Survivor Blog Schedule Changes

Hey all.

It is with great sorrow (not really) that I must inform you that I have decided to discontinue my weekly Survivor blogs. The combination of how busy I am with school and the fact that I'm quite sure no one actually reads my blogs has driven me to take this (hardly) drastic measure. If you are, in fact, a reader, and would like me to continue, please leave a comment. If there are enough of you secretly reading out there, I may reconsider what I have decided.

I may still post Survivor blogs when I have lots of time and/or I really have the intense desire to discuss the show. If you want to know whenever I post a new blog, follow me on Google + or on Twitter @brooksmac14. Thank you for your understanding.

Note: Big Brother Canada blogs will continue to be posted weekly.

BBCAN: The Game Begins

I'm Brooks MacLachlan, someone who for some reason thinks his obsession with Big Brother in recent years makes him qualified enough to judge those who are actually playing the game. I analyze everything I can: the episodes, interviews with eliminated players, side show, and occasionally the live feeds to come up with the motivations behind what each player has done. I decide what should have happened, because I obviously know best, and I predict what should and what will happen in each player’s future in the game. And I’ll probably get it right every time because that’s just how I am.

Technically, two weeks have passed in the second season of Big Brother Canada 2, but it wasn't until this latest week that it truly felt like the game had begun. There's a lot to talk about strategy-wise, so let's get right into it, shall we?

The main question for the majority of the houseguests this week was whether it would be better to evict Paul or Kyle. As these two were arguably my two least favourite players this season, I was absolutely thrilled. And then Kyle had to suddenly become this really great guy and ruin the moment. In the end, it was Kyle who was booted for being the bigger threat. Many have pointed out that simply having muscles doesn't actually make you much of a threat in the Big Brother house, and while this is true I still think the house made the right move in evicting Kyle over Paul. I think it's safe to say that Kyle would be a bigger threat in physical challenges, while Paul would be a bigger threat in mental ones, so challenge-wise they're actually pretty even. But Kyle is clearly the more likeable of the two. He was on the outs, but it seemed that whenever someone got to know him, they were surprised by how nice he was. Paul, on the other hand, is probably the least liked in the house. Plus, he'd proved his strategic incompetence in the first week. He's not a threat in any sense of the word. 

Paul's strategy to "be the bad guy" after being nominated followed his habit of making absolutely terrible game moves. While it's true that people may want to bring unlikeable people to the end, you can't be so unlikeable that the other players literally can't stand living with you. To Paul's credit, he seems to have realized his mistakes and is making some good steps towards recovery. In Thursday night's episode, he apologized to Andrew and admitted that he acted out of line this week, and that he was not going to do that again. I don't think Paul is going to recover fully from his early blunders. He still won't win, and really I still don't see him making the jury. But his decision to admit he was wrong rather than stand by what he'd said previously will take some of the heat off him and may buy him a few more weeks. 

Right now, the First Five alliance seems to be in control of the house. But resentment building up against Andrew may spell the end for this alliance. Last week, I was impressed with Kenny, but this week I'm starting to think once again that he won't be around for very long. He is driven to win competitions, which really has no value this early in the game and only serves to make the target on his back bigger. He's very close with Andrew, and so it seems reasonable that some of the hate towards Andrew may be directed at Kenny as well. I will say that his move to test Heather's loyalty by feeding her false information was crafty and effective. But I'm not sure it was really necessary. Carrying out the plan involved explaining it to Rachelle, who is now aware that Kenny is playing a sneakily strategic game. Plus, if Heather giving information to Rachelle makes her untrustworthy, doesn't that mean that Kenny doesn't consider Rachelle a close ally? Unless Kenny has some secret alliance with Rachelle that Heather doesn't know about, I would be wary to continue trusting Kenny wholeheartedly if I were Rachelle. Plus, the fact that Kenny smokes immediately makes me like him less.

While Kenny has disappointed me this week, Jon has really impressed me. I loved the scene where he and Neda were in the bedroom talking about the others. Both he and Neda have a good strategic sense and they can be a deadly team in this game. With the target on Andrew and Kenny's backs getting bigger, the First Five alliance may soon lose power, and I can see Jon and Neda controlling things behind the scenes. Neda was my pre-season pick to win and she's still doing well. She went on the block but didn't do anything crazy. Her crying probably only reinforced in the others' heads that she's not a threat.

