stache. Hopefully he also follows in the steps of the last rancher and only speaks in subtitles and butchers the spelling on every ballot.

[This message has been edited by 20ag07 (edited 9/8/2011 11:49a).]

Hate RI and the casting sucks again.

every season is a new chance to be good. I've definitely not enjoyed the russell seasons as much (though I did learn to just enjoy watching him as a villain, much like Rachel on BB). really, though, the game is dynamic enough that they don't need all the twists. just cast well. that's it.

I wish they had gotten Coach and Philip together instead of having Ozzy back again. Although watching Ozzy on balancing and swimming challenges is like watching a top-flight athlete perform, dude is plain sick. I'm sure they are hoping Hantz's nephew makes it far enough to have a loved one come to the island to get some more Russell ratings.

Watched all but one season, but I'm losing interest. Will give it a chance...

I am hoping they have re-done how RI works. IMO, contestants in the game should have no idea what is going on at RI.

I'd like to see them mix it up and break everyone into 3 teams for a bit instead of the usual 2 teams.

quote:

---

I am hoping they have re-done how RI works.

---

I'm pretty sure I read Probst saying that they would only use it one time this cycle, which I think is good. I know I read him saying that they wouldn't keep more than one person there at a time out there, so no more of this crap where you don't have to win to stay out there...just not lose, which I hated.

Last time the interesting thing to see was how the two completely different strategies towards Rob and Russell worked. This time I think it will be interesting to see how they react to Ozzy and Coach knowing how the treatment of Rob and Russell worked out for those players.

90 minute ep tonight- seems like it's been a really long time since they've done that. Maybe that will give them enough time to appropriately introduce everybody, instead of not being sure who the first three people evicted even are.

First impression says this is a way above average cast...or maybe I'm just glad to shake free of Big Brother and have short-term memory from the last 2 season of duds. Seems to be quite a bit of personality and a few less duds than we've seen lately though.

I can't get into Survivor. I am a huge Big Brother fan so I thought that Survivor would appeal to me but meh

A lot of promise for this season.

Cochran is a piece of work. That guy makes for great TV.

Russell's nephew is a complete weakling. I thought that he would be mixing things up only with a better social game (not alienating as many people). Instead he's afraid to talk to women because they might be the devil.

That guy doesn't make it through his tribe's second eviction, but watching them out him as Russell's nephew is going to be hillarious. At one point he literally had that t-shirt pulled over his head, so all it was covering was his back. I'd probably have to cut it off him while he was sleeping just to figure out what the hell he was hiding.

Huge mistake, hiding those tattoos. When he is found out, no one will trust him. Just come up with some story how Uncle Russell screwed your dad over in some business deal and you need to win because your family is destitute.

he's kinda screwed either way. if he says he's russell's nephew, people will automatically assume he didn't fall far from the tree. if he's hiding and is eventually found out, they'll vote him out for being dishonest.

he's not terribly interesting, other than his weirdness, so I'm fine with him going pretty soon. then we don't have to hear about his uncle russell.

I enjoyed the first episode. I figured for sure they'd vote out cochran, simply because he's of little use to them, and if anything could be dangerous when he gets his bearings. the question is going to be whether he has the guts to actually make the plays he intellectually knows he needs to make. I'm always excited to watch huge fans of the show (especially the nerds), but it seems like typically, they don't have the social game to really be able to do much damage. cochran might, but he needs to stop with the meta talk. yes, we know you're a fan of the show, yes, we know you know that jeff's gonna say certain things because that's what jeff does. I'll be interested to see how his game changes now that he's been saved for at least one week.

man, semhar was annoying, but she did have nice breasts. still, I'm kinda glad she's gone. I don't think she was going to do anything interesting, except do whatever ozzy told her to do.

