I am totally lost in the edit of this season. I am discombobulated, horsejacked. Why spend the first 3 episodes on the ultimately meaningless and annoying issues Brandon had with Mikayla? Why present the crucial merge episode from Cochran and Dawn's perspective? Why not tell us anything meaningful about the character of the winner until the final episode? And why edit the FTC to make the winner look like a babbling idiot and Coach look sincere?

To surprise us? Idiotic. We can't be surprised any more. Every move MB makes we see coming from a mile away.

Don't try. Stick to the formula that works: invest in the characters that matter. Period.

Props to Sophie for employing the newest and oldest way to win a million dollars: crying. If a girl has nothing else going for her, she always has that.

Does the entire jury think you are an arrogant and lazy brat because you've played zero social game for 39 days? NO PROBLEM. That is nothing that a few tears can't wash away!

Yes, we still think you are an arrogant byotch, but at least we know you're human, so here's your million dollars!

Very nice.

The thing that I don't get is that 6 of the 9 jury members were from Savii. So, why would THEY be bitter towards Coach? He merely stuck to his alliance of 5. That is as honorable and truthful as he could have played it, to them. Yeah, he's a hypocrite, but not to them. Yeah, maybe he used religion to manipulate his own tribe, but again, NOT TO THEM. So, again, where do they get off?

>

• RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,garyc, 08:01 AM, 12-20-11
• RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,Belle Book, 11:37 AM, 12-20-11
  • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,michel, 00:06 AM, 12-21-11
    • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,dabo, 03:34 AM, 12-21-11
      • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,PepeLePew13, 01:08 PM, 12-21-11
      • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,michel, 07:35 PM, 12-21-11
        • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,dabo, 10:22 PM, 12-21-11
          • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,PepeLePew13, 10:47 PM, 12-21-11
• RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,michel, 00:07 AM, 12-21-11
  • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,sol, 02:19 AM, 12-21-11
    • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,garyc, 08:04 AM, 12-21-11
  • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,Toban, 01:08 PM, 12-21-11
    • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,michel, 07:58 PM, 12-21-11
      • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,iltarion, 08:25 PM, 12-21-11
        • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,michel, 09:00 PM, 12-21-11
          • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,iltarion, 09:26 PM, 12-21-11
            • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,iltarion, 09:37 PM, 12-21-11
              • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,michel, 10:38 PM, 12-21-11
              • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,garyc, 10:41 PM, 12-21-11
                • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,michel, 10:50 PM, 12-21-11
            • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,michel, 10:48 PM, 12-21-11
            • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,PepeLePew13, 10:52 PM, 12-21-11
• RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,Jims02, 11:31 PM, 12-21-11
  • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,michel, 11:54 PM, 12-21-11
    • RE: Lost in Translation and the Million Dollar Tears,iltarion, 02:23 PM, 12-23-11

LAST EDITED ON 12-20-11 AT 08:29 AM (EST)

Maybe Sophie wasn't very interesting so they focused on more interesting personalities: Coach, Cochran, Brandon, and returning favorite Ozzy.

As for Coach, if you weren't on his tribe to see him play you might not have taken him seriously based on his previous appearances on the show. Admitting he had tried to play with integrity only to get caught up in lies and manipulations probably made him look like he didn't know what he was doing. The praying might have ticked people off if they didn't think he was sincere while the attempts to hug alliance mates he had just voted off looked desperate to me. Think he needed to own that he had lied and manipulated because its how you build and maintain an alliance while pointing out he kept his core alliance in the game until there was no one else to vote off.

If Albert was a used car salesman, Coach was too much of a politician, or too much Elmer Gantry. Not sure he could ever win survivor. Think he would get too much in his own way.

Sophie's real problem is that she was on a season with four "characters": Brandon, Coach, Cochran and Ozzy. And she's no character. She's a player. And she probably did little that was seen as interesting. Besides, Jeff likes Coach and was probably upset that Sophie beat him, so the editors gave her the short end of the stick.

As for Coach, all he had to do was to admit that he played the game, and he'd have probably won. Unfortunately, he failed to realize that you can't play Survivor like it's real life, and it cost him everything.

Dabo tried the 4 big characters argument but it doesn't wash. Many other seasons had numerous characters and the winner was always edited nicely.

I made what argument? Nuh-uh.

I didn't put any number on it, but the observation I made, to reduce it to the simplest terms, is that the editors give preference to those who do try to grab attention, the characters, the gonzos, the divas, the bigger than life eccentric bozos.

