LAST EDITED ON 03-06-10 AT 05:22 PM (EST)

LAST EDITED ON 03-06-10 AT 05:21 PM (EST)

"Try surviving without women!!! Seriously, I can appreciate the multiple strategies they bring to the game."

Men don't bring 'multiple strategies' to the game? I appreciate EVERYTHING women bring to the game.

"This is the point I really want to tackle because this is completely false. Since Palau, we've had bloated casts, prolonged pre-merge and much more physical challenges. Palau, Cook Islands and Fiji..."

False? 100% not. But I think a big difference between our two arguments is my definition of "recent years" as your allusion to Palau and Cook Islands illustrates. By recent years, I meant like the last two or three, not near as far back Palau.

Here is my point- last season: won by Natalie though her tribe lost, badly, the first half of the game.

Season 18: won by JT though his tribe also lost the 1st half of the game.

Season 17, 16, and 15: tribal switches made 1st half of the game somewhat meaningless

Season 14: won by Earl, whose team was infamously decimated before a late tribal swtich of sorts.

So, yes, being on a tribe that gets whooped before merge has lately, especially in the last two seasons, meant nothing. If you can win regardless of what happens premerge, then viewers might as well just start skipping the first half of the season.

Is it possible that the challenges have gotten more physical in an attempt to convince tribes to keep their stronger members? So, we have tougher challenges and we got JP scolding tribes for voting out the members that would give them the best chance of winning challenges. Sounds like two things meant to accomplish the same goal to me.

Maybe production thinks like I do. Maybe Survivor was never meant to be Big Brother in the jungle. Maybe.

Either way, let's not degrade women by suggesting we need to make the challenges easier for them. I say the problem isn't the challenges. It is the women they are casting. Women like Laura, Tina, and Alicia can compete with men in 90% of challenges. Or just women like Amanda, Parvati, Danielle and Candice are capable enough in challenges to be assets to their tribe premerge.

JP listed Micronesia, what, #2 on his list of best seasons. Clearly, he has nothing against women dominating the game.

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