So I just watched the last 5 minutes when the winner was announced. Is there a reason Probst was soliciting applications from 16 and 17 year olds?
Please tell me next season isn’t Survivor:CW Edition. I might have to mainline bleach to get through it.
Finally saw the finale.
It was a really, really good finale. So even though I didn’t enjoy this season overall, the finale made up for it a little bit. First of all, kudos again to the editors, the way they put together the music and the editing for those immunity challenges and the emotional moments at Tribal council, and the various interviews in this episode, it was all masterful. For example, when they were throwing those sand bags towards the targets, I loved how they kept faking us out with the music multiple times as if this bag is going to be the one that lands, based on the musical cue, only to then extend that music out when the bag misses. Or the way they edited the final immunity challenge with the balls by mixing in their shots from a second unit filming of the track changing over so the next ball comes out the other side, combined with a rhythmic music that the edits on the screen were synced to. So good, you guys.
Anyway, enough about the editing.
One of the reasons this season was so unsatisfying to me is that there didn’t seem to be any alliances. Everything was fluid, with lots of whisperings at Tribal and viewers being in the dark as to what was happening. So come this last episode, they fixed that. It turns there was a big alliance! There was an alliance of 4 all along who got to the final 6. I wonder if they purposely edited the show in previous episodes to not emphasize that alliance? If so, I feel like it was a big misstep. I would have enjoyed this season a lot more if it had the traditional structure of an alliance of 4 like this and the underdogs who were trying to get in and find a crack. That structure was in place in this final episode, which is why it was so much more interesting. Natalie comes back from the Edge thanks to being there the longest and accumulating the most tokens, as per the structure of the show runners. But then her and Michelle really did a great job in decimating the 4 person alliance.
I was rooting for Michelle since she was the only person left from the people I enjoyed on this show looking to stay in as underdogs. But I feel like the main mistake her and Natalie made was to vote out Denise in that tribal council where they burned the two idols. I really feel like they should have split the votes and let Denise and Sarah fight it out over fire. I think a Denise win there would have been much better for them. Either Sarah or Tony getting to the end seemed like a losing proposition for those two underdogs. If they’d managed to keep Denise in, and then get Tony out by the end, then either Denise or Ben at the end would have made a less dangerous opponent in the final vote.
Even so, it was disappointing to see Michelle not even get a single vote. She was a team player, working with whatever she had, whether it was with Jeremy or with other underdog players, always fighting to stay alive. I feel like that type of scrambling player doesn’t get enough respect anymore. Still, I’m fine with Tony as the winner. I much prefer him to Natalie, who got there due more to the structure of the game and how Extinction was setup this season to favor the player who’d been there the longest.
Overall a good season, thanks to that excellent finale. I really, really liked how they finally acknowledged the bias against female players, and Jeff’s mia culpa was really good to hear. I used to read a lot of recaps of Survivor on the website TelevisionWithoutPity back in the day, and most of the recappers and forum contributors were women, and they were constantly pointing out how women were getting shafted in various ways, and how Jeff was being dismissive, and when he used their last names or first names, and how his attitude was so biased towards male players. And seeing it pointed out so often there, it was hard for me to not see it. So to finally have that acknowledged here in this episode felt really good. Hopefully we’ll see less of that going forward now.
Love hearing your take! And I 100% agree about Michelle. I was really surprised and disappointed that she didn’t get a single vote. Playing from a position of “the bottom” for the whole game and making it to the end ain’t easy. Natalie being there was due solely to the way Extinction is set up – and not that she didn’t win “challenges” or find things over on Extinction, but she’d been there the longest, she knew the place the best, and that benefited her a lot in those respects too. It’s not her fault, I mean she was just playing the hand she was dealt – and she was a tough competitor there at the end when she WAS in the game, so who knows what would’ve happened if she’d been there all along? – but at the same time, it’s just not the same.
Wasn’t at all surprised that Tony won, I think he clearly played the best game of the 3, but Michelle didn’t get enough love at all.
I think players earning their way back from extinction should get immunity in their next tribal council. That way, it gives them leverage to work back into the mix.
I think the edge is fine in the event an entertaining player gets voted out early so they get more screen time. In seasons where some favorites get the boot right away (Like this one!) the edge is handy.
Maybe only have the edge for seasons when some of the players are returnees but not for all newbie seasons.
However, they really need to have the last return be at 8-12 players. Letting players come back in at final five means someone can get to the end by only playing survivor proper for a few days, like Natalie. Props that she was so awesome on the edge, but that is a super uninteresting path to me. Not having to navigate shifting alliances and votes for 30+ days does not a survivor make, for me at least. Just have them come back earlier so some gameplay has to happen.
While I think there are far too many tricks and whackiness in Survivor these days that makes luck far too much of a player, I don’t mind EoE. I do think they need to bring them back a little earlier to give them a chance to do more. And I like the immunity being automatic for the first vote back just to give them a chance.
What I might do is have two larger tribes each play for a few weeks and each vote off players and for those voted off to become a tribe of their own then all three teams start playing the game like normal. Maybe not have the teams even know there is a second team until they run into the third team of those voted out.
