Posted on 08/21/2007 4:43:22 AM PDT by cuz_it_aint_their_money
She’s a former(?) WWE diva.
According to the Survivor website where they list the application and the “eligibility rules” for the NEXT SEASON of Survivor. . .
All contestants must be 21 years or older at the time of application.
Now, in the past, players who were known to have been “recruited” have stated that they were “invited to apply” to the show. Meaning that they still had to fill out the application and go through the interviewing process.
I guess the producers have decided to ignore their own rules this season.
Frosti is still only 20 years old, and had just turned 20 when this season’s players were being interviewed.
This is yet one more reason why I quite applying for this show.
Let’s see - a grave digger and a fish breeder. Now that’s my dream final two. I think at the very least these two will be interesting.
TWO beauty queens?? I thought I had my fill of them on The Amazing Race.
Thank God Survivor’s back and we have cuz in the pilot’s seat. Honestly, the sham that’s been Big Brother 8 and the dissatisfaction with the outcome of Amazing Race All Stars had all but destroyed my love of the reality show.
Thank you for your kind words and for not bringing up that fiasco Pirate Master.
Hey, cuz, we were ALLLL pretty excited about PM - the premise looked good, fun. It wasn’t your fault that Burnett created such a convoluted set of rules that no one could figure out how it should work and that the whole “mutiny” process was rigged in such a way that no one would use it.
I don’t know yet.
The firewall at work prevents me from watching the videos, so I’ll have to wait till I get home to see the last show.
Thanks for the ping Cuz, I’m in.
LOL, that’s bad, but funny!
The last episode on the web was 81 minutes and 50 seconds long. It would have been a 2 hour show.
Hopefully I got the color white right. Just highlight past the winner is to see who won.
The last episode on the web was 81 minutes and 50 seconds long. It would have been a 2 hour show.
Hopefully I got the color white right. Just highlight past the winner is to see who won.
oops! Well the cat is out of the bag.
The winner is Ben Fagan at age 23
The last episode on the web was 81 minutes and 50 seconds long. It would have been a 2 hour show.
Just highlight past the winner is to see who won.
Thanks, so I take it the three man alliance held out? Jay, Ben and the weird guy?
The ghost pirate court eliminated one of the three from competing for the final treasure. You should be able to easily figure out who the ghost pirates hated the most and eliminated.
Two of the three competed for a chance at the final treasure and where it was located was interesting.
Can you provide a link to the website where the recap was found?
This is the main page. They tell about each episode with episode 13 being the next to last thread (final 4) and episode 14 being the final thread. The poster "Alaginger" gives a very good synopsis of each episode.
Well, the new season of Survivor starts in just one short week.
So to get you all in the proper frame of mind, here is the first of a three part Media Conference, Survivor Host Jeff Probst held on 9/12/2007.
My thanks to the kind folks over at SurvivorFever.net for transcribing the conference.
Question: You've been doing Survivor for so long. I want to know if there is anything at this point that impresses you or anything shocks you or have you just seen it all?
Jeff Probst: I'm reaching a point, I've been reaching a point for several seasons where I like to have somebody to root for. Sometimes you get that and sometimes you don't. I certainly understand that conflict is central to this kind of storytelling. Within that, I love it when we have one or two or three people that are positive stories, people that you can look at and say, "Gee, I hope she wins", or "Man, I'd love it if that guy goes far." You also need your villains and we have some good villains this season and we have some people that I think you'll root for and there are some people that stay deep into the show. That's for me, that's when it's fulfilling. When I feel like, this is a season I'd want to watch.
Follow-up: What will this season have to offer in terms of difficulty?
