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.
Saturday, 23 November 2013
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, 3 November 2013
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
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
Friday, 1 November 2013
Survivor All Season Retrospective Part the Second: Borneo Episodes 5-11
(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)
Disc 2 was AWESOME. Compared to disc one its like night and day. People are actually sort of playing Survivor. I say sort of because we are still given little to no motivation as to why many of the people vote the way they do. This is especially true in the ludicrous 4-1-1-1-1-1-1 vote at the merge. Why does Gervase vote for Sue? Did literally no one from Pagong actually talk to each other about who they were going to vote for? That was one gigantic clusterfuck, and while it was entertaining, it also shows how poor the strategy was back then.
Richard was the only one with any sort of a plan. This is made clear when the Tagi tribe sends Sean to be the ambassador. They don't run the risk of any information being leaked to Pagong because Sean didn't know anything. Meanwhile Pagong sent Jenna who, from what I've heard, spilled the beans on everything.
Now i'm getting ahead of myself, I'm talking about the merge before I even discuss episodes 5 and 6. These are two awesome episodes. Episode 5 is awesome because it is the first example of finding myself happy a particular tribe lost immunity because I wanted to see the go to tribal council. This happens a lot, I'll find myself really hoping a particular tribe ends up going to tribal because I feel it would be more interesting (the most recent example, at the time of writing this is the the most recent episode of Survivor. I really wanted Galang to win immunity because I wanted to see Tadhana go to tribal council. Whats better, Laura Boneham doing something dumb and getting voted out of Tyson blindsiding Aras?). Tagi losing lead the way to a great tribal, where the alliance claimed its first victim. They made the right choice in keeping Sean over Dirk because Dirk was clearly the weaker of the two, and they needed to win the next immunity challenge to b safe at the merge.
Episode 6 features and epic immunity challenge, and my single least favourite tribal council of the season. I hate the fact Joel was voted off. The women (and Gerg) voted Joel off because Gervase made a sexist comment. Reread that. Read it again. What the hell? This is the big oment where Pagong set themselves up to get rolled by Hatch and co. at the merge. Joel wanted to keep the team together. Joel could have been the hero who stood up to the villain (Hatch) and eventually win one for the good guys. Keep in mind, back in 2000 Tagi were the heels and Pagong were the baby faces. Joel could have been The Guy. He could have been Colby before Colby was even cast. But nope. Oh well. Seeing the look of disappointment on that mans face as Probst snuffed his torch says it all. Joel will always be the hero that never was.
Episode 7 is the merge. And its kind of boring all things considered. They devote so much time to the ambassador thing and the tribes coming together that by the time the challenge ends we are at tribal. Some of the best stuff to happen on Survivor is the post tribal scrambling, especially when the intended target won immunity, which he did in this case. Sure it was an easy choice who the next target should be, but still, some foreshadowing would be nice. From what I've read, the production team was crushed when Gretchen was eliminated. This was the first truly cutthroat vote off in the show. Tagi went right for the jugular and everyone was shocked.
I hate episode 8. I'm not a fan of the loved ones challenge, and I know that makes me sound like a dick, but its just my opinion. I was glad to see Greg get voted off. I was really getting sick of him.
Moving onto disc 3, because well I feel like it. We start off with the best episode of the season. Th episode where Colleen and Jenna pull their heads out of their asses and try to fight back. They get Gervase and they talk Kelly into not voting with the alliance. The first time I saw this I thought we were going to have a 4-4 tie. Sean's alphabet voting strategy was esentially making him a 5th, unknowing member of the Tagi alliance, since his vote was more or less public knowledge, the other Tagi members would vote with him, and thus prevent and sort of counter alliance. Sounds good. So when Jenna's name rolled around, thats who Hatch, Rudy and Sue voted for, along with Sean. The remaining Pagong members voted for Hatch. Kelly voted for Sean. 4-3-1, bye bye Jenna, see you in All-Stars. As big of a fan of Hatch as I am, I kind of wish Kelly had voted for him, causing a tie, and potentially his elimination. There's much more drama there, and I like drama. This is the closest Hatch came to being eliminated (final 4 notwithstanding).
Episode 10 is a hot-cold episode for me. It truly highlights the major flaw in early seasons. About half the episode is devoted to the fact Gervase's son was born, and a shit load of conversations about children out of wedlock and things that have no place in Survivor. Its all irrelevant and a lot of the episode is devoted to it. That said, its in this episode that we learn that Sue and Kelly intend to turn on Hatch. Excellent, drama. Going into the immunity challenge, breaking it down based on numbers, if Hatch makes it through the next tribal, he essentially wins the game. Since Sean was now officially on his side (as explained in Mark Burnett's book), and Rudy always was, once we past final seven, there's no way to get the numbers to guarantee a move on Hatch. he wins immunity, does his little dance, and has for all intents and purposes won a million dollars. Oh that dance. I makes me smile everytime. It's the gayest thing Richard does in his 56 total days on 2 seasons of Survivor, and its flat out hilarious. Gervase gets voted out 5-2. There was talks of a Gervase, Colleen, Sean, Kelly alliance, but Gervase and Colleen vote for Sean so... Yeah can't explain that one.
