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PLEASE NOTE: The Reality TV World Message Boards are filled with desperate
attention-seekers pretending to be one big happy PG/PG13-rated family. Don't
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As entertainment critic Roger
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"I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch."
mavsfan 693 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Reality Show Commentator"
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10-25-01, 10:39 AM (EST)
 
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"I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
Can you have a merge that isn't a merge?
MB has a problem. He has his SUVIVORS in the most dangerous place yet, a place that requires keeping TWO guards on watch and a fire at night. He also has one of his tribes getting hammered after tonight Boran will be down to 5 players, and if DK's info holds up, they will be down to 4 players with 2 challenges to go - leaving the very real possibility that Boran over the next several 9 days, the Boran will go down to 2 players. This is a problem from a safety perspective. MB isn't above letting his players suffer, or even get hurt if they do something stupid, but he really doesn't want anyone KILLED, and he SURE doesn't want anyone killed by the native wildlife because they didn't have enough players to post a sentry. So after Boran loses this week and next, and go down 4-8 MB will most likely give us and the players a new twist of merging CAMPS early but not merging tribes. The Boran simply move to the Sambura camp so that they can share sentry duty. This accounts for the 3 tribe rumor Boran/Mallrats/Geriatrics. MB might even go so far as to prohibit communication between the Boran/Sambura factions, making them "draw a line thru camp" but I doubt it would go quite that far. Competition could switch at this point to the individual immunity style of post merge camps, or still remain along tribal lines ie. Boran 4 would still compete against the Sambura 8 for tribal immunity until the get down to the standard 10 players of past merges and then go to the individual immunity. I'm pretty much a hardass about fooling with the structure, in SII when they ran out of food early my attitude was tough. You knew how much food you had and how many days that were left, if you can't manage your food then go without. So I was opposed to JP trade food for the camp. But no one was going to starve to death in the couple weeks they had left, it would have been miserable, and the players would have looked terrible, but they wouldn't have died. Now Faced with the safety issue of Boran possibly getting down to 3 and then 2 players, I don't think MB has much choice but to bring the tribes together early. There's more to say, but I've got to get to work.
I'll leave the switch here for anyone else who wants to beat this horse.
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dangerkitty 1913 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser"
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10-25-01, 11:14 AM (EST)
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4. "RE: I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
Good point, mavsfan. The sentry issue may be quite relevant, and we have the preview letting us know that we will be shown the danger next ep. (watch for "dangerkitty's" cameo  ) And Webby makes a great point about the 3 camps of four being impractical. I like his point, too, because I am firmly in the "no three tribes split" faction. To me, such a large part of what makes this game concept fascinating is that you must be at once teammate and competitor with your tribe members. And I know that "this game isn't fair", but it just seems fundamentally wrong to punish a team for IC dominance by splitting them up. The fact that they are splitting themselves is what makes it interesting - how do they resolve that in the moment, while still looking ahead to the endgame? And to split them out of their alliances - that is just beyond "unfair". There was also a quote, from MB I believe, that you can't mess with alliances.It was also said that some of the changes would be "humorous". To the viewers, I assume - I doubt that much is funny to the players at this point. What would be "humorous": if the camps were moved close enough to one another to share sentry duty, but they aren't allowed to communicate? And we see them trying to spy on each other and figure out what the relationships are? Hmm maybe. That keeps sticking in my mind - what would we find humorous? I hope it's more than Big Tom with a feather in his buttcrack. 
