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Texasdeb
Member
05-23-2003
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 6:17 pm
I muted my tv every time coach came on and I really disliked him. However, after Russel found that 1st II in the tree while his tribe was sitting right there, I started looking forward to Survivor night like never in the past. I "wanted" the Russel show and he delivered!
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 6:26 pm
Actually quite a few of the others have said that we didn't see what was going on. Brett, for one, has said that we never saw what was going on at Galu because of the Russell Show. and yeah, I think they edited so heavily for Russell because Natalie won the million so that their pick would get the fan favorite money.
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Bonbonlover
Member
07-13-2000
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 6:51 pm
Lady... I think you are right. And I think Jeff and promos hyped Russell as the 2nd coming of Christ... so much that it became nauseating. I think they wanted us to like their pick for S20 (they had to have someone from 19) I am sorry that we didn't get to see more from other survivors... many of them I didn't even know their names 
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Lookieloo
Member
08-12-2009
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 7:17 pm
Natalie...... Outwit.... she did make nice with Galu and still voted them off one at a time. She talked Galu into voting out Erik. She outwitted. Outplayed.... she was pretty strong in some of those competitions. The game Jaison won. she was a final 3 with Dave. Oh and how about the challenge where she was 1/2 way off the sling thing??? She kicked John's buttocks!!! Outlast.... she aligned herself well to not be voted out. She met the criteria, PLUS, she played a very good social game. She deserved the win. Russell Outwit.....oh yeah!!! he found II without a cloooooo!!! To me, that alone is outwitting people. Outplay.....ummmmm, ok He won when he needed to...at the end. He did play some mind games too. Like, having Dave go for a run, just so russell could get back to the HII. Outlast....we all know he did that. BUT.....his social game was aweful. He was social with his alliance but not with the people that would be the jury. THAT was his downfall. If we could take the social aspect out of the game, Russell would have been the million dollar winner. And i do believe the jury was sour grapes to not give the win to him. The jury could not say.."oh well, i got got" just my humble little opinion.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 7:19 pm
Can anyone think of a reason why the producers would focus so much on Russell if the other contestants were giving them equally good material to work with? Everyone seems to agree that Natalie was more likable. Why not focus on her and make it the Natalie show? They knew that she won. The only reason I can think of why they wouldn't do that is because they just didn't have enough material from these other people to work with and make an entertaining show.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 7:45 pm
I agree Jimmer. There is no way stuff at Galu was interesting or we would have seen it. period. Brett was final 4 and the little we saw of him, nice guy but boring. The producers usually show more of the final 4 ppl during season so I believe they didnt have much interesting footage of nice guy Brett
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 7:51 pm
Or maybe they focused on Russ because he says the darnedest things and they wanted him for season 20 no matter the outcome. He did have a lot to say and he is colorful, not very likable but he is memorable. Ratings = $$$$ - tptb including jeff seemed to be entertained by him and he seems to have a lot of fans.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-31-2000
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 8:00 pm
TV watchers like who they like. The producers get that, and play to it as much as possible. Jeff even said that Betsy was so well liked that there was a huge fan disappointment that she was voted off so early. Had she stayed, I'm sure she would have gotten more airtime. As it was, Shambo got the most airtime from Galu. Why? Because she was fun to watch. There's no conspiracy other than to give the most airtime to the players who fans like the best. Or love to hate.
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Bonbonlover
Member
07-13-2000
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 9:06 pm
Well I guess it all depends on what you find entertaining. I like the interaction among the players, the friendships formed and the friendships deceived. I am sure that happened. Listening to some guy tell everyone how wonderful he is and how stupid everyone else is ... well I just don't find that interesting or entertaining. The thing that sets survivor apart from a mere sporting event is the social interaction necessary to win. If the game were just based on braun or immunity challenges I could watch mud wrestling. but this is much more... they have to live together and vote people off. There is strategy and social aspect to the game.
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Biscottiii
Member
05-29-2004
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 10:51 pm
Excellent point about Jeff & tptb hyping Russell, because they already knew he lost and wanted to deliver the Fan Favorite $100k to him! I also think some of the "Russell Show" hype was set up to lead into next season's Allstar Game. A lot of fans get turned off by Allstars and stop watching, especially when they see people from previous seasons that they can't stand or didn't see as worthy contenders. I believe Russell only had 10 days turnaround time before doing the Allstars, so I don't figure he had much time to learn social graces or watch many seasons' DVDs to figure out how the game is finessed.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 11:20 pm
We see manipulated stories on Survivor (and BB and ...) all the time. They made the first few episodes of Coach's season about Coach, until he was voted off, then they had to make it about someone else. They didn't have to make it about anyone else this season as Russell never left, so they just kept plating the same old tune. I'm sure Russell did provide the biggest moments of the season, but for those viewers who didn't appreciate the repetition of his more misogynistic periods they could have shown someone else. By all accounts Dave Ball was quite a character, albeit not the one the edit he got made him seem, as for the others we won't know what entertainment they could have been because we never saw them. My main beef with the Russell editing was the first five or so episodes. During that time Russell did very little (positive) to set himself apart from the others, yet he was pushed down our throats so much by promos and by Jeff that even when he became more entertaining I just couldn't like him. If the production had just been a little more realistic and unbiased I probably would have appreciated Russell's later machinations more.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 7:59 am
Excellent point about Jeff & tptb hyping Russell, because they already knew he lost and wanted to deliver the Fan Favorite $100k to him! I still can't see any possible reason why they would want to do this other than he provided the best footage for them to work with. No offense but TV doesn't usually promote bald acerbic middle aged millionaires as main characters just for the sake of doing it. Russell gave them the best material and was the most entertaining. They could have just as easily promoted Natalie and made her an all star if she had given them the material to work with and they thought people would be interested in seeing her again. Anyway, the bottom line is that some people (including me) enjoyed Russell and thought he made the season but if you didn't like him it kind of ruined the season because it was so much about Russell.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-27-2000
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 8:45 am
quote:Anyway, the bottom line is that some people (including me) enjoyed Russell and thought he made the season but if you didn't like him it kind of ruined the season because it was so much about Russell.