Episode 11 has more loved ones bullshit that I do not care about. Kelly and Sue get into a fight, and that leads Sue to rejoining Hatch and Rudy. Kelly is the target, but she wins immunity. So it's between Colleen and Sean. Hatch wisely keeps Sean. Sean won't vote for Hatch, but Colleen has twice. Keeping her runs the risk of a 3-2 vote against him at final 5. This episode is kind of blah. I hated Colleen, and was glad to see her go.
That's all for now. Hopefully I can find time in the near future to write some more. I've actually watched almost all of Australia. So I'm behind on the writing side of this thing and need to catch up.
Disc 2 was AWESOME. Compared to disc one its like night and day. People are actually sort of playing Survivor. I say sort of because we are still given little to no motivation as to why many of the people vote the way they do. This is especially true in the ludicrous 4-1-1-1-1-1-1 vote at the merge. Why does Gervase vote for Sue? Did literally no one from Pagong actually talk to each other about who they were going to vote for? That was one gigantic clusterfuck, and while it was entertaining, it also shows how poor the strategy was back then.
Richard was the only one with any sort of a plan. This is made clear when the Tagi tribe sends Sean to be the ambassador. They don't run the risk of any information being leaked to Pagong because Sean didn't know anything. Meanwhile Pagong sent Jenna who, from what I've heard, spilled the beans on everything.
Now i'm getting ahead of myself, I'm talking about the merge before I even discuss episodes 5 and 6. These are two awesome episodes. Episode 5 is awesome because it is the first example of finding myself happy a particular tribe lost immunity because I wanted to see the go to tribal council. This happens a lot, I'll find myself really hoping a particular tribe ends up going to tribal because I feel it would be more interesting (the most recent example, at the time of writing this is the the most recent episode of Survivor. I really wanted Galang to win immunity because I wanted to see Tadhana go to tribal council. Whats better, Laura Boneham doing something dumb and getting voted out of Tyson blindsiding Aras?). Tagi losing lead the way to a great tribal, where the alliance claimed its first victim. They made the right choice in keeping Sean over Dirk because Dirk was clearly the weaker of the two, and they needed to win the next immunity challenge to b safe at the merge.
Episode 6 features and epic immunity challenge, and my single least favourite tribal council of the season. I hate the fact Joel was voted off. The women (and Gerg) voted Joel off because Gervase made a sexist comment. Reread that. Read it again. What the hell? This is the big oment where Pagong set themselves up to get rolled by Hatch and co. at the merge. Joel wanted to keep the team together. Joel could have been the hero who stood up to the villain (Hatch) and eventually win one for the good guys. Keep in mind, back in 2000 Tagi were the heels and Pagong were the baby faces. Joel could have been The Guy. He could have been Colby before Colby was even cast. But nope. Oh well. Seeing the look of disappointment on that mans face as Probst snuffed his torch says it all. Joel will always be the hero that never was.
Episode 7 is the merge. And its kind of boring all things considered. They devote so much time to the ambassador thing and the tribes coming together that by the time the challenge ends we are at tribal. Some of the best stuff to happen on Survivor is the post tribal scrambling, especially when the intended target won immunity, which he did in this case. Sure it was an easy choice who the next target should be, but still, some foreshadowing would be nice. From what I've read, the production team was crushed when Gretchen was eliminated. This was the first truly cutthroat vote off in the show. Tagi went right for the jugular and everyone was shocked.
I hate episode 8. I'm not a fan of the loved ones challenge, and I know that makes me sound like a dick, but its just my opinion. I was glad to see Greg get voted off. I was really getting sick of him.
Moving onto disc 3, because well I feel like it. We start off with the best episode of the season. Th episode where Colleen and Jenna pull their heads out of their asses and try to fight back. They get Gervase and they talk Kelly into not voting with the alliance. The first time I saw this I thought we were going to have a 4-4 tie. Sean's alphabet voting strategy was esentially making him a 5th, unknowing member of the Tagi alliance, since his vote was more or less public knowledge, the other Tagi members would vote with him, and thus prevent and sort of counter alliance. Sounds good. So when Jenna's name rolled around, thats who Hatch, Rudy and Sue voted for, along with Sean. The remaining Pagong members voted for Hatch. Kelly voted for Sean. 4-3-1, bye bye Jenna, see you in All-Stars. As big of a fan of Hatch as I am, I kind of wish Kelly had voted for him, causing a tie, and potentially his elimination. There's much more drama there, and I like drama. This is the closest Hatch came to being eliminated (final 4 notwithstanding).
Episode 10 is a hot-cold episode for me. It truly highlights the major flaw in early seasons. About half the episode is devoted to the fact Gervase's son was born, and a shit load of conversations about children out of wedlock and things that have no place in Survivor. Its all irrelevant and a lot of the episode is devoted to it. That said, its in this episode that we learn that Sue and Kelly intend to turn on Hatch. Excellent, drama. Going into the immunity challenge, breaking it down based on numbers, if Hatch makes it through the next tribal, he essentially wins the game. Since Sean was now officially on his side (as explained in Mark Burnett's book), and Rudy always was, once we past final seven, there's no way to get the numbers to guarantee a move on Hatch. he wins immunity, does his little dance, and has for all intents and purposes won a million dollars. Oh that dance. I makes me smile everytime. It's the gayest thing Richard does in his 56 total days on 2 seasons of Survivor, and its flat out hilarious. Gervase gets voted out 5-2. There was talks of a Gervase, Colleen, Sean, Kelly alliance, but Gervase and Colleen vote for Sean so... Yeah can't explain that one.
