Rewatching E6

[crystalclearhawaii]

kwdrewfan okay then it's settled! I will def make the effort!

[Cruise meerkat Youssy]

Episode 6:

-okay we’re finally getting strategic talk woo
-not a fan of this fish throwing challenge. Not especially memorable to watch, but one thing that I did appreciate was the swimming portion. Endurance doesn’t have swimming missions that often.
-watching Caleb get so upset surprised me. I wanted to know more
-Uhhh JD you can’t just like call out alliances like that. Like you’re literally blowing their game up. Lauren recovered really well though. She handled that so well. I think that I’m liking Lauren less on this rewatch, though. I remembered her being nice but inconsequential, but she’s actually getting a lot of airtime. I don’t like how she’s all about ~the alliance~. She’s literally Green’s puppy dog. “I’m just as happy for them as if I had won”. Like girl you don’t want that extra piece? And just the way she talks is kinda robotic and self centered. Idk, hard to explain.
-YESSSSS I LOVE JACKIE CAN’T WAIT TO WATCH HER MELTDOWN

[Cruise meerkat Youssy]

Episode 7:

-Jackie is so cute with her lil pigtails. Underrated character for sure. Like the fact that she was always just on the verge of going, like... insane LMAO. The Purple/Blue alliance was cute although unsuccessful
-"I think we were too nice in the beginning. It's time to get nasty." "...........What do you mean by nasty?" CONNOR LMFAO
-Hannah is such a ... rude person in this season... first the whole "confronting Briana drama" then "Let's talk about the Samadhi" "I don't wanna talk about the Samadhi" (Jackie) "Well he said we can talk about the Samadhi so we're gonna talk about the Samadhi" (Hannah) "Well, it doesn't even matter now..." (Jackie) "Okay. Well you don't have to be rude about it." (Hannah) the entire time with this sassy tone and look on her face (this argument kept going after this but as you can see HANNAH brought it to an argument). I forgot that Hannah and Jackie even had a problem with each other.
-"I think it's gonna hurt her in the end because karma is gonna come back and bite her in the butt" -Jackie, and we see later that it indeed does bite Red team
-"Just throw things at them!" LIKE JACKIE IS SO WILD LMFAO
-Orange taking names, good for them. But Jackie has a point "Orange sending Purple and Blue wouldn't be smart because it's eliminating the weakest competition first". And in the end, Orange was outlasted by their allies. Although Blue outlasted everyone, so take that how you will.
-Can someone describe Lauren's personality to me?? Like in their own words? She's gotten a decent amount of screen time but I just feel like she's so... unmemorable. Like she doesn't really have a personality? She keeps getting more and more smug as Orange/her alliance wins more, but as a person I'm like... who are you
-Blue still has gotten like zero edit. Jackie's "You guys have to win, okay?" Like she was a little cray but she was spot on about how the game shook down.
-PURPLE AND YELLOW WERE ROBBED!!! I swear if they had both made final 4 this season would've been sooo much better
-I'm really upset that the "I hate Leslie, I HATE LESLIE!" preview didn't make the final edit of the episode! Me and my sister used to walk around screaming "I HATE LESLIE!" when this season was airing because I think it was on a commercial lol, and it was on the preview of last episode but not on this episode

[Cruise meerkat Youssy]

Episode 8 (rly episode 9 but I'm not watching the midseason recap... why did they have those every season anyway??):
-With Purple and Yellow gone, let's see if I enjoy the rest of the season...
-Purple team's switcharoo in their letter was so funny "We're giving our piece to Orange... JUST KIDDING! Actually we're giving it to Blue" Purple being ICONIC even after elimination <3
-Today's mission will be played for TWO pieces... aka our twist didn't pan out and we have all these pieces and not enough teams to give them to
-Blue is in the lead but literally haven't "earned" a single piece (through mission winning) of their own. Good for them, though. Playing the social game is still a valid way to earn pieces in my book, but does it discredit their win a little bit?
-As soon as I type that, Ben says exactly what I was thinking... I really like Ben and wish they'd give him more screentime!
-Lauren THINKS she's running things but Leslie's the one in charge on this beach
-EVERYONE underestimates Blue but look who won in the end!
-Jonathan also finally getting a little bit of screentime for the first time besides, like, yelling at Hannah in Sand Bar Relay. But it's for, once again, yelling at Hannah.
-This mission is underwhelming... a trend for this season it seems... it's like Fireball but... worse
-Despite the mission not being that unique, it was interesting how competitive it was. All the teams were basically tied the whole time and you had no clue who was going to win. Leslie actually caught the last ball first, but stepped over the line so it didn't count. In the end it didn't matter because they won anyway, but it would've ended a lot sooner cause that was the first ball they launched on the last leg.
-Jonathan was yelling at Hannah the whole time but meanwhile he launching the ball like ten miles down the beach... like can you learn to aim a little better before you scream at her.
-The one time I actually loved Hannah this season "Sorry I'm not GOD, I can't catch all the balls, okay!"
-Jonathan apologizing to Hannah:
-Green team talking about how they would never betray a promise, yet they give the Samadhi to Red. Even though Green felt their alliance with Red wasn't genuine, that's not how Red felt, so that was really deceptive. Yet tactical. Leslie, you smart.

