Survivor All Season Retrospective Part the Ninth: Marquesas

(The opinions expressed in the following are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else, although in some cases they should be and probably are)

Survivor Marquesas was another season I had a hard time sitting through.

I don’t really even know why, I just wasn’t excited for anything. Which is odd; because I enjoy a lot of the contestants, some of the challenges are good and the game play is fairly solid.  

Here are the thoughts I have looking back on this season I no real order:

-Vecepia is not a good winner. She did not win, Neleh lost.
-I feel bad for Neleh, she played fairly well, but sort of lost out to a bitter jury. Not In the same way Russell Hantz did in Samoa (we’ll get to that), but she never really did anything wrong, she just had no way to convince to Rotu 4 that she deserved to win, because those 4 couldn’t handle losing to her. Sucks for her. Oh my heck, want my mint?
-Kathy got robbed. This season like many others of this era had the one person who deserved to win the most come in third.
-That purple rock is a bitch. Sucks they screwed the pooch here and actually ruined Survivor by making everyone scared of final 4 ties. They should always make the tie breaker rules known to the players ahead of time.
-Sean was the center of some of the best moments. The trip with Paschal and his voting confession when John is eliminated and stuff of Survivor Legend
-John was doing well but let mid-game success cloud his mind.
-I have to give Rob credit for trying. The guy was in a no win situation after that tribe swap. Kind of like Silas. I can’t fault the guy, pure dumb luck. (Although the fact Gabe was voted out and not him kind of balances that out)
-I really wish Rotu lost the last tribal immunity challenge, Gina deserved to go farther.
-That being said, I love the scene where John considers throwing it and Tammy tells him no.

That’s about it… The season wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t all that good. It was consistently average viewing.

End season wrap up stuff go!
Best Player of the Season: Kathy (fought from the bottom of her tribe, to the biggest momentum shift in history at this point and crafted her way into being the swing vote at final 5)
Best Jury Member Question/Speech:
Best Episode: 8
Worst Episode: No episode is really bad.
Best Challenge: No challenge really stands out as amazing
If I were on the Jury, who would I have voted for (based solely on their final tribal performance): Neleh
Person I most grew a new appreciation for: Neleh

Up next is Thailand, which I love but no one else seems too. 

Survivor All Season Retrospective Part the Eighth: Africa Post Merge

(The opinions expressed in the following are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else, although in some cases they should be and probably are)

The first few episodes of the Africa post merge are awesome episodes of Survivor. Despite the fact what should have been the most dramatic 5-4 vote in history was ruined by the editors (WHY DID THEY SHOW BRANDON'S VOTE?!?!) these 3 episodes are perfect.

I could go into detail, but the truth is given the shit that followed I just don't want to. We got 9 great episode of survivor and then the season took a nose dive. The remained sucks so much it makes me hate all of it and not want to talk about it. This sort of shit is just boring. Like for fuck's sake. I'm not that impatient of a person, but I cannot force myself to sit through the end of Survivor Africa. It's just not happening. This may seem like I'm quitting, and well I am. I'm just jumping ahead to Marquesas.

End season wrap up stuff go!
Best Player of the Season: Ethan (beautifully positioned himself as the #3 so he got ahead and took no heat whatsoever)
Best Jury Member Question/Speech:
Best Episode: Either 5 or 8
Worst Episode: 10-13 take your fucking pick (just like Australia)
Best Challenge: The boulder push reward challenge
If I were on the Jury, who would I have voted for (based solely on their final tribal performance): Ethan
Person I most grew a new appreciation for: Silas

Survivor All Season Retrospective Part the Se7enth: Africa Pre-Merge

(The opinions expressed in the following are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else, although in some cases they should be and probably are)

With the computer problems that were preventing me from posting solved, lets get back into the swing of things.

The premerge of Survivor Africa is AWESOME. The first 3 episodes of post merge of Survivor Africa are also AWESOME. The rest of Survivor Africa ? We’ll get there.

Now I never saw Survivor Africa when it was on. I may have mentioned this, but to refresh your memory, I didn’t start watching weekly until Pearl Islands. I did however watch this season one episode per day at like 1 pm when I was in 11^th grade. See my high school was under construction so the space was limited, therefore 11^th and 12^th grade students went to school from 8am to 1240 pm. It was pretty cool. I would get home, and watch Survivor Africa on… some retro station and have lunch. It was a pretty sweet deal all things considered. And since it was an episode a day (with the finale split into 2 parts) the whole thing took about 3 weeks. (This network showed all of Africa, Marquesas and Thailand, but when Thailand ended it jumped to Palau, which I had already seen so I didn’t bother watching, although I did notice that they never got all the way through the Triumph of Westman so… yeah, funny tangent?)

