• Fishbach says Maryanne likely displaced on S50 by Savannah

    From Rick@Rick@nospam.net to alt.tv.survivor on Sun Dec 21 13:38:41 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    Stephan Fishbach seems to confirm on the Know-it-Alls podcast a theory
    we had talked about here that Maryanne was dropped from S50 to make room
    for Savannah. He also pointed out, as we had also discussed here, that
    when the names of who was on each tribe were leaked, Savannah was on one
    tribe and the other two prior winners were on the other two.

    Amusingly, as he had done on a prior podcast, Rob immediately shut down
    any discussion of the tribe makeup since it hadn't been announced yet by
    CBS.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Brian Smith@dcg_brian@hotmail.com to alt.tv.survivor on Sun Dec 21 14:30:42 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 12/21/2025 11:38 AM, Rick wrote:
    Stephan Fishbach seems to confirm on the Know-it-Alls podcast a theory
    we had talked about here that Maryanne was dropped from S50 to make room
    for Savannah.-a He also pointed out, as we had also discussed here, that when the names of who was on each tribe were leaked, Savannah was on one tribe and the other two prior winners were on the other two.

    Amusingly, as he had done on a prior podcast, Rob immediately shut down
    any discussion of the tribe makeup since it hadn't been announced yet by CBS.

    Other sources are also claiming it was Maryanne who was dropped for
    Savannah. Good choice as far as I'm concerned. It was obvious that
    Savannah played a winning game. I'm still not sure why Maryanne won. Did
    she get a bad edit or did the COVID break result in the editors, etc. forgetting how to tell a clear (or at least somewhere clear) story?

    Fishbach is probably dying to tell us who won S50. Given his pre S49
    comment that Rizo is the new face of the franchise, I wonder if that
    means Rizo did extremely well on S50?
    --
    Brian
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Rick@Rick@nospam.net to alt.tv.survivor on Sun Dec 21 16:59:51 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 12/21/2025 4:30 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 11:38 AM, Rick wrote:
    Stephan Fishbach seems to confirm on the Know-it-Alls podcast a theory
    we had talked about here that Maryanne was dropped from S50 to make
    room for Savannah.-a He also pointed out, as we had also discussed
    here, that when the names of who was on each tribe were leaked,
    Savannah was on one tribe and the other two prior winners were on the
    other two.

    Amusingly, as he had done on a prior podcast, Rob immediately shut
    down any discussion of the tribe makeup since it hadn't been announced
    yet by CBS.

    Other sources are also claiming it was Maryanne who was dropped for Savannah. Good choice as far as I'm concerned. It was obvious that
    Savannah played a winning game. I'm still not sure why Maryanne won. Did
    she get a bad edit or did the COVID break result in the editors, etc. forgetting how to tell a clear (or at least somewhere clear) story?


    To this day I have no idea how or why Maryanne won.

    Fishbach is probably dying to tell us who won S50. Given his pre S49
    comment that Rizo is the new face of the franchise, I wonder if that
    means Rizo did extremely well on S50?


    Hard to say. Rizo's been pretty full of himself in the post-game
    interviews, but that's probably just his personality. I find it hard to believe that the other S50 participants, who all essentially know one
    another and about one another's games, would allow an unknown like Rizo
    to advance really far in the game. They know he had to have played well
    in S49 to get the call for S50, so why take a chance on him like that?
    Course I thought the same thing about Russell in S20 and he made it to
    the finals in back-to-back seasons.

    I'm also curious if the players are officially told or just use their
    brains to figure out that Savannah won S49. They would see previous
    winners Kyle and Dee on the other two tribes and would probably guess
    pretty quickly that Savannah won S49. I also wonder if by putting the
    only three winners on separate tribes if they are going to do some
    special thing like giving the prior winners automatic immunity at their
    first tribal council? Seems to me something like that was done before
    on some version of the show, not necessarily US, but I can't place when.

