74 Comments

  1. How is it that, whenever someone really needs to conveniently find an idol, they magically do?

    Do the things grow on trees, in the Fijian jungle? I’m starting to feel this is a little bit suspicious.

    Either that, or the producers are tearing their hair out in frustration that players keep getting eliminated with idols in their pockets.

  2. *sigh*

    Brian, gotta level with you. YOU’RE A MORON.

    If there’s a one-percent chance that someone has an idol (and you have a plan that will work perfectly to deal with that idol), then that’s what you go with.

    Shane must’ve gotten into his head and spooked him enough to go rogue. I just lost what little respect I still had for Brian’s gameplay. I hope Shonee turns on him tomorrow night, out of sheer spite.

    Meanwhile, there’s just something unlikeable about Sharn. The game tonight seemed rigged in her favour, and I did not appreciate that much.

    • Sharn is improving a lot. She didnā€™t say ā€˜Champions strongā€™ at the end of an intense conversation.

    • Is Brian a moron or did he just break up Shonella? The power couple who would certainly send him home if they joined him in the final 3?

      Tomorrow he has an idol in his back pocket and a very good record with challenges. If he loses the immunity challenge the worst he faces is losing Monika. If he wins he is fine for the day after and can probably get rid of Shonee.

      We should start a petition chyacking this Shane Sharn Shonee shambles.

      • While he did break up Shonella, I think that was unintentional, because he probably still wanted them to go after Shane once he’d knifed Sharn. And I just don’t think Monika is that loyal to him.

        Although they had to break up Shonella eventually.

        His idol is the only piece of gameplay Brian still has up his sleeve, and IIRC he *has* to use it tomorrow night, so we’re stuck with him for a while longer.

        • Monika and Brian have voted the same way at all TCs where they were both present since Episode 2. I seriously doubt tonight’s vote came as a surprise to Monika although I have absolutely no doubt that is what she will tell Shane Sharn and Shonee. And they’ve done it with players and fans not identifying them as a power couple.

          • I’m a little confused. Monika did vote as per the plan, Brian changed at the last minute. I agree that Monika, despite multiple promises/lies otherwise, has always voted with Brian. If the vote tonight was not a surprise, then she either knew (neutrally) that he had changed his mind beforehand, or her comment at TC was deliberately designed to make him change. It certainly works in her favour to break up the silly girls.

          • I wonder if Monika is actually smart enough to realise breaking Shonella works to her favour? She’s hard to read because whenever someone asks her to consider options, her response is invariably, “oh, 100%!”

            Which, come to think of it, is great game play. Both alliances think they have her in their pockets. Hope she can actually capitalise on that soon but it’s probably already too late in terms of jury management. They’ll think of her as the goat now, no matter what.

          • We’ve never been shown Monika and Brian caucusing, but the chance they do not co-ordinate their votes after so many joint votes has to be a very, very small number. My guess is that they want to keep Shane, because she can be a shield in a way that Sharn cannot. Even Shonee has to understand that if Shane reaches the final she wins.

  3. Shonee coykd have won that challenge.
    Pandering to Brianā€™s ego.
    So they stuff up the vote twice in a row. If only they had kept Dead Man Walking

    • And why was Brian allowed to extend his area and use the rope? First he pushes his feet into Fenella’s area, and then by the end his head was side-by-side with Shonee. Surely he should have been disqualified.

    • And what was the deal with Brian telling Shonee that she could trust him and not to hurt herself? Patronising much?

      I guess walking into TC with the immunity necklace on is just another way to try and convince the jury he deserves it maybe?

      • I know. Shut up already Brian. Shonees just ha hung around not even breaking a sweat, Brianā€ I just donā€™t want you to hurt yourselfā€. Sheā€™s strange. Obviously very capable but usually just canā€™t be bothered

  4. Brian really has made no friends on that jury…think there is a lot of stuff we havent seen, beside Him being a pig-dog!
    He is right though, they were on the bottom not so,long ago but then he goes and stuffs it up….
    Sharn may be unlikeable but she is clever, well played to her! And to shane for her subterfuge…loved it!