As I said, pre merge, this season is great. Boran is an awesome tribe full of colourful and amazing personalities. Lex, Tom, Kelly, Ethan, Clarence? All whacky and awesome people, throw in the ‘straight’ person in the form of Mama Kim? And we have a winner. Best tribe to watch on TV outside of the context of Survivor thus far. Love them. Well after 2 episodes anyway. See, early Boran was tense. When they were losing, it sucked because everyone was either fighting or dying. Fortunately, peace was made for the purposes of trying to win and the corpses named Diane and Jessie were removed. Love this tribe.

Samburu on the other hand? An amazing to watch train wreck split right down the middle. They were also awesome television.

Unpopular opinion: Silas Gaither is awesome.  LOVE me some Silas. Why? The dude was an amazing Survivor Villain. He was such a cocky dick, and got exactly what he had coming to him, and took it right on the chin and gave props to the victors. The dude flat out got fucked by the tribe swap. He had the game by the balls and bad luck screwed him. He was the first, and would not be the last to have his game ruined by a tribe swap. It happens, and some people just can’t overcome the position that they are thrust into by chance. I will say, if Silas had bitched, I probably wouldn’t be praising him. I would not disagree, but the fact he took it like a man and praised the game in his exit interview shows that he got it, and I, as a fan appreciate that. Some people take it too seriously, and take losing way too hard.

Popular opinion: Lindsey was difficult to tolerate. As was Linda. And also Carl. Need I say more? Generic pre merge boots. Bitchy, bad at challenges, no one liked him.

Overall, this is 6 great episodes of Survivor. Really good stuff. What follows might possibly be even better. 

Survivor All Season Retrospective Part the Sixth: The Rest of Australia

It saddens me that for the second time in a row I have to begin a post this way. I would like to send my condolences to Tina Wesson, Katie Collins and their family. Their son and brother passes away in a fatal car accident recently. I am very sorry for your loss.

(The opinions expressed in the following are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else, although in some cases they should be and probably are)

Its amazing how often it seems people don’t start acting intelligently when it counts, only after the point it would matter do they start actually using their brain. Only on day 22, after the point where Jeff was out and Club Kucha had for all intents a purposes lost the game did Elisabeth realize ‘Okagor hates Jerri, lets vote for her’. Don’t get me wrong, feisty, desperate Elisabeth played hard, and that’s what I like to see. That said, it’s a little upsetting that she only started playing his hard after it was too late. Her attempts weren’t successful for the time being, and Alicia eventually bit the dust.  Before that however, Jerri won a reward and did the dumbest possible thing and took Amber (she voiced her reason well though; claiming to be choosing the runner up, which is always the best policy when choosing who to take on a reward.) This gave Colby Keith and Tina a taste of camp life without them, and (not so shockingly) they enjoyed it. Not enough to be stupid and vote Jerri out when doing so would cost them the numbers, but enough to make them at least consider getting rid of Jerri before Elisabeth and Rodger at the very least.

See this was when Survivor Australia became boring. Who was going to win? One of Colby Keith and Tina. We knew this, there was no way any other outcome was possible given what would occur. Alicia getting voted out was obvious, she was seen as a huge threat and there was no way CKT was about to throw away their numbers edge. Elisabeth’s pushing to have Jerri eliminated did work however, and the biggest female heel in Survivor history was gone.

And truth be told, I missed her. She was awesome TV. Everyone starving and trading the tarps for rice? BORRRRRINNGGGGGG. See at that point the game had stopped and everyone was running on fumes. Everyone did what was simplest and strategy was lost. No one had the energy to plot. If this game had taken place in the Cook Islands, Keith or Tina would have been voted out at 7. Had Rupert been feeding them, Elisabeth and Rodger, 2 unassuming yet conniving players would have smacked some life into nick and tried to pull Amber in. But as it stood, they were hungry and had no energy to do so. As a result when F7 vote came around, they vote for Amber, thinking CKT would be with them again. They were not, seeing as how they went back to what worked without much effort, Pagonging Kucha. Nick was the least liked and therefore voted out.

