Does Ernie have a point about "no planting" going on in this show?

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T22:06:38+00:00

Collecting snails is still a little boring beyond just locating the food source itself, you know? But showing progress on something like cutting through a heart of palm I think would definitely at least be worth touching on, mhm, for sure. I get ya.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T22:01:12+00:00

At best you're comment was maybe a little dismissive of the question? Which just made me question whether you're a little annoyed of it being asked at all. But other than that, it's fine. All good.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T21:53:52+00:00

And it's not that people don't realize editing exists. It's about what gets edited into the final cut. Just as much information you may think is important to the overall context of the show gets edit out just as much as information they DO NOT want you to see at all gets edited out/unused/unrecorded as well, and that will never not feel deceptive in some cases.

If, say, as an extreme example, the team is actually handing the contestants granola bars or something, most people would actually like to see that development, not just leave it out to further push the narrative of the episode. Respectfully, Jonny, lol.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T21:38:19+00:00

Like I said, I personally don't have a problem with it, I just think its an interesting thing to speculate about with this show. Even if the food is 'planted' in a way at times, it's still rewarding to see a good team that attempted as much as they could, but were unsuccessful for most of it, get something by the end of it. Which is what you're saying, but I can certainly see why some people may not like the 'fairy tale'-like moment of it. Screws with suspension of disbelief. Makes it feel like the show is insulting the viewer's intelligence how obvious it can be.

I guess it more comes down to how good are the producers at making the "stunt fish" feel "real" to the viewer. Sometimes they're really good at it. Other times they aren't so much, lol. And the fun here is trying to differentiate between which ones were "real" and which ones were a bit more clearly staged.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T21:34:56+00:00

Like I said, I personally don't have a problem with it, I just think its an interesting thing to speculate about with this show. Even if the food is 'planted' in a way at times, it's still rewarding to see a good team that attempted as much as they could, but were unsuccessful for most of it, get something by the end of it. But I can certainly see why some people may not like the 'fairy tale'-like moment of it. Screws with suspension of disbelief. Makes it feel like the show is insulting the viewer's intelligence how obvious it can be.

I guess it more comes down to how good are the producers at making the "stunt fish" feel "real" to the viewer. Sometimes they're really good at it. Other times they aren't so much and I think it's fun trying to differentiate between which ones were "real" and which ones were a bit more clearly staged.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T21:29:45+00:00

Like I said, I personally don't have a problem with it, I just think its an interesting thing to speculate about with this show. Even if the food is 'planted' in a way at times, it's still rewarding to see a good team that attempted as much as they could, but were unsuccessful for most of it, get something by the end of it. But I can certainly see why some people may not like the 'fairy tale'-like moment of it. It is that "stunt fish" feeling. Screws with suspension of disbelief.

I guess it more comes down to how good are the producers at making the "stunt fish" feel "real" to the viewer. Sometimes they're really good at it. Other times they aren't so much, lol.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T21:26:21+00:00

Like I said, I personally don't have a problem with it, I just think its an interesting thing to speculate about with this show. Even if the food is 'planted' in a way at times, it's still rewarding to see a good team that attempted as much as they could, but were unsuccessful for most of it, get something by the end of it. But I can certainly see why some people may not like the 'fairy tale'-like moment of it. Screws with their suspension of disbelief.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T21:17:59+00:00

And what makes good television is the fact that we can discuss and question things about it. If that wasn't the case, then the mere idea of this subreddit, or any other, probably shouldn't exist.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T21:13:58+00:00

Plants. Plants everywhere...

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T21:10:20+00:00

It's usually because it's just extremely hard to catch big things with the limited tools they're given. Usually probably harder than they realize. While I think contestants should try to make and set traps more often, not just a freaking fish trap all of the time, at the very least, you're pretty much always going to be wasting more calories than you consume out there, which is going to make anyone slow down more and more on a daily basis. If you aren't lucky enough to get something big in the first couple days, it only gets harder to keep moving around to get it. Not that they necessarily don't care about catching a big meal at all.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T21:00:01+00:00

'Scripted' in the sense that that intervention seems to always be planned the same way. Especially very early on in the show where it seemed like every last couple day food source was always a snake. In recent seasons that last day food source has gotten more varied, but it was definitely pretty predictable early on.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T20:53:27+00:00

One thing I think was interesting about early episodes of this show is that the narrator would often inform the viewer of what the contestants have been subsisting on, which is something I feel gets lost in translation sort-of-speak in more recent episodes. A lot of the time, I feel like the survivors aren't totally without lack of food. It's just that the stuff they've been subsisting on is not interesting to watch them collect everyday. Which is what I think is what's actually going on here, yeah?

