Both tribes on the same beach will up the drama significantly. Me likey!

anything that leads to more strategy, I'm in favor of.

That should help out immensely. RI doesn't work.

RI could have worked, for 1 season, if no one knew about it

Exactly. If they hadnt known about it, it would have been epic to have a strong player return. They screwed up there.

I'd have been up in arms. This isn't Big Brother. I don't believe in "expect the unexpected". It's a strategy game- I like it when they know the variables in place.

RI is presumably being scrapped because they realized that the person who comes back in generally goes straight back out. Chances of that not hapPening are slim. The "get a player back" is cool in theory, but most people are booted because you want them out. The only solution where they aren't immediately booted again is if they were eliminated in some weird tie breaker.

With this "One World" twist, as it's allegedly called, the cards are on the table from the start for every player to consider on their strategy.

Kind of a yawner. I'm anxiously awaiting the LilHantz meltdown. Interested to watch the Jim/Cochran tandem. Jim seems to be moving too hard too fast, but may be able to deflect some of that onto Cochran if the *****goes down and he gets in trouble.

A redemption island returnee can make some noise if they win individual immunity immediately after returning to the game. But that is almost a must win situation. The odds are definitely against the returnee. It would be interesting to see Ozzy get blindsided with the idol, go to redemption, be the last person standing, and return to the game with the idol in his pocket. That is probably the producers dream!! But, that is highly unlikely.

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I'd have been up in arms. This isn't Big Brother. I don't believe in "expect the unexpected". It's a strategy game- I like it when they know the variables in place.

RI is presumably being scrapped because they realized that the person who comes back in generally goes straight back out. Chances of that not hapPening are slim. The "get a player back" is cool in theory, but most people are booted because you want them out. The only solution where they aren't immediately booted again is if they were eliminated in some weird tie breaker.

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Have you watched Survivor before? Probst is always pulling surprises out: swapping tribes around, hidden immunity idols and telling a common camp that they aren't merged. A big part of the game is adapting with surprises as they come along. The problem is that most of these have become so commonplace that they're expected.

For what it's worth, this isn't even the first time they brought back voted off contestants. On Pearl Islands they brought back two contestants shortly after the merge and they made it to the final four.

I'd like to see them let the Redemption winner re-enter the game earlier, and with a twist - they can choose to go back to their own tribe or they can go to the other tribe.

While in some cases they might be headed straight back to RI - think of how much pull they could have by joining an "on the outs" alliance or being the swing vote in getting someone canned.

Things could have gone much differently last year had Matt sided with the other tribe... and boston rob didn't have the genius move to vote him right back out... Matt was seen as useful to neither tribe... I'm not sure that would always be the case. I think it could play out much differently if the returner is a bit more bitter up on his/her return.

Quite the boring episode last night. You know tribal council must've been uneventful if Probst had to resort to "Dick, what annoys you about Jane?"

not much you can do when the decision is between two weak-ish players (either physically or interpersonally).

brandan could have been the choice, but that tribe doesn't seem ready to start taking out stronger players.

the move I don't quite understand is jim and cochran's potential move to take out elyse or anyone from the pretty people alliance. there's 4 of them, and only 3 against them (jim, cochran and dawn). I just don't see a scenario right now where clark kent, ozzy, skinny blonde girl or skinny brunette girl is going to turn on the other, especially not to those considered weaker on their tribe. jim really should have worked that sooner, when there was a chance at having the numbers. I like the sentiment, but I think their best bet right now is to stay as strong as possible for as long as possible and keep working relationships with the others.

the one move that does seem possible is to get clark kent to turn on ozzy, but I don't see that happening until its only merge time. otherwise, i think we'll see those 3 go in successive order.

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Quite the boring episode last night. You know tribal council must've been uneventful if Probst had to resort to "Dick, what annoys you about Jane?"

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This. And as soon as he said it I knew that I would have to endure an unwatchable segment of Lil Hantz either going off or breaking down.

He's an emotional wreck, but Lil Hantz was pretty impressive on the weights.

Took me back to Pearl Islands when Rupert took down gym-enhanced superman Osten in that competition, or one similar to it.

That dawn chick had a gutsy challenge. I like to see underdogs like her win.

what is the best strategy for this challenge?

i feel like loading up guy 1 until he breaks (or until you get to that 220lb area), then the next guy, then the girl might work best, but they never do it that way. i wonder how long the challenge lasted?

bo jingles- I was wondering the same thing. seems like you want to get to a point where you can put each weight on one person.

ultimately, it seems like they did it about how you'd want it.

I honestly don’t know what the best strategy is. Maybe load down the stud with 200 and then move on. Make him hold it for 20 mins while piling up on the others. I think one mistake they make is adding too many bags to one person when waiting and putting them on anther may be a better call.

It’s a great challenge and I understand that Stacey is pretty strong but Mikayla just seems like she could have beat out Dawn

I'd assume you would want them to all collapse at the same time. If you load up a guy enough that he's bound to drop it in 5 minutes, you are wasting time loading him up to make him drop in 1 when you could be loading up the next person.