Episode 11 has more loved ones bullshit that I do not care about. Kelly and Sue get into a fight, and that leads Sue to rejoining Hatch and Rudy. Kelly is the target, but she wins immunity. So it's between Colleen and Sean. Hatch wisely keeps Sean. Sean won't vote for Hatch, but Colleen has twice. Keeping her runs the risk of a 3-2 vote against him at final 5. This episode is kind of blah. I hated Colleen, and was glad to see her go.
That's all for now. Hopefully I can find time in the near future to write some more. I've actually watched almost all of Australia. So I'm behind on the writing side of this thing and need to catch up.
Thursday, 24 October 2013
Survivor All Season Retrospective Part the First: Intro and Borneo Episodes 1-4
(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)
I haven't written on the blog in almost a year, which is rather sad. My apologies for the literally 2 of you who read this.
Its no secret to those who know me that I don't have much of a life. If I'm not at work i'm either hanging out with a the same group of friends (you know who you are), at a Yu-Gi-Oh Tournament with the same group or I'm at home bored out of my mind watching something I've already watched. After getting sick of watching Prison Break and Flashpoint over and over again I decided to watch Survivor. All of it. From the beginning. From Borneo to now. Now I love Survivor, but some of it i have never gone back to rewatch. Some of it I have little interest in rewatching, but I will not be biased here. I'm going to watch it all, no matter how much I like or dislike those involved or what is happening. I think it will be interesting to see it all from the beginning, especially when it comes to those who play on multiple occasions, seeing how they grow and progress as players and characters. I will document my thoughts on this here blog.
Bornero. Where it all began. I did not watch this season when it first aired. I was 8. I was completely ignorant to pop culture. I did not see this season until it was released on DVD in 2004. I watched it with my mom. Watching Survivor with my mom is one of the few things she and I do together. its always fun. Although I find it rather whacky that after 10 years of watching Survivor she still cannot name everyone who is left on the current season at any point in time. Also, she's a huge mark (wrestling term for a fan someone who always has the reaction the producers tell them to have).
Anyways, back to Borneo. For this season I will post thoughts after every 4 episodes until the finale because that's how many episodes are on each disc. Disc one is awful. This is very boring Survivor. Its more like a documentary about people living on an island in the South China Sea who just happen to occasionally participate in challenges and vote people off.
Richard Hatch claimed to be the winner in his FIRST confessional. Epic. Simply epic. I love this man.
Other people I like thus far: ... I kind of like Joel. Sean is funny in a 'look at how stupid this book smart guy is' kind of way and that's about it. Colleen is really on my nerves. This dimwitted moron who is neither charming nor humorous at any point in the first four episodes became 'America's Sweetheart'? Also, Greg has yet to wow me. People say he's awesome, but so far the only moderately entertaining thing he did was break out into a musical number.
The lack of challenge commentary is... different. Its hard to decide which is better. I think it depends on the challenge, when its a race, the commentary can add drama. When a challenge is more concentration based, the commentary is often stupid an annoying. So far the challenges have been a nice mix.
One thing I've noticed is the terrible editing. Often times we get a clearly dubbed in voice over by Probst. its very jarring and poorly done. In addition, we hardly ever get context as to why a certain purpose is voted out. Why did Ramona get voted off? The established Jenna as her friend and then she votes for her. Why did Stacey? I know, they fudge the Stacey vote and told Dirk and Sean to, but I mean in the context of the story they are telling through the editing we are given no reason for either of those boots.
That's all for now. Yes the seeds of the alliance were planted in episode 4, but that's better saved for next time when they actually go to tribal council.
I haven't written on the blog in almost a year, which is rather sad. My apologies for the literally 2 of you who read this.
Its no secret to those who know me that I don't have much of a life. If I'm not at work i'm either hanging out with a the same group of friends (you know who you are), at a Yu-Gi-Oh Tournament with the same group or I'm at home bored out of my mind watching something I've already watched. After getting sick of watching Prison Break and Flashpoint over and over again I decided to watch Survivor. All of it. From the beginning. From Borneo to now. Now I love Survivor, but some of it i have never gone back to rewatch. Some of it I have little interest in rewatching, but I will not be biased here. I'm going to watch it all, no matter how much I like or dislike those involved or what is happening. I think it will be interesting to see it all from the beginning, especially when it comes to those who play on multiple occasions, seeing how they grow and progress as players and characters. I will document my thoughts on this here blog.
Bornero. Where it all began. I did not watch this season when it first aired. I was 8. I was completely ignorant to pop culture. I did not see this season until it was released on DVD in 2004. I watched it with my mom. Watching Survivor with my mom is one of the few things she and I do together. its always fun. Although I find it rather whacky that after 10 years of watching Survivor she still cannot name everyone who is left on the current season at any point in time. Also, she's a huge mark (wrestling term for a fan someone who always has the reaction the producers tell them to have).