    Regarding whether Fishbach or other commenters already know who won S50,
    it wouldn't surprise me. The cast members and tribal breakdown were
    leaked pretty quickly, so I'm sure the winner's ID has already been
    leaked too, assuming they do a pre-taped finale reveal. I'm trying to
    stay away from spoilers about that.
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Brian Smith@dcg_brian@hotmail.com to alt.tv.survivor on Sun Dec 21 16:04:43 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 12/21/2025 2:59 PM, Rick wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 4:30 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 11:38 AM, Rick wrote:
    Stephan Fishbach seems to confirm on the Know-it-Alls podcast a
    theory we had talked about here that Maryanne was dropped from S50 to
    make room for Savannah.-a He also pointed out, as we had also
    discussed here, that when the names of who was on each tribe were
    leaked, Savannah was on one tribe and the other two prior winners
    were on the other two.

    Amusingly, as he had done on a prior podcast, Rob immediately shut
    down any discussion of the tribe makeup since it hadn't been
    announced yet by CBS.

    Other sources are also claiming it was Maryanne who was dropped for
    Savannah. Good choice as far as I'm concerned. It was obvious that
    Savannah played a winning game. I'm still not sure why Maryanne won.
    Did she get a bad edit or did the COVID break result in the editors,
    etc. forgetting how to tell a clear (or at least somewhere clear) story?


    To this day I have no idea how or why Maryanne won.

    Fishbach is probably dying to tell us who won S50. Given his pre S49
    comment that Rizo is the new face of the franchise, I wonder if that
    means Rizo did extremely well on S50?


    Hard to say.-a Rizo's been pretty full of himself in the post-game interviews, but that's probably just his personality.-a I find it hard to believe that the other S50 participants, who all essentially know one another and about one another's games, would allow an unknown like Rizo
    to advance really far in the game.-a They know he had to have played well
    in S49 to get the call for S50, so why take a chance on him like that? Course I thought the same thing about Russell in S20 and he made it to
    the finals in back-to-back seasons.

    I don't think the other S50 players will automatically assume that Rizo
    and Savannah played well in S49. Emily, for example, was clearly cast
    because of her story not because she played a great game. IIRC, she
    barely made jury. Joe might have made F3 but did he really play a good
    game? Q was entertaining as hell but he was just an average player as
    far as I'm concerned. There's other such examples on S50 such as
    Kamilla. If Rizo and Savannah were smart they hopefully made a deal not
    to throw each other UTB and to say they made F8 but not F3.

    I'm also curious if the players are officially told or just use their
    brains to figure out that Savannah won S49.-a They would see previous winners Kyle and Dee on the other two tribes and would probably guess
    pretty quickly that Savannah won S49.-a I also wonder if by putting the
    only three winners on separate tribes if they are going to do some
    special thing like giving the prior winners automatic immunity at their first tribal council?-a Seems to me something like that was done before
    on some version of the show, not necessarily US, but I can't place when.

    IIRC, the other players on Heroes vs. Villains were not officially told
    about Russell. I think they figured out he was a jerk on their own. The
    S50 players might assume Savannah won, but they might also assume a
    twist happens that knocks them into two tribes before the first TC. With
    all of the celebrity bullshit nothing will surprise me.

    If the winners get immunity for the first TC fans will be putting a big asterisk beside S50. They never should have cast just three winners in a
    cast of 24.

    Regarding whether Fishbach or other commenters already know who won S50,
    it wouldn't surprise me.-a The cast members and tribal breakdown were
    leaked pretty quickly, so I'm sure the winner's ID has already been
    leaked too, assuming they do a pre-taped finale reveal.-a I'm trying to
    stay away from spoilers about that.