Arlie, my other pre-season favourite, is doing well too. He's in the First Five alliance but doesn't appear to have the target on his back that Kenny and Andrew do. He hasn't been involved in any conflicts and his pre-season cockiness doesn't appear to be prevalent in his interactions with the other houseguests. My one complaint with Arlie is that he hasn't hidden the fact that he's there to win. From the day the game started, everyone knew that Arlie was a giant Big Brother fan. His move this week to overdramatically throw the HoH competition may have had the desired effect-- to appear weak and gain sympathy-- on some houseguests, but it may also have shown them that Arlie is someone who will never give up. If he tried that hard just to win the HoH competition, to what measures will he go to avoid elimination? Arlie may have simultaneously decreased the "competition threat" target on his back and increased the "strategic threat" one.

Other players that have impressed me are Ika and Rachelle. We haven't seen a lot of either of their strategic games, but the little we saw of Rachelle on Sunday night's episode told me that she had more game sense than I had initially thought. When she was told by Heather that Kenny didn't trust her, instead of taking her word for it, she checked with Kenny to see what was going on. She seems concerned simply with making everyone like her and trust her, and if she succeeds at this she'll be able to make the big moves when she needs to later in the game. Ika has a louder personality, but we haven't seen any houseguests say they didn't like her, which tells me that they enjoy her personality. Or the editing just isn't showing any annoyance the others have of her. Either way, she's funny in the diary room so I hope she sticks around. Plus, she may be bold enough to target Andrew and Kenny with her HoH reign this week, which would be a lot of fun.

The last thing we saw this week was Allison entering the house. First of all, I was shocked by this because these "[Insert country here] votes!" twists never seem to go my way. I am so excited to see Alison play the game, and she joins Neda and Arlie as my favourites. We saw her beginning to come up with her story when she met the houseguests, and it will be really interesting to see how the others react to her appearance. She'll surely have a target on her back for entering the game late, but she's knowledgeable when it comes to Big Brother, and I don't doubt that she can survive this week and making a deep run in the game, and maybe even win (I would not be able to say the same had Scott entered the house. The fact that he's such a huge personality paired with the target he'd have for entering the game late would almost surely result in his elimination next Thursday)

That's all for this week! What are your thoughts on the season so far? Sound off with a comment!

Dumping the Rice Dumper

I'm Brooks MacLachlan, someone who for some reason thinks his obsession with Survivor in recent years makes him qualified enough to judge those who are actually playing the game. I analyze everything I can: the episodes, secret scenes, interviews with eliminated players, social media activity of the players, and more to come up with the motivations behind what each player has done. I decide what should have happened, because I obviously know best, and I predict what should and what will happen in each player’s future in the game. And I’ll probably get it right every time because that’s just how I am.

Phew. That was close.

I can't remember a time I've wanted someone out more than J'Tia, or someone in more than Spencer in last night's episode. And I really thought Spencer would be voted out. Luckily, I was wrong, and with the tribe swap next week, Spencer and Kass and Tasha will all have new life in the game. Hopefully the Brain genocide has come to an end, at least for now.

But of course I'm going to be a little biased in my analysis of the latest Tribal Council, considering how badly I wanted J'Tia out. But really, all J'Tia offered Kass and Tasha was loyalty. It was the right move to vote her out because she'd be unpredictable, a loose cannon that could potentially ruin they're games with her impulsive actions. She simply wouldn't be a reliable ally. On the other hand, Spencer acts rationally. He too claims that he'll be loyal, but even if that's not true, Spencer would be the bigger target for the other tribes come tribe swap or merge time. So Kass and Tasha would be able to flip against Spencer even more easily than he could flip against them. But the biggest reason for keeping Spencer/ousting J'Tia is challenges. The Brains tribe can't be sure that there will be a tribe swap before the merge. There have been only two seasons before with three tribes, and while both of those had tribe shake-ups of some sort after 4 people had been voted out, that's not a very large sample size, and in Survivor, you never know what can happen. If they were to vote out Spencer on the assumption that there would be a tribe swap, and then there wasn't a tribe swap, they all could have been voted out pre-merge. That's much too big a risk to take.

Spencer didn't say a whole lot to convince them to keep him, but clearly it was enough. He got across the points he needed to make: he'd be loyal, he'd help them win challenges, and J'Tia was too unpredictable to rely on. He didn't overcomplicate things, and by keeping his argument simple he was better able to convince the others that he would be reliable in the future. I definitely think Kass and Tasha deserve credit for making the right decision, but Spencer deserves just as much credit for arguing his case.

