Survivor 44

[HarryClone]

Enjoyed this season more than the last few mostly due to some fun characters. There are a handful I'd be glad to see back for an all-star season - Frannie, Danny, Lauren, Yam Yam and Carolyn for sure, plus I wish Matt from pre-merge could've hung around longer.

How do we feel about making fire at Final Four? There's something about it that feels so contrived to me when survival skills really aren't made to seem that important for the first 28 or whatever days, then suddenly it's everything. I'm glad that didn't propel Heidi to a win because her overall game was brutal, wasting idols/advantages and being on the wrong side of too many votes.

Lastly, reading/seeing player interviews after they're voted off makes me wish there was a way to see more of the whole game. I'm sure some of it is embellished, but players talking about how they're relationship with person X or the time they did Y really emphasizes how little we see. They're out there for four weeks and we get probably 12ish hours of TV. Would be cool if they had a complimentary series on Paramount+ that gave us more (but then I'm sure I'd find more to complain about).

Excited for 45 and the Bruce Redemption Tour!

 

[CYdTracked]

Enjoyed this season more than the last few mostly due to some fun characters. There are a handful I'd be glad to see back for an all-star season - Frannie, Danny, Lauren, Yam Yam and Carolyn for sure, plus I wish Matt from pre-merge could've hung around longer.

How do we feel about making fire at Final Four? There's something about it that feels so contrived to me when survival skills really aren't made to seem that important for the first 28 or whatever days, then suddenly it's everything. I'm glad that didn't propel Heidi to a win because her overall game was brutal, wasting idols/advantages and being on the wrong side of too many votes.

Lastly, reading/seeing player interviews after they're voted off makes me wish there was a way to see more of the whole game. I'm sure some of it is embellished, but players talking about how they're relationship with person X or the time they did Y really emphasizes how little we see. They're out there for four weeks and we get probably 12ish hours of TV. Would be cool if they had a complimentary series on Paramount+ that gave us more (but then I'm sure I'd find more to complain about).

Excited for 45 and the Bruce Redemption Tour!

I am watching the after show portion tonight as ran out of time to watch it yesterday so I'm still in the dark about what happened there and season 45 preview. As for everything else we've been talking about the need for some new challenges or at least not making them so predictable by brining back some older challenges that have not been used in awhile. Some survivor skills challenges that involve fire making or other things they would need to actually survive would be a good way to mix it up a little too. I'm OK with the fire making challenge as when there are just 4 left it's rough when you only have 3 people you can vote for and someone that is probably deserving to make their case to the jury can be taken out because they lost an immunity challenge and are not aligned with at least 2 of the 3 others. I'd actually be OK with going back to a final 2 for the jury too since there were only 8 on this season's jury so realistically the votes aren't going to get spread around enough to make it close and it really hasn't lately as seems like last few seasons they have been landslide wins.

Also they used to do a Survivor Ponderosa series on YouTube after each jury member got voted out. Here's one from season 37: Ponderosa #01: Survivor 37 David Vs. Goliath - YouTube was interesting to see the behind the scenes reactions after they got voted out and how the jury interreacted between votes and talked about what happened. Would like to see them bring that back as extra content, sometimes got a different perspective about how a vote went down or how some of the strategy played out and is revealed now that those people are out of the game.

It's still a few years away but will be interesting to see what they come up with for Survivor 50. Could possibly be Jeff's last season as he's 61 so if you do the math with 2 seasons a year that puts season 50 in spring 2026 where Jeff would be 64 and good point if the show is still going strong they make a transition to a new host which I would have to guess would likely be a former contestant or winner that is popular. They've already done a season of all winners for season 40 so that's likely out but could see a bunch of runner ups that never won? Still a bit aways but probably going to start seeing some more seasons leasing up to that where we have some returning players back in the mix as its been awhile since they have done that.

 

[CycloneRulzzz]

I agree. I mean I figured out really quick that Yam Yam was going to either come in first or second.

Also knew Carolyn was going far when on the first episode the first thing they did was show her.

 

[Drew0311]

Also knew Carolyn was going far when on the first episode the first thing they did was show her.

