What's on my mind: (11/11/01)

This entry's about Survivor. Skip it if you haven't seen it yet or aren't interested.

Let me fill you in (absurd, huh Dave?) on the season. It's been fascinating to me because one team looked stronger than the other, and they won the first two immunity challenges. What was weird was that the other team, that seemed weaker, clearly grew to become much more unified. The "stronger" team was split evenly in half, along generational lines (which was also fascinating) and eventually I think this split took its toll. They lost one challenge, and predictably voting was split 4-4. The younger group ended up winning, and the outcome seemed predicable - whenever that tribe lost, they'd just pick off one of the old people.

I cannot express how much I dislike this tribe. I absolutely hated Linda, and I'm not sure if people understand why. What it is is that she's a complete and utter hypocrite. She, and the rest of the old people, did nothing to try to form consensus or unity. They made their little old coalition and were extremely divisive from the very beginning, being clearly exclusionary. The younger people came together more because they were excluded than anything else.

And then, when the old peoples' idiotic actions backfire on them she has the gall to complain that she's being left out of the "team"? Argh, it makes me so angry. What a hypocrite. The other thing that just pisses me off proper is how she talks endlessly about "respect" and how she "respects" people and wouldn't "disrespect" people the way others do. Total B.S. She completely disrespects people in being completely condescending. Two episodes ago she was just completely piling on Lindsey and then had the gall to say she will respect her. What a hypocrite. I'm serious, if I run into Linda in real life there better be people to hold me back because otherwise I'm getting medieval on her sorry butt.

Whoa, rage issues.

Anyway, yeah, I hate her. I think it's that I hate hypocrisy more than anything else and she is a first class hypocrite of the third degree. She got exactly what she deserved, besides a swift kick in the pants.

But at any rate, the outcome looked predictable. Divided team loses challenges, young pick off the old.

Until this week. Utterly random, but the producers have the tribes choose 3 members, and they switch places in each others' tribe. What the??? I dunno, I didn't like it at first, because, that's just not right. You can't change the rules in the middle. It makes it completely unfair and changes how people would have played it.

But I think Sam mentioned that they might not be changing the rules - they just changed the assumptions based on the first two shows that turned out to be unsound. Like a Hume chicken inductive fallacy type thing. Ten points if you can figure out that reference. Twenty points if you're still actually reading this.

Anyway, in the end I loved it because it completely changes everything. Sam and Keith mentioned a little but I don't think they did justice to how everything has changed. Like before, the clear goal was to win the immunity challenges, because it's a given that alliances will fall along tribal lines so whoever has more will be at an advantage.

But that's completely changed. Who knows what alliances will last now. It's totally unclear. And so, winning the immunity challenges isn't that important, as you could see by Silas' tribe intentionally losing to hang him out to dry (a winner moment). They intentinoally lost??? The game is completely different.

So yeah, you have no idea what's going to happen, which alliances will survive, which won't. And so how to play the game has completely changed. It's weird. If anything, it looks like it's going to be way more individual now. Like, they took out Silas because he was a threat. Are they thinking endgame already? I dunno, everything's changed so it's weird.

What I also found interesting was how the old people immediately tried to become part of the new tribe, and the new tribe accepted them. Whereas the young trio were totally wary and standoffish and not at all accepting. How is this good strategy? Makes no sense.

Have you ever seen a lazier group of people than that young trio? Does that say something about our generation? I dunno.

Hope it was interesting Sam and possibly Keith.