Survivor 22 (speculation/spoilers)

[CrossingGuard]

While I don't share the same opinion as her, I agree that too much was made of Carrie's answer. I also agree that she comes off a bit high and might. But can you just imagine if she had lied on stage. She could have possibly won the title, and it would have been even more controversial when the truth came out.

I've been following missyae's thread over at Sucks; I've been following it so much that it has become sort of an addiction. It only sucks when someone writes about a spoiler about the current season. But anyway, with the rumored contestants of S22, there has been a lot of speculation that the season's theme is rivals (sort of like Big Brother, season 8). That's just pure speculation though, and missy hasn't said anything about that yet.

Missy has also said that the rumor about Rob and Russell having immunity until the merge is untrue. Missy said something along the lines of, "From what I know from the first episode, the rumor is not true." Hooray for that!

Another rumor was that the original concept was Hatch vs. Hantz, otherwise known as Richard Hatch vs. Russell Hantz. That fell through for obvious reasons with Richard, so they went with Rob. The initial plan was to bring out 40 former castaways and have Richard/Rob and Russell do a school-yard pick for tribes. The people who were not chosen for a tribe would be immdeiately sent off (like Jonathan and Wanda in Palau). They scratched this idea so early that they didn't even call any former castaways to possibly take part in it.

I think this thread is in need of some pictures. According to missy, these are the first six spoiled contestants of S22 (in the order of when they were spoiled):

Russell Hantz
• Playing for his third time (third appearance spanning four seasons)
• Came in 2nd in Samoa (2 votes)
• Had a rivalry with Boston Rob in Heroes vs. Villains; came in 3rd place (no votes)
• Winner of Sprint Player of the Season $100,000 prize and will probably win it again this season ()
•

Rob Mariano
• Playing for his fourth (!) time
• Came in 10th in Marquesas
• Came in 2nd in All-Stars (3 votes)
• Had a rivalry with Russell in Heroes vs. Villains; came in 13th place
•

Carrie Prejean
• Former Miss California 2009 (titled terminated)
• Competed with Ashley in Miss USA 2009 pageant; came runner-up
• Center of controversy over response to Perez Hilton's question about gay marriage
• Released a memoir titled Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks
•

Ashley Underwood
• Miss Maine 2009
• Competed with Carrie in the Miss USA 2009 pageant; did not place
• Basketball player at University of Maine; received a full-ride basketball scholarship
• Brunette during pageant (right) but looks to be sporting blonde hair nowadays per her Twitter picture (left); probably blonde on the show
•

Krista Klumpp
• Former cheerleader for Auburn University
• Was Sport's Illustrated Cheerleader of the Week back in 2006; states in the interview that her great grandfather was the inventor of Velveeta Cheese ()
• Competed for Miss Alabama 2004; placed but did not win (winner went on to win Miss America)
• Natalie White's sister just kidding... but they do look alike
•

Kevin Ferguson
• Better known as Kimbo Slice
• Well-known as a mixed martial artist
• Has four wins, 2 losses
• Recently, before every season season started, Sucks had a running gag about Kimbo appearing on Survivor. The rumors were obviously untrue. But now, it seems the countless threads saying "KIMBO SLICE ON SURVIVOR" actually got Kimbo on the show ()
•

[karalott]

Thank God they abadoned that concept. Having Rob and Russell back is bad enough, but I couldn't imagine another AS edition so soon after HvsV and FvsF. I wonder if Rob/Russell would be immune until the merge in that concept. I'm sure it's tiring for the others for them to get 3rd/4th chances and not be able to vote them off until the merge. Team leaders? Ha.

[PWS]

Re that rumor about Rob and Kimbo...hard to believe Rob would be that dumb, unless he's really counting on the Survivor rule about

.
Why does Kimbo only have chest hair on half his chest? Is that a grooming statement of some kind, or a genetic anomaly?

[CrossingGuard]

There's nothing that says it was a physical fight. All missyae has said is that the two of them have a huge fight (and I believe I read that it was on the premiere episode). Who knows, it could be a simple battle of words.

[CrossingGuard]

missyae dropped a big spoiler today about the first 3 days. I'll reword what was said:

And about Redemption Island: I haven't seen all that much about the twist for this season, but I have watched the Israeli version of the show that originated this twist. They called it "Island of the Dead." Every eliminee came to this island and competed in a challege with the person that was staying there. Whoever won the challenge got the opportunity to stay for at least 3 more days, until the next person came along. The ultimate winner (the person that was there at the end) got the chance to come back to the game. The people who were had not been eliminated yet did not know about the twist and were shocked that one more person would be joining them in the competition.

How it worked in the first season of Israeli Survivor is that the first person eliminated (her name was Maya) came to island, not knowing what was happening (no one knew about this twist). She built the camp and thrived on her own for 3 days. Then the 2nd person came (his name was Yoav) and competed in a challenge with her. Yoav won, so he stayed while Maya left.
This process continued until the ultimate winner was determined. His name was Noam and he was eliminated fairly early in the game. (He was the 7th person voted out and had to win 10 challenges to stay on the island.)

He came back to the game at the point where there was one more TC left before the final. He survived the vote (it wasn't a typical TC, but that's sort of complicated to explain) and made it to the final. He almost won in the final, but ulitmately lost by one vote. Honestly, I didn't know how to feel about that. I disliked the other two finalists and I liked Noam more than them, but I didn't Noam deserved the prize since he didn't play the actual game for more than half it. I thought it was great how he was able to thrive by himself for so long, but then again, it's sort of hard to think that he deserved the win compared to two other people who were there the whole entire game. So I ended up rooting for the lesser of the two evils, and she actually ended up winning (5 for her (Ne'ama), 4 for Noam, 0 for the 3rd finalist named Dan).

[karalott]

I'm still not sure what I think of redemption island. So far, I don't think I'm going to like it. It seems crappy for someone to win that was already voted out, but got a reprieve and may win since the other finalists wound up backstabbing someone in the mean time.

[CrossingGuard]

No, that rumor was confirmed to be untrue.

And I don't know about the Redemption Island twist either. There haven't been many spoilers about this twist and how the show is going to implement it. When I watched the Israeli version, I thought it was interesting in the beginning but it soon got tiresome. Also, the Israeli version's episodes ran for hours upon hours, so they had time to fit in the challenge on Island of the Dead. I'm unsure how our version is going to fit it into an hour-long episode--we already have enough footage to squeeze in as it is.

[karalott]

Hmm, that's even more depressing that rumor wasn't true.

[CrossingGuard]

Really? I feel the opposite way. I thought it would have been unfair for them to be granted immunity until the merge. That would have defeated the purpose of the show. Added to that, I don't know about the whole "mentors" thing. It doesn't seem like Rob and Russell were meant to be mentors; they were simply brought back into the game.

[karalott]

I guess when I say depressing,