JP: There's two things. Difficulty, especially in the very beginning, you'll see, it's hard, it rains a lot. It's very muddy and I think in the second episode one tribe comes back to their camp and it's flooded out. Those kind of things are so demoralizing because those first six or seven days are really hard on people and I always try to remind people of that when we're out there and they get a little down that "you did step into a major for real adventure and you're not going back to a hotel room." Nobody expects that and nobody can anticipate it, that those first few days are hard and in this case they were difficult and it got off to a tough start, which is good for the show. There's a lot of conflict and people are stressing out fairly early but then it evens out. The difficulty was the heat and the rain initially. It was blistering hot, I'm not kidding you. I did some behind the scenes stuff this season where I just took a little camera and shot myself. We're starting to post them on CBS.com and YouTube. One of them is just me walking to a challenge up this hill. You can see how friggin hot it is. There was that and then the fishing was difficult because these waters have to be fished a certain way. That does come into play. At a certain point there's a reward that lets a family come in and show you how you need to fish to get fish out of the water. So they had a rough go of it for sure. In terms of your other question, what does China bring...culture. We've been in the South Pacific for quite awhile and all areas of China was exciting from a creative point of view. It gave us different things to draw on in terms of building challenges. It gave us different inspiration in terms of challenges. It gave us a different visual palette to work with, different colors. This culture dates back 5000 years. It gives you so much to draw on that we really had a fresh season. Survivor looks different again. For several seasons in a row it visually looked somewhat the same, palm trees and coconuts. We have bamboo and temples this time. I think you'll feel the difference. The viewers also will get a chance to see things like The Great Wall. You'll get to see the Shaolin Temple where Kung Fu was born. You'll go to this 1000 year old village. In a sense it's like Africa where in addition to this fun show and adventure you're also going to get a little insight into the culture of China.
Question: Jeff, if someone says Survivor: China...if you said Survivor: America...you could be talking Death Valley or you could be talking Alaska. It's such a huge place. Tell me what is distinctive about this section of China that you chose and did you guys go straight to that or was it tough to decide where to locate it?
JP: What's distinctive about the area of China that we're in is that there are not millions of people. We wanted to go somewhere like China for a long time. We honestly didn't think we could find anywhere remote enough and unpopulated enough that would work. Our scout team went out and found this little area. The closest city is Nanchang, that would be the nearest city and that is maybe two hours away, driving. Just to give you an idea in the difference of China versus Fiji, in Fiji our nearest city was about the same difference, an hour and a half. When you went to it there were 100 people. In Nanchang, an hour and a half from where we were, there are 4 million people. I was learning how China is growing that where we are right now shooting the show in probably two or three years, will be very populated. It will be yet another new small city. We found this place, it's a man-made lake, it's called The Lake of a Thousand Islands. It's only about 50 years old but it's beautiful. It's sorta like Palau in terms of when you're in the helicopter. It's a land just dotted with islands everywhere and it's extremely rural. We were out in the middle of nowhere and on a couple of my days off I would wander into little side streets and people have set up their houses. There's nothing to it. It's a brick house, a brick structure about the size of an executive's office. Like I said, not an hour and a half away, four million people.
Follow-up: You're able to incorporate the people some of the time, you got to visit tribesmen. You mentioned that you bring in a couple to teach people how to fish. Were you able to incorporate very many Chinese people into the show in one way or another?
JP: Within the show, like I reference a local family coming out to fish, but like you said, China is so vast. We wanted to experience as much of it as we could. We send the Survivors to the Great Wall of China. They sleep, they spend the night on the Great Wall, which I did after the show was over. It was one of the ten best nights of my life. It was so fantastic. We also send them to the Shaolin Temple. where they get a Kung Fu demonstration. We start the show in a Buddhist temple where they experience a Buddhist ceremony. In that sense I think we did a very good job of bringing the culture into the show and making it an organic part of the show either via a reward or the opener or something like that.
Question: One of the things that interested me most in the press release was the information that each tribe was given a copy of Sun Tzu's, "The Art of War". Did anybody actually make any use of it?
