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Probst! Please rein in your Tribal Council.

My one big frustration with Survivor...

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Any good Survivor fan knows this has been going on for ages.

But it’s now a weekly ritual, and the host is doing nothing to take control of it.

I’m talking about Tribal Councils when contestants, for some inexplicable reason are allowed to whisper, plot and effectively hijack the show.

Viewers are privy only to the odd hushed message as somebody flips before the elimination vote.

I’m sorry. I thought that’s what the entire post-Challenge scramble was for.

And I thought Reality TV was about the viewer being part of the conversations.

Part of the joy of Survivor is watching someone’s plan play out during the Tribal Council chat with Jeff Probst, and the viewer having extra information that a poor player may not be across.

But what’s the point? It all gets thrown out after Probst has probed everybody and then lets them run amok.

I keep yelling to my TV. “Sit the hell down, people. Time’s up. We’re going to the vote!”

To me it reeks of a host losing control of his show and just negates everything that has gone before it.

Am I alone in this frustration or do fans love seeing them panic?

18 Responses

  2. As for me, I have watched every episode of every season until Jeff was absolutely determined to get rid of a simple yet iconic “Come on in guys”. If it had just gone away without making a big deal about it and just like so many things in society today 3 people out of 17 were in favor of eliminating the phrase. Why did they not take a vote and see how it would go? If the two people that were offended of the statement so badly, then why did they audition for the show in the first place? In the famous words of Willy Nelson. Turn out the lights, the party is over. Good riddance to what used to be a great show.

  3. I actually love a good tribal council scramble if someone says something during it that makes everyone freak out! But not every tribal…..it loses its appeal if it just happens each time.

    We’ve seen every episode of every season and this season is by far the worst – I don’t care who wins, I don’t count the days until the next episode – its so sad. There are rare minutes of excellence scattered throughout the episode but its nothing like the previous seasons.

    I really hope Jeff and the producers read and listen to the viewers as basically nobody is enjoying this season and I worry about its future if people switch off.

  5. I think this is a bad example to complain about.

    The actual votes ended up as a garbled mess of what was planned pre-Tribal and what was “agreed” in the Tribal scramble, and that will likely provide conflict for coming episodes outside of Tribal.

    Now, when a dominant group decides it’s always a good idea to fake a scramble to deceive the others (to influence whether an Idol is played, and by whom) it may get played out.

  7. I absolutely agree. This season is a re mess. All the promises of season 41 the bigger and better survivor have been such an epic fail. The game play is bad and the “new survivor” is not new its boring and uneventful. I dont mind the odd tribal where they stand up and talk but every time is so annoying. Australian Survivor is far superior than what we are being served up.

  8. Didn’t they used to strictly enforce the rule that you could not communicate once the vote begins?

    Probst has clearly lost control of the show and the producers are just aiming to please everyone and ending up pleasing nobody. The “come in guys” nonsense showed that things which should be sorted in production meetings are spilling over into the show – the contestants are there to play the game, not produce it, and need to be allowed to do so. The reports on the unaired fall out of the farcical merge twist, with one contestant telling producers “This isn’t a twist, this is a lie” and Probst following it up with a conversation with contestants, whilst still in the game, about how to produce such twists in the future, just highlights how he has lost control of the game.

    The enforced break should have been the opportunity to rediscover what made the show work in the first place and somewhat strip it back to basics to rebuild it stronger. They’ve failed completely to do…

  9. Its always been this way but it’s been getting worse and worse as the seasons went on. Its like they really don’t care. I think as long as it makes good tv thats all they worry about.

    1. I’m pretty sure it hasn’t always been this way, but emerged in last few years. Nothing about it is good TV to me. I’m not witness to the conversations. All the strategising earlier is pretty much tossed aside.

  10. Survivor 41 (as a whole) is easily the worst Survivor season ever, but this sort of whispering also happens on Australian Survivor, just not so frequently. I have mixed feelings about the issue. I think Survivor has bigger problems, so I don’t really mind the suspense of castaways choosing to flip their vote from their original target to the new, discussed target, as a result of Tribal Council activities

  11. I think it has gotten better in how the scramble is presented (relevant discussions are subtitles, ect – earlier instances of this would have none of that and expect the shock from the “ohh, look the players are talking at Tribal”, ect) but I agree that I don’t like it too frequently

  12. This will never be changed as it makes for good viewing. I do think the scrambling should end when Probst says the words ” it’s time to vote”, but apart from that, no issues from me.
    …and you can predict it’s going to happen based on the time left till the end of the 42 minutes.

  13. I agree. This season is bad enough as it is unfortunately, but last nights Tribal Council was just ridiculous. Jeff just sat there with a silly grin of his face letting it go on and on. Frustrating to say the least.

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