Then the flood. Great TV, but boring Survivor gameplay. Notice the distinction. See, this was compelling to watch. The first time. Every other time? It’s like watching The Perfect Storm. You know what happens and therefore it is no longer interesting.  (also I think I just said Keith Faime was like Mark Whalberg… Let that sink in.) The other notable detail of this episode? Colby goes on a reward. He keeps his head in game mode. And he also eats a lot of food (in a rather comedic manner I might add). After a boring as shit immunity challenge (I HATE the you have 3 plates, break other peoples plates challenge. It sucks) we have a rather interesting vote. See when the flood hit, everyone needed to come together. It wasn't an individual game anymore. The 5 who didn't go on the reward needed to sleep in a cuddle puddle in order to even attempt warmth. That shit, while boring as fuck to watch on tv, lead to some interesting logic. Keith and Tina found themselves wanting to be with Rodger and Elisabeth more then they wanted to be with Amber. Amber did what she had been lead to believe to be the case, and voted Rodger, as did Colby who was still operating in the realms of intelligent Survivor game-play. Why would he vote out the goat and keep the threat?

Next episode was also boring. The only real interesting thing of note is that this was the Survivor debut of Tina’s daughter Katie, who would compete on season 27 (and go on to become one of the biggest non-factor contestants in the history of contests ). Elisabeth and Rodger should have tried to convince Keith to come with them, but in all seriousness this would never work. Keith was 3^rd no matter which way he went, and if he went with Kucha he was only fucking himself out of potential jury votes.

The rest of the season is actually really boring up until final 3 tribal. Elisabeth gets voted off, Colby’s mom watches him shower, they eat peanut butter. WHO THE HELLS CARES???? I seem to be running into this problem where the last 2 or 3 episodes of each season are just dreadfully painful to sit through. The last few episodes of Australia (and even more so in Africa) are BORING.

Should Colby have taken Keith? Yes. Did he make a mistake taking Tina? No. Would Colby have been remembered the way he is had he taken Keith? I think not. Colby is a Survivor legend, more so than Tina I think. She won the battle, but I think he won the war. Afterall, Colby played 3 times first, has a better average placement, isn’t a first boot, AND got his dick grabbed by another Survivor legend. What more could a guy ask for? Okay yes, a Survivor win, but there’s more to Survivor than winning, after all, some of the biggest and most memorable players never won (see: ‘Fishbach, Stephan’ ’Wade, Coach’ ‘Hantz, Russell’ ‘Orlins, Eliza’ ‘Fredberg, Malcolm’ ‘Cesternino, Rob’ ‘Fairplay, Johnny’) and some winners are never talked about again (See: ‘White, Natalie’ ‘Towery, Vecepia’ ‘Crowley, Bob’) .  

The Australia reunion was… Better than the Borneo one. I've come to the conclusion that I just don’t really like the Reunion shows. They never really do it for me.

At the end of every season I will give the following awards
Best Player of the Season: Colby
Best Jury Member Question/Speech: No one really stood out.
Best Episode: 6
Worst Episode: 10-13 take your fucking pick
Best Challenge: Episode 6 Reward Challenge
If I were on the Jury, who would I have voted for (based solely on their final tribal performance): Colby
Person I most grew a new appreciation for: Elisabeth

(ps notice how Alicia and Amber were left pretty much unmentioned? THESE WERE ALL STARS PEOPLE)

Survivor All Season Retrospective Part the Fifth: Australian Outback Episodes 6-7

I'd like to start this post by sending my condolences to the family of BB Andersen who recently passed away. I am very sorry for your loss.

(The opinions expressed in the following are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else, although in some cases they should be and probably are)