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what is the best strategy for this challenge?

i feel like loading up guy 1 until he breaks (or until you get to that 220lb area), then the next guy, then the girl might work best, but they never do it that way. i wonder how long the challenge lasted?

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Each weight you add has a compounding effect (that is standing with only 20 pounds gradually drains you), so you want to distribute weight evenly as early as possible. As soon as someone collapses, all the weight you spent on them isn't working for you for the rest of the challenge, so you don't want to overload someone and force them to collapse but rather put them outside their tipping point and let stress do it's thing while you load up their teammates.

That said, The way both teams played it was just about right: You should distributing evenly until the woman gets just outside her breaking point (approx 60 pounds). At that point, let the stress work on her while you split it evenly between the guys. Once the guys get in the 200 pound range, play it by ear and give out the weight based on who looks like they are struggling the least.

Ideally you will have a contestant whose legs give out due to stress rather than being over loaded, like it did for Jason (that my not be his name, it was the black guy on Lil Hantz's team).

bobcat - that makes lots of sense.

i thought the redemption island challenge was a little too easy. if you can get close to the target, those bean bags are going to have a tendency to stop on impact instead of rolling off the way something solid would.

So what was up with the Dawn votes? A "we aren't choosing sides" message? Does that ever work out? Ironically, the last time I can remember that happening was in HvV when Coach did it- which led to Rob's ouster and Coach's the following ep. Dawn annoys me about 8x more than Cochran does, so I don't completely disagree with it, just missing any strategy whatsoever.

Yes, that was about not choosing sides. The chick even said "we wish we could just vote for someone else (and not piss off Ozzie)". And no, it doesn't work.

Screw Ozzie. He is soon to be a 3 time loser. He had no self awareness that lounging around with Elyse would cause problems? Previews show him as a " free agent?". Thanks for playing.

Ozzie is great in the challenge and fishing and swimming, but as a game player, he's not good.

mind boggling how they suck up to Benjamin

I agree Ozzy is not looking like a great player this year. It could be a bad edit, or he could just be more of a "know-it-all" now that he has had past success in the game. But, say what you will about his laziness, the guy does provide fish to his tribe on a regular basis.

And, i'm not exactly sure i'd call the guy a 3-time loser once he gets ousted from this season. Although he did technically lose in the 13th season, he still won $100,000 and only missed out on the million by a 5-4 vote.

I was glad to see Cochran be part of a big move!


[This message has been edited by horns48 (edited 10/13/2011 9:29a).]

Ozzie didn't learn from his mistakes. Hell, the vote could've been for him, and he would've eaten the idol, again.

He has no feel for the game and the mood of everyone.

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JEFF PROBST: It’s a fantastic turn of events. Both of them came back to improve their social game. One is succeeding. The other isn’t. One thing I have always believed about Coach is that he is earnest. His approach may be full of bravado but it’s sincere. Ozzy has always struggled with authenticity when it comes to his relationships in the game. Savaii is smelling that Ozzy is out for himself but is pretending otherwise. Coach is sticking with his truth — that he wants to play the game with a group of people that he likes. Coach has grown since he last played. He now realizes that you have to meet others “where they are,” not where “you are.” Ozzy can still go all the way because he is such a dominant force, but he needs to “see the light” if he wants to have a shot at winning.

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Five episodes in, which of the remaining players has not lived up to your expectations in terms of what they would bring to the show, and which person has exceeded them?

I’d have to say that Rick is the biggest disappointment. Sure, he’s in the game and in an alliance but as a “star” on the show, which we really hoped he would be, he has not shown up. That’s just the way it goes.

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Sadly disappointed in the lack of Stache, myself.

Ozzy's problem this season is the same problem he's had in past seasons: he's stupid and puts way more emphasis on the physical aspect of the game.

He saw how Rob dominated last season and thought this would be a cake walk, so he hasn't put any effort into anything besides fishing and winning challenges. He apparently missed how Rob was constantly busting his ass trying to make sure that he was constantly talking with everyone and knew what they were thinking.

By the way, I could see Cochran becoming a dominant strategic player if he makes it to the merge.

I know they have done a similar challenge in the past... but this is the first time I recall this being sooooo gross... i had to look away at several times during that and it almost looked like they were puking into their buckets... and then... as a reward... YOU GET TO EAT ALL THIS!!!!!!!! so effing gross... but I loved it!

i'm not sure the vote for Dawn has the desired result... true, you can say you didn't vote for ozzie... but you also hid critical information from him that could have allowed him to save his girl and keep your alliance with him strong.

and now... that ozzie is a free agent... he probably regrets telling heath that he has the hidden idol... i doubt ozzie can figure out how to play the idol in a russel-esque fashion to catch others completely off guard even though they know its coming (ie wearing it and not playing it, giving it away, etc)

Besides the challenges and tribal (and even that has been minimal) have they shown Rick speak at all. Can't recall seeing much interaction with him at camp. He has got to be getting the least airtime of any survivor ever.

If he didn't have that stache, I wouldn't even know he was on the show. The country singer that ClarkKent is buddies with has also been a no-show so far until she decided to pop-up this week with her non-vote.