Watching the Survivor Auction from the Australian Outback where they hadn’t really figured out how the auction was going to work. Whether they could share items, sharing money etc etc has got me thinking about the times Production had a plan for a challenge or an advantage only for someone to figure out a totally different way to do things that Production never even considered. I think there was a challenge in Nicaragua like that but I can’t even be sure I remember that correctly
What are the best stories.
Production had this idea for a survival show and Tagi formed an alliance in the first season and turned it into a strategy game
That’s why hatch was the best first winner. He knew what survivor was before the people who came up with the show knew what it was
Would you say he....Hatched a plan?
Yyyyeeeeaaaahhhhh!!!!!
WE (will) GET FOOLED AGAIN
And history was made
That’s not entirely accurate - the original Swedish show had alliances happen before they ever filmed Survivor, so they had to know it was likely to happen in the US version.
Yea too many people forget the is an offshoot of another show.
Especially since the tagline since Borneo has been “Outwit, Outplay and Outlast” meaning at some they were expecting someone smart to figure out how to figure out the show was more than “16 people surviving for 39 days”.
Natalie A and friends made Probst rage quit the Touchy Subjects reward challenge and it hasn't been brought back since
Jeff is so annoying about stuff like this, same with the auction after 30. Like there are so many small changes you could make to prevent stuff like that from happening again and instead they give up. But they brought the auction back after 15 seasons, so maybe touchy subjects will make a comeback too 🤷♂️
The lack of auction used to piss me off because all you had to do was not allow any advantages in the auction.
Yeah, I'd heard him on podcasts talk over and over about "Once we introduced advantages into the auction, people just saved their money so it was pointless." Like you, I wondered why not just remove the advantages?
I actually like some of the new mechanics for it though: the race to gather money is good, and the unknown number of items with a dice roll makes it interesting.
On the other hand, I kind of hate that the person with the most money loses their vote at the end, because basically, whichever players have the least money in the beginning are kind of trapped. Other players just outbid them until the game ends.
The problem is it just becomes who has the most money and how many more items there are, and can Jeff psych us out a bunch of times.
I kind of like what Australian Survivor did with the Auction in season 12 where two items were provided and JLP flipped a coin to see if they got to pick which item they wanted to see and if they didn’t want it they could choose the other. If they lost the count toss they got what ever was under the dome.
Watching Paulie give up a phone call home for a pickle will always be funny.
Australian Survivor also likes to hide advantages inside of food rewards, so you don't know when you're bidding on it, that it's an advantage.
Australian survivor does so many things better that it’s getting painful to watch American survivor. I wish they would take some notes.
And they like to do it in the first couple of items.
Hiding rewards in food! That would be so unfair and just gift undeserving players a win on pure luck! How could they?! /s
They’re so close to a good idea with the new money format. But now the auction is boring because whoever has the most money will just bid it all to avoid losing their vote. They should do it so bidding can only go up in increments by 20 each bid. Players could strategize their bids to try to stick someone with the most money or something
Yeah. Thrown in a some kind of hitch where someone bids on something, they lift the cover, and it says all other players must give 20 dollars to that player or something. Or it just automatically makes them switch places with the lowest player.
Jeff thinks it’s pointless if it doesn’t affect the game
I think they should keep the money hint but lose the stupid “lose your vote” twist. The money hunt is fun and then everyone wont get rhe same amount of money but also no one has to feel pressured to spending it all. And I think rewards should be allowed to be shared
I agree with getting rid of the lose your vote, but some of those rewards are huge, and sharing it would just be an easy out. I do have to say, though, the auctions were always one of my favorite parts of the season.
They could have just put the advantage randomly and not at the end. Keep it covered and no one knows.
Put the advantage under a bell cover and make it the first item
I think they should go the other way. Right off the top, bring out a jar with enough scrolls for everyone. Tell them anyone that still has all their money at the end can buy one. Then have the rewards get slowly better. Slice of pizza to burger and fries to a full steak dinner. Want a letter from home? Anybody can have one for just $20. Run it up to a trip for four back to Fiji after the show and then bring back the car reward. Who wants to pass on a Nissan Ultima for an advantage multiple people are going to have?