    I sure hope they stuck with doing an After Show. The live finales suck.
    I'm not worried about spoilers. I don't go looking for them but it's impossible to avoid them. Everything I saw was wrong. Nearly everyone
    claimed they knew Rizo won and that Savannah was F3 because she was
    asked to do S50. She was F3 but that's not the same as saying she won. I
    don't think anyone got the F5 correct. I also don't recall seeing
    anything about Jake being taken out by a sea snake. Concerning S50, we
    heard about the three tribes but nothing about the celebrity bullshit.
    You'd think that would have been spoiled ages ago.
    --
    Brian
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Rick@Rick@nospam.net to alt.tv.survivor on Sun Dec 21 18:43:21 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 12/21/2025 6:04 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 2:59 PM, Rick wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 4:30 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 11:38 AM, Rick wrote:
    Stephan Fishbach seems to confirm on the Know-it-Alls podcast a
    theory we had talked about here that Maryanne was dropped from S50
    to make room for Savannah.-a He also pointed out, as we had also
    discussed here, that when the names of who was on each tribe were
    leaked, Savannah was on one tribe and the other two prior winners
    were on the other two.

    Amusingly, as he had done on a prior podcast, Rob immediately shut
    down any discussion of the tribe makeup since it hadn't been
    announced yet by CBS.

    Other sources are also claiming it was Maryanne who was dropped for
    Savannah. Good choice as far as I'm concerned. It was obvious that
    Savannah played a winning game. I'm still not sure why Maryanne won.
    Did she get a bad edit or did the COVID break result in the editors,
    etc. forgetting how to tell a clear (or at least somewhere clear) story? >>>

    To this day I have no idea how or why Maryanne won.

    Fishbach is probably dying to tell us who won S50. Given his pre S49
    comment that Rizo is the new face of the franchise, I wonder if that
    means Rizo did extremely well on S50?


    Hard to say.-a Rizo's been pretty full of himself in the post-game
    interviews, but that's probably just his personality.-a I find it hard
    to believe that the other S50 participants, who all essentially know
    one another and about one another's games, would allow an unknown like
    Rizo to advance really far in the game.-a They know he had to have
    played well in S49 to get the call for S50, so why take a chance on
    him like that? Course I thought the same thing about Russell in S20
    and he made it to the finals in back-to-back seasons.

    I don't think the other S50 players will automatically assume that Rizo
    and Savannah played well in S49. Emily, for example, was clearly cast because of her story not because she played a great game. IIRC, she
    barely made jury. Joe might have made F3 but did he really play a good
    game? Q was entertaining as hell but he was just an average player as
    far as I'm concerned. There's other such examples on S50 such as
    Kamilla. If Rizo and Savannah were smart they hopefully made a deal not
    to throw each other UTB and to say they made F8 but not F3.


    But the point is that they are unknowns. Yes, it is possible they are
    players who barely made the merge like Emily or who got cast because of
    their personalities rather than strategic sense like Q, but why take
    that chance? If I am one of the 22 other players and I look at the
    other 21 players who are well known and I already know what their
    strengths and weaknesses are and what strategies they have used in the
    past and whether they can be trusted, why take a chance on keeping
    around these two unknowns who can make any story up they want?

    I'm also curious if the players are officially told or just use their
    brains to figure out that Savannah won S49.-a They would see previous
    winners Kyle and Dee on the other two tribes and would probably guess
    pretty quickly that Savannah won S49.-a I also wonder if by putting the
    only three winners on separate tribes if they are going to do some
    special thing like giving the prior winners automatic immunity at
    their first tribal council?-a Seems to me something like that was done
    before on some version of the show, not necessarily US, but I can't
    place when.

    IIRC, the other players on Heroes vs. Villains were not officially told about Russell. I think they figured out he was a jerk on their own. The
    S50 players might assume Savannah won, but they might also assume a
    twist happens that knocks them into two tribes before the first TC. With
    all of the celebrity bullshit nothing will surprise me.


    That's possible, but I just think it is too symmetric to have three
    tribes and two prior winners and one unknown split among the three
    tribes. I think they are going to instantly guess that Sav won S49.

    And yes, the players were not officially told anything about Russell in
    S20 except that he played on the previous season. But they also knew
    one other thing, which is that he was cast on the Villains tribe. So
    that should have alerted them that he might not be trustworthy. That's frankly why I have never understood JT's little love note to Russell
    trying to get him to align with the heroes. Couldn't he figure out that Russell was cast as a villain for a reason?

