Players on reality shows tend to put off voting out big threats thinking it's too early to make a big move. No. It's never too early to make a big move. If someone's a big threat to you winning the game and they're all lined up ready to go, push them out the door. (Or off the island in this case.)
There is no one on either tribe who would beat Boston Rob in the finale, so he should be the first out followed by Sandra or Parvati. Instead, they're voting off the lesser threats. Some argue, "Well, Rob could come back and be angry." Hey, only one person comes back from Extinction Island, so let's fill the place with the best and toughest to beat players then unite to get out whoever comes back. It's not that hard. I'd rather the best players were all over there than still on the main island if I was playing. And the more weak players you put on Extinction, the more likely it is for a Rob or other good player to beat them to get back to the big island. I'd want Rob, Parvati, Sandra and other dominant players gone.
As to how they get the tokens? Officially they say no one talks to the players but Jeff. I'm pretty sure that's not true. Players always have questions about rules and the like and Survivor is getting pretty darn complicated with all of the powers and advantages floating around likely leading to still more questions and more confused players. If only Jeff was allowed to answer their questions, well Jeff would likely spend all his days wandering back and forth from tribe to tribe explaining things. If nothing else, medical has to interact with the players on a daily basis to give them their meds and check their condition. Probably ninety percent of the cast is on a medication of some sort that has to be distributed.
Based on everything I've learned, I'm pretty sure the field producers communicate with the players more than we're supposed to believe. Players wouldn't just wander into the Jungle Confessional set and pose and talk game without some prompting from production. Maybe it's Jeff who wanders into camp to set up the jungle confessions, but I doubt it. We see how excited the players get when Jeff shows up so it's pretty apparent he's not there on a routine basis.
Production wouldn't want others to see the token awardees getting the token, so the tokens have to be exchanged someplace where no one can see it, and as far as I know the only truly private place is the jungle confessional set. They can hand them the token there, explain what it is, how it works, answer any questions and then film them "finding" the token in their bag and unwrapping it all in privacy. Just finding the token in the bag isn't easy. The tokens aren't that big and the bags are pretty big. If one was just slipped into a bag it could sit there for days before being noticed. I've known women with smaller purses than the bags used on Survivor who lose stuff in their purse on a regular basis and have to dump the purse out to find whatever they lost in it. A token that was just slipped in could go unnoticed for days.
There has to be a private area where players can ask questions and get answers from production. I'm pretty sure they use their jungle confessional set for that purpose. (Sort of the like the Diary Room in Big Brother.) And I'm pretty sure Jeff isn't the only person who talks to the players. I'm betting each player gets called to the jungle confession set on a routine basis for their meds if they're on meds, a quick "Are you okay?" and vitals check by medical, a quick Q&A with a producer about anything they have questions about, then a prompt of what production wants them to say in the confession and then off to the next player.
You don't hear as much about a staff psychologist on Survivor, but they have at least one in Dr. Gene Ondrusek. I'm pretty sure he doesn't counsel them in pantomime, so there's more than just Jeff talking to the players. In an interview on cheatsheet.com he talks about how they counsel the players before, during and after their time on the show, so there's clear interaction at least with the psychologist/psychologists during the game.
One thing that bugs me in recent seasons is how they're now wrapping the idols in bright colored paper/cloth or using brightly colored strings to make it easier to find the idols. Last night's idols were wrapped in blue and orange paper. They used to wrap them in something like burlap that blended in better, but they really want them to find the idols these days. It's getting to the point where they'll just hand them out to people.
Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!
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