I have long thought they should bring back the car reward because I’d love to see how they handle the car curse nowadays.
Or just not put the advantage last.
I always wondered if it was really last or that’s just the way the edit made it look.
Nah there's a difference between the Auction and this. In the Auction people are trying to win so it's still worth tinkering with it to make it playable.
Touchy Subjects (which was actually Fallen Comrades) was the one they planned exactly who will win and how, so yeah fuck that I would be petty too.
There’s definitely a difference, but they just gave up once players hacked it once. Make it for immunity to up the stakes so they don’t throw it. Switch to a points system so it just becomes about the questions. Throw in a temptation to somehow allow players to see another’s answer sheet and get info on how they really feel.
Also, I get that how it played out was anti-climactic, but I really don’t see it any differently than players throwing a challenge. How many times have players voluntarily dropped out of a challenge when they felt they couldn’t win, or struck a deal to lose and the winner pick them for reward?
Yeah to be fair I don’t know how he would prevent the same thing from happening again in touchy subjects but I feel like it’s kind of bound to happen in a show that’s about having a majority/strong alliance. Not sure why he took such an issue with it when it’s very much in the spirit of the game
The problem is that Jeff Probst has very little depth.
That wasn’t Touchy Subjects, that was Fallen Comrades. They weren’t answering a survey about their tribemates, they were answering about the eliminated contestants.
i would loooove to see touchy subjects back (it’s the only challenge you could directly win via social game) and my hot take is that it should come back as an immunity challenge (bc i think that would be an easy fix to throwing for missy lol)
they need to bring it back though. imagine that challenge on 46
The trouble is that new players, the "super fans," know all those tactics. They would just do the same thing if that game came back the same way. A new rule would need to be made where players couldn't strategize with each other during the challenge. And we all know how much the newer players like to follow rules about strategizing when told not to.
You think Q and Liz would have just agreed who should win? Maria? Venus?
We’re doing a 46 rewatch and I 100% agree. I’d love to watch that same exact cast again any time. You can have them debate the color of the sky and they’d never come to a consensus.
Genuinely, bring the entire cast back. It would be amazing to see what happens the second time around
I said that about Pearl Islands years ago!
They could just have it be point based like in Amazon. They still have to fill out the survey of mean questions, but now it’s whoever gets the most right wins.
Which challenge are you referring to?
What was the Touchy Subjects reward challenge?
Shit was so fucking hilarious
How did they do that?
They all agreed who was going to win. Like literally at the challenge just debated who would win. Jeff finally was like, are y'all deciding who's gonna win this? When they said yes he said, well just tell me who it is, and we're not even gonna do the challenge.
I kind of remember that.
The majority alliance conspired to let Missy win the reward, and they made their plays accordingly, to the point where Probst just said something like, "Who do you want to win this reward?" and they didn't even complete it.
What kills me is they could still do this challenge, and replace the "chop a rope of someone else" part with a points system, that would prevent them from gaming the results like that.
It's a shame, that's a really good challenge that can help people on the bottom find cracks in alliances.
Why not just force them to play it out and prove that everyone’s on the same page like they claim to be?
Your flair is the reason - they can game the results, leading to boring TV. Just give points for each one they get right and they can't do that.
In 44 when Matthew decided to play his shot in the dark to get out of voting in episode 1, so he could just join whichever side came out on top.
I’m surprised nobody has tried that again
Well, Rachel had another creative use for the shot in the dark where she played it to see how nervous everyone else was to check if she needed to play her idol.
I loved this play. Rachel was such a great winner for doing shit like this.
She admitted that this is not why she did that.
She said it was why she did it
she said that’s exactly why she did it lol
Where?
probably bc they’d probably wanna keep their sitd until they feel they need it
I was thinking I feel like it’s been awhile since we’ve seen someone play their SITD. I don’t think it got used this season, in fact the only time I remember it being mentioned is they were worried Nate might play his.
Mary played hers in 48
And saved herself with it resulting in Cedrek voting for all five of his tribemates within the first three episodes.
I forgot about that. Mary was great.
her and sai made 48 premerge so entertaining
A tribe of not idiots gets pissed at the person doing that, cause you just have a 4some now.