    If the winners get immunity for the first TC fans will be putting a big asterisk beside S50. They never should have cast just three winners in a cast of 24.


    Agree. I personally wouldn't have cast any prior winners since we have
    seen in the past that they are often targeted early. In the original
    all-star season, S8, all the prior winners were targeted early and I
    believe all were voted out before the merge. I would save prior winners
    for an all-winners season.


    Regarding whether Fishbach or other commenters already know who won
    S50, it wouldn't surprise me.-a The cast members and tribal breakdown
    were leaked pretty quickly, so I'm sure the winner's ID has already
    been leaked too, assuming they do a pre-taped finale reveal.-a I'm
    trying to stay away from spoilers about that.

    I sure hope they stuck with doing an After Show. The live finales suck.
    I'm not worried about spoilers. I don't go looking for them but it's impossible to avoid them. Everything I saw was wrong. Nearly everyone claimed they knew Rizo won and that Savannah was F3 because she was
    asked to do S50. She was F3 but that's not the same as saying she won. I don't think anyone got the F5 correct. I also don't recall seeing
    anything about Jake being taken out by a sea snake. Concerning S50, we
    heard about the three tribes but nothing about the celebrity bullshit.
    You'd think that would have been spoiled ages ago.


    All true. Personally, I think the only time I have ever been spoiled on
    a Survivor season was S1 when Gervase spoiled in a radio interviewer
    that the winner was a man.

    Regarding S49, I had heard speculation that Rizo had won, but it just
    became obvious to me as the season progressed that the edit was pointing
    very clearly to Savannah.

    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Brian Smith@dcg_brian@hotmail.com to alt.tv.survivor on Sun Dec 21 17:37:49 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 12/21/2025 4:43 PM, Rick wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 6:04 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 2:59 PM, Rick wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 4:30 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 11:38 AM, Rick wrote:
    Stephan Fishbach seems to confirm on the Know-it-Alls podcast a
    theory we had talked about here that Maryanne was dropped from S50
    to make room for Savannah.-a He also pointed out, as we had also
    discussed here, that when the names of who was on each tribe were
    leaked, Savannah was on one tribe and the other two prior winners
    were on the other two.

    Amusingly, as he had done on a prior podcast, Rob immediately shut
    down any discussion of the tribe makeup since it hadn't been
    announced yet by CBS.

    Other sources are also claiming it was Maryanne who was dropped for
    Savannah. Good choice as far as I'm concerned. It was obvious that
    Savannah played a winning game. I'm still not sure why Maryanne won.
    Did she get a bad edit or did the COVID break result in the editors,
    etc. forgetting how to tell a clear (or at least somewhere clear)
    story?


    To this day I have no idea how or why Maryanne won.

    Fishbach is probably dying to tell us who won S50. Given his pre S49
    comment that Rizo is the new face of the franchise, I wonder if that
    means Rizo did extremely well on S50?


    Hard to say.-a Rizo's been pretty full of himself in the post-game
    interviews, but that's probably just his personality.-a I find it hard
    to believe that the other S50 participants, who all essentially know
    one another and about one another's games, would allow an unknown
    like Rizo to advance really far in the game.-a They know he had to
    have played well in S49 to get the call for S50, so why take a chance
    on him like that? Course I thought the same thing about Russell in
    S20 and he made it to the finals in back-to-back seasons.

    I don't think the other S50 players will automatically assume that
    Rizo and Savannah played well in S49. Emily, for example, was clearly
    cast because of her story not because she played a great game. IIRC,
    she barely made jury. Joe might have made F3 but did he really play a
    good game? Q was entertaining as hell but he was just an average
    player as far as I'm concerned. There's other such examples on S50
    such as Kamilla. If Rizo and Savannah were smart they hopefully made a
    deal not to throw each other UTB and to say they made F8 but not F3.


