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Survivor: Heroes v Villains - Opinion on pre and post-merge

How was the pre merge of this season in your opinion?

  • Amazing

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • Great

    Votes: 6 54.5%
  • Good

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • Okay

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Bad

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • Horrible

    Votes: 1 9.1%

  • Total voters
    11
Losing Shonee, Shaun and Hayley in succession has left us with a very weak final 6 IMO, where the two biggest characters of the season eat up all of the airtime. A strong pre-merge and an average post-merge. It is very much a George pagonging everyone else, the split votes are just blown up by the editors to look like more than they are, to make the show appear more fun. When in reality, George is just splitting votes incase of idols.
Agreed.

Though I still have Simon, and am hoping against hope he wins immunity enough to get him to the finale, where he'll have a good chance of winning if he puts forward his case of being the only one scrambling against the odds, and doubles down on his very valid point of the others (whoever is still there, he'll have some jury management to do but their goodwill towards him is there) being George's pawns.
 
I would love a Simon win, if only to see his reaction. He would be so thrilled; imagine the tears! I do agree, he deserves it for his extreme bottomness. That must be an exhausting way to play. George endeared himself to the audience last time he played, since he was a classic underdog, but now it’s Simon’s turn. Playing from the bottom is a gift. Remember how arrogant and bossy Simon was in the first few eps when he truly believed he was the Villain’s alpha? Now that he has learned some humility, he’s become a far more deserving winner. I’m predicting Matt, Liz and Simon final three, Liz winning challenge and picking Simon, which will be a bad move, she should pick Matt.
 
What I find odd this season is although almost every episode and every tribal feels predictable the boot order post-merge (and indeed post-tribe swap) has been anything but, probably down to Hayley flipping at final 12 rather than steamrolling on with the Heroes. Whether she'd have progressed further by remaining Heroes strong we'll never know, though as they'd already tried to blindside her beforehand and she had to be saved by production probably not.


I don't think anyone would have thought we'd end up with a final six of three original heroes and three original villains in the early phase of the game where the villains were just losing every immunity. And I think from the comments here this week most of see at least one villain, if not two, making it to the final two. Any comination of Nina, Matt and Gerry in the final two seems unlikely and would be a rather underwhelming finale.
 
What I find odd this season is although almost every episode and every tribal feels predictable the boot order post-merge (and indeed post-tribe swap) has been anything but, probably down to Hayley flipping at final 12 rather than steamrolling on with the Heroes. Whether she'd have progressed further by remaining Heroes strong we'll never know, though as they'd already tried to blindside her beforehand and she had to be saved by production probably not.


I don't think anyone would have thought we'd end up with a final six of three original heroes and three original villains in the early phase of the game where the villains were just losing every immunity. And I think from the comments here this week most of see at least one villain, if not two, making it to the final two. Any comination of Nina, Matt and Gerry in the final two seems unlikely and would be a rather underwhelming finale.

Heroes were 11-6 at one stage.

2 things.. the hierarchy of the Heroes played a horrible game, letting it known they were the top dogs. Also its without a doubt George and Hayley went in with a pre game alliance.
 
I had a lot of spare time on my hands this week in between episodes of the current season, I rewatched Season 1 (2016) in full. And wow, the difference in just 7 years. As you can see with my charts provided below the editing is beyond comparable. I remembered season 1 being quite fair in it's airtime distribution (outside of Phoebe eating up as much airtime as George does and El getting virtually no content for a third place jury threat) but the difference to what it is now is insane. No one got an episode with no confessionals in the last 8 episodes. Everyone got a storyline, whether it be the span of 2 episodes or the entire season, and everyone's boots were explained well and most of the cast went out with a really generous last episode. And no one had 100+ confessionals even with the season being 26 episodes in length. Although Phoebe and Nick were on their way to it. Phoebe specifically ended up having an airtime share pretty much equal to George.

I would love to include a write up about the season itself. I may start a new thread like I did with Big Brother. Or would that be overkill? If anyone here actually remembers this season or even watched it I have many many detailed thoughts to summarise and share if that would be of interest to anyone?

Surivor AU 2016 CC.pngSurvivor AU 2016 Edgic.png
 
I’d be interested @Zcsund1234 for an interesting read.

It seems season 1 was more balanced, I noticed than when I randomly rewatched an episode of season 1, too. 3 tribes was also a great way to bring it in and the cast were super interesting.

I really liked that the editing at least felt like they didn’t have a favorite, but still have a good cast…. I long for a season like that once again.
 
