• S50 Ep08 Spoilers and Comments (4/15/2026)

    From Brian Smith@dcg_brian@hotmail.com to alt.tv.survivor on Wed Apr 15 16:57:25 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise." We know
    from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs. There's
    speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist Survivor South
    Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In that twist, whatever
    happened to your partner happened to you. For example, if an idol was
    played on your partner it was also played on you. It also meant if your partner was voted out so were you. The vote was done as normal, i.e.,
    you voted for an individual player, not a pair. The fact that there's
    still 13 players left means the twist for S50 will not be a clone of
    what SSA did.

    More later.
    --
    Brian
    --- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Rick@Rick@nospam.net to alt.tv.survivor on Wed Apr 15 19:28:08 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 4/15/2026 6:57 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise." We know from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs. There's speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist Survivor South
    Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In that twist, whatever happened to your partner happened to you. For example, if an idol was
    played on your partner it was also played on you. It also meant if your partner was voted out so were you. The vote was done as normal, i.e.,
    you voted for an individual player, not a pair. The fact that there's
    still 13 players left means the twist for S50 will not be a clone of
    what SSA did.

    More later.


    I remember that twist from South Africa at final 10 (post merge) and absolutely hated it because the pairs were randomly chosen by rocks and
    two people were voted out even though only one of the pair received
    votes. The other, Amy, had to leave the game without ever having
    received any votes cast against her. It was terrible, and I'm a little surprised the US version is repeating the twist since it was so poorly received. The only way to maybe make it tenable is if the players can
    choose their own pairs. The randomness of the SA version was what made
    it so awful. It's similar in a way but much worse than being swap screwed.
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  • From Brian Smith@dcg_brian@hotmail.com to alt.tv.survivor on Wed Apr 15 17:50:43 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 4/15/2026 5:28 PM, Rick wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 6:57 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise." We
    know from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs. There's
    speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist Survivor South
    Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In that twist, whatever
    happened to your partner happened to you. For example, if an idol was
    played on your partner it was also played on you. It also meant if
    your partner was voted out so were you. The vote was done as normal,
    i.e., you voted for an individual player, not a pair. The fact that
    there's still 13 players left means the twist for S50 will not be a
    clone of what SSA did.

    More later.


    I remember that twist from South Africa at final 10 (post merge) and absolutely hated it because the pairs were randomly chosen by rocks and
    two people were voted out even though only one of the pair received votes.-a-a The other, Amy, had to leave the game without ever having received any votes cast against her.-a It was terrible, and I'm a little surprised the US version is repeating the twist since it was so poorly received.-a The only way to maybe make it tenable is if the players can choose their own pairs.-a The randomness of the SA version was what made
    it so awful.-a It's similar in a way but much worse than being swap screwed.

    Someone posted a compilation clip of that episode on X and it did seem
    brutal. The episode description for tonight says they receive a note
    from a boat and are told to split into pairs. If they get to choose
    their partners before knowing the twist that would be a lot better than
    a random draw. IIRC, the preview from last week makes it look like they
    find out about the double demise at the start of a challenge. If nothing
    else, it'll be great motivation to win the IC.
    --
    Brian
    --- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Brian Smith@dcg_brian@hotmail.com to alt.tv.survivor on Wed Apr 15 20:39:10 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 4/15/2026 4:57 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise." We know from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs. There's speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist Survivor South
    Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In that twist, whatever happened to your partner happened to you. For example, if an idol was
    played on your partner it was also played on you. It also meant if your partner was voted out so were you. The vote was done as normal, i.e.,
    you voted for an individual player, not a pair. The fact that there's
    still 13 players left means the twist for S50 will not be a clone of
    what SSA did.

    More later.

    That wasn't as brutal as the South Africa twist but still pretty bad.

    Some comments:

    --Knowing that the twist had a bad side to it, everyone should have
    tried their best to avoid partnering with Coach. How did Chrissy end up
    with him?

    --What happened to Rizo and Emily in the IC? They were doing great and
    then ended up way behind. Possibly last. Did Rizo choke again?

    --Tiff and Joe worked well together in the IC. When they were partnering
    up it looked like he went to her. Was that because he felt guilty for
    voting for her last TC?

    --Aubry's gullible. Did she actually believe him when he said the fake
    idol has to be played next round?

    --This was a great episode for Cirie. She totally lucked out avoiding
    having to partner up and even more so when it came to finding the
    "phoenix" coconut on Exile Island so she could keep her vote. She did a
    good job steering the vote toward Chrissy and Coach.

    --WTH was Jonathan wearing at TC and where did it come from? It looked
    like a very fancy bathrobe.

    --I'm glad that Chrissy and Coach got booted. She brought nothing to the season as far as I'm concerned, and he was just joking around.

    Now we're down to F11. No one is sticking out as a winner to me. Cirie
    and Ozzy are getting good edits but not winner edits. Jonathan is
    looking like someone who might make the finale. Aubrey keeps skating by
    which scares me. Despite a vote tonight, Emily appears to have no
    enemies. I wonder if social game will decide this season. It sure won't
    be strategic game with all of the randomness.
    --
    Brian
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  • From shawn@nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com to alt.tv.survivor on Thu Apr 16 07:25:37 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On Wed, 15 Apr 2026 20:39:10 -0600, Brian Smith
    <dcg_brian@hotmail.com> wrote:

    On 4/15/2026 4:57 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise." We know
    from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs. There's
    speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist Survivor South
    Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In that twist, whatever
    happened to your partner happened to you. For example, if an idol was
    played on your partner it was also played on you. It also meant if your
    partner was voted out so were you. The vote was done as normal, i.e.,
    you voted for an individual player, not a pair. The fact that there's
    still 13 players left means the twist for S50 will not be a clone of
    what SSA did.