Anyways, back to Borneo. For this season I will post thoughts after every 4 episodes until the finale because that's how many episodes are on each disc. Disc one is awful. This is very boring Survivor. Its more like a documentary about people living on an island in the South China Sea who just happen to occasionally participate in challenges and vote people off.
Richard Hatch claimed to be the winner in his FIRST confessional. Epic. Simply epic. I love this man.
Other people I like thus far: ... I kind of like Joel. Sean is funny in a 'look at how stupid this book smart guy is' kind of way and that's about it. Colleen is really on my nerves. This dimwitted moron who is neither charming nor humorous at any point in the first four episodes became 'America's Sweetheart'? Also, Greg has yet to wow me. People say he's awesome, but so far the only moderately entertaining thing he did was break out into a musical number.
The lack of challenge commentary is... different. Its hard to decide which is better. I think it depends on the challenge, when its a race, the commentary can add drama. When a challenge is more concentration based, the commentary is often stupid an annoying. So far the challenges have been a nice mix.
One thing I've noticed is the terrible editing. Often times we get a clearly dubbed in voice over by Probst. its very jarring and poorly done. In addition, we hardly ever get context as to why a certain purpose is voted out. Why did Ramona get voted off? The established Jenna as her friend and then she votes for her. Why did Stacey? I know, they fudge the Stacey vote and told Dirk and Sean to, but I mean in the context of the story they are telling through the editing we are given no reason for either of those boots.
That's all for now. Yes the seeds of the alliance were planted in episode 4, but that's better saved for next time when they actually go to tribal council.
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Power Rangers Mega Force: Things Are Looking Grim
The following opinions are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else (although they should be and probably are)
I have seen 3 preview clips, which amount to a total of around 2 minutes of footage of Power Rangers Mega Force, and so far, as the title of this post would suggest, things are looking grim.
The first clip showed the Red Ranger, Troy, on a bus having a dream. In said dream was The Great Legend War, or whatever they will call it here. It looked like it was the same as the Sentai version, couldn't really tell (irrelevant point anyways). After the bus driver yells at him to wake up and get off the bus I got my first glimps as to why this could be a rough season. The guy says 2 words "weird dream" and already I can't stand the guy. The delivery was so dead pan. It was like he was reading the words weird and dream for the first time.
The second clip lead to reasons 2 and 3 I'm worried. It showed Rangers Red, Blue, Black and... one of the girls, couldn't tell which one falling out of a portal and encountering a horrible looking CGI Robot (reason 2) and some horrible line delivery from our new Blue Ranger, Noah (insert Ark joke here) (reason 3). I'll start with the CGI robot. It just looks bad. Its 2013. We had a convinging looking robot on this show 20 years ago. This is just lazy. Make a costume. Its more artisitc. As for Blue Ranger? He's a third string clone of dear old Billy. Glasses, technobable, dressing like Billy did, the whole nine yards. Piss off with that shit. That's an insult to the legacy of one of the best characters this, or any other kids show for that matter has ever had. Trying to recreate Billy is pointless, stupid and does more harm than good.
The third clip showed the morphing call. Which is the classic "Its Morphing Time", at which point they put there little cards in the morpher and then "Go Go Mega Force". They also had Troy parrot a line from MMPR about how "(insert name of mentor) said morphers would give us power, so let's do it" The problem here? Troy isn't Jason. No one could ever be Jason. The way Jason used to yell "Its Morphing Time" was awesome, and no one but him could ever make that line more bad ass. The task with Power Rangers is that these actors have the near impossible task of making cheesy lines like "Its Morphing Time" or "RPM Get in Gear" sound awesome. Some can, some can't. These guys can't. Also, "Go Go Mega Force"? Phoned in much? "Go Go Samurai" wasn't great last season, but it was better than the alternative "Rangers Together Samurai Forever". Why even have 2 calls? I think "Its Morphing Time"would have sufficed on its own.
The nostalgia in this season so far seems for like fanwakery than anything. If you want to please this fan, stop trying to recapture the MMPR magic, and give us some friggin RPM follow up.
I have seen 3 preview clips, which amount to a total of around 2 minutes of footage of Power Rangers Mega Force, and so far, as the title of this post would suggest, things are looking grim.
The first clip showed the Red Ranger, Troy, on a bus having a dream. In said dream was The Great Legend War, or whatever they will call it here. It looked like it was the same as the Sentai version, couldn't really tell (irrelevant point anyways). After the bus driver yells at him to wake up and get off the bus I got my first glimps as to why this could be a rough season. The guy says 2 words "weird dream" and already I can't stand the guy. The delivery was so dead pan. It was like he was reading the words weird and dream for the first time.
The second clip lead to reasons 2 and 3 I'm worried. It showed Rangers Red, Blue, Black and... one of the girls, couldn't tell which one falling out of a portal and encountering a horrible looking CGI Robot (reason 2) and some horrible line delivery from our new Blue Ranger, Noah (insert Ark joke here) (reason 3). I'll start with the CGI robot. It just looks bad. Its 2013. We had a convinging looking robot on this show 20 years ago. This is just lazy. Make a costume. Its more artisitc. As for Blue Ranger? He's a third string clone of dear old Billy. Glasses, technobable, dressing like Billy did, the whole nine yards. Piss off with that shit. That's an insult to the legacy of one of the best characters this, or any other kids show for that matter has ever had. Trying to recreate Billy is pointless, stupid and does more harm than good.