    • Were they so clever, or was it that Brian was an idiot. Most Survivors would have stuck to the plan, knowing you can’t believe a word they are saying when they are scrambling for their lives. Brian completely stuffed up their game, and unfortunately, probably not for himself since he is idolled-up.

      • It just shows how well Shane did that, because she managed to convince someone who had already shown that he fully understood all the tricks. Clever to identify that his ego is the weak spot.

        Much as I like Sharn, I think her assertive persuasive style doesn’t work here. It may be much more effective if she gets to pitch to the jury, but not now. But it is very telling that Shane seems to get a high from finding the achilles heel and work subtlely at that. I still don’t like what she did to Lydia, but if she wins I will acknowledge that she has been very good at the outwit game.

        Brian did his dash with a lot of the champions because of his laziness and lack of refinement (for want of a better term) around camp. The jury is currently mostly champions, and contributing as a team is a value of importance to them. By the time we are at final two, the balance on jury will be more equal, but then his actions last night will be despised unless he can convince them it was deliberate.

        • I was rooting for Sharn early when she aligned with Mo but she’s morphed into this Crazy Ex persona who can’t seem to recognise that the other players have their own agenda and won’t necessarily conform to hers just because she’ll ambush them in the jungle to try and talk them around.

          • We can only hope that tonight we do not see another intense conversation with Monica where Sharn believes Monika saying for the hundred thousandth time that she is 100% with whatever snake oil Shark is peddling.

          • Agreed Alan. And the problem is, Sharn isn’t too subtle about her intent. It seems like she only really talks to Monika and the others when she needs to sway them to her argument. And then she’s so INTENSE about it. Take your pills, lady.

            Shane’s much better at this. She talked to Monika pretty casually on the beach and then gradually led up to why it would benefit Monika to switch, not the other way around.

  5. BRIAN YOU IDIOT! There was no need for that. The girls should have let him vote Sharn and taken care of Shane themselves. I won’t be sorry to see Brian go. But then he has an idol. Shane annoys me for some reason, so I am left wanting a final 3 of Shonee, Monika and ?????? Oh dear. Shonee has been pretty shrewd and wily. Both she and Monika have played, “I’ll let them underestimate me”.

    Matt was still annoying my from the jury. He really still has a sense of revenge.

  6. Fenella’s jury villa video was interesting and funny.

    Finally, the jury isn’t such a sausage fest, but everyone seemed really nice and happy to see her. There was some lovely footage of Fenella and Robbie beating each other up in the pool with pool noodles. They lost the half-mil, but at least they got a lovely tropical holiday out of it.

    Interestingly, Fenella did mention that the champions (and the camera focused on Mat and Steve) were still a little upset at being knifed, still a little bitter about the whole thing. She said there were still some hard feelings there.

    Which didn’t surprise me. Even on the jury bench, Steve was annoying.

      • Exactyyyy!!! SD. It’s horrible. What do the expect Brian to have done? They were always going to shed him first, and only didn’t because Matt had to suddenly take revenge on someone else.

    • How have I never thought to watch a jury villa video before?! Wow, just got quite a few insights on the game that way.

      Fenella was pretty funny and made some great observations. But that screeching voice..! And even though she told her husband she had a tan, how do you go 40 days on a tropical island and still be translucently pale?

      • I know all I could think was maybe they do all the filming early in day. Nobody seemed sunburnt. Or maybe itā€™s winter in Fiji?

        • Weā€™ve been to Fiji twice. Once during July and the other time in December on our way to the US. Both times, my daughters and I got burnt on the first day and weā€™re Eurasian so we have skin that tolerates the sun (just not at that intensity!)

      • She might not have much pigment. My daughter is a bit like that; neither tans nor burns much. And if she burns, it fades back to white. She’s not even freckly.

  7. Well, here’s another theory. I think Monika was the one who stuffed the plan up (maybe deliberately) although it was on the back of Shane hitting Brian where his ego lives. The crucial moment at TC, Jon asks a question to Mon for which the answer should have been “oh, yes, I will be voting according to the plan”. Instead, she waffles a bit and then says something like “everyone should go with their gut”. She knew that Brian’s gut, thanks to Shane, was already worrying about Sharn not getting enough votes (because he had tried to change the plan and Shonee sat on him over it), so she played up to that. If she had said, go with the plan, he would have been fine.