    More later.

    That wasn't as brutal as the South Africa twist but still pretty bad.

    Some comments:

    --Knowing that the twist had a bad side to it, everyone should have
    tried their best to avoid partnering with Coach. How did Chrissy end up
    with him?

    I think she truly chose him. Probably thinking she needed a physical
    player to do well in the challenge, not realizing how bad he would be
    at that first part of the challenge. Now for the vote it was a risky
    bet based on the hope that their alliance would hold firm.

    --What happened to Rizo and Emily in the IC? They were doing great and
    then ended up way behind. Possibly last. Did Rizo choke again?

    Yeah, they seemed to have trouble with the bridge but we didn't get to
    see it.

    --Tiff and Joe worked well together in the IC. When they were partnering
    up it looked like he went to her. Was that because he felt guilty for
    voting for her last TC?

    --Aubry's gullible. Did she actually believe him when he said the fake
    idol has to be played next round?

    Who knows? lol.

    --This was a great episode for Cirie. She totally lucked out avoiding
    having to partner up and even more so when it came to finding the
    "phoenix" coconut on Exile Island so she could keep her vote. She did a
    good job steering the vote toward Chrissy and Coach.

    She did have a good reason for wanting to avoid partnering. But in the
    end she would likely have been safe even if she had partnered up. Just
    not a good shot at immunity.

    --WTH was Jonathan wearing at TC and where did it come from? It looked
    like a very fancy bathrobe.

    He's auditioning for taking Coach's place.

    --I'm glad that Chrissy and Coach got booted. She brought nothing to the >season as far as I'm concerned, and he was just joking around.

    Now we're down to F11. No one is sticking out as a winner to me. Cirie
    and Ozzy are getting good edits but not winner edits. Jonathan is
    looking like someone who might make the finale. Aubrey keeps skating by >which scares me. Despite a vote tonight, Emily appears to have no
    enemies. I wonder if social game will decide this season. It sure won't
    be strategic game with all of the randomness.

    I agree that there really are no players in a lock for a winner or
    even for a final three member at this point. Which is actually what
    you would expect/hope for with a number of returning players.
    --- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Rick@Rick@nospam.net to alt.tv.survivor on Thu Apr 16 11:14:11 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 4/15/2026 10:39 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 4:57 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise." We
    know from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs. There's
    speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist Survivor South
    Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In that twist, whatever
    happened to your partner happened to you. For example, if an idol was
    played on your partner it was also played on you. It also meant if
    your partner was voted out so were you. The vote was done as normal,
    i.e., you voted for an individual player, not a pair. The fact that
    there's still 13 players left means the twist for S50 will not be a
    clone of what SSA did.

    More later.

    That wasn't as brutal as the South Africa twist but still pretty bad.


    I noticed another significant difference from the South African version.
    On SA, the players voted for one person at TC as normal, writing just
    one name on the ballot, and then both that person and the person they
    were teamed with were eliminated. On SA, the team-mate, Amy, never
    received any votes which made it really seem unfair that she had to leave.

    On the US version, it appears the players were told to vote for the team
    they wanted out, so both names had to be written down. So effectively,
    Coach and Crissie received the same number of votes, even if, say,
    Coach, was the person most people wanted out. It also seemed that some
    people only wrote one name initially and then were perhaps told to go
    back and add the second name in, because on some ballots it looked like
    one name had been written down taking up the normal amount of space and
    then the other name was crammed in. Look at the way Rizzo, Joe, Jonathan
    and, to a lesser extent, Steph wrote their ballots with one larger name
    and then another seemingly added as an afterthought.

    Some comments:

    --Knowing that the twist had a bad side to it, everyone should have
    tried their best to avoid partnering with Coach. How did Chrissy end up
    with him?


    Crissie liked Coach and probably thought they could work well together.
    On paper, at least, Coach should be good in physically based challenges.
    Also, I'm not sure Crissie really got the point at first that both
    players could be voted out together.

    --What happened to Rizo and Emily in the IC? They were doing great and
    then ended up way behind. Possibly last. Did Rizo choke again?

    --Tiff and Joe worked well together in the IC. When they were partnering
    up it looked like he went to her. Was that because he felt guilty for
    voting for her last TC?


    I think they weirdly seem to have good chemistry. Joe is very honest
    and straightforward, and Tiff comes across that way too. I kind of like
    then together as a team.

    --Aubry's gullible. Did she actually believe him when he said the fake
    idol has to be played next round?


    Doubt it. I kind of think she and others are already sniffing this out
    as fake, especially when he didn't want to show it to anyone.

    --This was a great episode for Cirie. She totally lucked out avoiding
    having to partner up and even more so when it came to finding the
    "phoenix" coconut on Exile Island so she could keep her vote. She did a
    good job steering the vote toward Chrissy and Coach.


