Can't say its been boring. The villians have a number of interesting personalities, and the back and forth between James and his adversaries on the Heroes has been quite blunt at times. But . . think Tom is correct in claiming the China/Micronesia survivors are allies just waiting to merge. Also think the substantial bloc of players from those seasons: Amanda, James, Parvati, Courtney, Cirie (though it sounds like Cirie might not have been part of that bloc this time around) is throwing off the competitive side of the show. (Keeping a man who can barely walk over someone healthy makes no sense in a normal season.) It also removes one of the elements of the show: a bunch of strangers thrown together having to build working relationships and alliances with people they don't know. Instead they're walking into existing relationships and most likely just biding their time until merge. Seeing this as a serious problem with this season's casting; too many players from a couple of seasons. There had to be some competitive players from underrepresented seasons they could have cast.

• RE: an entertaining travesty of a season,iltarion, 08:27 AM, 03-13-10
  • RE: an entertaining travesty of a season,krismiss2us, 04:59 PM, 03-14-10
    • RE: an entertaining travesty of a season,iltarion, 04:37 PM, 03-22-10
  • RE: an entertaining travesty of a season,Spanky68, 08:44 AM, 03-22-10
    • RE: an entertaining travesty of a season,Lasann, 07:44 PM, 03-22-10
• RE: an entertaining travesty of a season,Zimbochick, 08:15 AM, 03-25-10

It has been an up and down season, starting with one of the best premiers ever, but since then we've only had the Cirie blindside, otherwise, very predictable boots.

Pre-show alliances were the problem with the first All Stars and one of the main reasons why JP didn't want to do another one until long after that (general bad attitudes by the players being the other main reason.) I agree that could end up being a problem here as well. It might have been unfair to Tom, Stephanie and Colby to have Amanda, James and Cirie together on their tribe. On the other hand, JT and Candice were there to balance the power, and they failed to recruit them.

It isn't production's fault that the Heroes have been so inept and made the voting all one-sided. Because of that, out of necessity mostly, the editing has focused on the Heroes, with only Rob, Russell, and Coach getting any story for the Villians, though Parvati still has a chance as well. Sandra, Jerri and Tyson have been partially ignored, and Courtney, Danielle, and Randy entirely ignored.

I have found the edit inconsistent, but they may be trying to throw us off by doing that. So, that may be intentional, and props to them if it is because I have to admit I have no idea where this is going right now.

I can say that after setting Rob up as the Hero-like Villian, and Russell as the #1 Villian, if Russell eliminates Rob, this season will go onto the crap pile for me and many others.

Even though they appeared to set that up last episode, I still can't believe they would do that. It would be like having Clint Eastwood lose in the gunfight at the end of Pale Rider.

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to me, that's the perfect end to a clint eastwood movie matter of fact, the best john wayne movie: Cowboys. Why? Cuz he died at the end. So GO RUSSELL!

Yeah, Mel Gibson dies at the end of Braveheart. Russell Crowe dies at the end of Gladiator. Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington die at the end of Glory. Etc. etc. etc... I see the point. But I didn't say anything about Clint Eastwood dying. He is already dead in Pale Rider so that would have been impossible. I said the suckage would have come from him LOSING. That's a big difference. The others died, but in different ways still won. That's the key.

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I think the problem causing some people like Randy and Tyson to be left out of the editing mix is that you have SO MANY interesting people on this season that you can't fit many story lines into the 1 hour format. Thus it is inevitable that you leave some people out. I think that when they boot a few more contestants, you will see more of those UTR people getting face time.

Interesting points to which I found myself nodding as I read, so I guess in short, ITA.

One of the problems as I see it is that on the Villains you have a lot of good physical players, and very good strategic players. On Heroes you have nice guys, but apart from JT, none of them are both physical and strategic. James is a good physical player, but not so mentally. Amanda and Colby are both disappointing this season, and were stronger previously. Getting rid of Stephenie was a stupid move that cost them challenges.