    But the point is that they are unknowns.-a Yes, it is possible they are players who barely made the merge like Emily or who got cast because of their personalities rather than strategic sense like Q, but why take
    that chance?-a If I am one of the 22 other players and I look at the
    other 21 players who are well known and I already know what their
    strengths and weaknesses are and what strategies they have used in the
    past and whether they can be trusted, why take a chance on keeping
    around these two unknowns who can make any story up they want?

    If one of the known 22 players is vulnerable and seen as a huge threat,
    I think the others would go after that person before Rizo or Savannah.
    Until Rizo and Savannah do something that makes them a threat I think
    they will be left alone unless there's personality conflicts. I'm
    interested to see how Savannah comes across to her tribemates. Will she
    be seen as mean girl? Rizo's biggest worry might be sucking too badly in challenges which would make him an easy target if his tribe goes to TC.

    I'm also curious if the players are officially told or just use their
    brains to figure out that Savannah won S49.-a They would see previous
    winners Kyle and Dee on the other two tribes and would probably guess
    pretty quickly that Savannah won S49.-a I also wonder if by putting
    the only three winners on separate tribes if they are going to do
    some special thing like giving the prior winners automatic immunity
    at their first tribal council?-a Seems to me something like that was
    done before on-a some version of the show, not necessarily US, but I
    can't place when.

    IIRC, the other players on Heroes vs. Villains were not officially
    told about Russell. I think they figured out he was a jerk on their
    own. The S50 players might assume Savannah won, but they might also
    assume a twist happens that knocks them into two tribes before the
    first TC. With all of the celebrity bullshit nothing will surprise me.


    That's possible, but I just think it is too symmetric to have three
    tribes and two prior winners and one unknown split among the three
    tribes.-a I think they are going to instantly guess that Sav won S49.

    They might instantly assume that. A lot will depend on how much Jeff
    hypes up how the season might be vastly different than past seasons.
    Jeff even stole "expect the unexpected" from Julie to describe S50. BB
    fans know that is code for "expect major league fuckery from production."

    And yes, the players were not officially told anything about Russell in
    S20 except that he played on the previous season.-a But they also knew
    one other thing, which is that he was cast on the Villains tribe.-a So
    that should have alerted them that he might not be trustworthy.-a That's frankly why I have never understood JT's little love note to Russell
    trying to get him to align with the heroes.-a Couldn't he figure out that Russell was cast as a villain for a reason?

    In defense of JT, Parv was cast as a villain. He might have thought
    production screwed up or was short of good villain players.

    If the winners get immunity for the first TC fans will be putting a
    big asterisk beside S50. They never should have cast just three
    winners in a cast of 24.


    Agree.-a I personally wouldn't have cast any prior winners since we have seen in the past that they are often targeted early.-a In the original all-star season, S8, all the prior winners were targeted early and I
    believe all were voted out before the merge.-a I would save prior winners for an all-winners season.

    I doubt we'll ever see another all-winners season. Saving Dee, etc. for
    a New Era All Stars season would have made more sense than throwing them
    on S50.

    Regarding whether Fishbach or other commenters already know who won
    S50, it wouldn't surprise me.-a The cast members and tribal breakdown
    were leaked pretty quickly, so I'm sure the winner's ID has already
    been leaked too, assuming they do a pre-taped finale reveal.-a I'm
    trying to stay away from spoilers about that.

    I sure hope they stuck with doing an After Show. The live finales
    suck. I'm not worried about spoilers. I don't go looking for them but
    it's impossible to avoid them. Everything I saw was wrong. Nearly
    everyone claimed they knew Rizo won and that Savannah was F3 because
    she was asked to do S50. She was F3 but that's not the same as saying
    she won. I don't think anyone got the F5 correct. I also don't recall
    seeing anything about Jake being taken out by a sea snake. Concerning
    S50, we heard about the three tribes but nothing about the celebrity
    bullshit. You'd think that would have been spoiled ages ago.


    All true.-a Personally, I think the only time I have ever been spoiled on
    a Survivor season was S1 when Gervase spoiled in a radio interviewer
    that the winner was a man.

