All this does is reaffirm why I'd rather watch Expedition Impossible. Stack up the people from Survivor next to the Gypsies or No Limits...there's no contest. The only truly gifted player out there was Ozzy, but this game isn't about being gifted.

expedition impossible?
lol. that show couldnt hold a candle to the two far superior shows it attempted to rip off (survivor and amazing race). it had a shitty host who looked mentally challenged compared to probst and phil. it had really stupid team names that made you cringe every time said retard host spoke them. and it was all about physical endurance, so brains, problem solving, and social skills did not matter. part of the charm of TAR is that grandparents might make it to the end. part of survivor is that that the best athlete (ozzy) can repeatedly be eliminated by a less physical woman who out smarted him.

if you only want to see a battle of athletic skill and physical endurance, why not watch the greatest reality show of all time - sports. it is on about 50 different channels 24/7.

[This message has been edited by bojangles (edited 12/18/2011 10:42p).]

I understand what you're saying, but Expedition Impossible is not just about pure physical strength but also mental toughness, endurance and the bond of friends. That's why the Gypsies and No Limits made it so far.

Survivor is interesting in some ways, but the name should be changed to "Least Threatening Contestant"...which doesn't have much of a ring to it.

What bojangles said +1

in 23 seasons the "least threatening contestant" has won probably 3-4 times.

further, EI was uninteresting because it was a freaking boat race. of the 10 legs, the gypsies finished first 9 times, and 2nd once. the lack of competition (and the reasons above) are the reasons the ratings got worse and worse with each episode.

it was a good concept that was horribly executed.

Agreed. Next time they need to ditch striving for diversity and make it purely and simply about great competitors, because that is all it boils down to. If people wanted to watch a glorified soap opera that is more about character development than competition they could tune in to...Least Threatening Contestant

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If people wanted to watch a glorified soap opera that is more about character development than competition

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Um....you mean the way they already do...by the millions....every week...two seasons a year....for 23 seasons so far?

Gotcha...we'll take your thought into consideration and let you know how that works out.

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I think the comments that were edited into tonight's episode point to who wins.....Sophie. Albert was saying how dangerous Sophie was, how she was always working everybody...they need to get her out, etc. Coach says no...Brandon has to go. I think that bites coach. I think Coach and Sophie both make the finals (likely with Rick) and Sophie wins it.

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I missed by a bit...but not much.

Yes Russell was an ass...but I have to admit, I'd be pretty aggravated too if I start watching the show and my nephew was dragging me through the dirt and throwing me under the bus several episodes in a row. Some of those "redeeming the family comments" were prettty nasty underlying insults to Russell. And Russell was right and wrong. Right in the fact that Brandon played a stupid game quite often. Wrong in the fact that he said his "whole" game was bad.

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Um....you mean the way they already do...by the millions....every week...two seasons a year....for 23 seasons so far?

Gotcha...we'll take your thought into consideration and let you know how that works out.

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Good argument, because everyone knows that great ratings is all that matters. Did you have to delete some American Idol and Dancing with the Stars to make room for Survivor?

TAR has lots of opportunities for manipulation by CBS to pick the final teams. EI is a more pure race which appeals to me.

As for Survivor, I knew when Sophie beat Ozzie that she won the million and deservedly so. I'm probably done with Survivor as it is repetitive and therefore boring and stupid. I need to be more productive with my time.

The next season's "twist" sounds very interesting. Making the tribes live together but compete against each other should introduce some different alliance dynamics. I hope it will also result in different ways to use the HII.
The following things need to change IMO:

• Get rid of Exile/Redemption Island. It's served its purpose: providing a way for Ozzy to have a chance at winning with a terrible social game.
• Bring back the reward challenges.
• Go back to the Final 2 jury vote. Amanda Kimmel is the only contestant to get a single vote as the 3rd member of the Final 3. All of the other Final 3 votes have resulted in all of the votes being cast for 2 contestants.
• Cut back on the freebie fire, water and rice rations. The show was more interesting when everyone was hungry and thirsty all the time.
• Survivor: Siberia. It's time for some bear skins and stone knives.

Youve posted on texags an average of 8+ times per day for nearly half a decade and you think Survivor is wasted time?