[carsonvega]

May 2, 2019 21:57:01 GMT -5 Cruise meerkat Youssy said:

-This mission is underwhelming... a trend for this season it seems... it's like Fireball but... worse
-Despite the mission not being that unique, it was interesting how competitive it was. All the teams were basically tied the whole time and you had no clue who was going to win. Leslie actually caught the last ball first, but stepped over the line so it didn't count. In the end it didn't matter because they won anyway, but it would've ended a lot sooner cause that was the first ball they launched on the last leg.

Don't hate on the Island Hopping mission!

You can thank Jeszie and Isaac for pretty much "breaking" Fireball.  They proved that, if the ball used and distance didn't change (and the weather was calm/the ocean was not in play, which admittedly is a more difficult mission setup for the production crew), it was possible for a team to nail every single shot they took.

Island Hopping was meant to fix that problem by changing both the ball sizes and the distances, such that the teams could not expect to connect every time.  From a production point of view, Island Hopping was a huge success.

Jonathan's issues with connecting with Hannah actually highlight another great part about this mission (beyond the resulting "Sorry I'm not God" quote) - it actually created a difference for teams that barely missed versus teams that missed by a lot.  Most Endurance missions (including both editions of Fireball) had no such complexity.  I think it's great to reward teams for being closer than other teams, even when both teams miss - it doesn't have to happen in every mission, but once in a while is good.

Another thing that wasn't always great about Fireball was the fact that one miss could make a team lose.  Yes, it made the mission pass quickly and was in some ways very dramatic, I suppose, but just as Jeszie and Isaac's perfection is not ideal from a fairness point of view, neither is such a heavy penalty as being eliminated from a mission for a single mistake, or a single action of another team.  (Yes, this means I also think Bagging on You from E3 is not that great either.)  If teams are allowed to work directly to eliminate the other teams, I much prefer something that takes continuous effort, like Water Logged in E1 or Fill and Spill in E5.

The most Fireball-esque mission in E6 was actually Box Launch.  Box Launch was also a major improvement from Fireball in two ways.  First, continuing from my previous ideas about single mistake/single action, it took more than one "hit" by another team to take a team out.  Second, unlike almost every other mission where teams work directly to try to eliminate the other teams (including the missions mentioned above, plus E2 Tide Pull, E3 Squaring Off, and E4 Raft Pull), there was an opportunity cost for groups of teams that all wanted to target the same other team - that is, they had to wait while the other teams in their group tried to target the outcast team, and thus could not shoot as many shots as they could have if they had always targeted a team that wasn't being targeted at the same moment by another team.  Box Launch could have been better if the baskets had been set up to make it more obvious who had targeted who, but it was a solid effort overall by the production crew to try to prevent one team from getting ganged up on so early, all things considered.  Bottom line, I didn't think Island Hopping should have been Fireball because of Box Launch already occurring earlier in this season.

Finally, Island Hopping is a GREAT title for the mission as it is on theme, referencing the US strategy of removing Japanese troops from some islands in the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

I will always admit that some parts of Fiji are bad (ugh, Stand Bags).  But I actually think some of the missions in Fiji are some of the best thought-out in all 6 seasons of Endurance.

[Cruise meerkat Youssy]

Island Hopping was more competitive than Fireball, but it was just so... simple. Like it could be done on like a middle school field day or something. Maybe that ties into the whole it was expensive to film in Fiji thing - it was supposed to be a little bit more complex but they couldn't get the proper equipment or something.