    She definitely orchestrated the vote and showed her smarts. She has
    this aura of being the older, wise person with extensive game experience
    and the other players instinctively trust her. She was also very smart
    to be among the first (along with Rick, I think) to immediately
    volunteer to be the odd person out in the challenge. I think she knew
    there was a good person she would be protected at TC.

    --WTH was Jonathan wearing at TC and where did it come from? It looked
    like a very fancy bathrobe.


    I thought the same thing! I wondered if he had brought that with him or perhaps he inherited it from a player voted out.

    --I'm glad that Chrissy and Coach got booted. She brought nothing to the season as far as I'm concerned, and he was just joking around.


    It was also good to see some old era players gone since it seems most of
    the eliminated players have been New Era. By my count, the only New Era players still in the game are Jonathan, Tiff, Emily, Joe and Rizzo, and Jonathan and Joe barely count since they are both more old style in
    their thinking and game play.

    Now we're down to F11. No one is sticking out as a winner to me. Cirie
    and Ozzy are getting good edits but not winner edits. Jonathan is
    looking like someone who might make the finale. Aubrey keeps skating by which scares me. Despite a vote tonight, Emily appears to have no
    enemies. I wonder if social game will decide this season. It sure won't
    be strategic game with all of the randomness.


    Really hard to say who is getting the best edit. Emily and Rizo are
    getting a lot of air time among the new era players. So is Jonathan,
    who doesn't act New Era, but I don't think his edit is all that great.
    He's been shown as a bit bossy and condescending, especially toward Dee
    in that one episode. Of the old-time players I actually wonder if Stef
    might go far. She's been in every episode and seems to be sliding by.

    So far it has been an interesting and hard-to-predict season. I just
    worry with all the double-eliminations that someone might get caught in
    the crossfire as Crissie did (not that I ever liked Crissie - I'm also
    glad to see her gone). If we somehow got a Rizo-Emily-Stefanie finale,
    I think I would be good with that.

    --- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Brian Smith@dcg_brian@hotmail.com to alt.tv.survivor on Fri Apr 17 15:19:09 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 4/16/2026 9:14 AM, Rick wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 10:39 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 4:57 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise." We
    know from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs.
    There's speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist
    Survivor South Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In that
    twist, whatever happened to your partner happened to you. For
    example, if an idol was played on your partner it was also played on
    you. It also meant if your partner was voted out so were you. The
    vote was done as normal, i.e., you voted for an individual player,
    not a pair. The fact that there's still 13 players left means the
    twist for S50 will not be a clone of what SSA did.

    More later.

    That wasn't as brutal as the South Africa twist but still pretty bad.


    I noticed another significant difference from the South African version.
    -aOn SA, the players voted for one person at TC as normal, writing just
    one name on the ballot, and then both that person and the person they
    were teamed with were eliminated.-a On SA, the team-mate, Amy, never received any votes which made it really seem unfair that she had to leave.

    On the US version, it appears the players were told to vote for the team they wanted out, so both names had to be written down.-a So effectively, Coach and Crissie received the same number of votes, even if, say,
    Coach, was the person most people wanted out.-a It also seemed that some people only wrote one name initially and then were perhaps told to go
    back and add the second name in, because on some ballots it looked like
    one name had been written down taking up the normal amount of space and
    then the other name was crammed in. Look at the way Rizzo, Joe, Jonathan and, to a lesser extent, Steph wrote their ballots with one larger name
    and then another seemingly added as an afterthought.

    They were definitely told they would be voting individually but had to
    vote for a pair. They were told this at the IC and it was discussed
    during TC. Christian said it was essentially a F6 vote.

    The way some people wrote the names on the parchment was to send a
    message and/or to make it clear who they wanted out. Jonathan wanted
    Devens gone, not Aubry. Chrissy wanted Rizo gone more than she did
    Emily. Emily made it clear she wanted Coach gone by writing: COACH! +
    CHRISSY. I'm pretty sure no one forgot they had to write down two names.

    Some comments:

    --Knowing that the twist had a bad side to it, everyone should have
    tried their best to avoid partnering with Coach. How did Chrissy end
    up with him?


    Crissie liked Coach and probably thought they could work well together.
    On paper, at least, Coach should be good in physically based challenges.
    -aAlso, I'm not sure Crissie really got the point at first that both players could be voted out together.

    She probably didn't. I was confused at the end of TC when she didn't
    play her SITD to double their chances of being safe. She had to have
    known they were the main target of nearly everyone else.

    On a bit of a tangent, if Coach's SITD had worked for them, I wonder how
    the revote would have gone. Would Deven's hand been forced concerning
    the fake idol and that would have been the end for him and Aubry?

    --What happened to Rizo and Emily in the IC? They were doing great and
    then ended up way behind. Possibly last. Did Rizo choke again?

    --Tiff and Joe worked well together in the IC. When they were
    partnering up it looked like he went to her. Was that because he felt
    guilty for voting for her last TC?


    I think they weirdly seem to have good chemistry.-a Joe is very honest
    and straightforward, and Tiff comes across that way too.-a I kind of like then together as a team.

    They are a good match but she can be too volatile. I'm not sure if he
    could calm her down or if she would want him to even try. They have good chemistry but not the tight organic bond Joe and Eva had.

    --Aubry's gullible. Did she actually believe him when he said the fake
    idol has to be played next round?


    Doubt it.-a I kind of think she and others are already sniffing this out
    as fake, especially when he didn't want to show it to anyone.

