Survivor 34: "Game Changers" | RIP Dan Kay, Survivor: Gabon

[Dr. Pepper]

9 minutes ago, Kyoshi said:

The thing is before tribal, Varner says in one of his confessionals, that he knows something about Zeke he's going to reveal. I bet a producer asked what that thing was and Varner probably answered. I know that for me personally, that was the confessional in which I suspected that maybe everyone didn't know Zeke was trans. If the producers are any good, they at least suspected what was about to happen and they did nothing to discourage it. I know these people sign up for all kinds of crap, but I don't think anyone signs up to have their humanity questioned so callously. That's why I blame the show; they could have stopped all that and allowed a vote to happen, that way they wouldn't need to go/edit around the open vote.

I don't know, maybe I'm just naive enough to believe there's a certain line you don't cross, even with reality TV. The show, in that instance, should have prioritised Zeke's choice in coming out to his peers and a million other people who watch the show. But guess what, they've just now done the thing Zeke was trying to avoid, because my guess is no one is going to remember Zeke without remembering that tribal council.

We can't really know what would have happened if Zeke had requested this be edited out of the show.  He never asked that and it seems like he never even considered asking.  I think the show did the best they could with it and were as sensitive as they could be.  Their working with an organization like GLAAD says that they wanted to do this right.  It was a horrible thing that happened to Zeke but it's also very relevant and the lesson the audience has been privy to could save someone's life.  How many people didn't realize that it was a terrible and dangerous thing to out someone?  How many people are going to think twice before outing someone?  We may never know the numbers but if it's just a handful, that's better than before.  

I think Sarah's very inelegant response during the tribal council might mirror a huge portion of the audience's thoughts on this.  Mainly, that they'd never considered these things before because they'd never known a trans person before.  I'm sorry this happened to Zeke but I'm also thankful that he found he had the support to be a spokesperson for the community.

[Gertrude]

Honestly, I can't fault the show for this. They are an entertainment show and ratings are everything. The only time I fault the show is when they put people in avoidable situations where harm could be done. I fault them for things like blindfolding people and having them be guided through obstacles courses with objects set at crotch level, or above the head where it can fall on them. I fault them for creating fences that contestants will be running through at high speed that have jagged edges. I fault them for bringing back Brandon Hantz when I thought it was clear from the first time that he was on the brink of being unstable.

I see the Zeke situation differently. Zeke knew this was a possibility and decided he was ok with the risk. This is a situation created because a player decided it was fair game, the show didn't make Varner do that. I know the harm that could come to Zeke is every bit as real as a physical injury or mental break, but in the end, Zeke did put himself in that position.

You can dislike the choice the show made in airing it, but I think it would have been going way above and beyond what they were obligated to do to skip over it completely. I don't even know what they do to make sense of it as a story line if it's gone. That part you can fault Probst for - if he hadn't called off the vote, there was still a chance that they could Frankenstein something together, but we would all be wondering what we missed because of the raw emotion people were showing.

I could wish that shows that thrive on ratings would have a conscience, but that's not the world we live in. I find it hard to blame them specifically for this.

[Kyoshi]

I concede that my argument is flawed on several levels. And I'm willing to consider that hopefully, the episode did more good than harm in general and that to hush it all up would have, in a sense, been shadier by a mile.

[dbunting]

Ok double episode bonanza last night. One easy vote off and one blindside. I kinda like that Zeke took control of his story and he was the one who told the other tribe members after the merge, gave him some ownership / control back.

Little surprised by Debbie. Seem to be showing a new side to her that is worthy of being on game changers season, goes to show what editing can do to and for a person. One thing though, if you are a person who doesn't know how to whisper, DONT TRY!!!! Man she was likely heard a mile away! And ultimately her extra vote wasn't needed, but it announced to the tribe that she is a player.

Cirie, she said she was trying to save Mackayla but didn't vote to help her, so she wouldn't look bad, but who would have known? The votes are secret, not like you sign your name or anything?  She did get Zeke and them to look at Haley so I guess that's helping, and gave her the calm the F down talk. Cirie is definitely game changer worthy in her game play and strategy. I could see her throwing Makayla to the wolves later if needed! Her alliance took a hit with the Ozzy blindside though.

