Also also the only dud in Kaoh Rong is Anna, that's it

I'd be almost as happy for Adam to win as Ken, they're very close top 2 favourites for me. I'd be pretty happy with it being David too and even Jay to some extent (I can at least respect his game).

It'd be pretty emotionally fulfilling for him to win and see his reaction :love:

Neal.... ???

Mhmm. It's David.

I'll give you maybe Neal and Anna. But compare that to Rachel, Mari, Paul, Lucy, CeCe, Michelle, Chris, Jessica, Will, Sunday, and honestly even Zeke despite production desperately trying to make him A Big Character and it's not even close.

Justified Michele's win with the "suckling on the teat" comment, random blood feud with Peter, nearly tanked Aubry's game by getting medevac'd but instead allowed her to control the entire post-merge, etc

Also the most forgettable Kaoh Rong-er is probably Liz, and even then she had the whole Fishbach-hand-picked-winner-tip-to-malfunctioning-robot-third-boot-crying-over-water thing going on <3

Lizbot <3
Joe <3
Anna <3

Don't <3 alt-right Anna

I love Laura M besides her crazy views so I don't take that into account!

Sure there's some characters that have gotten no character development but I still think there's plenty that have and they typically get their air time and make things entertaining. They've kinda had each episode dedicated to like 1-2 people but it's usually different people. Last episode was Will/David & kinda Ken (at the end at least). There are then a few that are very involved in almost every episode (Adam/David/Jay/Hannah in particular come to mind).

Most episodes have had a blindside/betrayal and to add to that there's been numerous idol plays, drawing rocks and both some really great & really sloppy gameplay highlighted in the episodes.

I don't think it's been predictable either. Most of the time it can go either way at TC. :shrug:

This is a reeeeally good season.

It's a bottom four season!

^ Noooo! A+ lots of action

Also, random but I guess I could see Will going if Bret/Sunday are highly against him after he turned and/or Jay isn't willing to make a play with his idol.

Also #2, I reeeeally hope Jay wins but I'd be happy or okay with a bunch of people winning. I don't expect Jay to win though only because it's unlikely they let him get far when ALL of the other side have already said he needs to go. He'd need to have a really good sense for when to play his idol and then I guess he could always win his way there.

Everyone besides Bret/Sunday/Will have a shot I think. But I do agree that David is most likely to win.

The things you highlight in your second paragraph would be great if they actually took the time to flesh out characters but they seriously did an atrocious job at that. Not just a bad job, but a truly atrocious, Cook Islands/Fiji-esque job. Just looking at who made the merge, we didn't really get to know Michelle, Chris, or Jessica at all, and we still don't really know Sunday or Will. Bret can be reduced to "alcoholic cop who *gasp* is gay," Adam to "his mom has cancer," Zeke to "we're bringing him back next season so remember him," and then Ken, who on paper is probably the most complex character of the whole season, was edited out of the merge until this past episode. That's like 70% of the people who made the merge.

I don't think this season is bottom 5, but I'm certainly not on board with Reddit jerking themselves off to this season and acting like it's the best in years (better than Kaoh Rong) just because they drew rocks at F10. As of right now I'd probably rank it 26/33.

Re: the editing, I don't think it's been great (I haven't got loads to compare to, only the past few seasons) but I also don't think it's been any worse than usual particularly? There are always people you get to know less than others - maybe because they are not so interesting/relevant to the game or the main events of the season that they want to focus on, it's the same as in Big Brother/TAR or whatever.

Macie you brought up the point of "am I supposed to think Adam is a gamebot or feel sympathetic?" etc, but isn't that the whole point of an edit? It's actually refreshing to see different sides to these people rather than it being shoved in your face about how you're supposed to feel (like it often is on these shows from my experience).

Yeah agreed, I was gonna mention this too but forgot. Although I guess they're not doing this with too many characters. I think they're just struggling to fit some people in the edit when certain characters have a lot going on.

Other characters also don't have one-beat personalities either. Just like with Adam, we're getting to see multiple sides of a decent amount of the people actually. We've seen the game side and the drunk side of Bret, we've seen a couple different sides of Jay, Michaela, Ken, David's transformation, etc. They showed more of Rachel than they do with a lot of first boots. Jessica was used as just some kind of wacky character with bulging eyes but I mean she had her air time.

My only real problem with the edit is they're just throwing certain scenarios/people into the mix out of nowhere (like the Sunday/Jessica feud or Will being completely invisible and then just coming out of nowhere). Overall, I don't really think the character development is that far off from other seasons, they just have a couple big characters (or who the show wants to be big) that they're showcasing more.