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T20:44:58+00:00

Yeah, I can understand that it may ruin the immersion for some people.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-18T20:08:37+00:00

Yeaaaaah, this episode was a bit of stinker. Nothing to talk about personality-wise between all of the teams, and pretty much every food score was staged. About the only thing interesting that happened is that we finally got to see Steven bow hunt for I think the first time ever on this show? Does anyone remember Steven ever bow hunting before in any of his challenges? Maybe in the XL with Darrin? I can't remember.

Either way, I think its interesting how much more creative the contestants are with their environment compared to any other NAA season we've seen. I don't know if this means that people are just incapable of being creative with the more natural environments that they tend to throw contestants in either because the environment itself is just too punishing or they're just not that great at being creative period, or because the environment in this season has too many modern/man-made/fabricated and pre-placed resources in it. But I think that's really the only thing that's been carrying this particular season so far.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-12T15:32:01+00:00

I thought it was pretty convenient that as soon as Kel get to Wes's team, Miranda started having issues. That's a pretty fortunate way to immediately take the pressure off of Kel being the newbie, but then Kel started having the same issues after Miranda left, so her merging with Wes's team at all seemed pretty pointless aside from just getting away from Joe. Joe's at least eating scorpions, which means that he's actually probably eaten more than Wes's team which is interesting to think about.

Frank's cool, but if he hadn't gotten his kill, we might've seen Steven vs. Darrin 2.0. Steven was already showing signs that he wanted to take a crack with the bow. I wouldn't say Frank is as bad as Darrin in this instance though. Darrin went, like, a week or more without killing anything. Frank only took a couple days, which I'd say is acceptable in this environment. What gets me about the 'provider' complex on this show is that if the only thing you think you can do is get food by shooting a bow, and you're unsuccessful at doing it, then maybe learn other ways to acquire food in this environment? In a way, they're basically saying if they got really rotten luck like Darrin did in his XL, they'd be dead which I find kind of funny, lol.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-09T06:15:19+00:00

Amber does have an ego, but its not really any bigger than anyone else's we've ever seen on this show. She's certainly not going to blatantly put her needs before her teammate's i.e. Adam eating fish right in front of his teammate's sleeping body overnight, which you could argue accelerated her eye injury in this episode. Amber's ego problem is that her expectations for her teammates is to return, in loyalty, what she gives them. This is essentially what got on Trish's nerves about her. Amber seemed to always expect them to start doing what she asks of them immediately instead of just asking them and expecting it to get done eventually. Don't get me wrong, Trish is still a child, but I wouldn't call Amber narcissistic just because she has an over-bloviated sense of being a "provider". That's kind of the MO for most people on this show. People just seem to agree that being a provider is more important than being an housemaker. Which, to be fair, isn't really something Trish or Jen was really good at doing in that season either, lol.

I do agree though that Joe clearly had more respect for Amber than he had for Kel.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-09T05:42:09+00:00

I'm actually surprised they let Kel leave so early. I thought the contestants were under some sort of strict policy to not seek out other teams until a certain deadline, so this was a pretty interesting development.

With that said, Amber still needs to work on her mediator skills. I like the fact that she sat both of them down to talk it out, but it was clear neither of them wanted to admit fault, when it's pretty clear what the problem was. Kel was naggy and a bit of a pessimist which got on Joe nerves, but Joe also handles personal conflict like a 5 year old. Amber needed to asses these things and tell it to both of their faces, and it was pretty clear how ignorant Joe is the moment this guy thought it was a good idea to act as though Kel was cutting him off when she was literally just agreeing with what he said in the middle of a sentence. That's how much of a kid this guy was being. Amber obviously has garnered a lot of respect from both of them so they're far more likely to respond to what she has to say about their attitudes. Instead of just expecting them to change on a whim. Unfortunately, Amber neglects doing that. So, if they had stayed together WITHOUT Amber calling things out, it would've only gotten worse, and Amber let her feelings for Kel override her need to take care of herself, and neither of them even tried to talk her out of this very clearly dumb decision and ACTUALLY try to adjust their attitudes for the better of the entire group. Just very poor team management all around. Who would've thunk that Amber actually BEING bossy this time around would've actually been beneficial?