    CBS has spoiled seasons in the past. There was a time around when Hayden
    Moss played where they were posting photos to the media site showing who
    won immunity and who got voted out. Fans made a big stink about it which
    led to Jeff getting pissed off at CBS for spoiling the episodes. I'm
    pretty sure I posted an article about it at the time. There was other
    stuff the web people did that also spoiled things.

    Regarding S49, I had heard speculation that Rizo had won, but it just
    became obvious to me as the season progressed that the edit was pointing very clearly to Savannah.

    People bought into the Rizo hype. I thought the edit early on made it
    clear that Savannah was going to win. Sage making F3 was not clear at all.
    --
    Brian
    --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Rick@Rick@nospam.net to alt.tv.survivor on Sun Dec 21 20:22:17 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.tv.survivor

    On 12/21/2025 7:37 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 4:43 PM, Rick wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 6:04 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 2:59 PM, Rick wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 4:30 PM, Brian Smith wrote:
    On 12/21/2025 11:38 AM, Rick wrote:
    Stephan Fishbach seems to confirm on the Know-it-Alls podcast a
    theory we had talked about here that Maryanne was dropped from S50 >>>>>> to make room for Savannah.-a He also pointed out, as we had also
    discussed here, that when the names of who was on each tribe were >>>>>> leaked, Savannah was on one tribe and the other two prior winners >>>>>> were on the other two.

    Amusingly, as he had done on a prior podcast, Rob immediately shut >>>>>> down any discussion of the tribe makeup since it hadn't been
    announced yet by CBS.

    Other sources are also claiming it was Maryanne who was dropped for >>>>> Savannah. Good choice as far as I'm concerned. It was obvious that
    Savannah played a winning game. I'm still not sure why Maryanne
    won. Did she get a bad edit or did the COVID break result in the
    editors, etc. forgetting how to tell a clear (or at least somewhere >>>>> clear) story?


    To this day I have no idea how or why Maryanne won.

    Fishbach is probably dying to tell us who won S50. Given his pre
    S49 comment that Rizo is the new face of the franchise, I wonder if >>>>> that means Rizo did extremely well on S50?


    Hard to say.-a Rizo's been pretty full of himself in the post-game
    interviews, but that's probably just his personality.-a I find it
    hard to believe that the other S50 participants, who all essentially
    know one another and about one another's games, would allow an
    unknown like Rizo to advance really far in the game.-a They know he
    had to have played well in S49 to get the call for S50, so why take
    a chance on him like that? Course I thought the same thing about
    Russell in S20 and he made it to the finals in back-to-back seasons.

    I don't think the other S50 players will automatically assume that
    Rizo and Savannah played well in S49. Emily, for example, was clearly
    cast because of her story not because she played a great game. IIRC,
    she barely made jury. Joe might have made F3 but did he really play a
    good game? Q was entertaining as hell but he was just an average
    player as far as I'm concerned. There's other such examples on S50
    such as Kamilla. If Rizo and Savannah were smart they hopefully made
    a deal not to throw each other UTB and to say they made F8 but not F3.


    But the point is that they are unknowns.-a Yes, it is possible they are
    players who barely made the merge like Emily or who got cast because
    of their personalities rather than strategic sense like Q, but why
    take that chance?-a If I am one of the 22 other players and I look at
    the other 21 players who are well known and I already know what their
    strengths and weaknesses are and what strategies they have used in the
    past and whether they can be trusted, why take a chance on keeping
    around these two unknowns who can make any story up they want?

    If one of the known 22 players is vulnerable and seen as a huge threat,
    I think the others would go after that person before Rizo or Savannah.
    Until Rizo and Savannah do something that makes them a threat I think
    they will be left alone unless there's personality conflicts. I'm
    interested to see how Savannah comes across to her tribemates. Will she
    be seen as mean girl? Rizo's biggest worry might be sucking too badly in challenges which would make him an easy target if his tribe goes to TC.