    --This was a great episode for Cirie. She totally lucked out avoiding
    having to partner up and even more so when it came to finding the
    "phoenix" coconut on Exile Island so she could keep her vote. She did
    a good job steering the vote toward Chrissy and Coach.


    She definitely orchestrated the vote and showed her smarts.-a She has
    this aura of being the older, wise person with extensive game experience
    and the other players instinctively trust her.-a She was also very smart
    to be among the first (along with Rick, I think) to immediately
    volunteer to be the odd person out in the challenge.-a I think she knew there was a good person she would be protected at TC.

    Cirie must have watched S47 and so the importance of not giving away a potential advantage.

    --WTH was Jonathan wearing at TC and where did it come from? It looked
    like a very fancy bathrobe.


    I thought the same thing!-a I wondered if he had brought that with him or perhaps he inherited it from a player voted out.

    The robe was huge so I doubt he inherited it. Maybe something happened
    to his clothes and he had the robe at Ponderosa.

    --I'm glad that Chrissy and Coach got booted. She brought nothing to
    the season as far as I'm concerned, and he was just joking around.


    It was also good to see some old era players gone since it seems most of
    the eliminated players have been New Era.-a By my count, the only New Era players still in the game are Jonathan, Tiff, Emily, Joe and Rizzo, and Jonathan and Joe barely count since they are both more old style in
    their thinking and game play.

    Coach is saying he was purposely targeting New Era players. He didn't
    want a 26 day player to win S50. That seems to be the case for a lot of
    them.

    Now we're down to F11. No one is sticking out as a winner to me. Cirie
    and Ozzy are getting good edits but not winner edits. Jonathan is
    looking like someone who might make the finale. Aubrey keeps skating
    by which scares me. Despite a vote tonight, Emily appears to have no
    enemies. I wonder if social game will decide this season. It sure
    won't be strategic game with all of the randomness.


    Really hard to say who is getting the best edit.-a Emily and Rizo are getting a lot of air time among the new era players.-a So is Jonathan,
    who doesn't act New Era, but I don't think his edit is all that great.
    He's been shown as a bit bossy and condescending, especially toward Dee
    in that one episode. Of the old-time players I actually wonder if Stef
    might go far.-a She's been in every episode and seems to be sliding by.

    Steph has really surprised me. Preseason, I thought she'd be an early
    boot. Jonathan's getting an edit of someone who goes deep into the game.
    Other than sucking up to Coach, what has he done? Could he be the zero
    vote finalist? Rizo and Emily are getting a lot of screentime. It would
    be funny if they along with Ozzy and Cirie are F4 and Rizo gets taken
    out at that point again.

    So far it has been an interesting and hard-to-predict season.-a I just
    worry with all the double-eliminations that someone might get caught in
    the crossfire as Crissie did (not that I ever liked Crissie - I'm also
    glad to see her gone).-a If we somehow got a Rizo-Emily-Stefanie finale,
    I think I would be good with that.

    That would be a F3 I'm sure now one predicted and probably result in a
    win for Steph due to vote splitting.
    --
    Brian
    --- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Rick@Rick@nospam.net to alt.tv.survivor on Fri Apr 17 20:35:00 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 4/17/2026 5:19 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 4/16/2026 9:14 AM, Rick wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 10:39 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 4:57 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise." We
    know from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs.
    There's speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist
    Survivor South Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In that
    twist, whatever happened to your partner happened to you. For
    example, if an idol was played on your partner it was also played on
    you. It also meant if your partner was voted out so were you. The
    vote was done as normal, i.e., you voted for an individual player,
    not a pair. The fact that there's still 13 players left means the
    twist for S50 will not be a clone of what SSA did.

    More later.

    That wasn't as brutal as the South Africa twist but still pretty bad.


    I noticed another significant difference from the South African
    version. -a-aOn SA, the players voted for one person at TC as normal,
    writing just one name on the ballot, and then both that person and the
    person they were teamed with were eliminated.-a On SA, the team-mate,
    Amy, never received any votes which made it really seem unfair that
    she had to leave.

    On the US version, it appears the players were told to vote for the
    team they wanted out, so both names had to be written down.-a So
    effectively, Coach and Crissie received the same number of votes, even
    if, say, Coach, was the person most people wanted out.-a It also seemed
    that some people only wrote one name initially and then were perhaps
    told to go back and add the second name in, because on some ballots it
    looked like one name had been written down taking up the normal amount
    of space and then the other name was crammed in. Look at the way
    Rizzo, Joe, Jonathan and, to a lesser extent, Steph wrote their
    ballots with one larger name and then another seemingly added as an
    afterthought.

    They were definitely told they would be voting individually but had to
    vote for a pair. They were told this at the IC and it was discussed
    during TC. Christian said it was essentially a F6 vote.

    The way some people wrote the names on the parchment was to send a
    message and/or to make it clear who they wanted out. Jonathan wanted
    Devens gone, not Aubry. Chrissy wanted Rizo gone more than she did
    Emily. Emily made it clear she wanted Coach gone by writing: COACH! + CHRISSY. I'm pretty sure no one forgot they had to write down two names.


    Maybe. It just seemed odd to me that some names took up the whole
    ballot and looked like the other name was written as an afterthought and squeezed in.

    Some comments:

    --Knowing that the twist had a bad side to it, everyone should have
    tried their best to avoid partnering with Coach. How did Chrissy end
    up with him?