 

 

[Gronzag]

Debbie wasted a very powerful advantage for no other reason but to satisfy her ego by voting out a 'legendary' Survivor player. That is so Debbie. Zeke, on the other hand, is very arrogant. He seem to find pleasure in thinking that he is smarter than everybody else, and can't stop himself from talking down to other people.

[Gertrude]

To be honest, I'm having trouble figuring out who is actually with who a little bit. We've had so much focus on the big personalities that are now gone that the show really hasn't focused on the rest. Did you guys see Cirie's face when Ozzy was voted out? She looked stunned and maybe a little disgusted that she threw away her vote to spice things up.

And I don't think Debbie is showing anything new, really. She's always been a bit of a rogue agent in thinking she knew best for everyone. And I don't think getting Ozzy out is a horrible move - with him you do it when the opportunity arises because he's a beast. Yeah, in hindsight the vote was wasted, but Zeke and Cirie were off-message in their votes and it would have been a tie if they had all voted together. Debbie couldn't know for sure that they wouldn't pull together and go for one of her alliance, so I think it was a good play here.

[Gertrude]

4 hours ago, dbunting said:

Cirie, she said she was trying to save Mackayla but didn't vote to help her, so she wouldn't look bad, but who would have known? The votes are secret, not like you sign your name or anything? 

Eh, I bet they have a decent idea of what people's handwriting looks like. They've been switched up a few times so they can compare and narrow things down sometimes. She didn't want to hide her vote for Michaela so as to appear to not be working together. Notice that she used block lettering for her Sierra vote, which she did want to hide.

[dbunting]

Decent episode, not a shocking vote.

Culpepper, seemed like he was playing it smart, not picking his entire alliance for his team, if he truly did that. Unfortunately for him Debbie was a part of his alliance.

Mackayla, man, why the hell was she not picked to be on a team? Is she just that far out of the loop that even the group without the numbers doesn't want her? Watching her can be so frustrating because there are times where you see her charisma come out and you know she could win any popularity contest, but then her competitive / hate to lose or be slighted side comes out and you see she can't swallow her pride and take it. Even after Cirie talked to her last time she still couldn't keep her head in the game enough to not get angry and mouth off, then never saw the advantage right at her feet.

Sarah, finally getting to see a little more of her, a bit of a dark horse to win it all.

Debbie, adios

Cirie, not sure if I was on the cheering side for her or the, WTH were you thinking, you know you have to get in shape before coming on survivor! Glad to see Sarah was willing to do the course over again to try to help her and her team.

[Gertrude]

I think Cirie did actually get in better shape for the show. Some people just aren't athletic and will never be physical warriors. I can see Cirie not picking Michaela if she's still trying to show they are not closely aligned, but If you truly want to win that reward (instead of the game), you should have picked Michaela. Has she really had a chance to shine this season? She's been sidelined a lot because Malcolm took on the challenge beast role and I've been surprised we haven't seen her having the chance to step up.

I was a bit surprised by that vote. I saw Michaela eating her 'popcorn' at tribal and thought, oh, her side has it's shit together for her to be that confidant. Then I thought that Brad and Sierra felt safe and if anyone was going from their alliance, it should have been one of them, so doubted my first instinct. I loved seeing Debbie get blindsided. She has no subtlety, tact or self-awareness. She was interesting the first time around but I've been over her for a while now.

So, one idol and one extra vote has been used, right? We still have three idols, a legacy advantage and vote steal in place? Too much. Waaaay too much. I'd like to see a season where there are no idols, but replace them with those type of advantages - vote steal, extra votes, whatever the hell else they can think of. Maybe an idol you can't use for yourself like they had on One World (have to give it to opposite tribe).

Seems like everyone loves Sarah. Her and Troy wanted to work together earlier, right? And now they show Sierra and her, Aubry talking to Sarah, Sarah helping Cirie at the challenge (great moment), Sarah talking to just about everyone. Dark horse indeed.