Them reality show producers and editors are suckers for Desperate Attention Whores. You want your TV time, go big. Me, if I were to play Survivor, I wouldn't give a damn about getting my TV time either, but a lot of these nutsos are all about being dramatic, sho me as much as possible, make it the Me Show!.

The Sophie edit became clear in the Finale, and only then. She had a strategy in place from Day 1 to get her to F5, she made decisions along the way to keep her game going (NOT the same thing as doing nothing, making decisions is making decisions, like I tried to point out to you before), and her redemption came at FTC when she was honest and realized she needed to work on improving herself as a socially interactive person. Verses being a liar and BS artist or just a deluded wannabe.

Right, and there have been numerous seasons where we looked back in hindsight and realized all the steps the winner did, but weren't apparent at the time. Tina and Sandra are good examples of this - many of us didn't think much of their chances during the game, but when it was all over, we started to realize what was going on and how it happened.

Sophie obviously made plenty of moves during the game and we saw bits of that throughout as the focused started to shift over from the Savaiis to the Upolus, and she was edited the way she was for a reason to show that big moves doesn't work - if they showed us all of her moves, it would have gone against the theme the editors were trying to establish.

I'm sorry Dabo, I mistook a post from Pepe for one of yours. He is the one that wrote about the 4 megaDAWS.

But I will address this:

"She had a strategy in place from Day 1 to get her to F5, she made decisions along the way to keep her game going (NOT the same thing as doing nothing, making decisions is making decisions, like I tried to point out to you before)"

Let's compare Survivor to real life because it was a theme this season. In real life, one of the most stressful situation is when you are faced with a financial crisis. What "moves" do people make in that situation?

1- They do whatever it takes to solve the problem: Take a second job, work overtime, beg, borrow or steal. I would equate that to how Rob played last season. Strategic AND entertaining.

2- They make arrangements with their bank. Sometimes it works and your new deal/alliance gets you to the win. Strategic but not always entertaining. That would be how most UTR players win.

3- They go bankrupt. I would equate that to being blindsided in Survivor.

4- They don't do a thing, hoping the problem will go away. They may very well last a month (!!) but sooner or later the problem will come back to haunt them. I equate that to being voted out like Rick and Edna and how it could have ended for Sophie. See, they didn't make decisions, they procrastinated. Not exactly the same thing. Fortunately, before the credit card company send someone to repossess her car, Sophie won the lottery.

5- They commit suicide. That's Brandon.

As for Sophie's "decisions" along the way, they were either bad or were evident:

- Voting out Christine and Stacey was just going with the flow.

- Voting to keep Mikayla was a terrible move because, if Coach had really been like Rob instead of being Rob-light, she would have been the next on the chopping block. Morono would not have tolerated such a rebellion.

- She declined Albert's ideas to change the game but Albert's ideas were dumb: Proposing a 5 person alliance with Cochran, Dawn and Whitney? She'd have to be pretty stupid to go from majority to minority. Voting against first Edna and then Rick? Those are the people that could have helped change the game because the only way to do so was to eliminate Coach. Sophie would have been dumb to vote out Edna and Rick at F7 when those two were already scheduled for execution at F6 and F5!!

Thanks Agman!

Thanks for clearing that up, it was Pepe's supposedly disproven argument (ie. argument you dispute).

In the financial crisis analogy, Sophie was not procrastinating, IMO. Though I would agree she benefitted from Edna's and Rick's procrastinations (though Rick was so invisible it may have been he was trying something and just had not even a bad game worth showing), and Brandon's suicide/bankrupcy.

And I (mostly) disproved Michel's rebuttal - some of who he view as "megaDAWs" are not even in the same zip code as the four from this past season. I'm still laughing at the idea that Nate from Cook Islands could be considered a megaDAW.

I'm with you, Iltarion. This was the worst season in terms of strategy and editing.

A couple seasons ago I got so annoyed at Na'Onka that I decided to stop watching, and continued my break from Survivor when I heard Russell was back last season. I decided to watch this season as a casual fan. I did not check any boards for spoiling, speculating or strategy. I did not watch to try and make sense of the editing, I just watched an episode, and waited for the next without giving it any further thought. If I was a first time viewer I wouldn't have lasted through the third ep.