And there we go. Perhaps we can soon turn out the lights in this thread? It has been endless repetition for the past two weeks. Which I guess is thanks to Russell, lol.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 8:52 am
LOL - No I am doggedly determined to convince everyone about Russell's finer entertaining qualities - this could take decades to do of course. 
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 9:09 am
And picking it up again: Anyway, the bottom line is that some people (including me) enjoyed Russell and thought he made the season but if you didn't like him it kind of ruined the season because it was so much about Russell. And that's why the producers were wrong to make it the Russell show! They seemed so convinced that Russell was a "love" or "love to hate" character that they didn't appreciate that a lot of the audience would just opt for the "hate" (to be simplistic) option. They needed to find other entertainment for us as well. And if there really was no other entertainment about (which I doubt, plus we all know they're not above fabricating stories for us, they could have created something!) then they should cast better next time and not blame the audience for not liking their chosen one (yes, I'm waggling my finger at you, Jeff Probst!).
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Brenda1966
Member
07-03-2002
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 9:21 am
Were the ratings up for Survivor this season? Down? Or steady? That may help determine how much people liked to watch Russel and this season. I don't think Jeff gets to edit the shows, does he? I agree that if any of the girls in skimpy bikinis had provided sparkling, interesting footage, we would have seen more of them and less of the roundish older bald guy. I can't think of any character they could put on my favorite shows (TAR, Survivor) that would make me tune out. Even if I don't like the character I can watch, waiting for them to get their just due and get eliminated. I think Survivor and TAR have really loyal fan bases and the number of people tuning out is probably pretty low.
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Merrysea
Moderator
08-13-2004
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 9:28 am
I remember when Danni won Survivor seemingly out of the blue, and in a later interview, Gary (I think) said that she was quite a strategist, but she would always wait until the camera was turned away from her before she talked strategy to people.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-31-2000
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 10:15 am
The general trend for Survivor ratings has been downward, and Samoa was no exception, finishing 20th out of the top 20 primetime network shows. Tocantins was 19th. Previous seasons and their rankings can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_%28U.S._ TV_series%29#U.S._television_ratings FWIW, Survivor still continues to win its own time slot.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 11:00 am
I don't think Jeff has anything to do with casting, and my rather rough wording wasn't meant to suggest that. But his last blog more or less called anyone who didn't worship at Russell's feet "bitter" and I didn't appreciate that. I guess it all worked out in the end, those of us who enjoyed the Russell show got a good season; those of us who didn't enjoy the season sure had a righteous finale show!
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Happymom
Member
01-20-2003
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 12:00 pm
Personally, I can't stand Russell, I would never want to be friends with him. But...I loved watching him on the show. I would never stop watching Survivor because of one of the contestants...not even Coach and that was hard for me because he was hard to watch. I think Jeff is involved with casting. I think he's talked about it before, I could be wrong though.
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Donnagg
Member
08-11-2007
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 12:35 pm
I did not stop watching because of Russell. I quit watching because as I stated before I don't enjoy watching stupid. After the first 2 or 3 shows I could tell how it would play out. I didn't enjoy all the HII that were in play. With that many idols in play it becomes more luck than game play. Without the extra idols maybe Russell would have had to adjust his game play and become more social. We will never know.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-31-2000
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 2:58 pm
FWIW, there were no more idols in play than there have been before. It's just that many have held the idols and not used them, so they could not be put back in play. But there were no additional idols this season.
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Brenda1966
Member
07-03-2002
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 3:13 pm
I didn't realize Survivor viewers had dropped off so much in the last few years. Is that just a general trend in network TV as cable gears up with more quality shows and people watch things online? If you look at the TVbythenumbers site, the survivor finale finished 4th for the 18-49 crowd which seems like relatively good ratings. http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/12/22/tv-ratings-new-episodes-of-big-bang-theory-two-and-a-half-men-survivor-and-ncis-propel-cbs-to-top-of-charts/36955
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Donnagg
Member
08-11-2007
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 3:17 pm
I don't remember when other players were voted off and they held the idol it being put back in play. But I find as time passes I don't always remember so good.LOL So I will modify my statement, no Idol is ever put back in play.
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Pamy
Member
01-02-2002
| Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 3:22 pm
Brenda, great point about the ratings, I would love to see if the progressively got better or worse during THIS season. I almost think ratings are so hard to judge these days because of all the different ways to watch. My DH hates reality but even he would casually ask what Russ had done this week! LOL
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