    Maybe Shane had gone further than we saw on screen, and hinted/convinced that Shenella were going to flip.

    Anyway, we have a fabulous result (although I would have liked Shonee to go first, just to get her off my screen), and hopefully final three will be Sharn, Shane and Brian. Brian is now the new DMW, because it would be mad to get rid of him when all the jury think he is a doofus and will never award him the money. In a few minutes he went from almost guaranteed the win, to the ultimate goat.

    I hope Steve settles down at TCs from now on. I don’t think he should be making so many side comments. I would like to see a bit of poker face from him – less talk, more listening.

    It was great that another idol was brought in. There haven’t been enough used in this season. But it certainly seemed that that one was a bit easy to find. They did show her searching a lot before, but not in an effective way. I did read somewhere, though, that contestants know if they are getting close because the camera crews descend to capture the moment.

    I find the talk about “challenge threats” ridiculous now. Sharn won the first individual one (mainly because Lydia slipped in the rain) and has not come close since. Shonee has won several, but everyone persists in seeing her as a weakling, Brian is winning everything but no one comments about the danger of that. They were more obsessed about Steve’s potential to win one, and not noticing Brian’s actual winning. It seems perception is more “real” than reality.

    • Agree with everything you said.

      Brian’s let his ego get the better of him. I doubt very much he can win even if he gets to the end. He’s alienated too many of the jury members, and they have their own egos to contend with to be objective about the game. Poor jury management on Brian’s part even if he did work his way up from the bottom.

      Enough with all the jury commentary already! But then again, it really says it all, doesn’t it?

  8. Fijane, it’s funny, and normal, how we like different ones. You like bananas. I hate bananas.
    I switched to Shonee and Fenella when they were team Benji. I went off the Champs because of Matt’s sense of entitlement. It’s that’s lingering entitlement that makes him want revenge on Brian, and made him annoyingly salivate and drool last night.
    I probably just dislike Shane and Sharn because of their alliance.
    Yes Alan, let’s petition that we don’t get and Alice, Alyce and Alicia next season.

    • Daisy, you have just described my “journey’ exactly, but stemming from the team Benji thing. Benji got my goat (like Mat has got yours) and everything else flows from that. One of the beauties of watching Survivor. There’s probably a bias on my part because I am a sports fan and many of the champions were people I have looked up to in the past.

      I agree wholeheartedly about the alliterative names! But at least they aren’t spruiking nicknames instead. Imagine Bazza, Mazza and Kazza on the same tribe.

      • Juz

        Please delete Fijane’s comment as a matter of urgency. If you leave the words ‘Bazza, Mazza and Kazza’ up on screen we will etrianly get competitors by that name next season!

          • Yes, Windsong. You can’t be on the azza team unless you are a Shazza, Bazza, Razza, Dazza, Gazza, Lazza or Snazza.
            You can’t be on the other team unless you are a Tristan, Felicia, Barclay, Prue, Angus, Corbin, Beatrice, Chanelle or Adrianne.

            Call it Gravy v Jus.

  9. I`m with you, Daisy.
    The only two I have any interest in seeing win are Shonee and Monika. Sharn has become increasingly irritating and Brian`s brain-dead decision has almost certainly cost him the jury vote even if he makes it to the end.

    • Snap on that Carole. Monika and Shonee. (But I think most of us here like Shane).
      Brian lost my vote last night. I was ignoring the dirty thing. Playing like an idiot and causing the whole game for my favs to go down the tube was what made him lose my vote. Before that, I didn’t mind him.

  10. I think if either Sharn or Shane make it to the end, they will win for sure. It will be interesting to see what happens if they both make it.
    I think, unlike the US version, our guys will vote for their friends.

  11. So with only a few episodes left, we have a final five set …

    Brian. In the past, Australian juries tend to respect gameplay (even if they’re on the wrong end of it). He’d been running the show since Benji ousted himself. Until last night, I figured he’d at least get some contenders votes … but he torpedoed that thoroughly. One word cost him half a million dollars. Half the jury didn’t like him anyway, and that was before he screwed Fenella over. Plus … he is a grubby pest, isn’t it?

