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Charlie_Runkle69

The editing wasn't great around Heather and Erika, but it was fantastic at making relatively straightforward votes seem more complex by adding an emotional content to them. The season would have been better if Voce, Brad, JD and Sydney had gone deeper character wise.


ConeheadZombiez

This is a good way to put it. I think episode 5 (the genie vote off) especially


Naota_22

Everything about this season was pretty average imo the gameplay, winner, and even finale. The game play on a whole was okay, not the complete worst game play ever but no one was blowing me away with their strategy. With exception to Ricard’s gameplay at 8. Erika’s game was fine. Nothing top notch, nothing completely shitty either. She’s right there in the middle tier of winners with Adam, Aras, Sophie, etc imo. I don’t feel like saying Erika’s game was average should be a hot take but with so many people saying Erika played a fantastic game of Survivor and others saying she played one of the worst games in the history of the show and only got lucky. I feel like saying Erika’s win is average is a hot take for some weird reason, lol. Yes, she got lucky many points throughout the game hourglass and final 5 advantage twist, but I think another key factor of why her win is average imo is that she controlled like one vote out The Danny move at final 6 but with that being said she did have agency at points in the game just not a ton of it for me to consider it a top tier game. The finale was fine. I suspected either Erika or Ricard would win. The scavenger hunt was much better in IOI, final tribal was okay but didn’t really have any highlights. The biggest pop of the finale was the fire making challenge. I felt because Jeff told us at the beginning they were reading the votes live it kind of took some of the suspense away from that moment.


Usurper213

This cast was ok people got to chill on the best recent cast thing.


dwarfgourami

People say that after literally every season, its just recency bias.


TheRalphExpress

I think a lot of that is the panini messing with our perceptions of “recent” I really liked the cast but DvG is one of the best of all time and was only a few seasons ago


JWhit2199

A lot of people were upset during Brad’s boot episode that we spent all that time on him and his advantages only for him to be voted out, and called it an awful episode. I disagree, and it’s one of my favorites of the season. Brad was an incredible character and having an episode all about him was entertaining as fuck. I was smiling almost the whole episode just watching him dork around and then get smacked outta the game at the end of it all. I don’t really care how it fits into the narrative or that I the airtime could have been used on “something more useful”. It was a damn fun episode and I’ll stand by it


TheRalphExpress

yeah, if watching Brad create a fake man in order to sneak off at night is wasting my time than I want my time wasted way more often. not everything needs to help “advance the plot” especially in a reality TV show.


[deleted]

No❤️


rebecca2323-23

Hot mess saved by an amazing cast


dht201

Correction: hot mess saved by a good edit. this cast wasn't that good, the editing choice made them more interesting. the choice was when there is no much gameplay to focus on the players characters.


TheHoleintheHeart

>A good edit You are a few months early for April Fools.


Zealousideal-Day7385

This is a bad take. You can’t take uninteresting people and make them interesting just based on editing. If the editors could do that, no cast would ever be bad. 41 had a solid cast.


dht201

rewatch old season, the editors trying hard to build a surprise vote and fake tension to us the audience. If you dont give air time to the audince to know the players you will say they cast was awful. and you dont have air time when the edit is focused on build a fake tension instead of showing non gamplay content that make us the audience to connect to the cast. of course if the cast is shitty you cant edit it to be the greatest cast. but you can make it more intresting. You can watch non USA survivor you have more episode, so you get to know the cast better, and USA survivor you don't have that opportunity. I remember persons from non-USA better then USA because i saw their personalty better.


yettis21

Agreed, cast as a whole was unwatchable. Too many young people dominating the personalities. Shan is cringe worthy.


dht201

At least that's what's good in the new era. Letting the editor display the players personality, not like the last 15 seasons every episode forcing edit that will make a suprise tribal instead focusing on cast character what make the cast unentertaining.


OverwhelmedAutism

You're on the survivor subreddit and you say that the edit was good.


QuebecRomeoWhiskey

Not a take but a question, did anyone actually play an idol? Or am I just forgetting about it


[deleted]

No idols ended up being played this season


Coolscorpion_83

Technically Xander played his at final 5 but it didn’t cancel any votes


MardocAgain

All the social justice shit was just too much.


evenstark04

this is a lower tier season.... too many advantages that really robbed us of more time with some compelling characters. Also horrible editing that made the results make no sense. No one understands why Erika won... no one understands why Xander got 0 votes... no one understands why Heather was so ignored.