[Scrambled Aegon]

Well that was a strong contender for the single most forgettable episode in the entire history of the show. I already don't think I can remember pretty much anything that went on because literally every single moment of every single scene was bland strategy talk, other than the ten seconds of football references in between one segment of bland strategy talk. At least Zeke's gone, I guess, but wow this was an all-time pointless and boring episode.

[Dr. Pepper]

There's not a single player worth rooting for now.  Maybe Cirie, just because she's done this so many times.  Perhaps Tai because he's just adorable.  All the others seem super boring.

[dbunting]

Sucked to see Zeke go but it was bound to happen sooner or later. Makayla's reaction was strange to say the least. She voted for him to leave so why cry like a baby? If not emotionally strong enough to make a choice maybe make a different choice?

Still seems like officer Sarah has been getting set up for a bigger role. I was surprised to see Tai's name, I guess he was the diversion vote. Likely see him being paranoid next week, hopefully not so paranoid he wastes a hidden idol.

[Joe Pesci]

Pretty dull episode, but I'm somewhat expecting to see Michaela pull the numbers flip next week. She made the obvious point about the advantage of being up 6-3 instead of 5-4 and only one person needs to flip to change who's on top, and it fell on deaf ears.

[Gertrude]

Pretty basic episode, but two things caught my interest. One just because it was funny - that being the convo between Troy and Tai about idols. I just liked that they were saying it would be nice if someone had one while hiding from the other that they had one.

The conversation between Sarah and Cirie seemed particularly significant and I'm not sure how it's gonna break. They were both being very deliberate with each other and picking words carefully. When Sarah told Cirie she wasn't concerned about Zeke and why, I became afraid for her. All Cirie would have heard from that was 'this move wouldn't be good for me and I don't care what's good for you'. Obviously they came to an agreement and Sarah shared her secret, but somehow it felt like a very, very weighty conversation to me and this will be where either Sarah wins or loses the game. Not sure why I feel that way about it, but I do.

The remaining players are not super dynamic, but they are not generally boring people either. We are left with a pretty cautious bunch - but cautious is not the same as boring. But yeah, it does seem there is no one to root for. My heart is with Cirie and of course I'm rooting for Sarah. She's a hometown girl. If she wins, then my city can boast two Survivor winners (Denise is from CR too)

Oh, I wanted to comment on Michaela's crying. I liked that, actually. In tribal, she talked about how you have to turn off your heart and make decisions. Andrea's reply was that you have to have a heart and make connections or you won't win. It was edited as almost a rebuke to Michaela. After hearing those comments and then seeing the vote and M's reaction, it showed us she does have heart and she is making connections. She's just choosing not to make decisions based on that. So while it is a little out of the blue, it is demonstrating M's character and personality. Compare this to the arrogance of 'tea with Michaela B' or her eating 'popcorn'. Both are true representations of her.

[dbunting]

29 minutes ago, Joe Pesci said:

Pretty dull episode, but I'm somewhat expecting to see Michaela pull the numbers flip next week. She made the obvious point about the advantage of being up 6-3 instead of 5-4 and only one person needs to flip to change who's on top, and it fell on deaf ears.

Yeah the next episode preview showed a bit of a conversation between her, Tai, Troyzan, Sarah and someone else. Talking about making the move together.

[Kyoshi]

I think the out-of-the-blue Michaela reaction is a result of poor editing. I somewhat get the sense that she and Zeke were closer than was ultimately portrayed. There was a moment when Zeke expressed a desire to take Michaela to Final 5; granted, that may be because he realised she was a potential goat in a final tribal council situation, but the moment was still there and he wasn't given the chance to elaborate. And I'm inclined to believe there was more to their relationship than what we were shown. They were both wild cards going into this; they must have, IMHO, bonded over that at some point.

The season started out really well for me but it quickly turned into a replay of Season 8 (All Stars). All the people I was interested in watching, with the exception of Cirie, Michaela and Andrea, were booted pre-merge. I doubt anyone will be foolish enough to let Cirie anywhere near final tribal council, and Andrea seems like a goner already, so I guess we've descended to a point where Sarah winning the season is the best possible outcome. My heart broke as I was writing that.