    I'm also curious if the players are officially told or just use
    their brains to figure out that Savannah won S49.-a They would see
    previous winners Kyle and Dee on the other two tribes and would
    probably guess pretty quickly that Savannah won S49.-a I also wonder
    if by putting the only three winners on separate tribes if they are
    going to do some special thing like giving the prior winners
    automatic immunity at their first tribal council?-a Seems to me
    something like that was done before on-a some version of the show,
    not necessarily US, but I can't place when.

    IIRC, the other players on Heroes vs. Villains were not officially
    told about Russell. I think they figured out he was a jerk on their
    own. The S50 players might assume Savannah won, but they might also
    assume a twist happens that knocks them into two tribes before the
    first TC. With all of the celebrity bullshit nothing will surprise me.


    That's possible, but I just think it is too symmetric to have three
    tribes and two prior winners and one unknown split among the three
    tribes.-a I think they are going to instantly guess that Sav won S49.

    They might instantly assume that. A lot will depend on how much Jeff
    hypes up how the season might be vastly different than past seasons.
    Jeff even stole "expect the unexpected" from Julie to describe S50. BB
    fans know that is code for "expect major league fuckery from production."

    And yes, the players were not officially told anything about Russell
    in S20 except that he played on the previous season.-a But they also
    knew one other thing, which is that he was cast on the Villains
    tribe.-a So that should have alerted them that he might not be
    trustworthy.-a That's frankly why I have never understood JT's little
    love note to Russell trying to get him to align with the heroes.
    Couldn't he figure out that Russell was cast as a villain for a reason?

    In defense of JT, Parv was cast as a villain. He might have thought production screwed up or was short of good villain players.

    If the winners get immunity for the first TC fans will be putting a
    big asterisk beside S50. They never should have cast just three
    winners in a cast of 24.


    Agree.-a I personally wouldn't have cast any prior winners since we
    have seen in the past that they are often targeted early.-a In the
    original all-star season, S8, all the prior winners were targeted
    early and I believe all were voted out before the merge.-a I would save
    prior winners for an all-winners season.

    I doubt we'll ever see another all-winners season. Saving Dee, etc. for
    a New Era All Stars season would have made more sense than throwing them
    on S50.

    Regarding whether Fishbach or other commenters already know who won
    S50, it wouldn't surprise me.-a The cast members and tribal breakdown >>>> were leaked pretty quickly, so I'm sure the winner's ID has already
    been leaked too, assuming they do a pre-taped finale reveal.-a I'm
    trying to stay away from spoilers about that.

    I sure hope they stuck with doing an After Show. The live finales
    suck. I'm not worried about spoilers. I don't go looking for them but
    it's impossible to avoid them. Everything I saw was wrong. Nearly
    everyone claimed they knew Rizo won and that Savannah was F3 because
    she was asked to do S50. She was F3 but that's not the same as saying
    she won. I don't think anyone got the F5 correct. I also don't recall
    seeing anything about Jake being taken out by a sea snake. Concerning
    S50, we heard about the three tribes but nothing about the celebrity
    bullshit. You'd think that would have been spoiled ages ago.


    All true.-a Personally, I think the only time I have ever been spoiled
    on a Survivor season was S1 when Gervase spoiled in a radio
    interviewer that the winner was a man.

    CBS has spoiled seasons in the past. There was a time around when Hayden Moss played where they were posting photos to the media site showing who
    won immunity and who got voted out. Fans made a big stink about it which
    led to Jeff getting pissed off at CBS for spoiling the episodes. I'm
    pretty sure I posted an article about it at the time. There was other
    stuff the web people did that also spoiled things.


    There was at least one time the previews for an episode spoiled that the
    vote ended in a tie and they needed to re-vote or draw rocks.

    Also, am I misremembering that it got spoiled for the F3 vote on S36
    that the vote ended in a tie (which necessitated that 3rd place finisher Laurel join the jury)? Can't remember if that was CBS or some other
    spoiler.

    Regarding S49, I had heard speculation that Rizo had won, but it just
    became obvious to me as the season progressed that the edit was
    pointing very clearly to Savannah.

    People bought into the Rizo hype. I thought the edit early on made it
    clear that Savannah was going to win. Sage making F3 was not clear at all.


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