Episode 10:
-"I thought Lauren was my best friend but I guess not". Hannah is now the SECOND person that considered Lauren a good friend yet got screwed over by her (Briana says hey). Yikes.
-"Either I'm the biggest idiot or Green and Orange have an alliance!" ...a day after getting the Samadhi... where Green literally said they made a promise with another team to never give them the Samadhi... Hannah you gotta use your brain a lil sweetheart.
-I mean, Red must have figured out that the alliance wouldn't last this round any way? Even if any of the three teams won, they'd still have to send a team from the alliance...
-The entire second half of the game (and a good part of the first half) has basically been about this Green/Orange alliance. And none of the four are particularly likable, although I tolerate Leslie and Caleb. Which is another reason why this season is so meh. Red team now has this underdog thing going for them but even neither of THEM have been particularly likable either!
-The editing on 3 To Go was SO BAD. It's the first time I've really noticed bad editing in Endurance. In the second round, Leslie hasn't made any matches but a shot of her shows matched pieces sitting on the ground. Then, Ben gets all the Luck pieces on the second round but in the third round, he still has Luck pieces on the board??
-Ben wins Blue's first mission, woo!!
-Jordyn lasting five minutes on Shark Bait is actually pretty good for her, considering how quickly some people dropped out of Hang Out in E4 (I think that's what it's called right??)
-What are the odds of Blue and Red winning when Green and Orange have pretty much been steamrolling the missions since the beginning? But I love it
-"I'd be just as happy for my alliance to win tonight as if it were myself" I can't get with this mindset, Lauren. Like have a little self preservation.
-Will is like a low budget Isaac
-Even a bad Endurance season is a good watch, truly.

[Cruise meerkat Youssy]

Episode 11:

-Orange was MAD in their letter. They said, we airing out all of Green's lies!! Lol
-Rly wish this episode was an Endurance mission, not a Temple mission. Like this is part of the reason Fiji just felt so SHORT. Going from four teams to the final two in just two days.
-Leslie had this beach under CONTROL. She is seriously one of the best strategists ever on the show.
-I don't hate Stand Bags but I don't love it.
-Can we say worst twist ever? If you win at final 3 Temple mission you deserve to be in the final 2. PERIOD. This twist would've been better with more teams in the game.
-Obligatory RED WAS ROBBED!!!
-Another episode with ZERO characterization or glimpses into life on the beach. It literally went from letter reading, to mission, to Temple selection, to Temple. If they had focused a little less on the routine things and put some screentime toward showing personalities and relationships then we could have gotten to know the Fiji cast better and enjoyed the season more.

[waterwoodfire]

Just to clarify for your episode 10 recap, the E4 mission was called drop out.

[Cruise meerkat Youssy]

Thanks, I'm kind of terrible at remembering mission names for some reason.

Anyway, Episode 12 aka Finale Part 1
-Karma piece is a nice twist. I do like it. Because it's about who deserves that good karma. It's interesting that Orange both voted for Blue, as they gave their pieces to Red and Green. So spreading the love a little there. Caleb's explanation was "cause they haven't done anything wrong!" But how much did they do right though?
-I do think it's telling that of the eight eliminated players, seven of the votes went to a team that made it to the final 2. Overall this season had a solid final 2.
-Here's my conundrum with this season: I don't like Green but I cannot deny that they played the absolute best game and deserved to win based on that. They had great teamwork, made the alliances, won when they needed, and dominated the beach physically and socially. On the other hand, I like the Blue team, they seem like really nice and cool people... but they didn't really do anything the whole season. They kind of sat back and let the game happen and rolled with the punches. They tried their hardest, but Green just played so much better. So I'm not mad about Blue winning because they're great people, but I can't help but feel that even though I liked Blue better, that Green deserved to win.
-I SOOOO wanna rewatch the outtakes and deleted scenes from this season. I remember there being so many funny ones. Jackie's "There are goats everywhere!" confessional is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Sadly, I don't think they're in existence anymore.
-I actually loved this battle for pieces mission. It was creative and fun to watch!

