Survivor: Redemption Island
 

The cast -- minus two -- is announced.

The internet rumor is and has been that the two unannounced castaways are Boston Rob and Russell Hantz, who will lead the two tribes.

Am I the only person getting sick of Boston Rob?

These two are good reasons to not watch. Sick of them both. They are great players only in their own minds.

DaffyKD

I'd say I'm tired of him. But I really don't want another season of Russell.


I'm sure I'll watch anyway. :o

I guess I don't see how Russell can be effective anymore, now that anyone who has ever watched Survivor is familiar with his game. Besides, if it really is him and BR, his raison d'être will be to get rid of BR, which will probably hinder his gameplay.


Sidenote: I wonder if Russell paid off the producers to give him another shot? If he ends up in the finals again, I believe he does deserve the win, because making it to the finals AFTER everyone already knows that he's a liar who will do anything to get ahead is a whole 'nother matter than what he pulled off twice in a row last time.


So you'll be upset if I make it on Survivor? :p

The rumor on the web has been that he and BR will be tribe captains and will have immunity until the merge. CBS has confirmed that the two "unannounced" castaways will be on different tribes.

The Redemption Island idea I like. BR and Russell again, not so much.

Per their Facebook feed - it's official: BR and Russell.

Wiki's already got a winner listed, but they've also got BR and Coach listed as the former contestants, so take. that as you will.

Also, I take back what I said about Russell winning - it's not a W if he gets a free ride halfway there. Why would they do that? It doesn't even make sense. It would only make sense if they were there just to "captain" and not eligible to win (or they "win" if someone from their tribe wins).

Thankfully, this part of the rumor was untrue. Here's hoping for an early exit for both of them.

This will be his 4th Survivor...it's getting a little ridiculous now. Maybe it's his "reprieve" to get away from the wife (i.e. Amber) and child.

Yup, I said it

There was actually another Rob who was very good on Survivor...I think he was in the season that Jenna Morasca won. Rob Cesternino (thanks Wikipedia!)

Wasn't that Boston Rob's first season, hence why the "Boston" and not just Rob, or is my brain making that up?

I actually kind of like Boston Rob - at least he seems to have grown up a little and not take himself so seriously. I still use his line about "crybabyitis" on occasion.

Russell is just demented. Can't stand him.

Bumping to remind everyone that Survivor starts tonight!

Yay!!!

Late to the party, but Rob Cesternino was on Survivor-Amazon w/ Jenna Morasca (ZTA!), Boston Rob was on Marquesas with Kathy.

I agree with you- I'm fine with BR and his style of game play. Russell not so much. I really don't like that he went back to back so the all stars weren't able to see his game play. That's a huge disadvantage for all of them, and a huge advantage for him. Even if they had an inkling or semblence of forewarning, they didn't see it all go down.

Well, he was on the Villains team, so that was clue #1, and the fact that the producers pegged him as a popular enough player before his season even. aired should have been clue #2 to ditch him fast.

First reaction would be that they'd be stupid not to vote Russell out first, however on second consideration, with a chance he may re-appear in the game and the fact that he knows how to get to the end of the game but still has (probably) not figured out how to win, I might be inclined to keep him around for awhile. After all, would you want him coming back pissed if you had a hand in voting him out?

Oh boy! I realize that they've thrown in a concept that has majorly changed the game....but has no one on BR's team seen a previous episode? One episode?

Obviously Kristine missed the rule about not making big moves until you have to. What was she thinking? Her plan may have gotten BR out first, but then what? She's about the most short-sighted player I've ever seen. Meanwhile when Francesca made the comment about not thinking about getting voted out first, I knew things would not look good for her. I doubt she's got what it takes to stick around Redemption Island long...especially with a good chance she'll come up against Russell if his team loses.

By the way, I'm sticking to my statement that they should keep Russell around until they bring the person back from Redemption Island...Russell is VERY good at individual challenges, and if they vote him off, there will be a very real possibility that he'll be the one who comes back. I'm assuming that person will come back at the merge, and Russell could win enough immunity challenges to get himself to the end. I realize he could still do that if they kept him around until the person comes back from Redemption Island, but I'd rather not have a pissed off Russell on an Immunity streak, if I were them.

Completely right about Kristina. I was really liking Francesca, but she blew it too. And Phillip is just plain nuts.

And you're right about Russell. I may just have to swallow my pride (and the slight taste of vomit in my mouth) and put him on my fantasy team.

Since we didn't get to see much of him last night besides him picking his "dumb girl" (not that I'm complaining), I wonder if Russell's gone looking for the idol yet?

I also wonder if there's an idol on Redemption that could either save you from a duel or go with you back in the game...

Saw Jeff Probst on a talk show, and he mentioned Phillip- I believe he said that the agency that Phillip supposedly worked for couldn't confirm if Phillip really was a former special agent, security reasons, you know. But yeah, Jeff basically seemed to say that Phillip is a bubble off plumb.

Exactly and an excellent point.

Didn't you know that just by being NEAR an FBI Profiler imparts their genious and skills onto you? It's like osmosis, but way cooler.

I rode up the elevator yesterday with the president of Expedia. I'm pretty sure that makes me the almost-president of Expedia.

Regardless of what kind of agent he was, it's easy to tell if people on Survivor are lying: their mouths are moving. It's how the game is played.

On a slightly more serious note :D I am enjoying the season thus far. Usually after the first episode I feel totally lost and don't have a clue who anyone is, beyond maybe one or two key characters. I felt like I got to know more people and their game play this time. Plus, they weren't all clones of each other. Ghosts from seasons past, sure... but that's another story.

I also liked the mix of physical & mental games- I hope that continues.