Survivor appeared to be a tired, old shell of itself. Was that the best they could do for characters? For many fans seeing Ozzy is enough. And then there was Coach - certainly not the character he was in Tocantins. Cochran and Brandon were not characters, they were pathetic wannabees. Cochran says he has watched all the episodes, but is clueless about how the game is played. Brandon was some 12 year old who wants to fit in with the big people; but is simply too immature, and too lacking in knowledge about life to understand what being an adult is all about. The number of confessionals these guys got was a testament to how bad the season was. If you can't give me good players, at least give me entertaining characters - but leave out the Na'Onkas.

Before the FTC Coach had repeated often enough that the million dollars was his to lose, it was becoming plainly obvious that he was going to lose it. His performance at the FTC was his undoing. It was obvious that no one wanted to vote for anyone on the F3, but they had to vote for someone; and I think some were trying to figure out who had the best strategy. When asked, Coach said he was a poor strategist, and Sophie promptly announced that she was the strategist. Coach lost those votes, Sophie picked them up. I think most of the jury hoped Coach would perform well enough to justify them voting for him, but he bombed. Sure some expressed their bitterness and trashed Coach, but others were done in by Cochran, not Coach. When Sophie told them how the HII was really found, Brandon switched his vote from the dishonest Coach, to Sophie. I thought those were the 2 key statements during the FTC, and I thought hers was one of the best FTC performances I had seen; although facing her personality flaws were hard on her psyche. But up until that moment it was a forgettable season.

Maybe it is time to retire from watching Survivor. Maybe I've changed, or maybe society has changed over the 11 years and the characters just aren't available any more. Whatever ... it was enjoyable to come back for a few moments and read what the members here were thinking.

LAST EDITED ON 12-21-11 AT 08:32 AM (EST)

Read Sophie's interviews on this site. Agree it seemed to me that Coach was trying to be honest with the jury about how he couldn't pull off playing with complete integrity while the jurors wanted him to say it he had deceived and manipulated them. Sophie gave them that. Think Sophie had a better grasp on the fact that its a game, not real life, than Coach did. So she knew what to tell the jury, and won.

Was the season good? I don't know. I like the seasons with twists, like Fans/Favorites and I hate pagonging, as in Palau.

Do think the winner was the most deserving of the three if only because she better understood that it is a game. If you break promises to people, you need to explain it as strategy at final TC, not give tortured explanations of how you could not play up to your own ideals. Also appreciate that Sophie and Albert saw the returning player as someone to take to the end because (based on previous seasons) they didn't think he could win. Like that much more than Rob's alliance mates helping write out the check to him.

I think last season (when Rob won) was much worse than this season, for general entertainment. It was excruciating watching all the lemmings idolize Rob and do nothing to try to win the game. At least this season had a few players willing to take some risks, even if most of those risks ended in failure (Albert, Cochran, Whitney and Keith, Jim). Sophie had a very good strategy and held it together from start to finish. Her FTC performance was among the best.

I do agree, however, that the edit job was the worst. They could have and should have done a far better job of presenting Sophie to us a master strategist and behind-the-scenes manipulator. The general public would have been far more excited about her victory.

Editing is a big part of the entertainment and good editing lets us know the characters: Albert, Whitney and Keith were practically invisible for all the pre-merge while Rick was MIA for the whole time. That's 1/3 of the people at the merge.

In Rob's season, the only hidden player was Krista and that was because it turned out she was a mega-beotch that they couldn't show because she was on Russell's side and we were meant to hate Zap for voting them out. At the merge, Natalie was the least developed character but she had much more than Rick ever had, closer to Edna in airtime, I'd say.

As for strategy, last season was like a canvas where a master showed us how to play. That also was entertaining. No one came close this season.

But the last two seasons are the two worse ever. Yes, worse than Thailand and Fiji so I won't put up much of a fight if you want to say S23 was better than S22.

Any season where B-Rob makes it to the end is a Top 10 season.

Borneo, Gabon, and Fiji are all worse seasons than this one. So, I'd probably put it 4th last.

The editing can create interest if the players aren't. Why not build a story around how Sophie was perceived by other players? In winning, she is finally accepted. There was an easy story there.

>

Borneo? That season created the phenomenom so it shouldn't be judged by today's standards. Yes, the editing of the first two or three episodes was amateurish but it was a work in progress and it was very entertaining, even intriguing.

Fiji had some very funny moments, Yau Man and the fall of the 4 horsemen so it isn't as bad as the crap we've just been served. I'll give you Gabon though.

The first of anything is always overrated.

The choreography was crap. The editing was crap. Jeff had no clue what he was doing. No one knew how to play the game and most weren't even interested in trying.

