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hnpccA very quick discussion of the most recent and previous two seasons of Survivor.
I ended up enjoying this season of Survivor. I wasn't expecting to - I wasn't that in to the last two seasons when they brought back previous cast members, the season really didn't start off that well, and they brought back Russell Hanz from the previous season. I can't stand the guy, not least because the editing of the previous season kept trying to shove him down everyone's throats as "the best Survivor villain EVAH!!" - when even looking through the edited Survivor version of reality it was obvious he wasn't. Survivor is, in the end, a social game - you have to vote people off while still convincing them to vote for you. Russell is reasonably good at the "vote people off" part, and absolutely abysmal at the "getting them to vote for you" part.
Despite him making it to the final three, I still ended up enjoying the season - mostly because it was very obvious early on that there was no way he could win, and because the two women in the final three were entertaining to watch. They disliked Russell intensely, as did every other cast member who made the jury, leading to him getting no votes whatsoever. (Yes, that pretty much did make the season for me.)
It's been interesting watching the level of outrage from people who think he should have won (or at least gotten a vote presumably) based entirely on what they watched. Even Russell at the reunion appeared to think he was playing an entirely different game, something more like Big Brother where the audience votes for you to go or stay (for the record, I think he'd lose that show too. People don't tend to vote for misogynistic arseholes, not for the final win anyway - you have to get the voting audience to like you at some point as well.)
Then I found this spreadsheet, which is a table of the confessionals from every season. It's fascinating. "Confessionals" are the bits where the cast speaks directly to camera. Each cast member is interviewed an equal number of times, so it's totally down to editing what then goes in. Some people are of course more entertaining or fluent or just give a better explanation of what happened than others, so there's always going to be some players with a higher confessional count than others. What was interesting to me was comparing season 19 (Samoa) with season 18 (Tocantins).
Tocantins and Samoa ended up being fairly similar. Tocantins started with 16 people; Samoa with 20 - but both ended up being won by a member of a minority alliance against a majority opposing tribe. Both had at least one nutjob on them (Coach for Tocantins; Russell for Samoa). And yet Tocantins I had a much better idea of what happened and why. Samoa? Was weird - I had no idea why at least two people were voted out, and two people who I actually couldn't remember the names of, despite them making it to 11th and 4th place respectively. So why the difference?
Here's the number of confessionals given by the final five players from Tocantins:
JT (winner): 72 total during the season, average of 5.54/episode
Stephen (runner up): 62 total, 4.77/episode
Erinn (third): 33 total, 2.54/episode
Taj: 32 total, 2.46/episode
Coach (resident nutjob): 58 total, 4.83/episode
Apart from the obvious bias towards the male players (overall the ratio was 21.54/episode for males compared to 9.92/episode for females, which is fucking ridiculous given the 50:50 gender split to start with) there's a slight bias towards Coach as the resident nutjob.
And here's Samoa:
Natalie (winner): 15 total, 1.07/episode
Russell H (runner up/nutjob): 108 total, 7.71/episode
Mick (third): 29 total, 2.07/episode
Brett: 12 total, 0.86/episode
Jaison: 33 total, 2.36/episode
No wonder the entire season it seemed like no one other than Russell spoke. No wonder so many people thought he should have won - he's the only person that apparently appeared on screen. That is some seriously bad editing. (Oh and the gender ratio for that season? 18.86/episode for men; 8.86/episode for women.)
Natalie - the winner - had no confessionals at all for 6 episodes, including two post-merge episodes. Brett (one of my "who?" cast) had nothing for 8 episodes, including the first four post-merge episodes.
Just as another comparison? Season 1. First season. Only 16 cast members, granted.
Top five again:
Richard (winner/nutjob): 91 total, 7.00/episode
Kelly (runner up): 81 total, 6.23/episode
Rudy (third): 52 total, 4.00/episode
Sue (fourth): 63 total, 4.85/episode
Sean (fifth): 56 total, 4.67/episode
Gender ratio: 23.08/episode for women, 25.85/episode for men.
