...and we're down to the finale this Sunday. If it ends up being Rob, Phillip and Natalie with Rob winning, this will have been the biggest disappointment season ever. So many possibilities but everything just boiling down to the Rob Show, with him controlling every step of the game from the moment the other guys threw the challenge. I guess if you were a Rob fan you might love it, but otherwise, what a waste of a great concept. I've never seen this many players be so complacent - unless it was edited out, you almost never hear anyone talk about removing Rob. And the other team basically just bent over after their self-congratulatory removal of Russell. Crazy.
ugh ugh ugh. So as predicted the entire season basically was just Rob's Journey to win after 4 tries. Boo hoo, he has to provide for his family - who don't forget already had Amber's cool million prize plus whatever he's brought in for each Survivor appearance. What irks me is they purposely edited out that Rob had told the girls about the hidden idol - knowing that changes the complexion of how you view them. They were a little less puppets and a little more hapless victims who had no other play to make.
Still, admittedly, he played about as "perfect" a Survivor game as he possibly could have, given whatever baggage he came in with. He manipulated when he needed to, formed powerful alliances, worked hard in camp, played dumb when needed, found the immunity idol, won critical challenges, and as Xeno mentioned, was able to play a paranoid game without actually pissing people off (which never happens) - pretty much everything he needed to do, he did step by step with barely a hitch or hiccup the entire season. "One man shouldn't have this much power in Survivor" he says - and it's true, because ultimately it makes for boring TV. All the editing tricks in the world can't make a cast of tools grow some balls or show some actual intelligence. I actually preferred last season's cast of idiots; at least there were plenty of surprises and unexpected twists.
Apparently I'm in the minority because they are following the same format again (bringing 2 "pros" to join the regulars). I hope they make better choices this time with the people, hoepfully they will be more interesting "characters" as opposed to power players who will dominate the show. Otherwise it's like grouping a lvl 80 character with a bunch of lvl 1's - there's not much for the level 1's to do except follow around.
Another side note, I often wonder how/why we get players like Natalie. OK, yeah she's young and hot and cute (I think I picked her as the cutest girl from all the pictures when they released the cast), but seriously, what chance does she really have to win it all? She was good at nothing, never camped, couldn't win a challenge or even compete for the majority of them. The best she could hope for was to play tag along. Now granted other tag alongs have won in the past, but generally they made some moves in the game, or ensured somehow that the main player was more reviled. I guess my question is for Natalie herself, did she really think she could win or did she just join for the experience? Seems like half the people in this cast were just so pleased with the "experience" they didn't really care about winning or playing the game.