I'm also interested on the machinations that lead to them all voting out semhar. It seemed like the only people who'd be motivated to vote against her were papa bear, dawn, cochran and jim. the other's more or less seemed like they'd do what ozzy wanted and ozzy seemed to want to keep semhar. so either he read the room and could see they didn't want semhar around and he decided not to exert any political capitol just yet, or he doesn't have full control over an alliance just yet.

the baseball coach seems like he's going to be a beast in challenges. he scaled that wall no problem then pulled up one of their team members like they were a rag doll.

definitely like the make up of the cast more this year. Jim (the poker player/med marijauna dispenser dude) seems like he'll stir stuff up pretty well and won't be afraid to make some moves (which will probably just mean he gets voted out quickly).

other people I've got my eye on:
* russian student- she seems to have a pretty good read on people
* papa bear- depends on what tack he takes...I could see him just playing the nice older man who's afraid to make any moves OR at some point, his detective side kicks in and he realizes how to manipulate the tribe and sway people.
* elyse- strong in challenges and doesn't seem afraid to mix it up. (I may have confused her with Mikayla...whichever one was super athletic in the challenge).
* edna- as long as she doesn't get too attached to coach, I liked her strategy of befriending him. that should earn his trust with her immediately, and give her a really solid ally. she just needs to make sure she's making the decisions, or at least influencing the decisions.
* rick's mustache- nuff said.

[This message has been edited by Doug Christie (edited 9/15/2011 9:47a).]

My wife called Keith Superman because he does kinda look like Clark Kent. He was a beast in the challenge but it seemed to me that he was taking too long to take another shot with his coconut.

Good start to the season. Coach is such a joke of a person that its not even funny.

I just can't bring myself to refer to the gay cop as "Papa Bear".

he's definitely a bear...probably not a papa. seems like a good guy though, so i'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Agreed. I had to explain to my wife what a "bear" was.

Plus, he gave himself the nickname. This is a *****y move. Just ask the Dragonslayer.

t-bone says you can give yourself a nickname if you want

I do enjoy the fact that many people last night who were having to explain to family members what a bear was.

the line of the night for me was rick saying 'that sounds like two squirrels making love' and then whatever girl he was talking to said 'you must spend alot of time with squirrels'

Would love a .gif of Coach's reaction when the other guy said he was a coach too. Coach smiled big, but you could see his eyes saying, "But, but, but, I'm the coach!"

If the red team has any sense they'll let Ozzie win their challenges to the merge and dump him - or do it right before the merge so he can't go on an Immunity run.

Ozzy is already trying to play the same game he did last time.

With RI, even if they vote him off, he'll be back. He's gonna be there a while with his tribe already behind.

The RI twist would be SOOOOO much better if they werent aware of it...BOOM day 27 and Ozzie shows back up

I thought this was one of the better first episodes. Looking forward to this season.

quote:

---

Cochran is a piece of work. That guy makes for great TV.

---

He used to post on another forum I go to. He's pretty hilarious and does some funny ass comedy's.

Cochran's sarcasm and neurotic ramblings reminded me of Woody Allen

I liked Cochran. I'm ready for Ozzy to go already. Unfortunately he will probably be around the majority of the show.

Between Cochran and Marijuana Man, I don't think he'll get to run the show the way that Rob did as it looks like we might have some crafty people with something resembling brain cells around. He may stick around for awhile, but it should be a different dynamic than what we saw the last time.

I hope Cochran stays for awhile.

Is always entertaining to see how the Super fans perform when they actually make it on the show.

I'd just like to blow the warning siren announcing that a complete dumbass has revealed himself on Survivor and he goes by the name...Brandon. Geez........

It's either that or the editors have decided to crucify him.

Women be the DEVIL!

Lil Hantz is a waste of space, gamewise, but is upping the comedy level signficantly. I'm gonna need more back story on exactly what this guy did that made him so afraid to be around women. Clearly he has cheated on his now wife at some point in their relationship.

I love it when you have two people who are clearly on the outs, yet they can't even manage to coordinate their own votes together, just in case. It looks to be tough for Coach to put his team back together, now that Lil Hantz has publicly outed himself as a complete idiot, and they've already seperated from the other 3 women.

The poker player/weed dealer is gonna be fun to watch, I can just tell. He's either gonna run shit, or go down quickly in some kind of epic fashion.

Saw this roll across my Twitter feed last night and lol'ed: "Whoever hides the idols should be fired. It's like an easter egg hunt for 3 year olds".