EDIT: Although even Will being invisible makes sense with the story they're portraying: Will suddenly wanting to be viewed as a player and getting power hungry because he feels like he hasn't been included and making decisions.

:clap2:

All of this is put across perfectly.

I think there's a huge difference between getting to know some people less than others and not getting to know some people at all. I absolutely expect to get to know some people less than others, but I still expect to get to know everyone to a certain degree. I don't feel like I know many people in this cast at all (less than half for sure), and I wouldn't care to see many of them (possibly any of them?) again in a future season.

And as for wondering whether I'm supposed to find Adam annoying as **** or see him as a sympathetic figure, my issue with his edit in particular is that it really isn't crafted well at all in terms of consistency. Adam's whole arc was a narrator at first, then an overload of sympathy when he found his HII bc of his mom, then basically everyone on the island out of nowhere agreeing that he's annoying as ****, and then back to sympathy like nothing happened. That... is not good storytelling at all lol, and it's like the editors are trying to give us severe whiplash with how drastic and spontaneous these changes are. I definitely agree that characters should be presented as multifaceted and conflicted when possible, but it's the editors' job to present it organically. Tai had a similar path of adorable fan favorite to ruthless strategist with a burning desire to win, but his story actually made sense in the context of the season and was edited well. Adam's... was not. Just like how Ken went from golden boy All-American hero to invisibore to someone who is painfully grating to everyone else around him. Ken's negativity at the end of last episode all came without warning, but if the exit interviews are any indication it's not like they didn't have footage from the first few episodes that could've shown this side to him.

I'm not really sure what the game side of Bret is still but sure. Michaela I'll give you, Jay kind of, Ken yes and no for reasons outlined above, David sure kind of, but Rachel... lmfao no. I'm trying to think of a first boot more inconsequential than Rachel but I'm seriously struggling. Kourtney from One World I guess? Then I'd have to go back to Fiji? Rachel doesn't even feel like she was on the show and she's actually a perfect of example of the predictability that has plagued this season. She was hidden until we got one scene at camp that's purpose was to make us think "wow, this girl's annoying," and then she was voted off because she was annoying and not included in the initial alliance. I don't think it's humanly possible to have an opinion on Rachel, unless you're one of those people who blindly stans Asian women and was mourning her loss, and then mourned Mari's loss one week later even though she too was a nobody.

The only one I feel like we don't really know as a person at this point is Sunday. She hasn't really appeared to contribute a whole lot to the main events that have happened either, so I'm guessing that's why she hasn't been focused on. Seems to me as though she's just Bret's follower and she's always been more of a 'background' character which exist in every season anyway.

I see your point there and I don't disagree that the dynamics haven't been made clear. I guess it's just hard to make time for all of these things when putting an edit together (tracking all points of a relationship between people, attempting to show the majority of them at least once in an hour episode/confessionals, group dynamics/vote shifts, idol searches, immunity/reward challenges, TC etc). Amongst all of the gameplay editing I think some of their personalities get lost. I suppose I just don't think overall that it deserves to be dragged more than any other season because you always get this to a certain degree.

Just last season I think Darnell was less relevant than Rachel leading to his boot. :shrug: His character was like a good guy who messed up at the challenge.

Other than that I see your points and fair enough.

I guess I still really like the season because I don't mind not getting to know the characters that much. I love the gameplay in these shows like Big Brother & Survivor and if we see that and a lot of craziness involved (those things I listed in my last post) then I'm highly entertained as long as I can get behind a couple of people which I've been able to do. Some of my favorites (Jay/Hannah/David/Ken) are all getting really good, lengthy air time / edits on the show (Ken became irrelevant for a few episodes but still) and that's what I really care about. Same with some of the people who were booted that I liked.

There's been PLENTY of Survivor seasons where literally one majority group takes down the other side in the most predictable fashion with maybe like one shift in power even through an entire season sometimes. At least about 5-10 Survivor seasons have played out in that exact way either pre-merge, post-merge or even both. There's been power shifts on this season since before the merge and things have only gotten wilder after the merge. We're at 8 people left now and there's still been no one consistently in power. I'll take a season like this that has some poor character development any day.

Time for this bull****.

I don't exactly like this new potential alliance but this episode is already off to a hot start.

:joker:

Yessss Jay :clap1:

Yeah Will just sucks confirmed

goodbye Will goodbye