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coach getting called out for using religion as a weapon and to manipulate people was perfect.

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+1

People on the internet aways deride the "bitter jury" but Coach and the others contantly using religion to further their cause got really old.

Its also a great metaphor for all the religous wars that happened back in the day and how people use GOD to manipulate people.

I think there is a chance Coach could have won it had he played the final tribal better. Owned up to being the godfather and emphasized controlling a large portion of the game. He should have taken credit for flipping Cochran and changing the game.

I am glad Ozzy did not win though. He didn't play the game of Survivor. Of course he would have won with the jury--he had no real impact on the course of the game. He wasn't responsible for anyone's elimination and thus had to lie to no one. RI is dumb.

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I think there is a chance Coach could have won it had he played the final tribal better. Owned up to being the godfather and emphasized controlling a large portion of the game. He should have taken credit for flipping Cochran and changing the game.

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yeah, that's the tough part of the game...people believe you because you present yourself as sort of above the fray, but inevitably when you have to lie/stretch the truth, it comes back to bite you in the butt so much harder.

that's the interesting thing about human nature...if I give tell you I'm going to be honest, up front, etc. to you, and then I'm not, that's somehow worse than never giving you the impression or reason to believe that I will be those things. Even if the first person was still more honest, or otherwise "good" (however you want to define it).

the lesson: set really low expectations

I think Sophie won it at the final tribal. She did a good job of laying out why she was the best player of the three. The won 3 immunities and won the biggest one of them all. She also did a great job of throwing Coach under the bus with how the idol was really discovered. The look on Coach’s face when she dropped that bomb was priceless.

agree hug-it-out. at that moment, the look on both coach and brandon's face was priceless.

So how did the final vote breakdown? Who voted for who?

And Sophie's line about the idol was AWESOME! Not sure if she kept that quiet all the way to the end for final jury purposes or if she just pulled it out last second without thinking about it...but you could literally see coach deflate at that moment. That was GREAT TV.

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And Sophie's line about the idol was AWESOME! Not sure if she kept that quiet all the way to the end for final jury purposes or if she just pulled it out last second without thinking about it...but you could literally see coach deflate at that moment. That was GREAT TV.

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she's smart, no doubt she planned to reveal it. I'm not going to say she played the greatest game ever, but one of the things that impressed me about her gameplay was how closely she played things to the vest. she used knowledge at the right times so the target would stay off of her, even though she was largely involved in many of the same moves that put the others on the jury.

we all like to see big moves and crazy game play, but her gameplan was really good, imo.

what do you mean "we"? you love the ugly, dumpy woman who gets to the end w/o doing much. you were president of the Cirie fan club, no?

don't forget Sandra!

I can appreciate both. Cochran's move was exciting and certainly made for some good drama (until they got pagonged). and if he'd made it to the end, I think he'd have a very valid argument for why he should win.

but over and over, the person who wins often was not the frontman; it was someone who was involved in the discussions, but generally were able to keep the target off their back.

I do enjoy seeing someone who's the ringleader and is also able to then convince people to give him/her the million (rob, yul, porn star brian, tomm etc.) but that's a very difficult way to win and probably isn't the best strategy (unless you have a hell of a cult of personality).

[This message has been edited by Doug Christie (edited 12/19/2011 11:55a).]

I didn't feel bad for him at all....but dang Albert got crucified last night.

pot dealer guy (jim?) had what i think was an accurate take on cochran - he wasnt playing to win, he just wanted to be there as long as possible.

i didnt like cochran or edna during the season, but thought they both came off much better during the reunion.

was mikayla on the reunion at all? with all of the ridiculous lovefest going on for poor wittle brandon hantz, we never got to hear probst question hantz about how he got rid of her basically because she made him feel like he was going through puberty again.

not giving back the immunity necklace when he knew brandon was going home was pretty shameless. he also should have known that that would ruin any chance he has of people voting for him and taken his chances at redeeming himself by beating ozzy and coming back to the game, acknowledging his errors. but he was so focused on staying in the game, he couldn't see that that was probably the better move (or he knew there was a 0% chance he'd beat Ozzy in a RI challenge).