The third clip showed the morphing call. Which is the classic "Its Morphing Time", at which point they put there little cards in the morpher and then "Go Go Mega Force". They also had Troy parrot a line from MMPR about how "(insert name of mentor) said morphers would give us power, so let's do it" The problem here? Troy isn't Jason. No one could ever be Jason. The way Jason used to yell "Its Morphing Time" was awesome, and no one but him could ever make that line more bad ass. The task with Power Rangers is that these actors have the near impossible task of making cheesy lines like "Its Morphing Time" or "RPM Get in Gear" sound awesome. Some can, some can't. These guys can't. Also, "Go Go Mega Force"? Phoned in much? "Go Go Samurai" wasn't great last season, but it was better than the alternative "Rangers Together Samurai Forever". Why even have 2 calls? I think "Its Morphing Time"would have sufficed on its own.
The nostalgia in this season so far seems for like fanwakery than anything. If you want to please this fan, stop trying to recapture the MMPR magic, and give us some friggin RPM follow up.
Saturday, 15 December 2012
Power Rangers Samurai Retrospective
The following opinions are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else (although they should be and probably are)
This season (or pair of seasons depending on which way you look at Super Samurai) was, for lack of a better word, a huge let down. A lot of episodes were shitty, some were okay, others were actually really good. The acting was almost universally in the negative star range save for Rick Medina and some of the voice actors. The 'comedy' was about as unfunny as slap stick can get. Some things deserve a litte more detail.
The music:
The best thing that changed when Saban came back in charge was the return of the original theme song. The theme song was great (despite the stupid as fuck roll call), and all the mood music was great. Sometimes it was out of place (a few times I found myself wishing that a scene was silent or had more mellow music) but overall the music was probably the best part of this show.
The action:
This season had some great action scenes. it also had a lot of good scenes that were made terrible by the rangers not shutting the fuck up. The original MMPR rarely talked while fighting, opting for a realisitc breathing technique in the form of the kiyas, here, we got stupid one liners that did nothing but take away from the visuals. The unmorphed fights, while few and far between, were made to be a big deal and were always very well done, especially in the finale with excellent gymnastics and wire work. Almost all of the action was centred around sword play, and there was a lot of great coreography, especially in the one on one duels between Jayden and Dekkar. The fight in the finale with Master Xandred was amazing.
The Episode formula:
I really didn't like the formula this season. Every episode had a Nighlok attack, get the heat, dehydrate, leave then come back for the rangers to win. It got tiresome fast. Episodes without this formula were often much better.
The Rangers:
This is probably in the top 5 worst Power Ranger teams of all time. Individualy, none of them are all that interesting; sure, they have interesting back stories (Emily's dying sister, Kevin and Mike being frced to abandon there friends, family and way of life for a greater purpose, Jayden living a lie about being the true Red ranger) but none of these things are touched upon more than once, and it was a lot of watsed potential. So many episodes that focused on one ranger, often had no impact on other episodes. Nothing is ever gained from the inclusion of one off characters like Mia's brother or Kevin's old swim team.
The interpersonal relationships between the rangers was also difficult to keep track of, and Emily is the prime example of this. Early on she pines for Mike, and this seems to be the direction they were always headed, but then for no real reason, in the middle of Super Samurai she seems to be a lot more interested in the well being of Jayden then anything to do with Mike. She also did not seem to click with Mia at all. I;m not saying that every pair of female rangers on a team has to be best friends (Summer and Gemma certainly weren't in RPM, nor were Jen and Kaite in Time Force) but the writers tried to make it seem like they wre with the dialouge. All of it felt forced, and all of the Girl Power scenes suffered because of it. Emily's best moments were always the ones with the male rangers, specifically Mike and oddly enough she had great screen presence with Scott in Clash of the Red Rangers, but more on that later) The one thing that I think should have done is that Emily's sister Serina should have passed away, it would have made for some great character development for her. She was seen as weak, and in Strange Case of the Muchies, she just got stronger. The death of her sister inspirining that change would have been much better.
Mia was a waste of a character. In the second episode (to air) they established an unfunny season long running joke that she can't cook. This was brought up numerous times, leading up to a stupid pay off with Lauren enjoying her cooking. (The best part of that scene was actually easy to miss, if you go back and watch it, pay attention to Kevin. While Emily, mike and Antonio are secretly hiding their food in their napkin or dropping it on the floor, Kevin is secretly putting his onto Mike's plate) The only of thing Mia was given was Spike's crush on her. It started as a crush on the pink ranger, and although he never learned it was her, when they did start interacting, he seemed to be interested in her. This ultimately went absolutely nowhere, the storyline was never resolved, and it was just more wasted potential.
Kevin was a great character, unfortunately that character was torn to shreds by the horrible acting of Najee De-Tiege. He was your average second in command ranger. Ironically, despite how much on paper i thought episodes focusing on him would be a disaster, 2 of them, I've got a Spell on Blue and Kevin's Choice, are two of my favourite episodes of the season. I enjoyed the chemistry he and Mike had, especially in the episode "A Sticky Situation" (which was hugely out of place in terms of pacing and progression of the season, personally I think whacky comedy episode belong early in the season, not as late as this one was). Had casting doen a better job, the Blue Samurai Ranger could've been one of the more notable rangers of recent years, and while he is, its for the wrong reasons.
