Sunday, March 08, 2009
Survivor: Tocantins - 1804
This week saw the fleshing out of a quite impressive four-way, cross-tribe alliance. Taj and Brendan for the most part worked out the details with Stephen and Sierra to bring them in and this can play out well. As Nick pointed out in the comments from last week, they need to hide this alliance. The preview for next time hints that they might not be totally discreet as to who they are allying with.
In the irony category, I find it sweet that Jalapao is very concerned with how Exile Island is wearing on Taj, while she actually is delighted to be going there and setting up her alliance. I also think that Brendan and Taj's plan to bring in the other members of the alliance to send to Exile sometimes is a master stroke. Of course Brendan forgot a key part of that setup. He had to talk to Sierra and tell her to pick Stephen/Taj otherwise it could go off the rails. It's good that worked out for the best for them.
Reward Challenge
This challenge was a repeat but always very enjoyable. Probst was bringing up Rupert who had the record for the most weight but the one I really remember was Savage. You expect Rupert to do well since he was a mountain of a man, Savage really pulled more than his weight. This week was exciting since it looked like Timbira was out of it then bang-bang and Joe dropped out from nowhere. Then it turned right around and Timbira grabbed the victory.
I think with these challenges it's best to spread the weight around initially maybe putting it on the guys first. Someone really needs to do a careful study of the optimal strategy, but it is somewhat hard because it will also come down to how much you think they can handle. Who would have thought that Osten couldn't handle that much in Panama.
The reward from this also involved raiding the other tribe's camp. It was clear that they had to take the beans (fartin' beans) but what a great idea to leave half of them. I wasn't even thinking about the potential switch-up but purely from a goodwill standpoint you don't want to be on the hook for starving out the other tribe. You know they're not catching fish either. That was well played. Sandy's description of leaving the other tribe with beans is like leaving your enemy with guns is way off base. At this point Jalapao needs to win as many as possible but the other people aren't their enemies, they just a separate tribe who will eventually merge in.
Immunity Challenge
Look a challenge that involves knot untying. That has to be on the Survivor drinking game. This one was pretty good, but with these word puzzles it's harder for the viewer to decide how one team is doing relative to the other. Either team could have solved at any time and we wouldn't have really known the difference ahead of time. I was glad that Timbira won because it's good to keep the tribes relatively even. It also gives the producers more options
Strategy Analysis
This week's vote was pretty much a no-brainer. Sandy was not a great asset and seemed like she was annoying the tribe most of the time. To spice things up a bit they threw in the Sydney flirt wildcard. By flirting she is going to help her cause with the guys but does risk alienating certain people. We saw that at tribal when Taj seemed to not really enjoy Sydney's flirting much. Think about that for the votes at the end. Also Sydney's proclamation that she like the sneakiness of it was interesting. For her sake I'm going to assume that got cut into the show from some other conversation and she didn't say that just before Tribal. Sydney is gorgeous by the way. She is right up there in the best-looking Survivors ever.
My Prediction
Sandy. I'm getting on the board this week and not falling for any fake dispute. A vote for Joe? Must have been that Taj said she wouldn't vote for Sandy. We didn't really see any reasoning to explain that one.
Season total: 1-3 (.250)
Spell Check
Right: 6
Wrong: 0
Other: 1 (Mama K)
Season total: 20-8-2 (.714)
Quick hit thoughts
In the irony category, I find it sweet that Jalapao is very concerned with how Exile Island is wearing on Taj, while she actually is delighted to be going there and setting up her alliance. I also think that Brendan and Taj's plan to bring in the other members of the alliance to send to Exile sometimes is a master stroke. Of course Brendan forgot a key part of that setup. He had to talk to Sierra and tell her to pick Stephen/Taj otherwise it could go off the rails. It's good that worked out for the best for them.
Reward Challenge
This challenge was a repeat but always very enjoyable. Probst was bringing up Rupert who had the record for the most weight but the one I really remember was Savage. You expect Rupert to do well since he was a mountain of a man, Savage really pulled more than his weight. This week was exciting since it looked like Timbira was out of it then bang-bang and Joe dropped out from nowhere. Then it turned right around and Timbira grabbed the victory.
I think with these challenges it's best to spread the weight around initially maybe putting it on the guys first. Someone really needs to do a careful study of the optimal strategy, but it is somewhat hard because it will also come down to how much you think they can handle. Who would have thought that Osten couldn't handle that much in Panama.