I really hope they don't win an Emmy, because their editing has seriously gone downhill.
I ended up enjoying this season of Survivor. I wasn't expecting to - I wasn't that in to the last two seasons when they brought back previous cast members, the season really didn't start off that well, and they brought back Russell Hanz from the previous season. I can't stand the guy, not least because the editing of the previous season kept trying to shove him down everyone's throats as "the best Survivor villain EVAH!!" - when even looking through the edited Survivor version of reality it was obvious he wasn't. Survivor is, in the end, a social game - you have to vote people off while still convincing them to vote for you. Russell is reasonably good at the "vote people off" part, and absolutely abysmal at the "getting them to vote for you" part.
Despite him making it to the final three, I still ended up enjoying the season - mostly because it was very obvious early on that there was no way he could win, and because the two women in the final three were entertaining to watch. They disliked Russell intensely, as did every other cast member who made the jury, leading to him getting no votes whatsoever. (Yes, that pretty much did make the season for me.)
It's been interesting watching the level of outrage from people who think he should have won (or at least gotten a vote presumably) based entirely on what they watched. Even Russell at the reunion appeared to think he was playing an entirely different game, something more like Big Brother where the audience votes for you to go or stay (for the record, I think he'd lose that show too. People don't tend to vote for misogynistic arseholes, not for the final win anyway - you have to get the voting audience to like you at some point as well.)
Then I found this spreadsheet, which is a table of the confessionals from every season. It's fascinating. "Confessionals" are the bits where the cast speaks directly to camera. Each cast member is interviewed an equal number of times, so it's totally down to editing what then goes in. Some people are of course more entertaining or fluent or just give a better explanation of what happened than others, so there's always going to be some players with a higher confessional count than others. What was interesting to me was comparing season 19 (Samoa) with season 18 (Tocantins).
Tocantins and Samoa ended up being fairly similar. Tocantins started with 16 people; Samoa with 20 - but both ended up being won by a member of a minority alliance against a majority opposing tribe. Both had at least one nutjob on them (Coach for Tocantins; Russell for Samoa). And yet Tocantins I had a much better idea of what happened and why. Samoa? Was weird - I had no idea why at least two people were voted out, and two people who I actually couldn't remember the names of, despite them making it to 11th and 4th place respectively. So why the difference?
Here's the number of confessionals given by the final five players from Tocantins:
JT (winner): 72 total during the season, average of 5.54/episode
Stephen (runner up): 62 total, 4.77/episode
Erinn (third): 33 total, 2.54/episode
Taj: 32 total, 2.46/episode
Coach (resident nutjob): 58 total, 4.83/episode
Apart from the obvious bias towards the male players (overall the ratio was 21.54/episode for males compared to 9.92/episode for females, which is fucking ridiculous given the 50:50 gender split to start with) there's a slight bias towards Coach as the resident nutjob.
And here's Samoa:
Natalie (winner): 15 total, 1.07/episode
Russell H (runner up/nutjob): 108 total, 7.71/episode
Mick (third): 29 total, 2.07/episode
Brett: 12 total, 0.86/episode
Jaison: 33 total, 2.36/episode
No wonder the entire season it seemed like no one other than Russell spoke. No wonder so many people thought he should have won - he's the only person that apparently appeared on screen. That is some seriously bad editing. (Oh and the gender ratio for that season? 18.86/episode for men; 8.86/episode for women.)
Natalie - the winner - had no confessionals at all for 6 episodes, including two post-merge episodes. Brett (one of my "who?" cast) had nothing for 8 episodes, including the first four post-merge episodes.
Just as another comparison? Season 1. First season. Only 16 cast members, granted.
Top five again:
Richard (winner/nutjob): 91 total, 7.00/episode
Kelly (runner up): 81 total, 6.23/episode
Rudy (third): 52 total, 4.00/episode
Sue (fourth): 63 total, 4.85/episode
Sean (fifth): 56 total, 4.67/episode
Gender ratio: 23.08/episode for women, 25.85/episode for men.
I really hope they don't win an Emmy, because their editing has seriously gone downhill.