Yep, The only one I missed on was Carson. I knew he was going far though. Half the people on jury got very little camera time. Except the New York guy, he is a good personality so he got camera time. The love birds got some because they were a couple.

 

[cytor]

Season 50 should have Jeff be a contestant. That would be fun to see. Flip the script.

 

[CYdTracked]

Yep, The only one I missed on was Carson. I knew he was going far though. Half the people on jury got very little camera time. Except the New York guy, he is a good personality so he got camera time. The love birds got some because they were a couple.

Hopefully with the move to 90 minute episodes next season we a better variety of content where they can add some more camp life footage and more content from other players. I get why Carolyn and Yam Yam got as much of the edits as they did because they were probably the 2 more entertaining personalities so in order to keep viewer interest you have to show their quirky moments where some of the others probably had a lot of dry content that was not as entertaining.

Survivor and Amazing Race moving to 90-minute episodes this fall | EW.com

 

[cyclonespiker33]

I do wonder if Carson would have won the whole thing if he made the final 3. I think it would have been close between him and Yam Yam but my vote would go for Carson.

 

[CYdTracked]

Season 50 should have Jeff be a contestant. That would be fun to see. Flip the script.

That would be a heck of a twist but awkward at the same time as he wouldn't win but they's also feel like they'd have to keep him around for awhile too as it would be boring otherwise. Would like to see an all-celebrity season but that probably has not happened due to the scheduling challenges, appearance fees, and how many celebs really want to rough it out for a month too? Jimmy Johnson is probably the biggest name I can think of that has played. Former athletes like Cliff Robinson, Jeff Kent, Brad Culpepper, Gary Hogeboom and Scott Pollard played but non are A-List celebs. Lisa Whelchel from the TV Show Facts of Life and country singer Whitney Duncan were on it but again not a well known celebs either.

 

[Drew0311]

Im just glad the fire challenge winner didn't win. I hate that they play a whole game and a lot of people vote for whomever won the fire challenge.

 

[CYdTracked]

Im just glad the fire challenge winner didn't win. I hate that they play a whole game and a lot of people vote for whomever won the fire challenge.

It's not a slam dunk that if you win that you'll win over the jury though. This has some of the history on it: Survivor: A History Of The Final 4 Fire-Making Challenge (screenrant.com) and some of them you can say would have won the season even without winning that challenge. I think Ben was a good example of how it helped keep a deserving person in the game as he had done enough without it to win and would have been voted out at 4 otherwise. I found something on this on Reddit about the history of the challenge:

-Winners of fire challenge that won the season (4): Ben, Wendell, Chris, Tony
-Season won by the final immunity winner (1*): Nick unless you also count *Chris who gave up immunity to challenge Rick who he felt was his biggest threat to win if he went to the jury vote
-Games won by person taken to the end without doing fire challenge (3): Tommy, Erika, Maryanne
-Other fire making winners that did not win the season but received at least 1 jury vote (5): Mike W, Dean, Deshaun, Mike T and now Heidi who won it in record time but still only got 1 vote because the rest of her game was lacking.
-Three "goats" taken to the end to not receive a vote: Laurel, Angelina, and Michele. I don't consider Carolyn a goat as I think she earned her spot but she also got no votes
- Final immunity winners that received zero jury votes (4): Julie, Noura, Xander, Romeo

Most seasons I would prefer the fire making challenge over a vote as usually is 1 person deserving of final 3 that probably does not get that chance without that challenge. I can see how maybe too much weight gets placed on it sometimes but it's very circumstantial to how the jury views the games certain people played. In Heidi's case I think she would have been the goat in the final 3 had she not won immunity.

 

[cytor]

I hate the last episode when the jury goes off on the 3 finalists.... it's just a dog and pony show. Almost all of them already know who they are going to vote for.

 

[CycloneRulzzz]

I do wonder if Carson would have won the whole thing if he made the final 3. I think it would have been close between him and Yam Yam but my vote would go for Carson.

Yep imo Carson was the one person in Yam Yam's way when he didn't make final 3 it was Yam Yam's to win.