Yeah, I have had this same thought a lot. I’m fine with the mechanic, but bringing someone back at Final 5 just feels unbalanced. And being able to buy SO MANY ADVANTAGES with the fire tokens…no way Natalie wins that challenge without ALL THREE ADVANTAGES. Wendell almost beat her, just by being a better player. I can stomach buying an advantage, buying the peanut butter, even an idol, but 3 advantages for that one challenge just felt broken.
I kind of expected that’s how it work. I love that idea.
I don’t know of the producers expected somebody to be able to accumulate that many fire tokens and buy that many advantages. But it is in keeping with how Survivor has evolved. Immunity idols and advantages galore! There is just too many of them.
I mean they probably didn’t exactly expect that, but the had the mechanics in place for all 3 of them, and didn’t have a limit in place (she could only buy one idol for herself, so I mean – they COULD have limited the advantages to 1 or 2 as well.) And while I fully acknowledge that she had to work to get those fire tokens…I dunno. Felt like overkill to me.
Admittedly, I’m not exactly a fan of hers – would’ve much rather seen Wendell come back in, and I think he would’ve won that challenge if she had been down even one advantage. To some degree, that’s the point of the advantages, but I’m not sure they didn’t go too far on that one.
I get that producers have to keep changing things up to keep seasons interesting, and it’s very much an evolving game, so maybe it’s something they’ll learn from for future seasons. And that’s fine. Just feels like there was so much at stake this season to have that one aspect so off-kilter.
But ultimately she didn’t win, so I guess it doesn’t matter all that much.
I’d been looking forward to Winners at War for at least a year now as I worked slowly through the whole show in order, starting with season one back in 2019. I’m really glad I managed to make it to this season without having any of it spoiled!
But I was disappointed with this season overall. I haven’t bothered ranking them as I go, I’m sure this is at least in the top half or better of overall seasons, but I may have let my expectations get too high.
There were a lot of great contestants I was glad to see back, but just picking winners really highlighted how different the level of play can be from season to season because this was not an even playing field. I think playing more than one season is a big advantage over players who only played and won a single season. I think Michele, Nick, Adam, and maybe Amber and Ethan were all pretty clearly lower tier players in this lineup. I say maybe for Amber and Ethan because they were both voted out so early–and both by association with Rob–it’s unclear how they would’ve fared if they’d gotten to play more.
I’m really surprised to see all the support here for Michele too. She never recovered from being part of the losing alliance when Yul was voted out, and being the last of the losing group left standing isn’t to her credit. She was just never really a threat. Credit to her for winning a clutch immunity challenge, but that’s not nearly enough for a win. I also sort of soured on her because of the weird mid-season dynamic with her and Wendell. I think Wendell came out of that looking much worse–more petulant–but it just felt icky having this weird personal drama from outside of the show suddenly play a role. It felt like it sucked the energy out of an episode or two.
Edge of Extinction sucks and it should go away, or as someone else suggested, maybe just let one person back at the mid-point and then go away. It’s a big advantage to build a relationship with the jury, and not at all satisfying to have someone dropped back into the game at the last minute who basically bypassed the social game for a big chunk of the season. Boo to that.
And boo to the winner. There were no total jerks in this game (no Hantz relatives, no one I just couldn’t stand at a personal level, although Parvati and Adam come close), but there were a lot of “good villains” who ideally make the game entertaining right up until the end and then lose to someone I’m rooting for. Unfortunately, the villain won this round. Tony was dominant for the entire game–I don’t know if that’s because he was getting the “hero edit” or if it’s because he just was that good, but it had been so obvious to me for at least half the season that there wasn’t likely going to be anyone who could beat him if he made it to the jury vote. I’m glad Rob, Sandra, and Parvati didn’t make it far, but Tony was the other one I really hoped would get taken out when someone realized what a threat he obviously was, but Sarah and Ben were so solid with him it never happened. Sarah I understand, she really did have a bond with Tony that I can appreciate, but Ben should’ve realized much earlier that even if the three of them make it to the jury, he’s the weakest choice, and that’s assuming Sarah and Tony don’t cut him out of their alliance sooner–where he also should’ve seen Sarah and Tony’s bond was stronger than what he had with them.
So it sure looked to me like Tony played a great game and deserved the win, and of course he was entertaining, but I wish Sarah had won that fire challenge, or Tony had slipped up on some of those immunity wins, or something.
Appropos of nothing really related to how this actually season played out, here are the players I really respect or enjoy who I was rooting for from the start, regardless of how quickly they were eliminated:
Ethan - I doubt he ever had it in him for the modern Survivor social game, it probably would’ve taken a weak overall season for things to shake out with him as the winner, but he was very likable.
Tyson - in his first season he was a little too abrasive but I came to really enjoy his antics and sense of humor, he’s just barely on the “hero” side of the hero-villain spectrum for me, and clearly a talented player.
Yul - probably forever my favorite Survivor contestant.
Sophie - A good example of how some players who only had one previous season were still worthy opponents. She mostly had an under-the-radar strategy that felt like a real strategy, not a thing people say at the end of the game when they realize they’re the easy opponent that got carried to the end.
Denise - A really good, really likable player.
Sarah - a lot of respect for everything about her game.
Natalie - a beast of an athelete, and pretty savy too.