JP: Yeah, it surprised me because when we came up with that as one of our themes we looked at The Art of War and we thought, this is really Survivor. It's strategy. Whether you're in an actual war like we're in now or whether you're just playing a game of strategy, the philosophy is pretty similar. You need to know your opponent. You need to know yourself. If you don't know yourself and you don't know your opponent then you're never going to win. If you want to be a leader you need to first be liked. If you're not liked then your team will never follow you. We thought, we'll give it to them and then we'll see what happens. We also included little phrases in things like treemail. I might bring up in a challenge that this is an opportunity to get to know your opponent. I was surprised that early on at a Tribal Council, I believe at the first or second one, that somebody was saying that they were reading "The Art of War" and they didn't think their leader was doing a very good job of leading because of this reason. So, yeah, I think a few people did. This is one of those ideas that could sound a little corny or maybe a little forced but I really believe it was a solid idea. I studied it quite a bit. I read it quite a bit just so that if a situation ever came up at a challenge or at Tribal I might be able to say that in "The Art of War" it would tell you that you should do this. There's a lot of basic stuff about how to get along with people and how to win at a game like this. So, yeah it got used.
Follow-up: I hate to bring up some more serious issues but China is hosting the Olympics next year and there has been extensive discussion about the ongoing human rights abuses in that country and talk about boycotts in different circles. Was there any concern about endorsing tacitly or otherwise, that situation?
JP: No, there wasn't. We're there to shoot our show and use their land and their culture in a way that enhances the show. It wasn't lost on us that this is a country with a philosophy at least from the government that's very, very different from ours. We had a lot of interpreters. Everybody had interpreters because the language barrier is so severe. If you bring up Tiananmen Square to a local, they don't talk about it. They can't talk about it. They can't publicly talk about it. If you are on the internet and you searched Google for Tiananmen Square you'll see all kinds of entries but when you go to click on one in China, it says "cannot access that page." The restrictions from the government are so clear and so strong that it's kind of mind blowing. It was fascinating to be working with young people as our interpreters who are so bright and gifted and understand our culture and how to speak with us and understand our language and yet they're living in a society in which they're prohibited from talking about some of the most significant things that have happened in their own country. I think it's part of the reason that makes going to China relevant. I hope that it will inspire some chatter.
Follow-up: You're always a straight shooter with us about these things. Did you personally have concerns or worries about how it would appear?
JP: No, I didn't. Thank you for the question. Now I've got something to think about tonight.
Question: ON a lighter note, this is your 15th season. Do you have any inside jokes about some of the crew members that have been with you this whole time? Do you guys take bets before the show on who's going to hook up with who and who's going to go home first? Kind of like an NFL pool in the back room?
JP: To the pool question, we don't anymore. In the beginning it was hard not to. The show was so new and everybody was worried about appearances and we would be told from a CBS executive, "absolutely no discussion about favorites, who you want to win, that could be perceived as cheating." So we were on our best behavior. I gotta tell ya, I wanted Rudy to win the first season. I was PULLING for Rudy in the final challenge. They're out in the sun and I remember thinking, "oh man, he picked the wrong spot. He's got the sun beating down on him. Hatch fell off. This is great. This is an opportunity for Rudy." I was so into it. Then Rudy pulls his hand off and Richard wins. Turns out to be probably the best first winner you could ever imagine. He became so notorious and so bigger than life. But yes, in the beginning, I definitely pulled for people. I've learned in the years since doing the show, it just doesn't matter. There are so many variables. There are so many factors. Who you get stuck on a tribe with on day one can determine your fate. If you don't get along you're in trouble. But like I said early, secretly inside, I'm always hoping, hoping, hoping, hoping that there's somebody likeable that sticks around cause I don't like giving a million dollars to an asshole. Do they deserve it? Absolutely. They absolutely deserve it if they win because this game is hard to win. You've gotta manage a lot of stuff. But I think of my mom watching or my eight year old niece. She wants to see somebody she likes win, like Yau-Man or Earl. That's what goes on for me. When it comes to longevity I think there's enough negativity going around that it's nice once in a while to see the good guy win, the fun woman win.
Follow-up: Do you have any inside jokes? Or does anyone stay with you a long time?