Shifting gears to the Brawn tribe, I'm really disappointed that Sarah is truly buying Tony's lies hook, line, and sinker, to the point where she actually tried to throw a challenge to get Cliff out. I'm still hoping that she'll catch on soon, but at this point Tony deserves lots of credit for pulling the wool over her eyes. Plus, he seemed to be more laid back this episode: He's not overplaying as much as I expected him to, and has found himself in a great position in his tribe.

It's clear that Sarah's not going to be comparing notes with Cliff and Lindsey at this point about whether or not they actually wanted her out, so her one hope for finding out the truth is Woo. Woo now knows that Sarah is targeting Cliff, and if Woo brings that information back to Cliff, maybe Cliff will approach Sarah and ask her why. That seems like the only scenario at this point that would result in Tony's lie being unravelled, but considering Woo seemed on board to vote out Cliff, even that seems unlikely. It looks like Tony will really pull this one off.

On the Beauty tribe, I really like that Morgan is actually playing the game. By calling out Jeremiah in front of the others, and saying he was the one who came to her and Brice wanting to get LJ out, she's planting seeds of distrust for Jeremiah in her tribemates. While I'm not sure that that would be enough to save her at this point, it's great to see that she's not just going to sit down and die. Knowing that she is at least a little game savvy bodes well for her going into the tribe swap.

We know that next week the tribes will be shaken up. It seems safe to say that three tribes will become two, and Jeff Probst confirmed in this weeks Entertainment Weekly interview that the tribe swap will be done randomly, which means the possibilities are endless.

Since the Brawn tribe has six members, it is most likely that each of the new tribes will have 3 former Brawn members. If this ends up happening, could we see the 4 non-Brawn members on each tribe teaming up to take out the Brawn? Especially with the fractures in the Brawn tribe, it seems likely that the next person voted out will be someone from the Brawn tribe. Even if they aren't split with three brawn on each tribe, and one tribe has a Brawn majority, if Sarah is on the same tribe as Cliff and/or Lindsey, she'll probably target them.

The Beauty Tribe has fractures too, with Morgan as the odd one out, so its possible, given the right tribe configuration, that a Beauty is voted out next. The Brains, for once, appear to be safe. They probably won't target each other, and their weakness and small number after the first part of the game will make them appear harmless to the others. The problem is that Malcolm and Denise of Survivor Philippines are still fresh on these players minds, so they might be wary of letting the remnants of the Brains tribe stick around.

In the end though, with all of the conflicts going on within the Brawn and Beauty tribes, I think the remaining Brain members will be able to slide through to the merge relatively easily. Live on, Luzon!

BBCAN: An Irritating Case of HoHitis

I'm Brooks MacLachlan, someone who for some reason thinks his obsession with Big Brother in recent years makes him qualified enough to judge those who are actually playing the game. I analyze everything I can: the episodes, interviews with eliminated players, side show, and occasionally the live feeds to come up with the motivations behind what each player has done. I decide what should have happened, because I obviously know best, and I predict what should and what will happen in each player’s future in the game. And I’ll probably get it right every time because that’s just how I am.

DanuhNa Na Nuh Na. DanuhNa Na Na Na. DanuhNa Na Nuh Na Na Naaaaaaaaa!

I'd forgotten about that Big Brother Canada melody. It's very catchy!

Unfortunately, the show hasn't given a whole lot to write about here. Of the two episodes we've seen so far, a good half of the time has been spent introducing us to the houseguests and secret houseguests, so we didn't see a lot of the strategy behind Paul's nominations and Anick's eviction.

Although maybe it's just as straightforward as it seems. Anick clearly didn't fit in with the rest of the house. That, paired with her being the first to forfeit the HoH challenge, was very likely enough to make her an easy first target for the whole house. Andrew being nominated seems like it could've been fairly straightforward as well. He was the biggest physical threat of the six people who gave up HoH before Paul made his deal, and his obnoxious attitude was rubbing many the wrong way. Ika's nomination seemed the most odd. We didn't see any evidence of her not getting along with anyone besides Anick, and if Paul's reason for putting her up was really because she didn't pretend to be into Anick's little ceremony thing, that would be a little ridiculous. Paul said he thought she "wasn't willing to play the game" because of her actions towards Anick, but wouldn't that be a good reason not to want Ika out?