    Crissie liked Coach and probably thought they could work well
    together. On paper, at least, Coach should be good in physically based
    challenges. -a-aAlso, I'm not sure Crissie really got the point at first
    that both players could be voted out together.

    She probably didn't. I was confused at the end of TC when she didn't
    play her SITD to double their chances of being safe. She had to have
    known they were the main target of nearly everyone else.


    Maybe because it would have meant they would lose two votes if neither
    hit. Had the vote been close, losing two votes would be hard to overcome.

    On a bit of a tangent, if Coach's SITD had worked for them, I wonder how
    the revote would have gone. Would Deven's hand been forced concerning
    the fake idol and that would have been the end for him and Aubry?


    He already told Aubry when Jeff asked if anyone wanted play an idol that
    he supposedly couldn't use it until the following TC.


    --What happened to Rizo and Emily in the IC? They were doing great
    and then ended up way behind. Possibly last. Did Rizo choke again?

    --Tiff and Joe worked well together in the IC. When they were
    partnering up it looked like he went to her. Was that because he felt
    guilty for voting for her last TC?


    I think they weirdly seem to have good chemistry.-a Joe is very honest
    and straightforward, and Tiff comes across that way too.-a I kind of
    like then together as a team.

    They are a good match but she can be too volatile. I'm not sure if he
    could calm her down or if she would want him to even try. They have good chemistry but not the tight organic bond Joe and Eva had.


    Yeah, but Joe's got to take what he can get. Especially with Coach and
    Crissie gone.


    --Aubry's gullible. Did she actually believe him when he said the
    fake idol has to be played next round?


    Doubt it.-a I kind of think she and others are already sniffing this
    out as fake, especially when he didn't want to show it to anyone.

    --This was a great episode for Cirie. She totally lucked out avoiding
    having to partner up and even more so when it came to finding the
    "phoenix" coconut on Exile Island so she could keep her vote. She did
    a good job steering the vote toward Chrissy and Coach.


    She definitely orchestrated the vote and showed her smarts.-a She has
    this aura of being the older, wise person with extensive game
    experience and the other players instinctively trust her.-a She was
    also very smart to be among the first (along with Rick, I think) to
    immediately volunteer to be the odd person out in the challenge.-a I
    think she knew there was a good person she would be protected at TC.

    Cirie must have watched S47 and so the importance of not giving away a potential advantage.


    I really don't like Cirie and think Jenna was right on target when she
    went after her first episode. But I have to admit Cirie is playing a
    very smart game and has positioned herself in a way I have never seen
    her do on previous seasons.

    --WTH was Jonathan wearing at TC and where did it come from? It
    looked like a very fancy bathrobe.


    I thought the same thing!-a I wondered if he had brought that with him
    or perhaps he inherited it from a player voted out.

    The robe was huge so I doubt he inherited it. Maybe something happened
    to his clothes and he had the robe at Ponderosa.

    --I'm glad that Chrissy and Coach got booted. She brought nothing to
    the season as far as I'm concerned, and he was just joking around.


    It was also good to see some old era players gone since it seems most
    of the eliminated players have been New Era.-a By my count, the only
    New Era players still in the game are Jonathan, Tiff, Emily, Joe and
    Rizzo, and Jonathan and Joe barely count since they are both more old
    style in their thinking and game play.

    Coach is saying he was purposely targeting New Era players. He didn't
    want a 26 day player to win S50. That seems to be the case for a lot of them.

    Now we're down to F11. No one is sticking out as a winner to me.
    Cirie and Ozzy are getting good edits but not winner edits. Jonathan
    is looking like someone who might make the finale. Aubrey keeps
    skating by which scares me. Despite a vote tonight, Emily appears to
    have no enemies. I wonder if social game will decide this season. It
    sure won't be strategic game with all of the randomness.


    Really hard to say who is getting the best edit.-a Emily and Rizo are
    getting a lot of air time among the new era players.-a So is Jonathan,
    who doesn't act New Era, but I don't think his edit is all that great.
    He's been shown as a bit bossy and condescending, especially toward
    Dee in that one episode. Of the old-time players I actually wonder if
    Stef might go far.-a She's been in every episode and seems to be
    sliding by.

    Steph has really surprised me. Preseason, I thought she'd be an early
    boot. Jonathan's getting an edit of someone who goes deep into the game. Other than sucking up to Coach, what has he done? Could he be the zero
    vote finalist? Rizo and Emily are getting a lot of screentime. It would
    be funny if they along with Ozzy and Cirie are F4 and Rizo gets taken
    out at that point again.


    Steph has probably been gone from the game longer than any player still
    in the game but, like Cirie, she is older and wiser than when she first
    played and I think she has learned a lot.


    So far it has been an interesting and hard-to-predict season.-a I just
    worry with all the double-eliminations that someone might get caught
    in the crossfire as Crissie did (not that I ever liked Crissie - I'm
    also glad to see her gone).-a If we somehow got a Rizo-Emily-Stefanie
    finale, I think I would be good with that.

    That would be a F3 I'm sure now one predicted and probably result in a
    win for Steph due to vote splitting.


