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A Look at the Fairness of Paschal's Lossby David Bloomberg -- 07/10/2002
View Printable version of this article On June 3, TVGameshows.net posted an “All in the Game” column about Paschal’s loss due to random chance in picking the purple stone. Steve Beverly wrote that Paschal being tossed in this way was “one of the biggest ripoffs in game show history.” He went on to describe it as a “raw deal” and “subjective justice.” I, however, have to disagree. While this might not have been the best-ever way to decide who stays and who goes, it did have elements of strategy in it, and Paschal knew the rules before he made his decision, thus making it completely fair. It was not a ripoff, a raw deal, or subjective in any way. The column noted: Jeff Probst gives the foursome all of two minutes to come up with a unanimous decision to break the deadlock. Oh, brilliant. You have a judge amongst the quartet who is well aware stalemated juries often take hours or days, if ever, to reach a verdict. This is not the same as a two-minute drill in the NFL. You don't have 38 days of competition come down to two minutes of futile discussion.I have to ask: Why not? The tiebreakers of past times have come down to a quick-thinking switch (when Kelly changed her vote from Rich to Sue in the vote that brought them down to the final three), or to just a single question of survival trivia (such as when Carl lost to Lindsey when Samburu was stalemated at four votes each). Not to mention that the tie itself was caused by a quick decision on the part of Kathy to ally herself with Vee. They were allowed to discuss it and had to weigh the options. They chose to simply state that they weren’t going to change their minds rather than even really discussing it, so they could have been given hours and it likely wouldn’t have mattered. Beverly continued: Probst then tells the four if they can't reach a decision, the elimination will come down to a game of chance with the player drawing the one odd ball leaving. Further, English---who had no one voting for him to go---will return to vulnerability. Let me get this straight: every banishment or ultimate winner in every edition of this game has been decided by a democratic vote (with tiebreakers based on previous votes), save one game-ending injury. Now, we're going to shift gears and draw straws. Add to that, we're going to hang a guy potentially out to dry who had engendered no desire of his teammates for his departure. This smacks of the worst case of a producer making up rules as the game evolved as I've ever seen.First, allow me to note that not all tiebreakers were based on previous votes, since some were tied as far as previous votes went (see the previous mention of a trivia contest). Second, Burnett has changed other rules, so why not this one? We saw in the previous seasons that contestants had started to get smart about using the tiebreaker rules to their advantage. When they were safe, they might toss a vote at somebody just to give him a potential problem later on. Or they may scout the opposing alliance to figure out who has previous votes. In other parts of the game where players thought they had it all figured out, Burnett changed things around to keep it interesting. Why not this time? There is no indication whatsoever that he just made it up as the game went on. Probst was prepared and even noted to the foursome that they had never discussed how ties were broken – so it wasn’t like they came in with any reasonable expectation only to be tricked. Paschal was not hung out to dry – he made that choice himself. He chose to remain loyal to his friend and ally, Neleh, knowing full well that he had a 33% chance of being tossed. If he was thinking about it solely as a friendship decision, he knew there was a chance he’d be tossed for sticking by Neleh as a friend. If he was thinking about it also as an alliance decision, he knew Vee wouldn’t change her mind to toss Kathy, so he faced losing his alliance partner if he changed his vote. If, however, he left it to chance, he still had a 33% chance for his alliance to come out of it whole. Sure, there was a 67% chance of it being broken up, but if he changed his vote, it was a 100% chance. Overall, it was a strategic decision, and he came out on the short end of the stick. The article goes on to criticize Jeff Probst’s answers to questions about the random draw. Probst had responded not unlike some of the points I have raised here. But people had still questioned why Paschal was even included in the draw. Why not just the two who got votes? Again, Probst defended it saying Paschal knew the risks and could have changed his vote. That, he said, makes it fair. Others, including Beverly, disagree. He went on to essentially accuse Burnett of being unfair and capricious: …the rules ought to be employed with equal fairness and not suddenly shift gears as a matter of convenience. … At the very least, English ought to be offered the same $100,000 payout as Dennis, who went on to become the show's runner-up. If this was a case in the judge's court, Mark Burnett would have already been tried and convicted.Actually, if this was a court case, the opposing attorney would be asking where the evidence is for these accusations. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that the tiebreaker was a sudden shift of gears as a matter of convenience. There is no evidence that the rules were employed unfairly. Burnett has pulled pre-planned switches before and there is no reason to think this time was any different. Paschal knew the rules, he knew the possible consequences, and he made his decision. As for giving Paschal $100,000 – why? Not that I have anything against Paschal or think he is undeserving (I had some preconceived notions of him before the game started, but he proved me wrong and I joined the ranks of those who wanted to see him do well), but I have not seen a logical reason to give him the second-place money when he came in fourth. This was not a situation like the screw-up of the trivia challenge in Survivor: Africa, which led to a pay-out because of an actual error in the game. This was an issue of strategy and decision-making. Regular viewers of Survivor know that randomness is part of the game. The switch that was in both the third and fourth Survivor series was random. And that caused more problems for contestants than this single draw. Silas was eliminated because of the switch in Survivor: Africa. Similarly, Teresa and Frank were saved (at least for a while). Sarah was a victim of the random change in Survivor: Marquesas, as was Rob. They went from the majority alliance to become minorities. And Kathy probably made it much further because of it. The fact is that randomness is part of the game. It was certainly more direct and obvious with the draw, but it’s clear that Paschal knew the possible outcome and chose to follow through with it. While I might personally prefer some other method of breaking a tie, there is nothing inherently unfair about the way this was done, nor is it a ripoff or any of the other descriptions given in the TVGameshows.net column. It’s Survivor, and you have to play with the cards you are dealt. Sometimes you are dealt a full house. Sometimes you get a hand that causes you to fold. David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline, and can be reached at rno@pobox.com. Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site and be registered for giveaways and special offers! You can find all of our articles about this show at the Survivor: Marquesas Page, and take a look at our sections on Reality TV Interviews and Combat Missions. You can even buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store! For even more news about reality TV, be sure to check out RealityTVFans.com, SirLinksALot and the Manly Man! View Printable version of this article |
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