Paul's gameplay so far is downright horrible. He made enemies of six people in the first HoH competition by making his deal to win the competition. Winning HoH shouldn't have been important for him, as all being the first HoH can do is put a target on your back in future weeks. Then, after he won HoH, he let the power get to his head, and the others noticed. Usually it doesn't bother me when people get HoHitis. But this time it made me especially not like Paul. I think it's because the typical person who suddenly think they're the most powerful person in the house by winning HoH is someone like Big Brother Canada's first season's Tom Plant. Someone who you would actually expect to act that way. But I thought Paul, being older than the other contestants, would be wiser as well. I thought his only struggles would be with the social game, but clearly he's struggling with the strategic game as well. I'll be shocked if Paul makes it to jury.

So if Paul's nominations were really not based on much, is there any strategy going on in the house? Any alliances? Of course there are, and hopefully we will get to see them in the coming episodes. The only one we know of now is the "First Five" alliance. Based on the people who held up one and then five fingers as they voted in the Diary Room, there is an alliance between Arlie, Kenny, Sarah, Sabrina, and Andrew, the first five players to enter the house. I can see this alliance actually running things in the house, if the other houseguests don't know they're together. They've got some savvy players, and not so savvy players (like Andrew) who will at least be good at winning competitions.

It's too early to tell for sure, though, how effective this alliance will be. Hopefully the next episode fills us in on some of the other alliances forming in the house. Until then, there's really not a lot of strategic analysis to do here.

What I can do is give some updated impressions on some of the houseguests. Again, I haven't seen enough footage of many of them to really change how I feel about them since my first impressions, but a couple of them have impressed or disappointed me.

I didn't feel good about Anick's chances pre-game, and obviously I was right. But, I have to say that I absolutely loved her quirkiness, and am sad to see her go. I'm sure she would have been very entertaining to watch had she lasted a little longer.

My pre-game favourites, Neda and Arlie, have done nothing to disappoint me. Arlie seems to have gotten himself into a solid alliance, and while we haven't seen a lot of Neda, that at least means she hasn't done anything to hurt her game. She just seems to be staying under the radar, which is great for this early stage of the game.

As mentioned previously, Paul has really disappointed me. He said he wanted to play to the audience Chilltown style, and he's doing a very poor job of that. Doesn't he remember that Chilltown would never win an HoH when they didn't need to? The lengths that Paul went to to win the first HoH is simply outrageous. He's made a ton of enemies and is greatly overestimating his own strategic abilities. Thankfully, it's safe to say we won't have to watch Paul play for much longer.

I may have been a little hard on Kenny pregame because he said he'd miss his dog the most, but that turned out to be a fairly common thing. He is part of the only alliance we know of, and seems to be getting along fine with the houseguests. Seeing his beard and knowing the types of gay contestants usually cast by these types of shows, I was expecting Kenny to be one of those crazy contestants who really has no chance of winning. But Kenny is fitting in great, seems to have a good social game and a better strategic sense than I initially thought. He said in his "meet the cast" video that he plans on hiding his sexuality and then making a big deal of revealing it to people individual to gain their trust, and this could actually work very well for him. 

Kyle is someone I hated pre-game, and I still don't particularly like him. But I have to say, he's pretty entertaining in the diary room. Turns out he can form complete sentences, which is a lot more than I expected of him!

I thought Jon was going to be an obnoxious jerk along with Kyle and Andrew, but we haven't seen any evidence of that so far. Then again, we haven't seen much of anything. But I'm feeling a little more hopeful for Jon now.

The other houseguests haven't had enough airtime for me to really form new opinions on them. We were introduced to the three secret houseguests this week though, so here are some thoughts on them.

I really see nothing special in Nate. He doesn't seem to be a giant superfan, or a big personality, or anything. He's just boring.

I don't want Scott to get voted in, although, knowing Canada, he'll probably end up being the Final HG. He's clearly being portrayed as this season's Gary, and we know how much Canada loved Gary. I had nothing against Gary, but we'll be watching him all season on the Side Show. One Gary is enough for me. 

That leaves Allison. I'll be voting for her to enter the game. She has more personality than Nate, and more game knowledge than Scott (I watched a little War Room live feeds. Didn't see anything that can be considered spoilers, but Allison seemed to know her Big Brother trivia more than the others). In fact, based on what people are saying on Twitter, Allison is somewhat of a superfan. This season could certainly use another knowledgeable game player, and I think Allison can deliver on that, as well as being witty in the diary room. She may even have a chance of beating Scott, as she's being endorsed by lots of former players, and seems to have a lot of support on Twitter. Vote for Allison!