    --- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Brian Smith@dcg_brian@hotmail.com to alt.tv.survivor on Fri Apr 17 19:53:53 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 4/17/2026 6:35 PM, Rick wrote:
    On 4/17/2026 5:19 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 4/16/2026 9:14 AM, Rick wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 10:39 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 4:57 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise." We >>>>> know from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs.
    There's speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist
    Survivor South Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In that >>>>> twist, whatever happened to your partner happened to you. For
    example, if an idol was played on your partner it was also played
    on you. It also meant if your partner was voted out so were you.
    The vote was done as normal, i.e., you voted for an individual
    player, not a pair. The fact that there's still 13 players left
    means the twist for S50 will not be a clone of what SSA did.

    More later.

    That wasn't as brutal as the South Africa twist but still pretty bad.


    I noticed another significant difference from the South African
    version. -a-aOn SA, the players voted for one person at TC as normal,
    writing just one name on the ballot, and then both that person and
    the person they were teamed with were eliminated.-a On SA, the team-
    mate, Amy, never received any votes which made it really seem unfair
    that she had to leave.

    On the US version, it appears the players were told to vote for the
    team they wanted out, so both names had to be written down.-a So
    effectively, Coach and Crissie received the same number of votes,
    even if, say, Coach, was the person most people wanted out.-a It also
    seemed that some people only wrote one name initially and then were
    perhaps told to go back and add the second name in, because on some
    ballots it looked like one name had been written down taking up the
    normal amount of space and then the other name was crammed in. Look
    at the way Rizzo, Joe, Jonathan and, to a lesser extent, Steph wrote
    their ballots with one larger name and then another seemingly added
    as an afterthought.

    They were definitely told they would be voting individually but had to
    vote for a pair. They were told this at the IC and it was discussed
    during TC. Christian said it was essentially a F6 vote.

    The way some people wrote the names on the parchment was to send a
    message and/or to make it clear who they wanted out. Jonathan wanted
    Devens gone, not Aubry. Chrissy wanted Rizo gone more than she did
    Emily. Emily made it clear she wanted Coach gone by writing: COACH! +
    CHRISSY. I'm pretty sure no one forgot they had to write down two names.


    Maybe.-a It just seemed odd to me that some names took up the whole
    ballot and looked like the other name was written as an afterthought and squeezed in.

    Some comments:

    --Knowing that the twist had a bad side to it, everyone should have
    tried their best to avoid partnering with Coach. How did Chrissy end
    up with him?


    Crissie liked Coach and probably thought they could work well
    together. On paper, at least, Coach should be good in physically
    based challenges. -a-aAlso, I'm not sure Crissie really got the point
    at first that both players could be voted out together.

    She probably didn't. I was confused at the end of TC when she didn't
    play her SITD to double their chances of being safe. She had to have
    known they were the main target of nearly everyone else.


    Maybe because it would have meant they would lose two votes if neither hit.-a Had the vote been close, losing two votes would be hard to overcome.

    With 13 people voting and nearly everyone against them, they needed to
    gamble as much as possible.

    On a bit of a tangent, if Coach's SITD had worked for them, I wonder
    how the revote would have gone. Would Deven's hand been forced
    concerning the fake idol and that would have been the end for him and
    Aubry?


    He already told Aubry when Jeff asked if anyone wanted play an idol that
    he supposedly couldn't use it until the following TC.

    True. I'm just saying people such as Steph would press him more and when
    it was clear he was lying that would have been it for them.

    --What happened to Rizo and Emily in the IC? They were doing great
    and then ended up way behind. Possibly last. Did Rizo choke again?

    --Tiff and Joe worked well together in the IC. When they were
    partnering up it looked like he went to her. Was that because he
    felt guilty for voting for her last TC?


    I think they weirdly seem to have good chemistry.-a Joe is very honest
    and straightforward, and Tiff comes across that way too.-a I kind of
    like then together as a team.

    They are a good match but she can be too volatile. I'm not sure if he
    could calm her down or if she would want him to even try. They have
    good chemistry but not the tight organic bond Joe and Eva had.


    Yeah, but Joe's got to take what he can get. Especially with Coach and Crissie gone.

    True. It's kind of strange how limited Joe's bonds are with the other
    New Era players. I wonder if he did any pregaming?

    --Aubry's gullible. Did she actually believe him when he said the
    fake idol has to be played next round?


    Doubt it.-a I kind of think she and others are already sniffing this
    out as fake, especially when he didn't want to show it to anyone.

    --This was a great episode for Cirie. She totally lucked out
    avoiding having to partner up and even more so when it came to
    finding the "phoenix" coconut on Exile Island so she could keep her
    vote. She did a good job steering the vote toward Chrissy and Coach.


    She definitely orchestrated the vote and showed her smarts.-a She has
    this aura of being the older, wise person with extensive game
    experience and the other players instinctively trust her.-a She was
    also very smart to be among the first (along with Rick, I think) to
    immediately volunteer to be the odd person out in the challenge.-a I
    think she knew there was a good person she would be protected at TC.

    Cirie must have watched S47 and so the importance of not giving away a
    potential advantage.


    I really don't like Cirie and think Jenna was right on target when she
    went after her first episode.-a But I have to admit Cirie is playing a
    very smart game and has positioned herself in a way I have never seen
    her do on previous seasons.

    Ozzy deferring to her as if this was his first time playing is something
    I did not expect to see. Rizo is also basically worshiping her. Cirie
    has this cast wrapped around her finger just like Boston Rob did in the
    season he won. The one exception might be Emily who does not appear to
    be starstruck at all with any of the old schoolers.