Episode 6 of Survivor: The Australian Outback is a phenomenally memorable episode of Survivor for TWO much much different reasons. Obviously Mike Skupin fell in a fire and had to be airlifted out of the game. That's the big one, the thing everyone talked about. It was very unfortunate for multiple reasons. It screwed every other member of Kucha out of a chance at winning, it paved the way for the tragically early ouster of Jeff Varner and it made people forget entirely that the greatest challenge in the history of Survivor had taken place 15 minutes beforehand. Yeah, I said it, the BEST challenge in Survivor - in terms of being good television - was the reward challenge in this episode. its not the best challenge in terms of that the challenge is or the way it is designed (for me that's probably the vertical maze from Vanuatu or the block stacking imuunity challenge that Foa Foa won in Samoa) No no, this was the best challenge in terms of the way it played out on the screen. A lot of challenges have the potential to be great, and often times blindfolds are involved as they were here. Blindfolded challenges always provide the potential for a nice balance of drama and comedy. All that being said, some challenges that seemed great on paper just didn't end up being as epic as they could have been. This one took a simple concept and ended up being the best challenge to watch ever on Survivor.  Why? Go watch it. Okagor has the challenge won, despite the fact that half the tribe are literally wandering into the void the entire time, but Kucha pulls out the win at quite literally the very last possible moment. Keith and Amber end up spending most of this challenge walking into a log. I don't know how they did this. We see a lot of times in these challenges where someone goes too far in the wrong direction and they can sense they are out of the way they should be going (the one in Vanuatu had this a lot, Lopevi did this challenge probably the best of any tribe ever, which is actually kind of funny if you think about it.). Keith and Amber saw the course, they knew what they generally should be doing. Walking into a giant log? Not on the to do list. So yeah, Colby and Tina (so Colby) end up doing all the work, and all Amber has to do is put the picnic basket on the table. She has the basket in her hands, the table is literally within arms reach of her and she freezes. Now, Jerri's incohernet screaming probably didn't help her at all, and it lead the way for Nick to lead Kucha to come comeback win. Jeff and Alicia were smart enough to know that they needed to move their asses, and Nick was a great caller in that he was able to stay calm and give clear directions. A great job all around by Mr. Brown. So Kucha wins a challnge that Okagor had no business losing. Everyone cackles and laughs. Colby dumps water on Jerri out of frustration and we have ourselves one of this writers top 10 favourite Survivor challenge moments of all time (that list will come after the entire retrospect, so yeah, look forward to that)

Also worth mentioning in this episode is the classic scene in which Jerri and Amber are losing their minds due to being horny and hungry (horngry if you will) and Colby is losing his mind because he is sick of Jerri and Amber. Much comedy. I kind of felt bad for the guy. Here he is on a tribe with a woman he is slowly growing to despise and her little sidekick in the era of Survivor where no one ever went against their tribe. This would become more apparent in the next season, but tribal lines ran deep back then, and no one ever really went against that. EXCEPT to vote out Jerri. She was that annoying to her tribe. That's a topic for next time though, we're still in episode 6.

GUY FALLS IN FIRE. You know, looking back on Mike Skupins Survivor career, the guy sucked. People love to do some serious retconing of Skupin's run in this season and its ridiculous. To say this guy would have made any significant impact is a joke. First of all, the only thing the lack of him had any impact on was the numbers. He was just another Kucha.  Had Kucha won the 6th immunity challenge, which by all accounts they most likely would have due to the fact they had access to much more food AND a caffeinated beverage to boost their awareness, the final 6 people in this season would have been the 6 members of Kucha. Mike was probably the biggest outsider of this group. And if Kucha had lost the 6th immunity challenge? the smart move would have been to vote out Jeff, since Okagor only knew Jeff had 1 vote and no more Jeff means Okagor doesn't have a target (although I doubt they would have thought of this) But most likely they would HAVE VOTED MIKE OFF. He was seriously on peoples' nerves. Varner was gunning for him to be voted out.  So don't be all 'oh Mike Skupin was robbed of a Survivor win when he got hurt' Mike Skupin was robbed of at best 6th, a seat on the jury and we were all robbed of not having to deal with the guy ever again.

That said, I feel bad for anyone who is forced to leave Survivor for medical reasons, its always unfortunate. The scenes that followed the accident are odd. The mood was very very somber. Everyone on Kucha vowed to stick together and go to the end together.

Unfortunately they got fucked by production and had no shot. Like I said, Okagor knew, thanks to Kimmi, that Jeff had a vote. When did they find this out? On the walk to the cliff jumping challenge. I have always hated this. Its so unfair that they were even given the opportunity to find this out. Kimmi fucked up this whole season by opening her big mouth. It should be a rule that at no point should the tribes vocally interact unless a challenge, tribal council or twist in the game specifically calls for it. Also, Jeff shouldn't have EVER stepped off that pillar. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

MERGE EPISODE YAY!!!!! I guess. Early merge episodes suck. The whole send ambassadors thing is really uninteresting. Although this one had potential for a cool twist. When they separated the men and women, they could have had them come together for a challenge and have it revealed that these were new tribes. How awesome of a swerve would that have been? Alas, this was season 2, back when they were outright told that they were merging at ten. That also kind of bugs me, but I digress.

Standing on the pole is always a good challenge. Although why Varner stepped off for peanut butter, I will never understand. Oh well, such is life.

