Survivor: Worlds Apart

[DinoInstitute]

This is a new thread to discuss the shows 30th season, Survivor: Worlds Apart- White Collar vs. Blue Collar vs. No Collar. We created one right after the season last time to talk about any rumors or news about it, and to talk general Survivor in the meantime, so here it is!

 

[DinoInstitute]

Here's next season's teaser from the reunion:

 

[NYwdwfan]

@JenniferS - time to watch this thread!

 

[JenniferS]

Okey dokey Pokey!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Should be a good season. I love Survivor, I have seen every single episode!

 

[RMichael21]

I'm pretty excited for this season. The whole "collar" thing should provide some entertaining gameplay. No, we wait!

 

[tcool]

I think I may actually watch this season. (Is survivor any good?)

 

[DinoInstitute]

I think I may actually watch this season. (Is survivor any good?)

Well, of course!

Not to mention, @RMichael21 will soon have his own edition

 

[RMichael21]

I think I may actually watch this season. (Is survivor any good?)

It's MY LIFE! Just kidding... Sort Of...

 

[DinoInstitute]

It's MY LIFE! Just kidding... Sort Of...

I know, right? Most of my friends just can't appreciate that strategy behind it all

 

[PUSH]

Excited for it! I also have hopes of getting one or two more seasons down before this one starts. I got 8 seasons down between 28 and 29. I still have a ways to go to complete them all but I will do it!

 

[DinoInstitute]

Excited for it! I also have hopes of getting one or two more seasons down before this one starts. I got 8 seasons down between 28 and 29. I still have a ways to go to complete them all but I will do it!

Good luck I actually am thinking of getting the All Access app, because there are a lot of seasons I haven't seen myself and it has all (from every show, too). The summertime break from seasons is much longer than winter's, however, so you may not be able to get as many

 

[PUSH]

Good luck I actually am thinking of getting the All Access app, because there are a lot of seasons I haven't seen myself and it has all (from every show, too). The summertime break from seasons is much longer than winter's, however, so you may not be able to get as many

I just started watching old seasons last summer, so I got 1-8 down. And I decided not to watch old seasons at the same time as current ones. As for newer seasons I started watching at season 26 when Cochran won. So I've seen a total of 12 seasons.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

Here's a few of the cast members who have been spoiled so far, with absolutely no spoilers on their actual placement in the game.

Spoiler

Max Dawson, a 40-something year old college professor who teaches some kind of course on Survivor strategy. He's got a big ginger beard and is obviously a super-fan. He'll be on the White Collars.

So Kim, one of two sisters who were going to be on the last BvW before her sister Doo got preganant (hence the reason San Jaun Del Sur had an uneven number of males and females...)

A football played named Tyler, which is cool just because it's finally someone with my first name getting on the show

Some guy named Joquain who's apparently suposed to be a really big character.

A dude who we don't know the name of yet but just based on a few images of feathers in his hair he's been nicknamed, well, "Feathers Guy", haha.

A young female cop I believe named Kelly on the white collar tribe.

most of their names/occupations are released, but I didn't want to completely spoil everything. These are the ones I'm most excited about on a first glance. Based on everything we've been hearing in cast interviews and Probst comments, this season is going to be EPIC in terms of good casting and compelling gameplay...but Probst said the same thing about Caramoan and I genuinely think that's the second WORST season behind Redemption Island, so we'll see, haha...

 

[DinoInstitute]

Here's a few of the cast members who have been spoiled so far, with absolutely no spoilers on their actual placement in the game.

Spoiler

Max Dawson, a 40-something year old college professor who teaches some kind of course on Survivor strategy. He's got a big ginger beard and is obviously a super-fan. He'll be on the White Collars.

So Kim, one of two sisters who were going to be on the last BvW before her sister Doo got preganant (hence the reason San Jaun Del Sur had an uneven number of males and females...)

A football played named Tyler, which is cool just because it's finally someone with my first name getting on the show

Some guy named Joquain who's apparently suposed to be a really big character.

A dude who we don't know the name of yet but just based on a few images of feathers in his hair he's been nicknamed, well, "Feathers Guy", haha.

A young female cop I believe named Kelly on the white collar tribe.

most of their names/occupations are released, but I didn't want to completely spoil everything. These are the ones I'm most excited about on a first glance. Based on everything we've been hearing in cast interviews and Probst comments, this season is going to be EPIC in terms of good casting and compelling gameplay...but Probst said the same thing about Caramoan and I genuinely think that's the second WORST season behind Redemption Island, so we'll see, haha...

Spoiler

Interesting crop so far! Particularly interested in Max and Joquain so far. And where can I take Max's course?!

Yeah, I have heard a lot of positive rumors about this season.

I actually quite liked Caramoan, but it had a disappointing ending. I think he mainly made those comments because of a few big moments (Brandon's Author-of-my-own-fate tantrum, the Three Amigo's chaos tribal council, etc.).

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

The thing that really grinds me about Caramoan is that's the closest a season has ever come to being "rigged". If you look at the initial line-up on Favorites that season, the deck was absolutely STACKED in Cochran's favor and he would have had to seriously pull some crazy-bad gameplay to not have it go his way. He had Andrea and Phillip who he was friends with, Dawn and Brandon who were from his season. Dawn in particular was cast over Holly Hoffman from season 21 specifically to be a guaranteed number for Cochran. Sherri Bietman from that season has done interviews where she's told stories of the producers pulling Cochran off for hours on end to give these long, extended confessionals while everyone else wasn't getting nearly as much physical time behind the camera, making it blatantly obvious that's who they were rooting for. To top it all off, we had probably THE most embarassing moment in the show's history with the blatant poor treatment of the pre-jury people and subjecting them to sit in the audience at the reunion just because they didn't want to call attention to the fact that Brandon wasn't there.