dangerkitty
Goddess of Words
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turtle 23 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Got Milk? Spokesperson"
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10-25-01, 11:45 AM (EST)
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7. "RE: I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
I am soooo unconvinced of the 3 tribes thing. And putting everyone in the same camp but not letting some people talk to each other? How would that work?As for ep 5 "The Twist"...weren't we told that there would be a few curveballs in this series, not just one? In any case, I can't imagine that MB was planning on merging the tribes the same way as before...BORING!!! It was soooo easy to tell who was going next after Jeff got the boot - fish in a barrel, really. Yet 3 tribes seems unworkable, and I can't believe that he would do anything to reshape the game on the fly, it's just too risky. Since all we can do these days is speculate wildly, how about this: instead of 3 tribes at 12 or 9 people, or the predictable merge at 10, why not two totally reconfigured teams of either 5 or 6??? The tribes would be large enough to continue team-based competitions for a few more eps, while shaking up any alliances which had been formed in their original tribes - pretty hard to maintain an "it's you and me to the end, baby" alliance if you can only communicate through winks and nods at challenges. Then, a few bootees later, we could have the final merger where everyone left will find themselves totally uncertain about everyone else's loyalties - maybe the people they were once allied with have been boooted? - or maybe their old allies have formed new alliances in their absence? - Oh NO, can they trust ANYONE anymore???? As for MB or JP or whoever it was who said the changes would make us laugh, I can tell ya that I'd be *LMAO* watching the players' go into shock as JP tells them the good news about their new living arrangements....and watching them realize that all their strategizing for the merge was for naught! Now THAT would be a curveball I wouldn't want to miss!
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turtle 23 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Got Milk? Spokesperson"
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10-25-01, 12:01 PM (EST)
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9. "RE: I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
LOL!! - I saw your post right after I finished mine...and was just about to make the same comment to you about being on the same page!!! I wrote something to this effect a few days ago, but everyone ignored it  ...but I'm tired of the 3 tribes thing, so I thought I'd flog my own dead horse!!! Glad to see another person thinking along these lines...
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bondt007 3413 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Car Show Celebrity"
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10-25-01, 02:36 PM (EST)
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11. "RE: I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
...or perhaps they DO get split up into 3 or even 4 teams. JP tells them not to worry about sentry duty - a crew member would handle that responsibility - but in the middle of the night he slinks back to the air conditioned and fully staffed base camp for a snack. Meanwhile, several lions drag various team members off for a snack of their own. That would be fuuny, wouldn't it? HA ha ha! Quite a "twist" to the norm... wonder who would be the tastiest? Wonder who the lions would reject?
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MDSkinner 716 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Reality Show Commentator"
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10-25-01, 05:29 PM (EST)
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13. "RE: I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
Mavsfan, I also like this option, since this does keep the rules of the game in tact, and it just kind of urges part of one tribe to interact early with the other smaller tribe. Again, I think it might be too early to start worrying about since we are not even sure that the Boran's are going to lose tonight, but this seems like the best option. Ambassadors can defintiely work.Shanana, I think I read sometime last week that the tribes are driven the majority of the way to tribal council and only have to walk the last part of it. Shorten the walk, and I am sure that they are tightening security as well, so that even though they seem in danger, I am sure Burn-it is not going to actually put them in danger in those situations.
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Outfrontgirl 6830 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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10-25-01, 05:44 PM (EST)
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14. "RE: I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
Mavsfan and SB--
Wish I had seen this thread but didn't. Instead I posted on SOTS this morning more or less the same thoughts about safety and tribes getting too small to function, basically agreeing with this.Here is the MB quote from the teleconference posted at SurvivorFever.net. Might as well have the actual quote in front of us. If anyone has a different quote I'd love to see it as well.
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Any Change up when the merger takes place: split into 3 tribes? Mark: There's some unique changes... I cannot confirm or deny the 3 tribes thing, there are interesting twists that will make you laugh. Alliance busters? Mark: You can't do that... you can change things up to keep people thinking and don't try to outthink us. We are the ones organizing the game, it needs to be fresh all the time. When people think they know more about the game than the ones organizing....
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Note the twists will make the viewer laugh, not necessarily the players. In fact, probably won't amuse the players. This leads me to think they do something to shake up Samburu's assumptions that they can Tagi their way to the win. I think that breaking down existing tribes into formal subgroups that split up existing alliances OR into subgroups consisting of all alliance members--which would force them to cannibalize each other if they went to TC--falls into the "you can't do that" category. You can merge the tribe's living quarters sooner, to the effect that when the individual competitions start the two tribes will have spent enough time together to have started cross-tribal alliances.
Just one possibility. One thing I feel strongly about. MB cannot penalize Samburu for their success. He cannot reward Boran for making bad choices.
