Could Nick have played the challenge disadvantage against himself? A disadvantage against a single enemy player in an immunity challenge has little chance of changing the outcome. But if he had played it against himself, this could have caused cracks in opposing alliances, because people might have wondered why their allies weren’t admitting that they…

Even after he’d lost (and gotten injured), Boston Rob continued the grueling fire token challenge until he finished. He said he loved the game of Survivor too much to quit. I believe he was being sincere, since he’s used Survivor to define his personality so much. I think this also helped his overall game because…

When Tony talked about the extortion advantage, he said “of course” he couldn’t extort anyone in real life as a policeman, but it “looks like fun”. This made me wonder if an attorney could someday use that line against him. If someone arrested by Tony alleges that Tony tried to extort money from him, could…

I was struck by the conversation between Ethan and Rob about the boat approaching EoE. Rob said “I hope it’s something good,” but Ethan countered that it was going to be something bad, because it was “never” good on EoE. This reminded me of something I read recently about James Stockdale, a prisoner of war…

Sarah gave her reward challenge prize to Nick, allowing him to partake in a Chinese feast. She said this was merely a birthday gift and not an attempt to earn Nick’s help in future gameplay. In the world outside Survivor, that probably would have been fine, but since Survivor is an artificial game with its…

Jeff asked Boston Rob if it was romantic to be back on an island with his wife, since they’d met on an island during Survivor many years before. Rob didn’t roll with Jeff, though. He said no, it wasn’t romantic at all. He said EoE was maybe the worst place he’d ever been, and he…

Under semi-quarantine in New York City due to Covid-19, I’ve gained more sympathy for the players on Edge of Extinction. I was struck when Ethan talked about how it was hard to find motivation in a place where he had so few options. He asked Parvati: “How to exist in this in-between world?” That’s a…

This week Survivor announced it was postponing filming Seasons 41 and 42 because of the latest coronavirus (a.k.a. SARS-CoV-2). Of course, that’s a trivial matter, considering how seriously this illness is affecting the world. I’m just getting the ball rolling on this blog entry. The philosopher Albert Camus wrote in his novel The Plague: “Everybody…

Michele and Wendell dated outside the game and apparently broke up badly. They talk about the strangeness of being together inside the game now, but they chose to play this season knowing that the other one would be there. This isn’t like an episode of “This Is Your Life” where random people from your past…

Was Sophie in a Scared Straight program? She said she went on a field trip to a prison when she was a kid, which reminds me of programs that take kids to prisons in order to scare them into being law-abiding citizens. I thought those programs were only for kids who were already having run-ins…

When Ethan went to Edge of Extinction, he said that he would do well there because he had already been to the literal edge of extinction with cancer. However, this makes me think of what Tyson said about Tony and the shark: “The key to a shark fight is to get the shark on land.”…

In an interview, Ben says he’s teaching people how to find immunity idols. You do realize, Ben, that when you talk to the interviewers, you’re talking to the people who hide the immunity idols? Does Ben think immunity idols are like fruit or gold? That they’re just sitting out in the Fijian wilderness whether Survivor…

And so we begin. Out of the gate, maybe the most interesting factor this season is how many players were young and single when they first played, but now are middle-aged parents. How much will this impact their gameplay? Will they use more parental ways of bonding than their former flirtatious deviousness? Will they still…

This season’s theme is “Winners at War”. Each of the 20 players is going to be a winner from a previous season. The expectation is that this will significantly increase the quality of play. Without any naïve players, or people only chosen by the producers in order to cause drama, every episode will be about…

Instead of writing this entry about the final episode, I’d like to write about the sexual harassment charges that developed around Dan this season. There are many fans who hated this season because of all the emotional difficulties about whether Dan was dealt with appropriately. Watching Dan made these viewers uncomfortable and they didn’t like…

On Island of the Idols, one of the lessons from Sandra and Boston Rob was about storytelling. Thriving on Survivor often depends on being able to tell convincing stories to explain behavior. (This is as true for the show’s editors as it is for the players.) One reason that telling convincing stories is so important…

Noura said her tribe was not going to find an idol by “digging” or “making it so hard”. Instead “it’s going to be literally like a gift”. Then she made a sound like a heavenly benediction “ah-ahhh”. This probably sounded somewhat ridiculous to most viewers, because players are almost never simply bestowed immunity idols as…

This week, Noura tried to continue enduring the immunity challenge past the point of winning, so her tribe could have more time to eat the food reward for sitting out. Jeff told her that wasn’t allowed, but I thought he should have let her do it because it was a great idea. Survivor should never…

One of the great frustrations in life is dealing with unstable people. Part of the reason for this might be contained in the very description “unstable”. If we have achieved some equilibrium in our own lives, dealing with an unstable person threatens that equilibrium. It causes psychological nausea. Of course, it’s probably good to shake…

Janet’s decision to hurt her own gameplay to help Missy and Elizabeth touches on a theme that I’ve explored many times in this blog: Is there a difference between ethics inside the game and outside the game? This issue has probably never been explored as much on Survivor as this season. Poor Sandra and Boston…