Honestly, the dynamic between Maclolm and Andrea was the only thing I really enjoyed that season. Everything else is just kind of a blur. I guess it doesn't help that Cochran's win was spoiled literally almost a whole YEAR before it even aired due to the fact that the season was filmed earlier in the year than usual because of scheduling with Probst's soon-to-be-failed talk show.

 

[DinoInstitute]

The thing that really grinds me about Caramoan is that's the closest a season has ever come to being "rigged". If you look at the initial line-up on Favorites that season, the deck was absolutely STACKED in Cochran's favor and he would have had to seriously pull some crazy-bad gameplay to not have it go his way. He had Andrea and Phillip who he was friends with, Dawn and Brandon who were from his season. Dawn in particular was cast over Holly Hoffman from season 21 specifically to be a guaranteed number for Cochran. Sherri Bietman from that season has done interviews where she's told stories of the producers pulling Cochran off for hours on end to give these long, extended confessionals while everyone else wasn't getting nearly as much physical time behind the camera, making it blatantly obvious that's who they were rooting for. To top it all off, we had probably THE most embarassing moment in the show's history with the blatant poor treatment of the pre-jury people and subjecting them to sit in the audience at the reunion just because they didn't want to call attention to the fact that Brandon wasn't there.

Honestly, the dynamic between Maclolm and Andrea was the only thing I really enjoyed that season. Everything else is just kind of a blur. I guess it doesn't help that Cochran's win was spoiled literally almost a whole YEAR before it even aired due to the fact that the season was filmed earlier in the year than usual because of scheduling with Probst's soon-to-be-failed talk show.

Fair points. I highly doubt that it was rigged, but he definitely had an advantage going into it looking at it that way. However, I would also argue that Malcolm had a pretty big advantage, because filming started two weeks after Philippines, so no one saw his season and knew about his game.
And that was a pretty sad moment too with the pre-merge people

That talkin'-with-Probst thing was what almost cancelled Survivor forever. Jeff wasn't into it really, and that just gave gave an awkward feeling to the show when Jeff showed no interest or his usual spirit. That was a bad chain of seasons, and luckily it picked up from Philipines to Cagayan, arguably SJDS, and looking like also WA.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

Malcolm didn't have any sort of advantage that people like Rupert, Amanda, James and Rusell also had being on the season prior to the All Star season. In fact I'd argue that Malcolm's "unknown" factor to the rest of the cast actually ended up hurting him when you look at how all the Stealth R Us nonesense played out. I guess it's just casting Dawn over Holly that gets me in "tin foil hat" mode. I liked Dawn well enough, but Holly had an incredibly compelling story arc and was one challenge away from winning, essentially she was Kathy Vaverick O'Brien 2.0. Dawn was just..."nice", and she totally ended up being nothing but Cochran's enabler throughout the whole game...as I'm sure the producers very well intended.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

Also, I'm a pretty big fan of SJDS when all is said and done. The pre-swap wasn't very engaging and the cast was very weak in terms of having people that actually knew the game, but by the same token Keith had an AMAZING storyline and was probably one of the funnest "bad" players we've ever had. Post merge was really exciting and things constantly kept shifting. And of course Natalie is one of the all time great female winners right up there with Kim and Parv. Her telling Jon to play his idol and playing her idol on Jaq at the final 5 are seriously two of my favorite Survivor moves ever. It's honestly my third favorite of the 21-29 era, right after Cagayan and Phillipines.

On the other hand...I thought the original Blood Vs. Water was really over rated. The pre-merge showed a lot of potential, but by the last few episodes Tyson's win became unbearably predictable and Monica's lack of gameplay and the loooong "Pagonging" really grinded that season to a hault. Tina redeeming herself from being voted out first in All Stars was AMAZING however, and is the only reason I can even stomach watching some of those post-merge episodes.

 

[DinoInstitute]

Also, I'm a pretty big fan of SJDS when all is said and done. The pre-swap wasn't very engaging and the cast was very weak in terms of having people that actually knew the game, but by the same token Keith had an AMAZING storyline and was probably one of the funnest "bad" players we've ever had. Post merge was really exciting and things constantly kept shifting. And of course Natalie is one of the all time great female winners right up there with Kim and Parv. Her telling Jon to play his idol and playing her idol on Jaq at the final 5 are seriously two of my favorite Survivor moves ever. It's honestly my third favorite of the 21-29 era, right after Cagayan and Phillipines.

On the other hand...I thought the original Blood Vs. Water was really over rated. The pre-merge showed a lot of potential, but by the last few episodes Tyson's win became unbearably predictable and Monica's lack of gameplay and the loooong "Pagonging" really grinded that season to a hault. Tina redeeming herself from being voted out first in All Stars was AMAZING however, and is the only reason I can even stomach watching some of those post-merge episodes.

I agree about SJDS, and also Keith. TBH, I can completely see him being a future allstar just to fill the "clueless old man role" Stick to the plan!

I thought BvW 1 was ok. It was not a bad season, it just had little exciting game play and they really exaggerated the whole family member thing, almost ridiculously so. It was unfortunate that Tyson won, well IMO at least, because I did not like him, but at least he deserved it. And there were some really nice people to root for, too...like Cierra, Hayden, Tina, Katie, Vytas, and Aras. And they could have made some better overall calls casting wise too. I remember some people that they were extremely close to bringing back which they didn't but should have, such as RC from Philippines, and Terry and Shane from Panama. Would have been three GREAT people.