>zzz - do you think that
>CBS lets her write or
>narrate her story and then
>vetoes any mention about someone
>who is being booted the
>episode prior (as I pointed
>out in a post earlier
>on this thread)? If
>Alicia happens to say nothing
>about the person who got
>booted, so much the better
>and no vetoing is needed.
>
Here is what I think. I think that CBS sends a very short description to TV Guide--it includes the title and the one sentence we see every once in a while that goes something like "Days 18, 19 and 20 of Survivor is hosted by Jeff Probst and a 7th person is voted off" or something like that (I know it is actually a little longer than that but you get the gist). I think that is the ONLY involvement of CBS and MB in the TV Guide listing--with the major exception of the twist where details were leaked to Alicia and Susan so that the previews would not be total gibberish for two weeks. I don't think CBS or MB reviews Alicia's or Susan's articles at all. They work for TV Guide--NOT for CBS or MB.

So in this case, if Alicia assumes in her E9 preview that Lex is still around and it turns out that Lex goes in E8, too bad for Alicia and too bad for TV Guide (it would be too late by that point to change the print edition). That is the risk Alicia takes when she writes the article. I think that CBS and MB would love to have her make a mistake like this, mislead us, and have her have to explain herself in her next article.

I could be totally wrong. Maybe they let Alicia view E8 before she writes the article for E9 so that it makes more sense and in return insists on veto power over what she writes (to make sure she does not give away too much knowing that the E9 article always comes out before E8 is actually shown). It is possible. I just have not seen any evidence (other than the issue relating to the twist). In defense of Fester and against what MD and I have said, Susan's remark about weaker players going off only means that she did not see E6 before previewing it, but does not prove she did not see E5, because E5 is where Jeff P suggested there would not be merge E7 (although as we know there ended up being one). In fact, that comment suggests she did see E5 before previewing E6. At a minimum, it appears that the possibility of a delayed merge was part of the leaked info given to Susan and Alicia in connection with the twist.

So in the end, I am not sure what to think. I just have a hard time believing that CBS or MB would let them see an episode ahead of time--too much risk of a leak (although they already trusted them once with confidential info when they were actual players). I think we need to try to keep track of whether they ever assume something that clearly would not have been assumed if they had actually viewed the prior episode (actually, in most cases there are two unseen episodes at the time they have to turn in their article--the recap made this only 1 for E9 but generally it will be 2). If they do not have inside info, eventually they are bound to trip up.