I blame the casting department because IMHO, they cast 5 genuine game-changers (Cirie, Sandra, JT, Ozzy and Tony) and filled it up with either Probst's favourites or people who answered the casting call. When they did this in Season 8, we got the lesser known players resenting the actual favourites; we had Jenna Lewis actually saying that people like Hatch and Tina had their chance and needed to move on, or something like that. The same thing is happening in Season 34, I believe.

And, the production team seems really desperate to have a season at the level of Heroes vs. Villains. At every turn Jeff is talking about how "this is Game Changers etc." Even the challenges are designed to remind the castaways that they're not on any ordinary season, no, they're on GAME CHANGERS! Ugh! Further, there are too many idols and advantages IMHO, and ridiculous twists (like the one that took out Malcolm and the one that subjected us to an entire 5 minutes of Chochran even though he's not even on the season). One of the reasons Heroes/Villains worked so well is that with the exception of Danielle and Candice, the show brought back characters and players we'd previously genuinely enjoyed watching. So even though the Boston Robs of the world and the Ciries were voted out pre-merge, we still had players and characters like Sandra and Russell to enjoy. Second Chance was another all-returnee season that worked well because, again, with the exception of people like Spencer and Stephen, everyone came in with something to prove; it was like a reverse of Heroes/Villains but it worked because although the players weren't necessarily our favourites (IMHO), they were all at the same level. And we kind of had the extra investment of having voted them in. In Season 34, however, we have two players (Brad and Troy) that the audience rejected from the Second Chance ballot. Ugh!

Sorry for the rant. This is the only place I can do that.

[Gertrude]

I agree, the casting was very uneven. I was scratching my head at some of the choices and while I believe that most of them were probably slated for a second chance, something about this mix was wrong. Game Changers was the wrong angle for this cast when half of them are just people they wanted to cast again.

I said this earlier, but I think that having the big personalities go so early was detrimental to the editing. They had to invest camera time in them, otherwise people would be upset. That and they are hugely entertaining - hard not to follow them. However, that left them little time to develop anyone else and we are left with no one to really root for.

[ugh already]

Pretty obvious that Sarah will be sitting at the end and probably win.  There's no other reason someone so boring in confessionals should get so many of them.  Brad and Cirie appear to be the other serious contenders and no way anyone lets Cirie at FTC.

[dbunting]

Yeah, I think they had a bright idea to bring back people they considered game changers, and then realized they aren't enough true game changers to fill a cast. So they added in people who were close to being voted in and a couple big personalities from the recent season(Micheala / Zeke).

Personally I think Sarah is looking like the winner. As of now I don't think there is anyone I hope doesn't win it, if that makes sense. I still root for Tai but I don't think he is intelligent enough to win it. He seems to fall short in seeing strategy and every time he tries to make a move it backfires in his face. To me his best move is to sit back and use his idols when needed and then hope people like him more than whoever else makes final 3.

[Gertrude]

Hmm, who do I not want to win? I'd be most disappointed with Culpepper, honestly. He has done nothing over two seasons to make me like him. The most he's done this season is bring my initial impression back up to neutral. I'd love an Aubrey win, but she's more invisible than Troyzan. So yeah, no one I'm really rooting against ... just no one to really root for.

Mainly I'm rooting for people I already liked coming into the season. they are setting up Sarah, and we're seeing reasons for Cirie, even though it doesn't seem as probable. Someone mentioned earlier that Culpepper looked the most likely to go far of that alliance - I disagree, I think Sierra looks better, but not by much. I think it's very probable that Michaela goes far as the goat/least threatening and she can rack up a few challenge wins to boot.

I'm very interested to see how all the advantages and idols play out because they are stacked with the smaller alliance right now, but none of them really seem to be getting air time so it seems like they aren't going to be relevant. *shrugs* Too many. I'd rather see them have time limits to be played earlier in the game. Right now it could come down to rock/paper/scissors rather than game-play, and that's boring.