The reward from this also involved raiding the other tribe's camp. It was clear that they had to take the beans (fartin' beans) but what a great idea to leave half of them. I wasn't even thinking about the potential switch-up but purely from a goodwill standpoint you don't want to be on the hook for starving out the other tribe. You know they're not catching fish either. That was well played. Sandy's description of leaving the other tribe with beans is like leaving your enemy with guns is way off base. At this point Jalapao needs to win as many as possible but the other people aren't their enemies, they just a separate tribe who will eventually merge in.
Immunity Challenge
Look a challenge that involves knot untying. That has to be on the Survivor drinking game. This one was pretty good, but with these word puzzles it's harder for the viewer to decide how one team is doing relative to the other. Either team could have solved at any time and we wouldn't have really known the difference ahead of time. I was glad that Timbira won because it's good to keep the tribes relatively even. It also gives the producers more options
Strategy Analysis
This week's vote was pretty much a no-brainer. Sandy was not a great asset and seemed like she was annoying the tribe most of the time. To spice things up a bit they threw in the Sydney flirt wildcard. By flirting she is going to help her cause with the guys but does risk alienating certain people. We saw that at tribal when Taj seemed to not really enjoy Sydney's flirting much. Think about that for the votes at the end. Also Sydney's proclamation that she like the sneakiness of it was interesting. For her sake I'm going to assume that got cut into the show from some other conversation and she didn't say that just before Tribal. Sydney is gorgeous by the way. She is right up there in the best-looking Survivors ever.
My Prediction
Sandy. I'm getting on the board this week and not falling for any fake dispute. A vote for Joe? Must have been that Taj said she wouldn't vote for Sandy. We didn't really see any reasoning to explain that one.
Season total: 1-3 (.250)
Spell Check
Right: 6
Wrong: 0
Other: 1 (Mama K)
Season total: 20-8-2 (.714)
Quick hit thoughts
- If Coach is so much fitter than Brendan why wasn't he in the Reward challenge?
- Stephen looked especially goofy when he was running. That can't just be because he's a Jewish city boy
- The immunity challenge would have been made much better by a huge collision on the course
- How is Coach so sure that no one else has been in the wild or could survive without him?
- Tyson's loincloth was very funny but not inoffensive.
- Erinn is not long for this game, she doesn't seem to make an effort to connect with anyone
Labels: crazy, disaster averted, Tocantins
# posted by Andy Hejl @ 3:14 PM 
Comments:
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- As a philosophical point, what makes a leader? The willingness to say, "I want to be the leader," or the ability to make people want to follow you? Because if it's the former, then Coach should be the leader, and if it's the latter, then perhaps Brendan should be the leader.
- I have taken an intense dislike to Coach. He's arrogant. Petulant. Massages Brendan at weird times. Claims that he's a true outdoorsman. Thinks he's really in shape despite not performing well in the challenges (remember how he quit in the basketball challenge?). Even worse - he's a soccer coach. What a douche.
- Stephen is a goofy looking runner. I know a few athletic Jewish kids from the city, so he really has no excuse.
- Potential quote of the season: "You had better be pullin' off some panties or something!" Thank you, Sandy.
- In the immunity challenge, did Stephen almost steal the winning phrase? When I am on Survivor, please remind me that EVERY winning phrase has something to do with tribe name and/or immunity.
- OK, quick strategy question for Sierra. Now that she's been to Exile, shouldn't she go dig up the no-longer valid idol hidden at the beach and then pretend that it's the real idol? That could certainly fool some people.
- When Taj read the latest clue to the hidden idol, she acted like she already suspected that it was in Treemail. If so, why hadn't she started looking for it earlier?
- This season has been pretty evenly matched - I like that b/c it means the producers won't have to throw too many mix-up the tribe wrinkles into things...
- I have taken an intense dislike to Coach. He's arrogant. Petulant. Massages Brendan at weird times. Claims that he's a true outdoorsman. Thinks he's really in shape despite not performing well in the challenges (remember how he quit in the basketball challenge?). Even worse - he's a soccer coach. What a douche.
- Stephen is a goofy looking runner. I know a few athletic Jewish kids from the city, so he really has no excuse.
- Potential quote of the season: "You had better be pullin' off some panties or something!" Thank you, Sandy.
- In the immunity challenge, did Stephen almost steal the winning phrase? When I am on Survivor, please remind me that EVERY winning phrase has something to do with tribe name and/or immunity.
- OK, quick strategy question for Sierra. Now that she's been to Exile, shouldn't she go dig up the no-longer valid idol hidden at the beach and then pretend that it's the real idol? That could certainly fool some people.
- When Taj read the latest clue to the hidden idol, she acted like she already suspected that it was in Treemail. If so, why hadn't she started looking for it earlier?
- This season has been pretty evenly matched - I like that b/c it means the producers won't have to throw too many mix-up the tribe wrinkles into things...
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