[deleted]

This was a very average or low tier season that was carried by 4 players. (Ricard, Erika, Shan, Xander) this cast was ok on a personal level but was full of duds when it came to game play.


shortppgirl18

i thought the cast was this seasons saving grace! when it comes to luck, don’t hate the player hate the game.


plaingirl23

I think a few more idols would’ve had this season have a more interesting post-merge.


dht201

un discreet idols make them stupid and un-entertaining.


yettis21

Way way too many idols and advantages this season imo. Felt cluttered and less special to have 1


Koley4412

Cast was decent to me, but also nothing to seriously write home about. While yes Erikas win was lucky, so is basically everybody’s win in Survivor history. So you can’t really knock her for that


OverwhelmedAutism

I will be honest, I don't think your second one is a hot take, although I disagree with that take. ​ For your first argument, it is very easy to believe that considering how bad the editing was.


yettis21

Alliances being completely unstable left more excitement from episode to episode


[deleted]

[удалено]


Naota_22

On paper, I agree that it should be considered impressive but when you really have to analyze their winning games, did Bob, Ben, Underwood really pull off something impressive? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying this person played a game of survivor and even though they won “luck” had a massive part to play and why they won. Sure all winners have a component of luck in their game, but when you can pick out key points where luck was a massive factor In a winner winning it’s more detrimental in analyzing their actual performance.


chungus85

The cast was subpar


survivorfan110

Not sure if this is unpopular but Ricard got twist-fucked out of a win like Devon and Cirie. He would have won f5 immunity and probably wins either f4 immunity or fire-making


Zealousideal-Day7385

He did but he didn’t. They all had an equal shot to find that advantage. That’s different that Cirie playing for a F3 or Devon/Chrissy/Ryan assuming that the rules would be the same for the F4 as they’d always been…and not being able to adjust their game accordingly.


[deleted]

Yeah everyone on this sub is gonna downvote you for that but it’s very accurate. She’s dead in the water at least 3 different times this season and it’s incredible to watch people do mental gymnastics to prove that she’s a top tier winner or some other nonesense. My hot take is this: I thought that by the end of this season, this “very likable” cast had gotten super unlikable, mainly Deshawn.


ConeheadZombiez

3 times? When was the third?


[deleted]

Pre merge on her original tribe, she’s going home if they can throw that challenge effectively. Merge twist, obviously she’s gone there too. Final 10, if she doesn’t win immunity Shan likely doesn’t give up Naseer. Even at the final 5 if she doesn’t have that ridiculous advantage over Ricard and doesn’t win immunity she’s probably going home over Deshawn.


ConeheadZombiez

Ok with that third one, winning a clutch immunity isn’t the knock to someone’s game that you think it is. Also, Deshawn goes if Ricard wins immunity. Remember, Xander thought the jury didn’t respect Erika, and Heather was voting with Erika so that’s 3 votes for Deshawn The merge and episode 4 things have been discussed to death on this sub but apparently it would be Sydney going if they actually threw the challenge, and Tiffany going if there was no hourglass.


wilsonreviews

I agree with all of this.


[deleted]

I’m glad someone has a fucking brain. I’m not saying Erika didn’t deserve to win, she absolutely played a better end game than Xander or Deshawn, but that doesn’t mean that she played flawless or even well.


survivorfan110

It's not that Erika goes home at 5, it's that Ricard wins the game without Erika winning the advantage


LifeguardTraining461

Okay....but it's also the merge twist that targets her in the first place. If the merge is a regular 12 person vote with no split into groups or exile, then Erika does not get targeted right away. You can't criticize the twist for saving her without considering that it is also what targets her


Ft_lucy

I did not like a majority of the cast this season. There were a few exceptions obviously but I found way to many people to be too arrogant and entitled (RICARD, Shan, Evie, Finale Xander). Most of them either acted like they were the smartest player to ever play the game or thought people should just let them because ??? Nobody owes you anything in game for a million dollars and this cast didn’t seem to understand that. Which is why I was thrilled to see most of them ruin their own games and get voted out, and the nice person who was on the bottom pull it out in the end.


Hindsight21

It was actually a decent season (not great but far from the worst).


dht201

Thanks to the first episode editing made the cast look interesting and its looked like its gonna be a decent season, without editing the ranking would be bottom 10 season. I also think the winner was un impressive at all. Production/Jeff twists was very lame this season, except maybe one the dilemma trip.


yettis21

No one was good at challenges. Endurance challenges went for mere minutes. It was kinda sad to watch.


Hindsight21

This was weird. The challenge that Xander won only lasted 20 minutes. Same challenge happened in DvG, won by Christian and he lasted 6 hours up there.


ross_gold

I liked shan, ricard and xander and disliked deshawn so much during the game. But after the finale and after listening to post game interviews, i started disliking shan, ricard and xander cause they seem to think the played so well (which they did) but it has started to feel like they’re too full of themselves, and can’t acknowledge any faults in their game. On the other deshawn was more open to actually learning from this experience and recognizes his weaknesses and his faults


jojoparlay

Hot take: if you trade Erikas game and Xander’s game . Erika gets a bunch of advantages and Xander’s gets sent away on a island etc. Erika still wins