Mike was a comedy relief ranger, and while he is no Ziggy, he wasn't bad. One of the main reasons I was hoping for a full team up with RPM was to see those 2 share the screen, (also, the ideaof Dillon having to work with Mia and his reactions to the idea probably would have been great). His side of the relationship with Emily was always the better side of that coin. You could tell he really cared for her. The first episode to air was a Mike episode, and it was a pretty good one, dealign with his desire to go back to his normal life, and although this was never followed up on, and by seasons end he made the choice not to go back, and instead go with Emily shows a greater growth. Mike started the season as the slacker who didn't put in a lot of effort, and by the end he was easily my favourite character due to the way he stayed just as fun loving, but also knew when to be serious and be the hero he needed to be. Rangers that mature are always better than ones who don't.
At first, I hated Antonio. go back and watch his debut episode. He is so annoying. He got better as time went on though. I rather enjoyed his scenes with human form Dekkar in the first half of the season, and some of his comedy bits were the funnier moments of the show. The things I don't like were the way he randomly threw spanish words into his sentances and the way he said a few things, like calling the light zord LZ . I'm also really not fond of the Gold Samurai Ranger's look; it might be one of my least favourite power ranger suits ever. His bromance with Jayden worked, it grounded Jayden and made him seem like a real person. Antonio's little character arc at the end of the Serrator arc of episodes was really stupid. Never before did he question his deservingness to be a ranger, and in fact fought to be one when Ji tried to turn him away. Randomly doubting himself seemed really forced and did nothing but waste some time.
Jayden is one of the worst Red Rangers of all time. He is worse than Mack. He is worse than Casey (I liked Casey, but a lot of other people hate him). He is a monumental let down, and causes what could be the most jarrign shift between personalitywhile unmorphed and actions while morphed. The Red Samurai Ranger is fairly cool, but none of that was because of Jayden, the Shinkenger footage had a lot of great red ranger moments and there was a huge disconnect between Alex Hartman's performance and the costume. This is a very personal thing, but no red ranger should have a justin Bieber hair cut. It's just wrong. The red ranger is supposed to lead and be a driving force. Jayden was not that. He whined about his secret all the time, took off like a coward twice, and made a big deal about the others protecting him, while him protecting them was okay. He was all over the board in terms of motivation. His reasons for leaving both times made zero sense. Jayden is my second least favourite Red Ranger ever, behind Nick.
Lauren got shafted huge. Kimberly Crossman didn't get to be in the main credits, and she was only around for a few episodes. Her debut showed how awesome he could be, and she completely dominated the training scene with Mike. She had great chemistry on screen with Kevin and Antonio. She was probably the best ranger character in the show, and its a real shame we didn't get to see more of her.
The Villains
Ocatroo: WORST VILLAIN SIDE KICK EVER. So frelling annoying. I really wanted to see a scene where he goes to the Shiba house and injured Lauren kills him.
Dayu: Dayu's motivation was always clear, and she was a very well done character. She's no Tenaya 7, but she had a lot of great moments, and her fued with Mia was a small detail, but maintained well enough that the pay off felt satisfying.
Serrator: I LOVED Serrator. he should have been the main villain. His voice, his mannerisms, his fighting style, that thing he did to Mike and Antonio, it was all fantastic. His plot to split the world had a season finale feel to it. Serrator is definately one of the better secondary villains ever.
Master Xandred: Really really boring. He did nothing for the longest time, then once he kicked some ass once, he did nothing for another few episodes. He only ever did something beyond sitting around and drinking in 3 episodes. 3 out of 44. That is pathetic. Sure he was a force to be reckoned with, but it was nothing overly special for all the build up. I also HATE that he grew to giant size to fight the megazord in the finale. The main villain should not be so similar to a monster of the day.
Dekkar: Rick Medina was by far the best actor this season, his subdued tone was perfect. If one were to analyze all of the characters on this show, they would find that this show was, for the most part, Dekkar's story. All of the ajor plot episodes were about him. His story was tragic, and he was much less of a villain and more of an anti hero. Him turning baby face against Serrator was very fitting. He only wanted the sword in order to lift his curse. His motivation was clear. He didn't hate Jayden, deep down, he was pushing Jayden to be better so that Jayden could kill him. Its what he wanted. He needed to fight so he could escape. Dekkar was a tragic figure who saved this season from being a complete disaster.
The Story
The main story of this season, the sealing of Xandred was very weak. It was built up all through the season as being a huge deal, but it was all just talk. The rangers never took the next step by trying to draw Xandred out, they just waited for him to show up. It was boring and felt like a B or C plot, but it was the A plot, and thus extremely weak.
The B plot, the story of Dekkar was amazing. I've already talked about it, so I won't repeat myself. I was very pleased when it was revealed that he survived the first duel wit Jayden.
The C plot of Serrator attempting the split the world and take over was also great. The build was subtle, and none of the characters saw it coming until it was already in motion, which was great. This should have been the main plot.