And anyway gabler threatened it the season before and his alliance talked him down but it ended up keeping him safe as a question mark until he could settle into place.
After that play I had always wondered what would happen if the whole tribe played their shots in the dark the first time they lost immunity. It would probably never happen but if no one could vote would they all just be safe? Would Jeff break his own rules and make them vote anyways?
There was a challenge with Boston Rob doing the obstacle course for his entire team. Each person on his team would jump off immediately at the start of it, until it was his turn again. Pretty sure there are rules now that prevent a team from letting one player dominate it.
Boston Rob is great at outsmarting stuff - on amazing race, he couldn’t finish a challenge so he convinced multiple other teams to also not attempt to finish and all take a time penalty lol
I cannot believe no one in subsequent seasons of TAR ever used that as a strategy. Production MUST have made a rule against it after it worked so perfectly for Rob and Amber. Honestly it was brilliant.
That one specific challenge from Rob was actually insanely hard. And the other teams probably wouldn't have been able to do it either.
Theyve actually loosened up the rules for skipping a roadblock and detour.
I think it happened on the Canadian version with Dave and Irina, but that was because their penalties were way too short
In All Stars, he also just ran around the obstacles in the final immunity challenge.
When Tyson siphoned gas out of a boat to start a fire.
Listening to Boston Rob talk about the huge fireball they set off in camp lighting the fire that got them caught by production is one of my favourite stories.
Where did he talk about this?
I saw it on a Boston Rob’s TikTok but I can’t find it. But here are the links to Tyson’s version of the story
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS5X9QPeb/
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS5X9XQmU/
Thank you so much for posting that! Appreciate you!
I read that Penner used to sing Beatles songs while talking strategy so they couldn't use the footage due to the copyrighted music
I believe he did this when one of the red tribe members in Philippines (Dana I think?) was having medical emergency and the crew was crowding her, so he started threatening to sing Beatles songs so they couldn’t use the footage unless they gave her space.
Wouldn't they just use the visual of the clip and spice over a confessional like they do most of the edit anyway?
That’s the best one I’ve heard so far lol
How does that benefit him though?
Apparently Jeff sees some of the confessionals which is how he decides to ask questions in tribal council. In order for it to be a good storyline they need to be able to show the audience the confessional. They can’t use the footage if it’s copyright. I think Danni did something similar in Guatamala. She was purposefully vague in her confessionals so Jeff couldn’t ding her on anything.
They can show Jeff the copyrighted material. They aren't leaving him in the dark just because he was singing. That's insane.
Yes but they can’t show the confessional to the audience and they therefore don’t have a narrative, I think is the idea
That's hilarious. They did that in an episode of 30 Rock where they are filming a reality show within the show. At one point Tracy Morgan's character wants to talk to another character without it being in the show so he talks to the tune of uptown girl.
At another point he just puts on a NY rangers goalie mask so they can't use the footage either.
Ozzy gathering underwater items in the easiest spot so that the rest of his tribe would just dive down and grab one. I remember painted coconuts for one of them, but I'm sure there was at least another.
Someone else did that in a challenge where they had individual bags to dig out of the sand. The first person got them all located and easy to grab.
I believe the second one was Malcolm in Philippines, iirc.
I bet so! I rewatched that season very recently, along with others, so I couldn't place which one it was in. I kept thinking Penner did it but that didn't sound right. Malcolm sounds more accurate.
ETA: a poster below confirmed it was Penner.
I just finished watching that season and you were right - it was Penner that dug up all the coconuts for his team
Oh wow, thanks for the confirmation! Just another reason to love Penner. Wish he was on 50...
I’m surprised we don’t see this more often. It seems like a smart strategy.
I wonder if it's against the rules now. Or else people get too frazzled to try, in fear of being the reason a challenge is lost. You have to have some serious confidence to watch your competitors get ahead of you, even knowing you'll likely overtake them.
The first one was Micronesia, the fans tried to do it after seeing it (Jason or Eric I think) but half-assed it and it was too late
Not necessarily outsmarting production, but Shirin in Worlds Apart pointed out that everyone could buy a loved one letter if the first person intentionally spent the least amount of money possible
I think she was the first one to really figure that out.