Tribal council this episode has an interesting tidbit to it. Jeff only knew about 1 vote against him. See, back then, Probst didn't always reveal votes in the way he does now. I don't know the best way to explain it, so I'll just give an example. If he shows 2 votes for Christopher, and 4 votes for Francois, and there are 7 votes, the last vote is for Francois. Back then votes were left unrevealed a lot, one of which was Kimmi's vote for Jeff. So Jeff had 2 votes but didn't know it. Jerri had 2 votes and knew of both. If Kucha had voted for Jerri... Would she have been eliminated? Would Probst say 'Jeff actually has 2 votes'? Neither of these solutions seems fair. But they voted for Colby... for some reason. I don't know why they thought this was a good idea. Picking your target  Tribe vs Tribe votes at the first merge tribal have had 2 schools of thought in the 2 separate eras of Survivor. In the old days you wanted to find the person who either a) you thought had the most votes against them or b) you could get someone to turn on. Nowadays its the person who least likely will have or be given a hidden immunity idol. Colby was a strong physical asset (which in this era meant he wasn't going to be targeted) and well liked by his tribe. Why did they think he had votes?

Some horrible gameplay by club Kucha. But that's okay, because now Elisabeth is in a corner, and that means Elisabeth is suddenly going to start playing really hard. But that's for next time.

Survivor All Season Retrospective Part the Fourth: Australian Outback Episodes 1-5

(The opinions expressed in the following are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else, although in some cases they should be and probably are)

And we are back with what is remember as the height of Survivor in terms of pop culture relevance and popularity. This was the big one. I wasn't watching at the time, I was 8, in the third grade and didn't really have an interest in shows like Survivor. I was still just a kid, watching Digimon and Power Rangers. That said though, I heard all kinds of things about this show. I knew the names Colby, Kieth and Tina without ever havign watched a single second of the show. The day after Tina won there was an article in my local news paper about it. Not kidding. Survivor was everywhere.

Looking back with 2013 eyes though, this season kind of sucks. Yeah, I said it. Survivor: The Australian Outback is a crappy season in terms of Survivor game-play. There is a reason for this, and that reason is caused by one of the better parts of the show. This season more than any other had things happen that made the title 'Survivor' actually relevant. The flood the forest fire, the running out of food, the accident, all of these made the experience a true survival test, but it also made everyone fold like a cheap lawn chair when it came to the strategy. I'll explain more once the merge passes, because there's a lot of pre merge stuff to talk about.

The show starts on a plane, people are heaving, Probst is being Probsts and our castaway are dumped and left to hike to camp. This is one thing we hardly see anymore on Survivor, an situation that immediately puts people at odds over something so simple. Right off the bat, Debb has issues with Kimmi, Nick gets Kucha lost, Kieth ditches his tribe ect. We instantly have drama. Nowadays the producers are like 'heres your camp! the idol is under that tree. BRB GOTTA GO SET UP REDEMPTION ISLAND!!!' The hike to camp is something that needs to come back.

Ogakor instantly has shelter because Colby pulled a fast one with his luxury item.  He listed it as a Texas flag. he wasn't lying, he just didn't mention that it was 8x12 and had metal grommets in it. Well played, but kind of cheating. Although this was back in the days where the contestants were given a shit load of supplies, so the flag, while giving an extra bit of shelter, did out ogakor was at 12 while kucha was at maybe a 10. If the survivors weren't given so many supplies, the flag might have been a bigger deal, but in the end it didn't matter. Second best luxury item ever. (The first was in Heroes vs Villains and it was James' unused hidden immunity idol from Survivor China)

Neither tribe gets fire, Ogakor wins immunity and matches, Debb gets voted out. (Not saying anything else about Debb)

The next morning in episode 2 we see the first example of something that wasn't clear to me until i rewatched this after seeing him again on Survivor Philippines and that is that Michael Skupin is AWFUL at the social aspects of Survivor. He has absolutely zero sense of self awareness, he always thinks he is in the best possible spot, and that the people who disagree with him are wrong.  Why this guy was so talked about in terms of returning players is beyond me. He sucked. If he had never fallen in the fire he would have been completely forgotten. If they had never done Survivor: Injured Old Guys, I doubt he would have ever come back. The first of three returning players from this season that just make me shake my head.

The other 2? Alicia and Amber. I'll get into both more as time goes on, but in the first 5 episodes, neither does anything to warrant a second shot. Amber just says "Oh my gooooooood, its sooooooooo gooooood" like 40 million times and Alicia does her whole head bob-finger wave thing at Kimmi. Two of the '18 best Survivors' on the first 7 seasons people.