    --WTH was Jonathan wearing at TC and where did it come from? It
    looked like a very fancy bathrobe.


    I thought the same thing!-a I wondered if he had brought that with him
    or perhaps he inherited it from a player voted out.

    The robe was huge so I doubt he inherited it. Maybe something happened
    to his clothes and he had the robe at Ponderosa.

    --I'm glad that Chrissy and Coach got booted. She brought nothing to
    the season as far as I'm concerned, and he was just joking around.


    It was also good to see some old era players gone since it seems most
    of the eliminated players have been New Era.-a By my count, the only
    New Era players still in the game are Jonathan, Tiff, Emily, Joe and
    Rizzo, and Jonathan and Joe barely count since they are both more old
    style in their thinking and game play.

    Coach is saying he was purposely targeting New Era players. He didn't
    want a 26 day player to win S50. That seems to be the case for a lot
    of them.

    Now we're down to F11. No one is sticking out as a winner to me.
    Cirie and Ozzy are getting good edits but not winner edits. Jonathan
    is looking like someone who might make the finale. Aubrey keeps
    skating by which scares me. Despite a vote tonight, Emily appears to
    have no enemies. I wonder if social game will decide this season. It
    sure won't be strategic game with all of the randomness.


    Really hard to say who is getting the best edit.-a Emily and Rizo are
    getting a lot of air time among the new era players.-a So is Jonathan,
    who doesn't act New Era, but I don't think his edit is all that
    great. He's been shown as a bit bossy and condescending, especially
    toward Dee in that one episode. Of the old-time players I actually
    wonder if Stef might go far.-a She's been in every episode and seems
    to be sliding by.

    Steph has really surprised me. Preseason, I thought she'd be an early
    boot. Jonathan's getting an edit of someone who goes deep into the
    game. Other than sucking up to Coach, what has he done? Could he be
    the zero vote finalist? Rizo and Emily are getting a lot of
    screentime. It would be funny if they along with Ozzy and Cirie are F4
    and Rizo gets taken out at that point again.


    Steph has probably been gone from the game longer than any player still
    in the game but, like Cirie, she is older and wiser than when she first played and I think she has learned a lot.

    She also has something to prove. IIRC, Heroes vs. Villains was her last
    season and she was unfortunately out very early that season.
    --
    Brian
    --- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Rick@Rick@nospam.net to alt.tv.survivor on Fri Apr 17 22:43:43 2026
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 4/17/2026 9:53 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 4/17/2026 6:35 PM, Rick wrote:
    On 4/17/2026 5:19 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 4/16/2026 9:14 AM, Rick wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 10:39 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 4/15/2026 4:57 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    Tonight's episode is titled "Double the Fun, Double the Demise."
    We know from the preview that they're asked to divide into pairs. >>>>>> There's speculation online that this sounds similar to a twist
    Survivor South Africa did that was called "Tied Destinies." In
    that twist, whatever happened to your partner happened to you. For >>>>>> example, if an idol was played on your partner it was also played >>>>>> on you. It also meant if your partner was voted out so were you.
    The vote was done as normal, i.e., you voted for an individual
    player, not a pair. The fact that there's still 13 players left
    means the twist for S50 will not be a clone of what SSA did.

    More later.

    That wasn't as brutal as the South Africa twist but still pretty bad. >>>>>

    I noticed another significant difference from the South African
    version. -a-aOn SA, the players voted for one person at TC as normal, >>>> writing just one name on the ballot, and then both that person and
    the person they were teamed with were eliminated.-a On SA, the team-
    mate, Amy, never received any votes which made it really seem unfair
    that she had to leave.

    On the US version, it appears the players were told to vote for the
    team they wanted out, so both names had to be written down.-a So
    effectively, Coach and Crissie received the same number of votes,
    even if, say, Coach, was the person most people wanted out.-a It also >>>> seemed that some people only wrote one name initially and then were
    perhaps told to go back and add the second name in, because on some
    ballots it looked like one name had been written down taking up the
    normal amount of space and then the other name was crammed in. Look
    at the way Rizzo, Joe, Jonathan and, to a lesser extent, Steph wrote
    their ballots with one larger name and then another seemingly added
    as an afterthought.

    They were definitely told they would be voting individually but had
    to vote for a pair. They were told this at the IC and it was
    discussed during TC. Christian said it was essentially a F6 vote.

    The way some people wrote the names on the parchment was to send a
    message and/or to make it clear who they wanted out. Jonathan wanted
    Devens gone, not Aubry. Chrissy wanted Rizo gone more than she did
    Emily. Emily made it clear she wanted Coach gone by writing: COACH! +
    CHRISSY. I'm pretty sure no one forgot they had to write down two names. >>>

    Maybe.-a It just seemed odd to me that some names took up the whole
    ballot and looked like the other name was written as an afterthought
    and squeezed in.

    Some comments:

    --Knowing that the twist had a bad side to it, everyone should have >>>>> tried their best to avoid partnering with Coach. How did Chrissy
    end up with him?


    Crissie liked Coach and probably thought they could work well
    together. On paper, at least, Coach should be good in physically
    based challenges. -a-aAlso, I'm not sure Crissie really got the point >>>> at first that both players could be voted out together.

    She probably didn't. I was confused at the end of TC when she didn't
    play her SITD to double their chances of being safe. She had to have
    known they were the main target of nearly everyone else.


