LAST EDITED ON 02-16-05 AT 06:28 AM (EST) Episode One
It is time to bring all of the spoiling, speculating, and vidcap analyzing from the last 2 months, all into one thread. If you haven't had the time to keep up with the threads in the off-season, you can catch up here in one shot. Welcome to a new season of Survivor! Before we go much further, I just want to remind you to please read the Board Guidelines if you haven't already. What was learned during Survivor Vanuatu? Pepe Le Pew started this thread and many of you have added some great insight that is useful to spoiling.
Survivor Palau
Introduction
Survivor Palau promises to begin like no other Survivor season has begun, the castaways will begin as one group of 20, with three being sent home in the first episode. This claim was made in CBS' official press release. It was also said that players would get no help and no instructions. Palau is host to some of the clearest waters around, and was also a deadly hot spot during WWII. This will most assuredly be a big part of the theme of this season. In the promos we see skeletons of wrecked ships and planes, the tribal council area is modeled after a japanese bunker, and the buffs are camoflauge. 
Episode 1 Title- "This has never happened before"
Credit Brownroach for bringing the title over from Sucks. We learn from the early promo that everything the survivors have come to expect will be wiped out in the first 10 minutes. In this thread you will also find discussion of the quote from Mark Burnett that some will be lost for real and that 2 survivors don't make it to the first challenge. More on this in a minute, let's meet the castaways for Palau. (Since the first episode is only 60 minutes long, you may get more out of this introduction than you will in the actual episode.) The Castaways-
(Click on the picture of each survivor to go to the biography and speculation page) 
There are many great threads that talk about the cast. In Krautboy's weight loss spoiler thread we learn that Ibrehem, Gregg, Stephanie, Caryn, and Jonathan were all reported to have lost some weight. How much of this is real and how much of this is hoax? You can check this thread and read up on the history of hoaxes and how spoiling has changed from season 1. Threads that have plenty of pictures and other information on the cast are the confirmator posted by Clemson Beav (With one of the names on the list pegged by our very own Tribephyl!) and Flower Power's cast photo album. More pictures that show many of the cast members with army style canteens strapped to their belts. Finally, caps from PMSPML and The Early Show will give you a good idea of each players character. Potential player strategies, editing, and confessional counts-
Editing, players strategies, and confessional counts are all a part of the big picture in trying to spoil the season as well as each episode. Veruca Salt is back to keep her editing posts alive. In here she has included pregame comments by Host Jeff Probst and speculates on how each player will do. Risti adds a very interesting thread with a different spin on the editing. Because of all the models and pretty people, it looks like survivor is going for a 'show' as much as it is a game. Krautboy gives us the pregame confessional analysis, and reminds us that strategies revealed do not succeed. How does the game begin?
First off, we know that they begin as one group of 20. Since 2 will be gone before the first challenge, Pepe Le Pew has some prophetic speculation, Would they actually consider something like a pick-em scenario (like when Jake and Jan picked out tribes to start S5 Thailand) and then when they get to the last two, Jiffy says "Guess what? These two are gonzo." The answer we find out after various promos and lots of speculation, is yes. We know that while rowing to shore, Jeff approaches them in a boat and gives them the instructions that they are heading to the island, it is marked with a green flag. The first male and the first female to reach the flag will win immunity. 
So the boat nears the beach and they all jump ship. Now do they jump ship at that point from shore because of an artillery blast of some sort, or do they just decide they are close enough and once one jumps they all jump? Lots of info here including a seating diagram of the 20 people in the boat by Fester Fan. 
PMSPML and Flower Power were advocates of the scenes of the players jumping ship so quickly had to be tied to the ladies running on the beach in this shot: 
And in fact, that is the way things turned out. Jolanda and Ian will win the first competition and will become the captains in the 'pick em' for selecting tribes. Only they don't know that yet. The tribe lives together for a day maybe two before they have to go to select the tribes. This gives them a chance to meet everybody, and get to know them to some degree. 