JP: We don't have any inside jokes. We do have a club. We just lost one guy, China was his last season, Mark Powell, who has made all the snuffers, every season. Has always taken pride in them, he never just shows up and slaps something together. He spends a couple weeks designing it. He's one of our key art guys. He has a family now and he just can't keep coming out. I think we're down to like 7 people. Colleen [Sullivan] is one of them and then a few other crew members, so yes we do have a club and we always talk about it each year, how many people are left in the club that have been in every single season.
Follow-up: Since you guys kind of paved the way for reality TV, do you have any guilty shows that you watch religiously?
JP: Not religiously. I'm trying to think what I do watch and enjoy. I'm burning out on reality in this sense, I feel like the level of BS, of loosely scripted moments is reaching a plateau for me. I'm not interested in most shows because I can write them before they're finished and they're so obvious in their direction of where they want the people to go. I don't like that. Part of that is because I come from television so I can see it. I think that an audience can sense it on an emotional level. It doesn't feel real. Idol has its moments where, that guy just got kicked out and he's crying. It's real. I think you see it on Survivor. People get betrayed. Those kind of moments are getting more and more tough to find. I think it actually bodes well for us. I think we've hung around long enough that our legitimacy is going to start to work for us again. We've never once caved into trying to script this show or trying to make somebody be something they're not. We keep working on casting. That's my feeling on reality. I love "Cops". I think that's a great show because it's real.
Question: I know this is the first time you've tried it but how did the castaways being kidnapped compare to Exile Island?
JP: I think it worked better. The problem with Exile Island, and not to say that it won't come back, but if it does we will hopefully do it in a different form. The problem is, you only have one person on the island. It's sort of basic storytelling. They've got to talk to somebody. You've either got to give them a volleyball like Tom Hanks in "Castaway" or they're going to sit there and talk to themselves. Ironically, what I was just speaking about a moment ago, we struggled with finding ways to make Exile work where it didn't feel like we were just having a guy sort of talk to himself when he's very much aware that we're there with the camera. We decided to just trying kidnapping. Kidnapping works. Kidnapping now takes one person from one group and forces them into another. They're carrying with them some very valuable information. It's even more complicated. To complicate it even further nobody knows where the information is because it's sort of in the form of a secret. I think that works better because you get a chance to spy or be spied on. Maybe the person who goes over gives away too much information, maybe they give away bad information, maybe the tribe that they visit puts on a show to make them think they're not getting along. There's a lot more opportunities for deception. It's a lot of stuff that's referenced in "The Art of War", spying and reading your opponent. I think it worked out pretty well. You're always trying to, on a show like Survivor, you're always trying to do several things simultaneously. If you want to develop strong tribes that want to beat each other, you want to find holes in their alliances that are vulnerable so that if you do a switch or a merge they might flip.
Follow-up: What was the castaways' food situation in China? Did you give them rice?
JP: We gave them rice. They wouldn't have made it without rice. No chance. We gave them rice and then the first tribe gets a chance to win first [fire at first challenge] and the second tribe gets fire after Tribal Council. There's no way without it. The difficulty they have is, rice is just not enough. We've got some big guys out there this time. Strong guys and strong women that need their calories. They got hit the hardest.
Follow-up: You already mentioned fishing a little bit. Do they do any fishing on their own or is the technique too difficult?
JP: Fishing will definitely become a part of it. That's always a staple, winning fishing gear. Palau had so many fish and the Pearl Islands had so many fish. This is a different kind of fishing. So that was part of the struggle.
This is the end of part 1.
Tune in on Monday for part 2 followed by part 3 on Tuesday.
Take Care,
FReepmail me if you want added to (or removed from) the Survivor Ping List.
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Notable Survivor Quote:
”Stop it! Both of you! Or you're going to time out! Tina Wesson, Survivor Australia
“Mark Powell, who has made all the snuffers”
Must be the final shows?
I don’t think so.
I think that Mark Powell is just leaving after 15 seasons.
They will probably have someone else make the snuffers now.
But thanks for the reply. I was beginning to wonder if anybody was actually reading this stuff.
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