Looking back on the season 1 cast, I don't recall liking any of the top 7 or so (though Matt was ok).
But they were basically a gang, and Kristie.
Some good players and interesting personalities were voted out early (particularly Nick).
So I don't think I enjoyed that season more than this one.
 
Looking back on the season 1 cast, I don't recall liking any of the top 7 or so (though Matt was ok).
But they were basically a gang, and Kristie.
Some good players and interesting personalities were voted out early (particularly Nick).
So I don't think I enjoyed that season more than this one.
Is this one of the “greatest” Australian survivor seasons, though? We maybe need to poll for that.

I would probably put this season lower than middle because of the ill effects of Production getting too high on their favorite personalities.
 
I’d be interested @Zcsund1234 for an interesting read.

It seems season 1 was more balanced, I noticed than when I randomly rewatched an episode of season 1, too. 3 tribes was also a great way to bring it in and the cast were super interesting.

I really liked that the editing at least felt like they didn’t have a favorite, but still have a good cast…. I long for a season like that once again.
I'm going to see what I come up with and if its lengthy (which it probably well be) I'll start a thread and compile my thoughts. I have a few weeks to go until any of my university assignments are due so I have a lot of free time to rewatch the seasons.

Season 1 was so much more balanced. And I agree, I've always wanted them to go back to three tribes but I recall in an interview with JLP he stated that it costs to much to acquire a third era. Probably why the use of Exile beach has decreased since the post All stars era. But it helped a lot for the audience to understand the dynamics. With only 8 people on each tribe it was logical that each tribe had an alliance of 4-5 people, which allowed for the dynamics on each tribe to be easily understood. There was not a single episode where I was left confused with who was getting voted out. I felt I understood why perfectly.

And yes the editing shows there was no single favourite. In the beginning people like Conner, Kylie, Nick and Phoebe are given the most airtime, then moving onto the swap Phoebe takes over naturally but then come merge the person with the most confessionals was constantly changing after each episode. Kristie, Flick, Matt, Sam, Brooke and Nick all had a point where they were the top confessional getter. I long for this style of editing to return. There were also confessionals occasionally used during challenges, and when the challenge was over and as well as the walk to tribal council it was common for 3-4 people to share insight through confessionals.
Looking back on the season 1 cast, I don't recall liking any of the top 7 or so (though Matt was ok).
But they were basically a gang, and Kristie.
Some good players and interesting personalities were voted out early (particularly Nick).
So I don't think I enjoyed that season more than this one.
The Saanapu tribe swap doesn't help with this. I too felt the same. With the unfair tribe swap twist all of the Saanapu members were rarely given airtime outside of two segments because there was no reason to show the tribe at all. The boot order was horrendous. From Rohan to Nick all of the biggest characters were taken out. Which left a final ten of very under edited people. At the time I was rooting for the Vavau members Jennah-Louise, Sue, Kate and also Kristie and Conner. Not so much changed in my rewatch but I didn't dislike El, Brooke and Flick as much as I did the first time.

I went into the season trying not to be close minded about the stagnant gameplay. The narrative is very strong and I was impressed if anything by Brooke's social control of the game and how well she positioned herself. Kristie's win was great for TV even if she is a very weak winner in terms of game. It's a season that I think has held up. Kristie winning saves the story arc, it's just a shame the series itself was very slow at the merge. The pre merge is extremely fun, overall a mistake by production in not making the swap random is what resulted in the poor gameplay. The Saanapu tribe was also just way too stacked from the beginning.
 
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Link is dead but I do think when you look at where players should have finished and where they did finish arguably Simon and Nina played the best game. Maybe George falls into that category too but he was carried by stupidity rather than strategy.

P.S. Agree with earlier comments on how splitting 24 into three tribes of 8 was much easier to follow, though get it's an extra cost. Kristie wasn't brilliantly edited in that first season though - we didn't know she was even there until a few tribals into merge really. Indeed Liz didn't get much of an edit this year until the latter end of the tribe swap stage.
 
I would be interested in how many of you heard or looked up the Sportsbet result early in the season?

My understanding is that Liz had the lowest odds from the get go (correct me if I’m wrong). I couldn’t avoid Sportsbet spoiler because my boss at the time told me who the favorite was. Which sucked because then I was just watching the puzzle pieces fall together. That’s 7 out of 8 seasons now where Sportsbet had the winner!

Does Production want to do anything about it? Evidently no.
 