The comedy was rarely funny. Before the show started Saban Brands said that the show would have a "brighter tone and gets an infusion of fun and comedy that wasn't present in Jungle Fury and RPM" But the truth is, the comedy in both of those seasons was leaps and bounds above the comedy here. Bulk and Spike were a waste of space.
The RPM cross over was a huge let down. I was really hoping we would see the other side of the story when everyone but Jayden is warped to the 'alternate dimension' (i HATE that RPM is suposedly some alternate dimesion that doesn't matter) I liked it much better than I thought I would. I was very glad they were true to Scott's character, but overall the thing was a let down.
Overall, the season was one of the lesser ones in terms of quality. Hopefully Mega Force is better.
This season (or pair of seasons depending on which way you look at Super Samurai) was, for lack of a better word, a huge let down. A lot of episodes were shitty, some were okay, others were actually really good. The acting was almost universally in the negative star range save for Rick Medina and some of the voice actors. The 'comedy' was about as unfunny as slap stick can get. Some things deserve a litte more detail.
The music:
The best thing that changed when Saban came back in charge was the return of the original theme song. The theme song was great (despite the stupid as fuck roll call), and all the mood music was great. Sometimes it was out of place (a few times I found myself wishing that a scene was silent or had more mellow music) but overall the music was probably the best part of this show.
The action:
This season had some great action scenes. it also had a lot of good scenes that were made terrible by the rangers not shutting the fuck up. The original MMPR rarely talked while fighting, opting for a realisitc breathing technique in the form of the kiyas, here, we got stupid one liners that did nothing but take away from the visuals. The unmorphed fights, while few and far between, were made to be a big deal and were always very well done, especially in the finale with excellent gymnastics and wire work. Almost all of the action was centred around sword play, and there was a lot of great coreography, especially in the one on one duels between Jayden and Dekkar. The fight in the finale with Master Xandred was amazing.
The Episode formula:
I really didn't like the formula this season. Every episode had a Nighlok attack, get the heat, dehydrate, leave then come back for the rangers to win. It got tiresome fast. Episodes without this formula were often much better.
The Rangers:
This is probably in the top 5 worst Power Ranger teams of all time. Individualy, none of them are all that interesting; sure, they have interesting back stories (Emily's dying sister, Kevin and Mike being frced to abandon there friends, family and way of life for a greater purpose, Jayden living a lie about being the true Red ranger) but none of these things are touched upon more than once, and it was a lot of watsed potential. So many episodes that focused on one ranger, often had no impact on other episodes. Nothing is ever gained from the inclusion of one off characters like Mia's brother or Kevin's old swim team.
The interpersonal relationships between the rangers was also difficult to keep track of, and Emily is the prime example of this. Early on she pines for Mike, and this seems to be the direction they were always headed, but then for no real reason, in the middle of Super Samurai she seems to be a lot more interested in the well being of Jayden then anything to do with Mike. She also did not seem to click with Mia at all. I;m not saying that every pair of female rangers on a team has to be best friends (Summer and Gemma certainly weren't in RPM, nor were Jen and Kaite in Time Force) but the writers tried to make it seem like they wre with the dialouge. All of it felt forced, and all of the Girl Power scenes suffered because of it. Emily's best moments were always the ones with the male rangers, specifically Mike and oddly enough she had great screen presence with Scott in Clash of the Red Rangers, but more on that later) The one thing that I think should have done is that Emily's sister Serina should have passed away, it would have made for some great character development for her. She was seen as weak, and in Strange Case of the Muchies, she just got stronger. The death of her sister inspirining that change would have been much better.
Mia was a waste of a character. In the second episode (to air) they established an unfunny season long running joke that she can't cook. This was brought up numerous times, leading up to a stupid pay off with Lauren enjoying her cooking. (The best part of that scene was actually easy to miss, if you go back and watch it, pay attention to Kevin. While Emily, mike and Antonio are secretly hiding their food in their napkin or dropping it on the floor, Kevin is secretly putting his onto Mike's plate) The only of thing Mia was given was Spike's crush on her. It started as a crush on the pink ranger, and although he never learned it was her, when they did start interacting, he seemed to be interested in her. This ultimately went absolutely nowhere, the storyline was never resolved, and it was just more wasted potential.
Kevin was a great character, unfortunately that character was torn to shreds by the horrible acting of Najee De-Tiege. He was your average second in command ranger. Ironically, despite how much on paper i thought episodes focusing on him would be a disaster, 2 of them, I've got a Spell on Blue and Kevin's Choice, are two of my favourite episodes of the season. I enjoyed the chemistry he and Mike had, especially in the episode "A Sticky Situation" (which was hugely out of place in terms of pacing and progression of the season, personally I think whacky comedy episode belong early in the season, not as late as this one was). Had casting doen a better job, the Blue Samurai Ranger could've been one of the more notable rangers of recent years, and while he is, its for the wrong reasons.
Mike was a comedy relief ranger, and while he is no Ziggy, he wasn't bad. One of the main reasons I was hoping for a full team up with RPM was to see those 2 share the screen, (also, the ideaof Dillon having to work with Mia and his reactions to the idea probably would have been great). His side of the relationship with Emily was always the better side of that coin. You could tell he really cared for her. The first episode to air was a Mike episode, and it was a pretty good one, dealign with his desire to go back to his normal life, and although this was never followed up on, and by seasons end he made the choice not to go back, and instead go with Emily shows a greater growth. Mike started the season as the slacker who didn't put in a lot of effort, and by the end he was easily my favourite character due to the way he stayed just as fun loving, but also knew when to be serious and be the hero he needed to be. Rangers that mature are always better than ones who don't.
