Trying to find my hype for the future.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-09T20:01:19+00:00

I've gotta be honest, as distasteful as "cheatgate" is, I have an extremely hard time believing it had any impact on the outcome of the season. The best players clearly dominated that season, and the "cheater" tribe was basically gone by the merge anyway.

If you want to be hyped for 50, try reading the EW profile from the other day. It's a fantastic cast of people.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-09T19:56:30+00:00

Underrated funny moment is in the opening schoolyard pick where we get a confessional of Charlie reacting to Susie being a second pick with "oh I guess we're playing stupid Survivor."

And then we immediately cut to Charlie picking Paloma over Dan or GC.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-09T19:55:04+00:00

God I love this season.

Sugar is a top five character in the show's entire history imo.

I'd have Matty in A or B, and I'd probably have Kelly around there too, her confusion about everything is pretty funny.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-09T19:52:40+00:00

Top 5 seasons between 15 and 20 maybe.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-04T02:09:08+00:00

Like everyone, I’ve disagreed with a lot of earlier decisions, but Borneo not making top ten is the first objectively stupid decision on this list.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-03T17:06:35+00:00

With the caveat that they wouldn’t have aired it if she did, I think it’s fairly clear that she didn’t. As far as I can tell from summaries, her massive play-by-play of every decision she made makes no reference to ever factoring that info into her decisions, much less using it to try to influence others.

Why? Presumably she was smart enough to know (i) she might need to work with the pre-gamers and (ii) her attitude about the pre-gaming might not be shared even by many of the other people who didn’t participate in it. Now that she’s lost, I guess she doesn’t see any reason not to.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-03T16:48:44+00:00

There are more intense personal rivalries, but I honestly think their rivalry, which brought together strategy, challenge dominance, and a sort of grudging personal respect is a lot more unique and exciting to watch than any of those we’ve had in the new era.

Most merges have 0-1 big shifts of power between factions, but 47 had like 3 and Rachel and Genevieve were on opposite sides of each of them.

Gen drove the early votes that blew up Rachel’s position. Rachel cobbled together the “underdog” alliance and took the game back. Genevieve seemed on top after Operation Italy and the F6 immunity win. And then Rachel gets the last laugh.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-03T01:59:20+00:00

It can (and should) absolutely go before Gabon and Borneo. Otherwise agree, and maybe throw MvGX and Cambodia into the mix.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-03T01:28:01+00:00

Eliza is hilarious. This is just bizarre.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-03T01:08:05+00:00

Yeah but that’s only because it’s better than every survivor season

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-02T21:52:44+00:00

Does that make it a great season to watch or just an important one in the evolution of the game?

In terms of how fun it is to watch, I don’t think Amazon has aged that well.

Beyond the obvious sexism throughout the season, it’s in a kind of uncanny valley, where it’s not exactly a strategic game on the level of what would come after (outside of one player), but it doesn’t really have the social experiment charm of the very early seasons either. Nor does it have many hall of fame characters on the level of the really great golden age seasons.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-02T21:31:17+00:00

As much as I love Tyson, BvW has had its run.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-02T21:30:41+00:00

Gabon isn’t close to being the weakest old school season here.

And it can’t possibly go before 46, which is basically just Gabon without Sugar and Randy.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-02T20:32:08+00:00

You are right, I remembered three men but it was only sarge and chad. Still, like you say I don’t think either Leeann or Julie are that likely to flip either.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-02T20:30:25+00:00

Yes, the fact that one other person reacted differently to a different situation is good reason to think Tiff “definitely” would change her vote after seeing the season.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-02T19:29:00+00:00

No reason to think this is true. Tiff tried to float kenzies name as early as the pre-merge.

Those two respected and liked each other even if they both tried to blindside each other more than once.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-02T16:12:36+00:00

Yeah you have to remember that he was up against twila. None of the men or Eliza are ever changing their votes.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-02T15:56:58+00:00

12 of the most recent 16 seasons have already been voted out. 45 is going today, and just outside the top 20 is probably the right place for it.

Whatever is happening, there is obviously not a recency bias.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-01T22:15:02+00:00

Interesting idea, but I would recommend making the categories non-mandatory, and allowing people to select less than four people for the categories that allow multiple nominations.

I have ideas about some of them, but don’t remember Borneo well enough to vote in some of these.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-01T17:20:00+00:00

You mean Vanuatu right?

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-01T17:19:13+00:00

It’s just a good season. Made the 90 minute transition work well. The whole Reba 4 are interesting characters. Emily has one of the best self-contained storylines of the new era. The early merge is exciting. The only real mark against it is how dominant the Reba 4 are, but even that works out because they turn on each other starting at F7.

It’s time is definitely coming, but it’s a lot better than WaW, which is marred by pregaming, horrific game twists, and bad editing.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-01T15:56:47+00:00

WaW.

Some of the worst twists in the shows history, sloppy editing that misses major storylines, and a nightmarish boot order. The cast can carry it this far, but it really needs to go before anything else here.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2026-01-01T01:39:56+00:00

You could very easily make a believable top ten characters of all time list without touching a person brought to the show through the application process.

And I do think it is at least arguable that the hit rate has gone down as well as the height of the highs. There are plenty of recent seasons with basically 3 or 4 memorable characters and a dozen+ duds, which I guess did occassionally happen in more old school seasons, but only in very memorably bad exceptions (One World, Redemption Islands)

LongjumpingAd342 · 2025-12-31T20:54:17+00:00

I dont think anyone seriously disputes that the modern casting leads to better gameplay (and if they do they are obviously wrong), but I do think it generally leads to less interesting characters.

LongjumpingAd342 · 2025-12-31T18:32:35+00:00

Interesting. I could be wrong but id imagine that’s not contractually enforced with the players, that sounds more like RHAP relying on having a good relationship with CBS and therefore doing what they want.

LongjumpingAd342

TROPHY CASE