Australian Survivor thoughts

So, now the dust has settled on Kristie’s win, what have we learnt from Australian Survivor?
What do the producers need to do next year to make it a less up and down experience for the viewer?
1) Fifty-five days is too long
2) You need to shake up the tribes more often
3) Make sure someone is voted out at every tribal
4) Give yourselves a bit more time to edit the show.
5) Cut the “how do you feel” questions from JLap to all the contestants as they arrive at a challenge. That’s why you have producers, to ask people questions that will make interesting confessionals.

They get a big thumbs up for production values, though, and JLap certainly deserves a second shot at hosting – it’s a tough gig and he relaxed into it a lot more towards the end of the game.



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10 Comments

  1. Looking at the US version, you can have more contestants as long as you keep them in small tribes. Ten or twelve people in a tribe just makes it too easy for big alliances and people to hide. I’d still prefer a couple less people, though, maybe 21 in three tribes of seven? Uneven numbers allows for immediate scrambling.

  2. This season was absolutely too long. That’s a big, definite no.
    And bring back the all-in interview at the end. That’s usually my can’t-miss episode. I like to see the contestants own it at the end, and sometimes that doesn’t come without time.

  3. I don’t buy some of Krystie’s speech although i agree it was a brilliant speech. I think she scrambled extremely well, but she had the great advantage that everyone thought she was a goat until she won the final immunity. What she actually did was take a very similar path to Fabio in Nicaragua. The big alliances in both seasons saw neither of them coming and by the time the alliances did see them they were both unstoppable.

    I also don’t buy that Krystie knew the result at every TC she attended. I note Fabio had to make similar claims to justify his own win.

    A great win, all the same.

    • I think Kristie was over-stating her strategy just a fraction, as well. She did make some good moves (and like somebody else said, I think a big part of Kristie’s game was knowing when *not* to make a move, or when *not* to ally with somebody). But there were a couple of points where she just got incredibly lucky (the fact she was on a cast of idiots didn’t hurt, either).

      Apparently Nicaragua isn’t a well-loved season, which is a shame because I absolutely adored Fabio. That big blonde goofball.

      • I think Nicaragua’s problem is a winner out of left field, the first ever double quit for pretty frivolous reasons, a mean girls alliance that dominated most of the game. I think Nicaragua had the Medallion of Power twist, but I could be confusing it with another season.

  4. Agree with all your points Juz and want to add…
    WHAT THEY NEED TO FIX
    26 episodes is way to many (in fact by the finale i was surprised it was only 26 in the end it felt like many more)
    24 players is way to many
    If you are going to play for that long with that many castaways, switch up the tribes more often AND ENSURE it is a RANDOM switch up.
    Lose the music played over challenges that ruined the suspense of the winner of each challenge.
    TC is for voting out people only – I didn’t mind the twist where Connor and Sam / Nick and Teigan switched tribes, but the other tribals where no one actually got voted out, i wasn’t a fan of.
    Get JLP better questions for TC. Jeff Probst has said many times, he basically asks the same 8-10 questions each time, just words them differently. TC questions shouldn’t reveal info that isn’t already known to the tribe, it should be up to the players if they want to reveal that information or not.
    A live finale and reunion show (surely this also helps to contain spoilers)
    ‘The Jury Villa’ on Tenplay was good but I got bored of the same format of each episode after a while and it would have been great to see a final 2 version of it as well or this is something that could be incorporated into a live reunion show.
    Try to edit like they do in the US Survivor – last episode back to the first episode… or at least as Juz said give more time to editing… i missed it but apparently in the ep Flick was booted they showed a very quick clip of her “the day after” as a confessional.
    Some of the twists were great but the twists around final 6 were a bit Big Brotherish – the Q and A survey quiz challenge thing, the Have v Have nots thing… tooo much producer input.

    WHAT WAS GOOD.
    As mentioned the twist where Connor and Sam / Nick and Teigan switched tribes was good.
    The quality of challenges was great, i really liked the one (it was still three tribes at this point) and each tribe had to use wood and rope to block another tribe from pulling a chicken coup thru.
    Jonathan was great, it was hard not to compare him to Jeff but other than his TC questions he did really well.
    Production quality etc was great.
    Glad they didn’t focus on the love story too much.
    Overall really great show and I will definitely watch again next year – hopefully they take onboard some of the fan suggestions.

  5. Also if you are having Survivor withdrawals – have a listen to these three great podcasts featuring Nick. Even if you aren’t a Nick fan, he gives great insights into his game and the game in general. Note: before listening make sure you have watched episode 6 of US Survivor – because RHAP definitely has spoilers – i can’t remember if Aus Survivor does or not (I’m up to date so wasn’t really listening out for it…)
    Aus Survivor podcast:
    Part One
    https://twitter.com/AusSurvivor/status/792692527056818176
    Part Two:
    https://twitter.com/AusSurvivor/status/793187131740958720

    RHAP with Rob Cesternino and Stephen Fishbach
    http://robhasawebsite.com/australian-survivor-finale-nick-iadanza/

    • I watched part of the Nick one live. Sorry – took me a while to approve yr comment (because it had links). I’m in Fiji so checking occasionally

      • Thanks Juz, for approving so quick, I only posted it about an hour an hour ago, and saw you are away on another post, so i actually wasn’t expecting it to be approved for another day or so 🙂
        I am so impressed with the amount of pre game prep work Nick did!

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