Beef Jerky. Yeah, I'm going to talk about this. There's two things worth mentioning. 1. I doubt he actually had beef jerky. 2. Kel handled that whole thing in the absolute worst way possible. That situation was so easily solvable. there's a bunch of different things the guy could have done to explain whatever it was he was doing. Grab a stick, put it in your mouth, walk back to camp, calmly and casually mention how you miss your smokes. Do not mention that you overheard the beef jerky talk, play it cool. I get that the dude was pissed about being accused of something, but he handle it  wrong, and I think it caused him to become more of a loner and get himself voted out. That said, even if that situation hadn't occurred, he was a sitting duck since he was so anti social, but this did lead the way for Jerri to become the villain she became.

Maralyn, while entertaining and fun, fell victim to the classic older person weak in challenges curse. Oh well. The only good that came from her boot episode was Jerri alienating Tina and Kieth. The start of the next episode is awesome. Kieth and Tina go fishing and come up with a plan to try and fight back. They need Colby on there side. Jerri had the hots for Colby. Whether Colby had to hots for her, that's a little harder to determine. But through Tina and Kieth's constant talking ill of her, and Jerri stratigizing to the point of annoying him, Colby did end up flipping and voting for Mitchell because he was so weak.

Episode 5 is memorable in my mind because of the unfair immunity challenge, Kucha was forced to have all 7 members in the maze, this made it harder for there to move as a group. Whether or not this made a difference I'm not sure, since Roger and Kimmi sat out the reward they were in regardless and they seemed to be weaker challenge competitors. Either way, that challenge was unfair in that regard. But Colby's pre challenge speech lead to a victory for the dwindling green tribe, and Kimmi was voted out. Her vote for Jeff was not read, and this will be discussed next time.

The season up until this point was very fun and light hearted. Kucha was winning a majority of the challenges, and were largely the happy go lucky baby faces. Jeff was doing a little bit of scheming on the side with Alicia, and we can only wonder how it would have played out if the events of the next episode had not occurred. But we'll talk about that next time.

Survivor All Season Retrospective Part the Third: Borneo Episodes 12-13

(The opinions expressed in the following are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else, although in some cases they should be and probably are)

Ahh episode 12, the least talked about error in Survivor history. If Richard Hatch had lost this game this would have been his fatal mistake. its clear they wanted Kelly to go, but she again won immunity. So its between Sue and Sean. And they vote out Sean. That's the mistake. If they had voted off Sue, the final 4 vote would have never been a tie. Kelly would either lose immunity and get voted out or win immunity and vote for Sean. Because Sean was vote out here, Richard was almost eliminated. Assuming the past votes tiebreaker was in effect at this point, if Kelly had voted for Hatch in the revote, he would have been eliminated. He had 4 previous votes to Sue's 3. Now I know it doesn't matter, he won regardless, but the point still stands, he made a blunder.

The finale is boring. Fallen Comrades is a boring challenge, as its hands on the idol.  Plus the whole ceramony/rite of passage thing was lame. It only works when the finalists make comments, not when they just walk past the torches to cheesy music with clips edited over the cheesy music. They aren't dead, they got voted out of Survivor. Hatch made the brilliant move of dropping out, but it was almost ruined by Probst talking. Probst was so unprofessional back then, he talked way too much and it boarded on interfering with the game. Again, it didn't end up mattering, but it could have.

Final tribal was pretty good. The thing that is most memorable was the fact the jury seemed to respect Hatch's gameplay more than Kelly's. Kelly tried to distance herself from the rest of the alliance and that's what cost her. She was more deceitful trying to seperate herself whereas Hatch was never dishonest about his intentions, he was there to win. Sue's speech is famous blah blah blah. By this point I was sick of the season. Hatch won, pick a number. You know this. This is about my opinions, which I will give:

At the end of every season I will give the following awards
Best Player of the Season: Hatch
Best Jury Member Question/Speech: Sue
Best Episode: 9
Worst Episode: 11
Best Challenge: Episode 6 Immunity Challenge
If I were on the Jury, who would I have voted for (based solely on their final tribal performance): Hatch
Person I most grew a new appreciation for: Joel

The reunion of this season was a waste of time. Bryant Gumble hosting these things was a huge mistake. Not worth commenting on beyond that.

That's all for Borneo. See you for the Outback