    Maybe because it would have meant they would lose two votes if neither
    hit.-a Had the vote been close, losing two votes would be hard to
    overcome.

    With 13 people voting and nearly everyone against them, they needed to gamble as much as possible.

    On a bit of a tangent, if Coach's SITD had worked for them, I wonder
    how the revote would have gone. Would Deven's hand been forced
    concerning the fake idol and that would have been the end for him and
    Aubry?


    He already told Aubry when Jeff asked if anyone wanted play an idol
    that he supposedly couldn't use it until the following TC.

    True. I'm just saying people such as Steph would press him more and when
    it was clear he was lying that would have been it for them.

    --What happened to Rizo and Emily in the IC? They were doing great
    and then ended up way behind. Possibly last. Did Rizo choke again?

    --Tiff and Joe worked well together in the IC. When they were
    partnering up it looked like he went to her. Was that because he
    felt guilty for voting for her last TC?


    I think they weirdly seem to have good chemistry.-a Joe is very
    honest and straightforward, and Tiff comes across that way too.-a I
    kind of like then together as a team.

    They are a good match but she can be too volatile. I'm not sure if he
    could calm her down or if she would want him to even try. They have
    good chemistry but not the tight organic bond Joe and Eva had.


    Yeah, but Joe's got to take what he can get. Especially with Coach and
    Crissie gone.

    True. It's kind of strange how limited Joe's bonds are with the other
    New Era players. I wonder if he did any pregaming?

    --Aubry's gullible. Did she actually believe him when he said the
    fake idol has to be played next round?


    Doubt it.-a I kind of think she and others are already sniffing this
    out as fake, especially when he didn't want to show it to anyone.

    --This was a great episode for Cirie. She totally lucked out
    avoiding having to partner up and even more so when it came to
    finding the "phoenix" coconut on Exile Island so she could keep her >>>>> vote. She did a good job steering the vote toward Chrissy and Coach. >>>>>

    She definitely orchestrated the vote and showed her smarts.-a She has >>>> this aura of being the older, wise person with extensive game
    experience and the other players instinctively trust her.-a She was
    also very smart to be among the first (along with Rick, I think) to
    immediately volunteer to be the odd person out in the challenge.-a I
    think she knew there was a good person she would be protected at TC.

    Cirie must have watched S47 and so the importance of not giving away
    a potential advantage.


    I really don't like Cirie and think Jenna was right on target when she
    went after her first episode.-a But I have to admit Cirie is playing a
    very smart game and has positioned herself in a way I have never seen
    her do on previous seasons.

    Ozzy deferring to her as if this was his first time playing is something
    I did not expect to see. Rizo is also basically worshiping her. Cirie
    has this cast wrapped around her finger just like Boston Rob did in the season he won. The one exception might be Emily who does not appear to
    be starstruck at all with any of the old schoolers.

    --WTH was Jonathan wearing at TC and where did it come from? It
    looked like a very fancy bathrobe.


    I thought the same thing!-a I wondered if he had brought that with
    him or perhaps he inherited it from a player voted out.

    The robe was huge so I doubt he inherited it. Maybe something
    happened to his clothes and he had the robe at Ponderosa.

    --I'm glad that Chrissy and Coach got booted. She brought nothing
    to the season as far as I'm concerned, and he was just joking around. >>>>>

    It was also good to see some old era players gone since it seems
    most of the eliminated players have been New Era.-a By my count, the
    only New Era players still in the game are Jonathan, Tiff, Emily,
    Joe and Rizzo, and Jonathan and Joe barely count since they are both
    more old style in their thinking and game play.

    Coach is saying he was purposely targeting New Era players. He didn't
    want a 26 day player to win S50. That seems to be the case for a lot
    of them.

    Now we're down to F11. No one is sticking out as a winner to me.
    Cirie and Ozzy are getting good edits but not winner edits.
    Jonathan is looking like someone who might make the finale. Aubrey
    keeps skating by which scares me. Despite a vote tonight, Emily
    appears to have no enemies. I wonder if social game will decide
    this season. It sure won't be strategic game with all of the
    randomness.


    Really hard to say who is getting the best edit.-a Emily and Rizo are >>>> getting a lot of air time among the new era players.-a So is
    Jonathan, who doesn't act New Era, but I don't think his edit is all
    that great. He's been shown as a bit bossy and condescending,
    especially toward Dee in that one episode. Of the old-time players I
    actually wonder if Stef might go far.-a She's been in every episode
    and seems to be sliding by.

    Steph has really surprised me. Preseason, I thought she'd be an early
    boot. Jonathan's getting an edit of someone who goes deep into the
    game. Other than sucking up to Coach, what has he done? Could he be
    the zero vote finalist? Rizo and Emily are getting a lot of
    screentime. It would be funny if they along with Ozzy and Cirie are
    F4 and Rizo gets taken out at that point again.


    Steph has probably been gone from the game longer than any player
    still in the game but, like Cirie, she is older and wiser than when
    she first played and I think she has learned a lot.

    She also has something to prove. IIRC, Heroes vs. Villains was her last season and she was unfortunately out very early that season.


    That's a good point. I remember Steph came into that season having only played with one other person in the cast - Tom Westman. She immediately sought him out first episode, and that was really her only alliance.
    She was an easy early target and got voted out second from the Heroes,
    and Tom went two Heroes TCs later.
    --- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2