The commercials for "what if..." were annoying though. I mean, do I really need to see 5 or 6 of them while I'm watching Survivor? It makes me less enthused about Redemption Island. One, maybe two I get. That was too much.

Wow. What a great first episode!
I'm sure there were interesting things that happened prior to Tribal Council, but I've completely forgotten it all!
I got so tickled with Phillip's continued mispronunciation of Francesca's name. Priceless. I'm not sure who gets my vote for stupidest TC move - Phillip, Fran and Kristina are pretty much tied in that regard. Still, despite her dumb move, Fran was one of my faves from this episode.

Hat's off to Rob for asking Kristina to give him the idol. Brilliant move, really.

I would've liked to see either Kristina or Phillip get booted before Francesca. Despite the early stage of the game, I had high hopes for Fran. I'm hopeful that she'll make it through the RI duels to come back into the game. We'll see!

Rob got the tribe of crazies. Of course, we don't know how crazy the other tribe is because we barely saw them. Phillip is totally nuts. This may have been the funniest Tribal Council ever.

The Redemption Island thing does add a whole new level to the game. I would be wanting to vote out people who I thought I could beat in challenges when/if I got sent to Redemption Island.

Thoroughly enjoyed the episode! I also thought that it was one of the funniest TCs ever...Phillip might be one of the stupidest players of all time. Did anybody else catch that one of the votes for Fran was spelled "Francesqua"? He was too much.

Kristina a needs to chill out. Her desire to be a power player and show off her immunity idol was foolish. If I found the idol, I don't think I would tell anybody. I also had high hopes for Fran...she appeared to be a strong, intelligent woman. She unfortunately aligned herself with a couple of crazies.

I didn't understand what the point was of Boston Rob asking Kristina for the idol. He said, "If you give me the idol, I promise you wont go home tonight." She wasn't going anyway, since she had the idol. Was he just seeing if she was stupid enough to give it to him, then they would have voted her out? I must say, even though it's his 4th time playing the game, I love that he's on the show again.

She didn't play the idol though, so she could have been voted out. I was surprised that she didn't play it, quite honestly.

There was a lot of crazy going around at tribal council. Definitely one of the weirdest yet.

Wednesday reminder bump.

I'm interested to see how this duel thing will work...I'm assuming it will happen tonight, as opposed to first thing next episode. Also, I'm wondering how they'll fit it all in, since they had been having just one challenge until the merge the past few seasons. I hope we don't lose a lot of "getting to know people" to make room for the duels, but I don't see any other choice. I suppose they could cut out the "What If" Survivor moments, but as happy as they got with them last time, I don't see that happening.:rolleyes:

I'm also predicting right now that Russell finds an idol. I haven't seen any previews except the one after the episode last week, so I forgot what tonight's main drama supposedly is.

ETA: I forgot to say that I don't think poor Francesca has a chance in the duel...I don't know why, but she seems like she would be weak at challenges.

What are these "what if" moments everyone is talking about? Did I miss something?

I'm sure that when he goes looking, they'll let us know.

We don't, however, know what kind of challenge this will be. It could be mental, it could be physical.

This new twist in the game should make tribal councils interesting. Strategically voting out players takes on a whole new meaning. Now the people at tribal will have to take into account who’s on Redemption Island, and plan accordingly. Maybe NO ONE wants the player there to come back, and the tribe feels they need to send someone there to get rid of that person indefinitely. Or maybe the tribe is having second thoughts, and wants to bring a player that’s there, back onto the team. Or maybe they don't much care who comes back.

This is going to be fun.

I'm hoping at some point (later in the game) they have a fire-making duel!

I don't know how you watched the episode, but if you watched during TV broadcast, as they went to commercial, they talked about former players, and "What If" they had a chance on their season to come back into the game. They might have been cute after the first time if they gave us some new footage, or even some actual speculation of how the game could have turned out (beyond "could they have pulled their alliance back together?"), but there was nothing new in what they showed, besides a rewind of the torches being snuffed. Oh, and did anyone else (besides MC) catch that they said Jane was from SOUTH Carolina?


About the duels...they're probably going to be similar to the individual Immunity challenges, which tend toward physically, but it doesn't matter, I feel like she would be weak in a physical or puzzle challenge.

Here's my question about the Redemption Island part of all this...

Will the Survivors know which players win the RI duels? When another player joins Fran, and they duel, will the winner be announced to the Survivors?

My gut feeling is no. I think they want it to be as much of a wildcard as possible, hence not stating when that person will return.

If they hadn't been specific about using singular "person will re-enter the game", I would also wonder about them bringing back more than one...not that it's completely out of the question.

I don't think they will even know who is there. I hope that info is kept secret from the other players.

It is my understanding that the latter is how it will work. We don't know when that final person will return, just that he/she will.

The merge would make the most sense. Otherwise, what team would they go to? The only other option would be at a tribal switch, which they usually do if the pecking order gets too defined.

I assume we'll see the first duel next week. Otherwise, the vote at tribal council won't be the climax of the show. Besides, I'd think there would need to be some set-up when new people check in to Redemption Island.

I didn't even catch it -- I always DVR and watch it later on Wednesday night, so I fast-forwarded through the commercials.

I am REALLY enjoying this season so far. I had forgotten how good Rob is at this game. He was born to play it.

I'm starting to think that Philip has a mild speech impediment. In tonight's episode, the word that he meant to use was "gallantly" (in describing how he did something) and instead, it came out "gallantry" (which is also a word, but not correct in the context of the sentence).

Just an observation.

Agreed. And I don't understand why his tribe is, for the most part, willing to let him do it.

My dream episode next week: Russell's tribe goes to TC. Russell decides Ralph must go and bullies everyone into voting for Ralph. Ralph keeps the idol knowledge to himself, plays the idol and votes for Russell, so Russell is gone with just one vote.

I can dream.