Tribe selection-
It is speculated that the 20 players will now row to the 'pick em' spot, which after the tribe selection and 2 players leave, there may be the first challenge directly following, it is hard to tell. There is a possibility that there could be 3 tribes, we have seen 3 buffs. But going on the 2 people that won immunity and several other factors, it is more widely speculated that they will be picking 2 tribes of 9 players each. The last 2 players, 1 male and 1 female, will have to leave and won't be on a tribe. The tribe names are spoiled to be Ulong and Koror named after 2 of the islands. The picking process is speculated to be a chain pick em. So for example if Jolanda picks first, she picks a male, when it is Ulongs next pick, the male picks a female that he wants on the tribe and on down the line. According to Probst, the process is brutal and very much like the feeling of being in the school yard waiting to be selected to play kick ball. Only the 2 that don't get picked here go home, much higher stakes, and therefore it will be quite an emotional time. Going on the best information we have, it is speculated that Wanda Shirk the singing school teacher, and Jeff Wilson the young stud, won't get picked to be on a tribe. SNEWS appears to possibly be thinking something different, but if so what? Fester Fan makes some great points in that thread that Wanda and Jeff are vacant in all of the promos and confessionals, as if they are non-existant. Tribal break down
More speculation, some based on best guesses, some based on visual evidence of buffs, and some based on sourced spoilers that may or may not be true. That being said, here is the latest educated guess by Krautboy:
Ulong Tribe: 9 (5 women…4 men)1.Jolanda (Captain – first picker for Ulong) (Bianca/CMC)
3.Jonathan (CMC) (weight loss?)
5.Kimberley (buff vidcap)
7.Bobby Jon (buff vidcap)
9.Stephenie (vidcap)
11.Gregg (???)
13.Angie (buff vidcap)
15.James (CMC?)
17.Ashlee (vidcap)
Korror Tribe: 9 (5 men…4 women)2.Ian (Captain - first picker for Korror) (vidcap)
4.Jennifer ( Animation…not Ulong?)(Vidcap emotional with Caryn)
6.Ibrahem (CMC) ( Weight Loss) (Flirting with Jenn-Korror?)
8.Katie (weight loss?)(???)by process of elimination.
10.Tom (CMC)
12Caryn (TDT vidcap)
14.Coby (vidcap)
16.Janu (buff vidcap)
18.Willard (CMC?) Eliminated: 2 Jeff (MSN)
Wanda (eliminated – VG) I think Gregg is on Koror tribe though because he appears to have a brown buff around his neck in the photo with Janu. Also, if you look at the top rung on the wood rail, the left side is painted blue, and the right side that Gregg and Janu are in is brown. But I also think the tribes will be gender balanced, so who would swap with Gregg...? ETA: Krautboy and the other speculation was just about perfect. We now have visual proof of the tribes and their make up, thanks Survivor Shrine. Gregg is on Korer and Ibrehem is on Ulong. It appears that Jonathan is the last male not picked instead of Jeff, but this makes a lot less sense. He must have made a huge early error in order to not get selected over Jeff or Willard. 
The challenge
We don't have a whole lot to go on here. There seems to be bits and pieces of various challenges and some caps that are from the dream team rehearsal in the TV Guide special. Not much in the latest weekend promo either, but we do have this clip: 
Janu and Gregg in a military style challenge. There is also this picture showing potential challenge props: 
In that picture we do have green on a couple of the tires, which is part of the spec for the possibility of 3 tribes of 6. However, the dream team ran through a future challenge and used 2 tribes of 8 (most likely E2 challenge). So with no clear challenge caps, and no totally clear indication of which tribe would win the challenge, we are forced to speculate on who the potential first boot could be. Pick the bootee-
We can rule out several players because of vidcaps showing them competing in water challenges. The main possibilities are- Jonathan- he was quoted as saying "If you are the first one booted, you might as well not come home." Jolanda- She is tough, even though she is strong physically she may intimidate too many people right off. Brownroach believes she is the one. Tom- Jeff Probst was hoping he would stick around long enough to be our hero, and there were some false spoilers out there about him...to mask a boot? Janu- Has to be considered a possibility, she seems to be bonding with others in the pictures but you never know. Katie- Low face time, not much of a weight loss, a jokester that might rub people the wrong way. Ashlee and Bobby Jon are most likely not candidates for this weeks boot because episode 2 is titled "Love is in the air, rats are everywhere", and they have been known to flirt with each other. The immunity necklace that Jolanda wins for racing to shore is only good as being the captain of the pick em, once her tribe loses the first challenge, she is no longer safe and gets the boot. I can still hear Wanda singing now: 
Don't forget to vote. SOTS is provided by SurvivorBlows.com as a service to our readers. The purpose of this post is to consolidate the threads in the Spoiler Forum pertaining to this week's episode. Feel free to reply to this post if you feel that a theory you support was not adequately represented in this message... Please use this thread for unified discussion of all topics as we approach the next episode. 
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Episode One
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All those not on TV have only themselves to blame ~ Jackson Browne