Jeff really could have fucked things up by just allowing one person to buy the letter, it actually might have been pretty funny how pissed everyone would be
I like to think he was impressed with her figuring it out and let it slide
And ironically, Shirin's move and Jeff allowing it was a gamechanger, as it was what put Mike on the bottom and the entire trajectory changed.
I thought he might for a second, but he "loves love", so he wouldn't do that for specifically that issue.
Peridiam has a series of videos about players hacking challenges, if you’re interested in that
Some of those were pretty fun.
James just carrying the pole in Micronesia
This is the first memory I have of Jeff saying “this is not the way we designed the challenge”
This was the first thing I thought of as well! And then when they reran the challenge in a later season they changed the rule so on person couldn’t just carry the pole.
what challenge was this again?
Can you explain I don’t know what happened here Im curious
I'm not sure if he was the first to do this, but in the "Knock the Other's Idol off the Platform" challenge in Phillipines right after Matsing's dissolution, Malcolm realized that all he had to do to win everytime was to throw his own idol up in the air and then he had the time until his own idol hit the ground to knock the other's off.
Was he the one that came up with that strategy. You see it all the time on Survivor AU
[redacted] was the first one to do it when he went against Penner.
In Pearl Islands there was an immunity challenge that involved gradually filling vertical tubes with water so a ping pong ball floated to the top and players could grab it.
Darrah was so small she could basically slide her entire arm down the tube and barely had to fill it to raise the ball. She might not have necessarily outsmarted production but she was able to basically cheat the challenge.
Hantz just roamed the island finding idols.
This is the first thing that came to my mind. And, if I recall correctly, he has said that he was watching the cameramen for their reaction. If they weren’t really tracking him closely, then he knew he must not be near the idol, whereas if he was being carefully filmed he knew he was in the right area. Plus sometimes the camera stays on the spot where the idol is and zooms in, and if he was keeping on eye on the camera and saw this he would know where to look
His season was the one that got me interested in Survivor again
His season was the one that made me stop watching for a while
You’re not the only one. We were very divided fandom over him
Colby got a Texas flag approved as his luxury item and he wound up bringing one that was big enough to cover the entire Ogakor shelter. In effect he hacked the luxury items to sneak a tarp into his camp, giving Ogakor a huge advantage over Kucha.
Y'all were the ones to mention that Vecepia bringing the journal was a bit of a hack too, right? That's how she won Fallen Comrades?
Yep they stopped letting people bring journals after Vee hacked the game with hers.
Well, I think it's more that they stopped doing Fallen Comrades. Since I think Sally from Season 12 had a journal as a luxury item (though she had to win it in a reward)
Yeah that's a better way of saying it. They stopped letting journals be part of a challenge.
I wish they would bring back luxury items. There’s all kinds of room for cool shit from that.
Vecepia with her journal, and Tina with the vote ties
There was one where a player was meant to cross a gap by having their teammates move in columns for them to step across. But one team just ended up having the person sit on the first column and then carrying that all the way across.
It was James! He carried the person on the column across by himself.
Oh my god I thought it was a team effort this whole time! What a legend.
The time where the groups had to build a raft from logs and one team just shoved the whole thing into the water and rode it like that.
Mogo Mogo’a raft! “Built out of pure laziness and exhaustion!”
The FIC in Guatemala is basically that. They never intended contestants to use the structure that way but the rule was technically only their hands couldn’t touch it so what they did was allowed.
Remind me what the FIC was, haven’t seen Guatemala in a minute.
Balancing on a thingy that had a structure around it, they were supposed to balance while holding on to ropes. After a while they had to let go of one rope, Danielle and Stephanie ended up leaning in the structure with their backs, Danielle had an advantage because she was taller and had longer legs
They had to balance on a platform that was only secured in the very center. It started with two hand holds, then one and then they had to let go entirely. When they went to one hand they all spun off the platform but braced their backs against the structure and got their feet back on the platform. They just stood supporting their weight against the structure and the balance aspect was a complete non factor.
they had to stand on a wobbly platform for as long as possible - Danni was tall enough to wall-sit pretty comfortably with her back to the support pole next to her, Steph could reach but got tired first
in pearl islands each tribe was given a buried treasure chest. throughout the season they were supposed to get clues to its location. after 1 or 2 clues, fairplay got his tribe to search for the treasure chest. while everyone was searching, fairplay told tribemates to watch where the cameras point and then he yelled "Found it!" cameras whipped around to view the location of the chest and the players dug where the cameras pointed and found the chest.
and there's rob c's famous solution to go fish/what's in the box. in amazon there was a challenge where everyone had items in a box and players where supposed to find a match for their items. in all-stars they reused that challenge. rob c told his tribe to just ask the person next to them for the items, figuring that production simply gave neighbors the same items, and he was right.