    Sharn. I think she’s the most likely, in front of a champion-heavy jury. She’s good at challenges and smart, but she treats everyone she deal with like the jury, and like Daisy said, there is a sense of, “How dare you not play the same game as me?” Plus, she’s clearly the pet-favourite of the production team (that idol, last night …), which leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

    Shane. Another likely, because she’s revelled in the “crafty old lady” vibe … but remember, her knifing Lydia was the exact moment when the champions fell apart. Ousting Lydia was important, but surely it could’ve waited a few more tribals. The champions were solid until then, but that was the point where they descended to infighting that they never recovered from. Again, I think she’s a strong possibility for the win, but I’m not sure I’d vote for her.

    Shonee. Leaving aside the fact that Shonee is kind of shrill and irritating, her gameplay seems to have been step back and let the champions tear themselves apart. And no, that’s not bad strategy (quite the opposite) but she’s gonna have to frame it a certain way in front of the jury, because they’re not gonna like it. The only thing I remember her actively doing is winning one immunity. And she was on the island for, what, a month before she learned how to make fire? The contenders might vote for her, but the champions would have to be really out of options to let her win.

    As for Monika, I just don’t know. We’ve gotten so little from her. Clearly, she’s got a strong alliance with Brian (which gives her a fighting chance in front of the jury, if they’re the final two), and I like her strategy of nodding enthusiastically (“Yes, absolutely, 100%!”) to anyone who tries to talk her into doing something … but I’m not convinced that she’s this evil genius that everyone thinks she is. I just don’t see it. And she did immediately betray Brian to Steve, that one time.

    Honestly, I’m not sure if I want any of them to win …

    • All very true. I will give it to Shane though. If she reaches the end, she’s the most likely to take it out.

      She’s been strong in the latest challenges (when it’s team-based and it has a swimming component), compounded with her age/gender and her ‘legend’ status. Most of the jury will be made up of ex-Champions who’ll want to recognise her for even getting that far in the first place.

      • I agree. I think Shane will get it purely because her moves have been so subtle and yet not invisible. I would prefer Sharn but I think Shane has been the better player.

        Not sure than Shonee has learnt the fire yet at all. It is only a couple of episodes back that she panicked because Shane decided not to make her breakfast for her.

    • Let’s see. Shane destroyed the Champions by promoting the Lydia blindside. Who benefited most from the Champion collapse? Who is hanging in there against all odds as the crafty old lady while other Champions go down like ninepins? Who is mysteriously performing much better in endurance challenges in the endgame than she did before?

      • “Who benefited most from the Champion collapse?”

        Well, the people on the bottom of that particular totem poll, which was Brian and Monica, and the contenders who lasted.

        • If the Champions had lasted Shane would have ended up on the bottom of that alliance with absolutely no room to move. At some stage Mat and Steve would have had a maaaaate conversation with her once they had dealt with the Contenders, Bronika and Sam. The ideal Mat/Steve final 3 would have been Mat, Steve and Sharn and that’s what they would have got. Even if the final had been Mat, Steve and Shane, instead of the crafty old lady story she would have had a loyal to Mat and Steve story which is a tad less persuasive.

      • Agreed. She’s certainly playing a quiet, collected game, only making moves when needed, and that actually takes a lot of restraint in that paranoid environment.

        Had she not lit the fuse to get rid of Lydia, she wouldn’t have had as much room to manouevre her way to the final five.

        She was totally underestimated by the other contestants, on both sides.

  12. Ok, given her profession, we have to presume that Sharn is an intelligent human being.

    But, how is going up to Shonella (and she`s done it at least twice) and telling them that “Brian wants to vote me out next and then Shane” an even remotely smart thing to do?

    • Yup, she just confirmed for them that they have two TCs to get through before Brian turns on Shonella, which gives them plenty of time to blindside him.