I think she was in the back row with her hair dyed black. I was hoping they would address that as well. Usually during the reunion ep there is one or 2 people they don't talk to, but this thing was so focused on Ozzy, Lil Hantz and Cochran that they didn't get to talk to at least 3 people....maybe more (Bear, the first lady voted off, Mikayla, etc.).

So where would I go to find out who voted for who in the final vote? Couldn't find it on the Survivor/CBS website.

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i didnt like cochran or edna during the season, but thought they both came off much better during the reunion.

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they both seem like naturally neurotic people, and that can really grate on people over the course of a season.

I think I just felt bad for cochran and brandon. they each just have qualities that make it very hard for them to endear themselves to others and I don't really know that there's much they can do about it.

I'm sure we'll see both again at some point. maybe they'll have grown up and gained more control of their behavior. but probably not.

Stive- Sophie seems to think it was Cochran, Edna and Rick:

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Who didn’t vote for you besides Cochran?
I actually thought I was going to get more votes than I did. I came out of Tribal, thought I won, thought about it a lot over this year, and I was pretty sure that Cochran and Edna had voted for Coach. Why Edna voted for Coach is beyond me. But I think Coach’s third vote was Rick, which is surprising. But I really screwed over Rick. Rick was truly a very bitter juror, because Rick never had an alliance with Coach. Rick and I had a final three alliance. And he was very bitter at me. So I was actually really terrified when I saw the third vote. I was like, “Oh my God, I was completely wrong. I thought I won!” I started to practice my gracious loser face in my head. It was terrifying.

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http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/12/19/survivor-south-pacific-sophie-finale/

The Ozzy lovefest was over the top. He is the king of Redemption Island, not a Survivor.

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pot dealer guy (jim?) had what i think was an accurate take on cochran - he wasnt playing to win, he just wanted to be there as long as possible.

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while that is true b/c cochran screwed over half of the jury and likely couldn't win... but had he stuck with his initial tribe and things worked out its not like it was going to be much different for cochran... he may have made it to #6 rather than #7...

i still get the vibe from jim and ozzy that they still didn't see how they tried to bully cochran and were still upset that he didn't just fall in line with them to do what was best for them even though they treated him poorly the entire game. 'follow my plan b/c it is best for me or I'll keep hating you' is just a comical strategy

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while that is true b/c cochran screwed over half of the jury and likely couldn't win... but had he stuck with his initial tribe and things worked out its not like it was going to be much different for cochran... he may have made it to #6 rather than #7...

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That's the exact opposite of what the rest of his tribe was saying in their exit interviews. They all wanted to take him to the end.

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That's the exact opposite of what the rest of his tribe was saying in their exit interviews. They all wanted to take him to the end.

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if that's the case, then they all did a really poor job of reading cochran and knowing that he might be feeling like he's on the outs. I'd have taken that as an opportunity to butter him up and even more so, make him feel like part of the group. I guess they did that some, but he was obviously still left with the feeling that most of the people on their tribe hated, or didn't respect, him (with the exception of dawn).

Coach knew exactly how to win over Cochran. Jim/Ozzy, etc just thought they could bully him.

Funniest part is Albert thought he had it the bag after they dragged Sophie and Coach thru the mud. He was so confident in his "game" and how he had bonded with so many people. Yet he didn't get a single vote.

Summary of thoughts, possibly not all origonal!

Redemption Island and the segregation of one strong competitor from the social game and the betrayals is really a problem. This needs to be completely re-thought out and some drastic changes made. Would be a travesty to see a player like Ozzy eventually win the million after being innocent of any wrong doing or backstabbing at Tribal. Who to vote for, duh?

Reward challenges gave the game an exciting element and caused a social element it be introduced as winners could choose additional participants. Things were revealed that might otherwise have been undetected.

How about all new players? How about no retreads who have incredible built in advantages over the other contestants? Maybe every 4-5 seson have all retreads but mixing in veterans is unfair.

How about all the same contestants from one show, A do over? Well maybe not??

How about Russel Hantz and 15 playmates from Playboy?

Or Brandon Hantz and 15 playmates of the month? Nevermind, the first episode I think he might explode.

ST

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Or Brandon Hantz and 15 playmates of the month?

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I LOVE this idea