Survivor Pre-Finale Wrap-Up

It’s time for a Survivor wrap-up before we find out who actually won. I’ve written mine for the State Journal-Register in Springfield, Illinois, and you can find it at Who Will Survive? (hey, I didn’t choose the title).

But there are some things that there just wasn’t room to mention in a single newspaper article. For example, Debb Eaton’s relationship with her step-son probably made the producers quite happy that she was the first one voted out. The sooner she went, the less publicity their Oedipal relationship got.

There is also the issue of advertising pervading the entire show. Those of you who have been my regular readers already know how often Doritos and Mountain Dew and Visa and Aztek and the like have come up. A recent TV Guide article says this type of ad placement is the wave of the future as more people get used to shooting through the commercials without paying attention. Just as Survivor began the wave of reality TV, they are also at the forefront of this type of advertising. Expect to see more of it, and soon.

I’d also like to add to some of the quotes that appeared in the article. Warner Walker, of SirLinksalot, talked about the various hoaxes and spoilers, and you can see a couple of his quotes in the newspaper article. But he also added something that was too long for the article, but gave an interesting viewpoint.

He said, “Most people are content to wait each week until Thursday arrives and see who gets voted off. Personally I prefer the analysis of people trying to guess what will happen next within the confines of the game over spoilers from people who say they have inside information. Imagine if football or baseball games were all taped a few days before going on the air. You might be able to convince people to tune in to a taped delay, but no real fan would want to watch the game if the commentators started the broadcast telling them in advance the final score.

Mary Beam, of RealityTVFans.com agrees, saying “Half the fun of watching the episodes is trying to figure out what is going to happen next. When spoilers are actually inside info being leaked, it takes all the fun out of trying to decipher info from previous episodes to see what's going to happen next.”

Tricia McLeod, webmaster of the Survivor Fever website, said that “last week’s episode separated the phony insiders from the real ones.” Those who were shown wrong were “good guessers who were able to get away with their hoaxes for a few weeks.”

McLeod adds that she even had a “hoax page” on her site for a while for various faked photos and the like. She ended up taking it down because she thinks it may have “merely encouraged people to make things up just to get attention.” Still, you can find the page at Hoaxes, Red Herrings, and Diversions. You may also recall an earlier article here about how easy it is to fake photos. While that particular photo turned out to be true, it perfectly showed how difficult it can be to tell the fakes from the genuine leaks.

So, tonight we will see who was right and who was wrong. But as I noted in the newspaper article, it’s likely that anyone ending up correct will have arrived there by luck, not leaks.

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