MB is too Darwinian in his philosophy for that sort of intervention.
IMHO, Burnett has to be careful not to pull a blatant "deus ex machina":
(definition, since most of us aren't literature/drama majors)
"god from a machine": the use of an unexpected and unforeshadowed person or thing to provide a contrived, artificial solution to a dramatic conflict that is often apparently unsolvable. In early Greek drama, when the conflict became hopeless, a god was lowered to the stage from a "machine" or structure above to rescue the hero and take him up and out of the problem. Or, more recently, a long-lost relative appears on the scene just in time to save the family farm from being sold by the sheriff. When I say that I see Burnett as Darwinian, I mean he believes that those who "adapt" survive. Whether or not that makes for great ratings, he does have a philosophy behind this game, and I think he wants to see it played out in whatever permutations arise. I can see him tinkering with the machine to keep people from getting complacent, and making sure people don't get eaten, but not punishing people for playing the best game. 
Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet
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Outfrontgirl 6830 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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10-26-01, 02:50 AM (EST)
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15. "RE: I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
LAST EDITED ON 10-26-01 AT 02:59 AM (EST)Tonight JP announce the time until merge date very definitely when he announced his calculations of how much water they would have per day until the merge. I didn't write down the figures but the number of days left sounded like the normal time until merge. This was before the IC when it was still possible for Boran to lose 3 in a row. Of course we also now know that Boran won't suffer a shut out on the IC's and so their camp may not get alarmingly undermanned.
But Jiffy didn't know that at the RC. I would think he'd omit any reference to the merge date if MB was really considering that he might need an early merge and was looking to keep his options open. They wanted the water plenty without that spiel.
Just a thought. Edited to LOL at myself today and renounce all prior theories.
I did think about my "deus ex machina" remark above while I was watching tonight, and thought, well--JP just dropped the immunity idol out of a flying machine and it saved Boran on the brink of disaster. Yes, Boran earned it, but it was indeed a sort of literal deus ex machina. Of course I argued MB would NOT pull one of those. LMAO
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AresMars 283 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Network TV Show Guest Star"
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10-27-01, 09:57 AM (EST)
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18. "RE: I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
LAST EDITED ON 10-27-01 AT 09:58 AM (EST)Just trying to work out the figures. He said that where was 100 gallons of water. He also said that was enough water to give each person in the tribe a gallon a day till the merge. I believe he said this after Boran won so that comes out to 16.7 days. If he said he before the RC then he may have used Samburu's numbers which comes out to 12.5 days. 100/8=12.5
100/6=16.666667 Do I have the numbers right? Because if I do then I'm confused by JP's statement for the below reason. Now they have always merged with 10 people which would under the old rules leave 7 days till the merge considering they got the water the day before the IC. I see a couple of options here.
1) I got the numbers wrong and am blowing smoke up my a$$
2) Jeff gave us the wrong numbers and is blowing smoke up our a$$es
3) Y'all tell me. I've been up to long.
God Bless America
There are two types of people, predators and prey, and the sound you hear is the sharpening of my claws.
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Outfrontgirl 6830 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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10-27-01, 04:33 PM (EST)
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19. "RE: I've got a dead horse to beat. Gimme that switch." |
Ares,
Thanks for breaking out the figures after I was too lazy to play back the tape. Jeff said this before the RC, in the part where he gets them to salivate over the reward, so he didn't know the winner.I figure roughly 12 days until merge. If that was Day 2 of Ep 3 and the merge happens on Day 2 of Ep 7--4 Eps X 3 days = 12. The figures probably should be taken as "at minimum a gallon apiece." Jeff would understate rather than overstate, and a gallon is a nice round number. In truth, the RC-winning tribe will lose from 0-4 members before merge, so each loss will make more water to go around, and the earlier they lose the more water apiece. In sum, it cannot be calculated exactly due to the chance factor of who wins IC. That said, for 8 people it works out right (12.5 days) until the traditional merge. If for less people they will have more water. That indicates to me that Jeff and the tribes are all thinking of a merge when the tribes are down to ten people and not earlier.
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