That's all for this week. The show may technically have started, but I feel like this week will be the true beginning, when we really get to see the house dynamics. I can't wait to really analyse the strategic games of the players, and hopefully by next week I'll be able to do that. See you then!

On Thin Brice

I'm Brooks MacLachlan, someone who for some reason thinks his obsession with Survivor in recent years makes him qualified enough to judge those who are actually playing the game. I analyse everything I can: the episodes, secret scenes, interviews with eliminated players, social media activity of the players, and more to come up with the motivations behind what each player has done. I decide what should have happened, because I obviously know best, and I predict what should and what will happen in each player’s future in the game. And I’ll probably get it right every time because that’s just how I am.

Brice became the beauty tribe's first casualty this week on Survivor. 

First of all, kudos to me for recognizing that Jeremiah may not have been as interested in aligning with Brice and Morgan as it appeared last week. I correctly identified Brice as a player that was still in trouble on Solana (although I thought it would be Morgan getting the boot, not him). Also, thank goodness Alexis stuck around. The performances of my fake-pool picks have embarrassing so far, and her elimination would have made it that much worse.

It ended up being Jeremiah's decision who to send home. Did he make the right one? I think yes. The one advantage to siding with Brice and Morgan is that he'd be at least number three in the alliance, while with the others he could be number four. But the Beauty Tribe probably won't be losing so many challenges that Jeremiah will be voted out, even if he is number four. Sticking with the larger group will give him more numbers going into a merge or tribe swap, and he also keeps a good challenge competitor and perhaps bigger target, LJ, in the game.

Where does the Beauty Tribe go from here? It seems fairly clear that Morgan will be the next one out, unless she can pull off something spectacular. My suspicion that Alexis and LJ were quite close was confirmed by Brice in one of his secret scenes. When Jeremiah and Jefra were talking alone, right before Alexis joined them, Jeremiah asked if the two of them were "still good", implying that she and him had something more with each other than with the rest of the alliance. And with Jeremiah and LJ's bromance and Alexis and Jefra being good friends, this alliance of four seems like they'll be staying true to each other at least for the near future. Should Solana lose the next challenge, I'm once again predicting that Morgan will be the one to go.

They may not need to worry about losing the next challenge though, if the preview's for next week are accurate. The Aparri tribe may throw the next immunity challenge to take out one of their members. This is really peculiar. In Sarah's secret scene this week, she talks about how her tribe can win every challenge and should stick together until the final six. So what caused her to change her mind so drastically that she now is telling Woo that they should throw the challenge? There are only two possibilities for who she is talking about that she wants to vote out: Cliff or Tony (She says "him" and obviously she's not talking about Woo since he's the one she was talking to). 

Sarah's alliance with Tony, and the fact that she trusts him so much, would lead one to believe that she's talking about voting out Cliff, but there are two things that give me doubt about that. First, Woo is Cliff's closest alliance. He would be the last person she'd talk to about voting Cliff out. And second, Tony has been trying to turn her against Cliff. I'm assuming that her secret scene was filmed after Tony lied to her about Cliff targeting her, and in that secret scene she had no desire to vote off anyone on her tribe. So what would cause the sudden change of heart? I can't see Cliff doing anything to turn her against him. So, I think she caught Tony in one of his lies. She compared notes with Cliff or Lindsey, realized Tony had been playing her, and felt extremely betrayed. She would be angry that Tony would deceive her, despite their cop connection. That might be enough to have her wanting to throw a challenge to get rid of him.

The Brains tribe winning immunity this week was my happiest moment so far this season. Unfortunately, it still looks like Spencer will be in a lot of trouble if they lose another challenge. I really want Spencer and the rest of Luzon to survive to the tribe swap, so here's hoping Brawn does indeed throw the challenge. If they do lose, though, Spencer will try to pull off something crazy. He said last night that he was going to have to get "creative" to stay in the game, and I can't wait to see what he tries if the Brains tribe loses again. I still would rather see them win again though. The tribe swap that will likely occur in two weeks is Spencer's best hope for survival.

I've had a fairly busy week this week, so I'll be ending this entry here even though it's a little on the short side. For all I know, you're a fan of short and sweet blog entries, dear reader. So you're welcome.