    • I think her default style is head-on confrontation, relying on her ability to argue logically. It hasn’t worked here (yet) and it has annoyed me that she hasn’t learnt that Monika will lie to her every time. So, no, not smart. Sharn will look back on this series and cringe when she realises how she went about it all wrong.

      • Yeah, I don’t think we can argue that Sharn isn’t a smart, capable person, because she obviously is.

        It’s just, her “Survivor” tactics that needed a rethink. Sharn’s too much of a blunt hammer, while Shane is quietly and subtly manipulating people, and one of those approaches is working much better than the other.

  13. Given the direction this thread has taken, is it time for a “who will win?” poll. And maybe a “who do you want to win?” one.

    • Next week is the last week, right? And it’s a final 3? (I actually wish they’d go back to a final 2. The third person almost never gets any votes so what’s even the point of them being there?)

      And it’s probably a good thing this is ending now that David vs Goliath has started. I’m having a hard time getting invested in the US season because we’re getting to the pointy end of this.

    • Iā€™ve done a ā€œwho do you wantā€ for now and will do a ā€œwho will winā€ after tonightā€™s tribal.
      I wish, just for this season, weā€™d copy the new US format and make tribal when they get to final four a fire-making challenge.
      Could really shake things up.
      Great to see so many of you commenting on Australian Survivor – Iā€™ve even converted Mr Juz after years of him rebuffing my entreaties to watch the show. Now I want him to watch last season as it was so much better

      • I only found this forum again after losing all my bookmarks a few months ago! If I’m remembering correctly, you created this forum after the original reality ravings site went bust? (Thank you!)

          • I wish I could be a more regular commentator, sorry. I only really have a couple of shows that I follow, and what with with 3 satan’s spawn and full-time work, it’s hard to keep up since most members are already saying what I’m thinking…

  14. Iā€™m a Shane fan … a huge, huge Shane fan.
    Survivor is a notoriously young persons game. Old people tend to be eliminated on the basis that they are useless in physical challenges and ā€œlet the team downā€. And younger people often can be so arrogant in their assumptions about older women. I mean after all, who wants to be friends with a woman over 50? fftt. Like, they only want to talk about the weather, scones and cleaning products (mind you, I love myself a good cleaning hack).
    The fact that Shane has been able to fight al of those preconceptions and is still a major contender says so much about who she is. Good on her.

      • I want Shane Gould to win and get some belated financial reward for her contribution to sport in an age where real lairs are paid a fortune for misbehaving and presented as sporting “legends”.

        Scones baked in a wood stove, pleasant memory.

  15. Steve was hilarious at tribal council when he said sucked in Brian.
    Fenella’s jury villa was hilarious. She forgot her numbers to unlock her suitcase so rings her husband but he didn’t know it either. And then they told her they would have voted for her if she’d made the final 2.

  16. Jury messaging is against the rules. It is a form of cheating. Jurors are out of the game, not sending messages to their allies in the game. Mat and Steve should have been warmed the first time, and red carded the second time.

    • Oh, is that in the Survivor Handbook? Then absolutely yes… theyā€™ve made it clear what they think of the remaining final five… and the cameraā€™s certainly pandering to them.

      • The handbook is not published. That is true of almost all reality shows. However, particularly in the early series, Probst was forever saying the jury was there to observe, not participate. When you get voted out you are out of the game, not sent to Villa Beach.

        Even when the other tribe wins the advantage of observing they are told they are not there to participate. Having friendly jurors telegraphing that they are on your side must be a massive boost to the surviving Champions. And a deeply unfair one.

      • In the very early years of the US Survivor they were very strict with the Jury. They were not allowed to acknowledge them or make eye contact at all. But in recent years they have relaxed the rules. There was one particular girl one year was famous for rolling her eyes & funny facial expressions.

  17. Peski, our messages went up simultaneously. Is there actually a Survivor Handbook, or were you being tongue-in-cheek?

    • Absolutely serious. I do really want to know where you can eye the Survivor handbook because it’ll say a lot about certain Survivor’s game plays…

    • Two months away from family and friends is a long time… I’d be reading that contract minutely to make sure I’m across everything before signing on the dotted line.

      Or is it that certain ‘favoured’ contestants get lee-way?

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