I would be interested in how many of you heard or looked up the Sportsbet result early in the season?
Not me, and I hate it when people who do drop hints about it.
They are called spoilers for a reason - they literally spoil my enjoyment of a show.
 
Not me, and I hate it when people who do drop hints about it.
They are called spoilers for a reason - they literally spoil my enjoyment of a show.
Oh really, I had this feeling that nearly everyone had run into this at some stage. Especially those that follow the Facebook group. I really don’t spend much time on the FB group now for a few reasons being,
* there are actual contestants in those groups reading what you say about them, and that’s no fun
* mods are very over the top cautious and you would never be allowed to joke or say the things you can here
* too many people and idiots posting nonsense things
* sportsbet spoilers
* the threading mechanism on FB is trash and you really only get to know a few people, and you’re limited by space and how much you can write
* so much more of a community here

Anyone who frequented that group would have been spoiled with the sportsbet favorite there’s no doubt about it.
 
Oh really, I had this feeling that nearly everyone had run into this at some stage. Especially those that follow the Facebook group. I really don’t spend much time on the FB group now for a few reasons being,
* there are actual contestants in those groups reading what you say about them, and that’s no fun
* mods are very over the top cautious and you would never be allowed to joke or say the things you can here
* too many people and idiots posting nonsense things
* sportsbet spoilers
* the threading mechanism on FB is trash and you really only get to know a few people, and you’re limited by space and how much you can write
* so much more of a community here

Anyone who frequented that group would have been spoiled with the sportsbet favorite there’s no doubt about it.
I only read about reality shows here, and never look at a thread until I've seen the episode.
Which being in SA means I'm half an hour behind already, and longer if I'm watching multiple shows that night.
During that time I just use common sense to not look at any facebook bait (the only social media I use).
 
I would be interested in how many of you heard or looked up the Sportsbet result early in the season?

My understanding is that Liz had the lowest odds from the get go (correct me if I’m wrong). I couldn’t avoid Sportsbet spoiler because my boss at the time told me who the favorite was. Which sucked because then I was just watching the puzzle pieces fall together. That’s 7 out of 8 seasons now where Sportsbet had the winner!

Does Production want to do anything about it? Evidently no.
I don't get how they are even allowed to open a book on something with a pre-recorded outcome, especially when the odds are clearly skewed by insider information.
 
I only read about reality shows here, and never look at a thread until I've seen the episode.
Which being in SA means I'm half an hour behind already, and longer if I'm watching multiple shows that night.
During that time I just use common sense to not look at any facebook bait (the only social media I use).
I need to congratulate myself on avoiding spoilers this year. So often I'll avoid them all day then sit down to watch and then get my phone out and thoughtlessly look here or on TV Tonight and spoil it last minute. Only time I did this this season was with the penultimate episode where I was bored so came here to rant without caring if the outcome was spoiled.

Must say if it wasn't for discussion here I probably wouldn't still be watching it, and though it's quieter nowadays that's nicer than having to read through 30+ pages each episode.
 
I need to congratulate myself on avoiding spoilers this year. So often I'll avoid them all day then sit down to watch and then get my phone out and thoughtlessly look here or on TV Tonight and spoil it last minute. Only time I did this this season was with the penultimate episode where I was bored so came here to rant without caring if the outcome was spoiled.

Must say if it wasn't for discussion here I probably wouldn't still be watching it, and though it's quieter nowadays that's nicer than having to read through 30+ pages each episode.
The worst spoiler I ever stumbled upon was American Idol, where I'd studiously avoided looking online all day, until an email from Billboard slipped through informing me that Kris Allen had won (rather than the expected Adam Lambert).
 
The worst spoiler I ever stumbled upon was American Idol, where I'd studiously avoided looking online all day, until an email from Billboard slipped through informing me that Kris Allen had won (rather than the expected Adam Lambert).

You could have put a spoiler alert. 😂

Was just about to catch up & watch it. ;)
 
I only read about reality shows here, and never look at a thread until I've seen the episode.
Which being in SA means I'm half an hour behind already, and longer if I'm watching multiple shows that night.
During that time I just use common sense to not look at any facebook bait (the only social media I use).
I actually come here specifically for spoilers. I've watched BB w/friends for over 10 years (live feeds on Justin TV, then Discord). However, I made an error & leaked a spoiler two years ago & thus found youse guyse. I still chat w/them but love to come here for your smart, pthy opinions. Cheers!
 
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