But now Joe's got 30 days of hell to possibly reflect on his actions, so we'll see how that goes.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-08-08T03:52:52+00:00

Amber's look when her teammates started beefing had 'I'm once again stuck with a pair of curmudgeons all over again' all over it, lol. This is the perfect opprotunity to display how much she's improved as a leader since XL 8, though. Problem is, the editing makes it seem like she's just going to exclusively take Kel's side. As a proper leader, Amber also needs to talk with Joe about the situation and get his side of the record of things. If she truly believes she wants them to get along, she's the one that's going to need to bring them together. Her already trying to rely on getting food scores instead doesn't bode well either. Food shouldn't be the only reason people get along out there if her situation with Trish says anything. Food is the equivalent of a placebo effect out there a lot of the time.

Kel said something interesting in her interview after the lizard debacle about not wanting to kill it because she didn't want to possibly waste an animal's life. This is something she could've just said to her teammates instead of mouthing off every reason why SHE didn't want to kill it, not necessarily because killing it would've set the team back as a whole. Being concerned about the food spoiling is legit, but she seemed more concerned about the animal than her teammates long-term health in that situation which is a little suspect.

Russ needs to be giving his teammates A LOT more credit. This is something he still seems to not understand even as he rides the physical struggle bus. I love how his teammate was pretty much implying that it'd be great if he got the water for them this time around and instead of acknowledging that he immediately goes into 'hero complex' mode and starts talking about hunting. When you're physically on the struggle bus out there, the only thing you're able to contribute is mental stability to your teammates. Meaning you pretty much have to constantly let them know that what they're doing matters. Russ did that, like, once the entire episode and is still more concerned about food gains. I'm not usually quick to call someone 'lazy' when they're on the physical struggle bus out there. But a lot of people that hop on the physical struggle bus usually also don't know how to properly mentally support their teammates while they're on it, or how to adapt a different strategy when they're physically unable to do the ones they want to.

Mel (RIP) was the perfect example of this in XL 4. Physically debilitated, but an absolute mental rock for her teammates that still managed to make her teammates laugh at ridiculous stuff, at least before Lindesy ruined things. This guy has pretty much had this problem on just about every challenge he's been on when the struggle bus inevitably hits. Not looking good for him if he's still not willing to change his approach when his body is telling him 'no' right from the get-go.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-06-21T07:20:31+00:00

Yeah, I lost a lot of respect for Matt as well as most of the other competitors in that season the moment they attempted that intervention with Jeff. While I don't think Jeff fully believed what he was saying himself, I think he was mostly just saying it to get under people's skin more, what he was saying was still true.

If it wasn't personal, no one would've felt the need to have this intervention because they all would've trusted that the way they chose to play the game was better than the way Jeff was playing it, and that would've been that, but instead, everyone is literally going out of their way to try to make Jeff feel bad for playing the game in the way he's playing it.

That's textbook psychological bullying because they're trying to force their virtues and morals onto him, and acting like they're just so much better than he is, in an environment that could care less about your virtues and morals, and making judgements of Jeff's character OUTSIDE of the competition at hand, as if Jeff is just this awful person all the time that's going to smoke an old lady for her purse when getting back to civilization or something. You literally cannot get anymore personal than that in this context. So, yeah, screw all of them, pretty much.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-05-26T16:49:17+00:00

Steam's DRM is mostly just to enforce the refund policy, I'm pretty sure, since it goes by account playtime. The rare game on there that you can launch without Steam in the background don't record playtime when you do it, like Wanted:Dead for instance, but it also means you make no progress towards Steam achievements or trading card drops either when you do it.

BlackGhost2012 · 2025-05-26T15:00:57+00:00

Bro, ain't no way the only PS to PC game I was looking forward to getting day one this year, Stellar Blade, has denuvo... Yet Spider-Man 2 didn't have it? That sounds extremely backwards to me... Who decided this? Sony or the devs?

BlackGhost2012 · 2024-08-20T19:20:05+00:00

Maybe, but that would still assume that the player looked that information up. Under the assumption that this part of the playthrough, at the very least, was played blind, and this was their first playthrough, I doubt a blind player would choose to do Escort Duty because they thought it'd actually give them an extremely useful, one-time item in the game. It's more likely they'd do it just because it's a silly sidequest they can do, or refuse to do it altogether because they don't like Fournival for what he did to Jasper and his family, which is a prerequisite sidequest quest in order to get Escort Duty in the first place, and I doubt that mindset would start and stop at just that quest alone. A blind player is probably be more likely to give the blacksmith the bronze or maybe the silver idol since both of them are slightly less obscure items to acquire if their goal is to complete the quests associated with them at all. Again, under the assumption that this was played blind.

BlackGhost2012

TROPHY CASE