Done with Survivor

For the umpteenth time in a row, revenge voting rules the day as the worst player in the game wins. Yesterday it was revealed that Sandra Diaz-Twine "beat" Parvati and Russell in the final three even though her grand plan was to do whatever they told her. Once again the "nice" coattailer wins the game instead of the person that made the necessary alliances, strategic moves and immunity wins to last in the game.

To me the voting should always be about who the strongest and smartest player is in the available group of finalists. Not who might have done someone wrong, hurt feelings, or just seem oh so nice. The criteria are simple - who played the game the best. Being able to coat tail to the end doesn’t meet those criteria to me.

I have no doubt that Russell is a world class #$@, but he played one of the best games (again) in the history of the game. Once again he was responsible for eliminating the majority of the players, he engaged in the chess match that cost 2/3 of the players their chances goodbye and often win the physical matches when most needed. People say he lost the "social" game...but my argument simply is the social game shouldn't matter.

Due to that "social" aspect of the game, the weakest seem to win the game every season. The "social" aspect basically means that while a player was inserting the knife they either convincingly made the argument of "I was following orders" or "hey we still buds right!” I would rather see blunt honestly of "I am not trying to pretend we are friends, just win the game." People would rather have their delusions of friendship instead of simply being beat by the better player.

Ironically we do get reality in this game. In real life, often those that get promoted are those that make the least waves, that follow orders, even bad ones. They focus more on making friends then making enemies and avoid responsibility for anything while pointing the fingers at others. In real life, we dislike these people and resent that the weakest win out in those circumstances. In Survivor, they get voted the winner of the game, again and again and again.

I watch shows like Survivor to escape from reality, not see it occur again in just a more exotic setting. It was a fun ride but when the players do nothing but disgust me with their revenge voting and mimicking the worst of reality, it is time to call it quits. Season 21 and more of Survivor might be interesting, but I am opting out. When they can find players don’t focus on their feelings more than who played best I might come back but sadly if that can’t happen in 10 years, it just proves that it is simply against human nature.