And worst of all, no one gave a crap about anyone else. In 24 seasons, we've never had a F6 who despised each other more.

>

Some people must have watched a different FTC than me. I thought Sophie was scatterbrained. She talked too fast and too long. The jury looked bored and confused.

She tried to sell herself as a strategist even though she didn't make a single strategical move, and the worst was when she said she wished she was a man. Yeah, like women have never won before. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Coach's soliloquy about his game of honor being a house of cards that collapsed of its own weight was one of the best and, I thought, most sincere moments of any FTC.

I wasn't expecting Coach to have a good FTC, but I was actually surprised. Though he was in rough shape heading in, I thought he did well enough to win.

>

>
>Some people must have watched a
>different FTC than me. I
>thought Sophie was scatterbrained. She
>talked too fast and too
>long. The jury looked bored
>and confused.
>
>She tried to sell herself as
>a strategist even though she
>didn't make a single strategical
>move, and the worst was
>when she said she wished
>she was a man. Yeah,
>like women have never won
>before. I'm still trying to
>figure that one out.
>
>Coach's soliloquy about his game of
>honor being a house of
>cards that collapsed of its
>own weight was one of
>the best and, I thought,
>most sincere moments of any
>FTC.
>
>I wasn't expecting Coach to have
>a good FTC, but I
>was actually surprised. Though he
>was in rough shape heading
>in, I thought he did
>well enough to win.

I totally agree with this.

Unfortunately for Coach the jury didn't want to hear about what went wrong with his game. They wanted someone to convince them they deserved to win and Sophie did a better job of that.

For worst season ever, I'd go with Palau. Endless pagonging and a totally predictable winner who didn't have to work too hard (beyond winning final immunity) to be assured of the $M.

Palau was bad because Ulong was filled with quitters but Tom was a very deserving winner. He didn't have too much to do post-merge because he almost singlehandedly destroyed the competition.

>
>The first of anything is always
>overrated.
>
>The choreography was crap. The editing
>was crap. Jeff had no
>clue what he was doing.
>No one knew how to
>play the game and most
>weren't even interested in trying.
>
>
>And worst of all, no one
>gave a crap about anyone
>else. In 24 seasons, we've
>never had a F6 who
>despised each other more.

I totally disagree with this. Mostly with the "no one knew how to play" comment. That's what made it most interesting. They were playing different games but each tribe had established its rules. Pagong knew how to play a Survival game that was based on merit. They figured that the most deserving should get to stay and should get the votes in the end. The viewers were actually favoring that game.

Survivor, the original, was a study in human behavior that no other season could recreate because they had all seen Hatch. If anything, nowadays, Borneo is underrated. Mostly by those that started watching around Cook islands so I am surprised you share that feeling.

You absolutely cannot compare an original season with people who had no idea what they were getting into with a much later season with players who have had years to study how the show works.

For me, Borneo will always be special as people were learning on the fly what they were supposed to do with each other and everything was fresh and new, they actually did some legit 'surviving' back then unlike nowadays when they serve huge rewards in almost every episode (glad to see there were fewer big-food rewards this past season!).

LAST EDITED ON 12-21-11 AT 11:33 PM (EST)

The moment Cochran lost his duel, I literally shouted at my TV, "What a waste of time!" These editors this season couldn't edit their way out of a paper bag.

You know, I get the whole Cochran thing. I get that he's naturally going to be one of the bigger personalities in this season, especially after he flips. It's only natural.

But, really, editors? You're going to devote THE ENTIRE CLIPSHOW TO THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN COCHRAN?!?!?!?!? Really? Really? This is what you're going to do, one episode before he gets voted out?

What the hell, editors. What the hell.

This has been a disturbing trend the last couple of seasons, since Jiffy became an executive producer. They seem to latch onto 2 or 3 contestants and push the heavy majority of screentime toward them. Last year, Philip was The Cochran, but at least that guy made the Final 3. And Boston Rob soaked up the rest of the screentime.

I don't know how fair I'm being in this analysis because there were certainly huge DAWs in previous seasons (like Rupert). Even despite Rupert hogging the spotlight, I feel like Pearl Islands was still an ensemble cast. It could be that having all these returning contestants are making it feel like they are lead actors on a TV show.

And now Jiffy's all like, "Let's have Brandon vs Russell!" and the audience cheers. Gawd almighty, is Jiffy just ridiculously out of touch, or am I just in that small vocal minority again?

A 2003 IceCat original