I haven’t heard either of those stories. Excellent sharing.
I kind of love the items on Amazon cuz they’re so interesting in hitting on the girls it’s a fun challenge.
Got caught and stopped, but Ian tried to tie himself around the pole in the FIC of Palau by using his bathing suit strings.
drea and maryanne played their idols before anybody voted
Ben did it first in HvHvH. Final 6 tribal.
That was more of a cultural statement than a gameplay move though
This also happened in one of the South Africa seasons, and two idiots still voted for them.
This angers me every time I am reminded of it
For the challenge in Nicaragua, it was the first challenge; instead of going slanted with the pipes, they made one long pipe going into the bucket. Also for some stories, Shirin broke the auction when she mentioned that people can bid on letters at a set price, so everyone got letters for $20. In Micronesia, the Airai tribe used only one pole to carry someone from one side to another using James as support. Penner in Philippines grabbed all the bags at one go so that the rest of his team doesn't have to dig it up and waste time looking for them in that one reward challenge.
imo the sharing money/meals made for some of the BEST moments the auction has brought to the show. The “he can’t eat the ham!!” and the cookie incident?? iconic (although not sure if the cookie incident was shared money, can’t remember but regardless). Sharing the rewards and not having the dumb “lose your vote” twist made the auction so fun!
Watching Greg give Ian 20 bucks for a bite of his mash potatoes and watching how focused he was on that pile of mashed potatoes is a good moment too
47, Rachel playing her shot in the dark to gauge the reactions to see if she needed to use her idol
I don’t think I saw anyone mention Liz running back to get Kenzie’s combo number board so she could beat Maria. I doubt production had that on their radar
I don't think that caught production by surprise because it had been attempted in the past, but Probst would stop them and tell them it was against rules
They've still never explained why they allowed Liz to do this
The example that comes to mind is Sophie Clark in SoPa. She asked Albert (I think) to grab the tile for her which is probably against the rules. Liz on the other hand spontaneously just helped Kenzie with no prompting so she wasn’t stopped (or it was an oversight).
Whatever the reason, I feel like it’s a slightly different situation with asking vs just doing it. I wonder if they’ve revised the rules to prevent both now as well
Rachel trying to smuggle the rice from the bags of rice at the challenge.
I always wondered if it was Probst that really caught her or if it was a producer
Danni Boatwright didn’t fully reveal strategy in confessionals
I’ve always wondered though…was “not revealing strategy” part of her gameplay, or did she actually just not have a single clue and thus didn’t have any substantial answers to give? Claiming after the fact that she didn’t “reveal strategy during confessionals on purpose.”?? Just something that I have always wondered. It’s been a very long time since I watched her winning season, though.
I kind of agree with this theory. I never found her to be a good winner especially after she came back to WAW. She was very inconsequential.
In Philippines there was a reward challenge for sandwiches and letters
The tribes had to push a big wooden ball into the others goal, After an hour almost no progress was made so Penner decided to negotiate with Sku*pin they'd give the red tribe would give the yellow tribe their remaining rice for the reward the yellow tribe agreed and forfeit
So artis never got to read his letter from home on his birthday
Andrea figured out Malcolm had an idol during Caramoan because production was trying to get her to vote against him
Shocked no one's said Danni Boatwright yet. She purposefully avoided telling production her plans during confessionals so they wouldn't inadvertently tip off the other contestants
She must have been the first one to kind of figure that out
Danni Boatwright would purposefully not reveal certain information to production in her confessionals. Vecepia, too, I believe. The common thread? They are both under-the-radar, female WINNERS.