At first, I hated Antonio. go back and watch his debut episode. He is so annoying. He got better as time went on though. I rather enjoyed his scenes with human form Dekkar in the first half of the season, and some of his comedy bits were the funnier moments of the show. The things I don't like were the way he randomly threw spanish words into his sentances and the way he said a few things, like calling the light zord LZ . I'm also really not fond of the Gold Samurai Ranger's look; it might be one of my least favourite power ranger suits ever. His bromance with Jayden worked, it grounded Jayden and made him seem like a real person. Antonio's little character arc at the end of the Serrator arc of episodes was really stupid. Never before did he question his deservingness to be a ranger, and in fact fought to be one when Ji tried to turn him away. Randomly doubting himself seemed really forced and did nothing but waste some time.
Jayden is one of the worst Red Rangers of all time. He is worse than Mack. He is worse than Casey (I liked Casey, but a lot of other people hate him). He is a monumental let down, and causes what could be the most jarrign shift between personalitywhile unmorphed and actions while morphed. The Red Samurai Ranger is fairly cool, but none of that was because of Jayden, the Shinkenger footage had a lot of great red ranger moments and there was a huge disconnect between Alex Hartman's performance and the costume. This is a very personal thing, but no red ranger should have a justin Bieber hair cut. It's just wrong. The red ranger is supposed to lead and be a driving force. Jayden was not that. He whined about his secret all the time, took off like a coward twice, and made a big deal about the others protecting him, while him protecting them was okay. He was all over the board in terms of motivation. His reasons for leaving both times made zero sense. Jayden is my second least favourite Red Ranger ever, behind Nick.
Lauren got shafted huge. Kimberly Crossman didn't get to be in the main credits, and she was only around for a few episodes. Her debut showed how awesome he could be, and she completely dominated the training scene with Mike. She had great chemistry on screen with Kevin and Antonio. She was probably the best ranger character in the show, and its a real shame we didn't get to see more of her.
The Villains
Ocatroo: WORST VILLAIN SIDE KICK EVER. So frelling annoying. I really wanted to see a scene where he goes to the Shiba house and injured Lauren kills him.
Dayu: Dayu's motivation was always clear, and she was a very well done character. She's no Tenaya 7, but she had a lot of great moments, and her fued with Mia was a small detail, but maintained well enough that the pay off felt satisfying.
Serrator: I LOVED Serrator. he should have been the main villain. His voice, his mannerisms, his fighting style, that thing he did to Mike and Antonio, it was all fantastic. His plot to split the world had a season finale feel to it. Serrator is definately one of the better secondary villains ever.
Master Xandred: Really really boring. He did nothing for the longest time, then once he kicked some ass once, he did nothing for another few episodes. He only ever did something beyond sitting around and drinking in 3 episodes. 3 out of 44. That is pathetic. Sure he was a force to be reckoned with, but it was nothing overly special for all the build up. I also HATE that he grew to giant size to fight the megazord in the finale. The main villain should not be so similar to a monster of the day.
Dekkar: Rick Medina was by far the best actor this season, his subdued tone was perfect. If one were to analyze all of the characters on this show, they would find that this show was, for the most part, Dekkar's story. All of the ajor plot episodes were about him. His story was tragic, and he was much less of a villain and more of an anti hero. Him turning baby face against Serrator was very fitting. He only wanted the sword in order to lift his curse. His motivation was clear. He didn't hate Jayden, deep down, he was pushing Jayden to be better so that Jayden could kill him. Its what he wanted. He needed to fight so he could escape. Dekkar was a tragic figure who saved this season from being a complete disaster.
The Story
The main story of this season, the sealing of Xandred was very weak. It was built up all through the season as being a huge deal, but it was all just talk. The rangers never took the next step by trying to draw Xandred out, they just waited for him to show up. It was boring and felt like a B or C plot, but it was the A plot, and thus extremely weak.
The B plot, the story of Dekkar was amazing. I've already talked about it, so I won't repeat myself. I was very pleased when it was revealed that he survived the first duel wit Jayden.
The C plot of Serrator attempting the split the world and take over was also great. The build was subtle, and none of the characters saw it coming until it was already in motion, which was great. This should have been the main plot.
The comedy was rarely funny. Before the show started Saban Brands said that the show would have a "brighter tone and gets an infusion of fun and comedy that wasn't present in Jungle Fury and RPM" But the truth is, the comedy in both of those seasons was leaps and bounds above the comedy here. Bulk and Spike were a waste of space.
The RPM cross over was a huge let down. I was really hoping we would see the other side of the story when everyone but Jayden is warped to the 'alternate dimension' (i HATE that RPM is suposedly some alternate dimesion that doesn't matter) I liked it much better than I thought I would. I was very glad they were true to Scott's character, but overall the thing was a let down.
Overall, the season was one of the lesser ones in terms of quality. Hopefully Mega Force is better.
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