[Cruise meerkat Youssy]

Finale part 2
-Will is salty that Blue made it to the finals "We deserved it more than them, they just kinda snuck their way through"
-"Will and I feel really confident, considering we're going against the Blue team. But, I mean it's not like they're not strong so anything could happen". And anything DID happen
-Ben was playing smart in this final Temple and using logic to figure out how many pieces they should place. Good for him for thinking of that winning strategy
-It sounded like JD wanted Green to win...
-Blue was a good underdog team but I'mma just say it. GREEN WAS ROBBED
-Leslie has the last words of Endurance. "It was amazing coming here, just out of this world" So sad that Fiji was the end of an era.

[fanofe2]

A) Cinnamon would have been GREAT.
B) I think part of what makes this season different is the fact that it was filmed differently. Compare camera angles and effects to other seasons.

[oakville2405]

Apr 12, 2019 16:30:02 GMT -5 Cruise meerkat Youssy said:

Episode 3
-Okay, I kind of really like Kyle?? I really underestimated him as a partner. He's really supportive of Briana and seems intuitive to the social dynamics of the game. Briana still... isn't giving him the best chance it looks like but she's at least attempting to work with him. I feel like she just... wasn't the best at socializing. If that makes sense. She almost is a bit awkward with everyone. That being said, I still love her tbh. But Kyle's quote "Yellow team isn't, you know... one of the most popular teams" is just ugh. Again, Endurance has turned into a popularity contest where Yellow is persecuted just for not being in the "in crowd".
-JD's questions are just like... really pointed?? Is it just especially so this season or is it always like this? Like, after the whole Briana/Hannah argument he seemingly "randomly" singles Briana out for "looking upset" about Kyle being her partner then "randomly" asks Hannah if Briana is actually homesick. Then after Green and Orange make their alliance he "randomly" asks Leslie if there's any alliances. Like can you not be any more obvious?
-I forgot Jonathan has such a country accent lol
-Lmaooo at the producers realizing that Sand Bar Relay was wayyy too hard of a challenge midway through "umm new rule you can start grabbing two at a time"
-Will and Leslie are just unfairly strong together.
-Magic Box was a good prize to win just... I don't see why they needed a whole mission to determine who wins a free round at Temple. Like it wasn't an important enough prize for the whole mission to just be worth that prize only.
-Green's fake prize was not believable at all. Smh. I bet Will's non-Endurance-watching self came up with that. But then again everyone bought it so whatever.
-Three episodes in and Blue has received ZERO screen time

I mean if I were in Will's position, I will be like "We sprinted the whole time just for THAT?! Give us a piece dammit!" So I give props to Will for faking a prize, especially considering the fact that green was the ONLY team that actually ran during the relay

[kwdrewfan]

Unpopular opinion I guess, but I would much rather win the free round at temple than another piece... I feel like it's an INVALUABLE advantage as it goes towards the riskiest portion of the game of Endurance, whereas there are SO many other opportunities to gain pieces. Even if you don't get one for winning that particular mission, there's still a good chance you'll end up gaining pieces later on anyway. Whether it be from winning another mission, receiving pieces from an eliminated team, or something random like the Karma vote

[runesandribbons]

I started getting back into Survivor so I finally watched this season all the way through for the first time, since the last several seasons of Survivor have taken place in Fiji and I wanted to see if I recognized any landmarks (I don't know what happened when it first aired. I watched like the first episode and 1/2 of like episode 3 and then never caught any of the other episodes). Not gonna lie this season feels very off. You could almost tell that production wasn't the same as the last 5 seasons with the smaller cast and cutting out the last Endurance Mission at the final three, everything just kind of felt rushed and almost like a shell of the other Endurance seasons. Also, there were way too many twists this season. Twists aren't necessarily a bad thing, but it seemed like almost every episode, there was some kind of twist. The final Temple elimination twist was stupid; if you win the final Temple mission, you should get to go to the final two like every other season. That's how Endurance works. Red Team got robbed. Also, two Temple missions in one day: why? The challenges weren't that bad, though, even if a lot of them felt like homages to previous challenges. I really liked the final pieces mission being a scavenger hunt.

I really didn't mind Blue winning it all, either. Like yeah, Green basically controlled the beach since day 1, but Blue, even though they only won one mission, didn't seem like that weak of a team. They went to temple twice and were 2nd or 3rd in several missions (they were so close in Island Hopping). The finale has always been a logic/luck puzzle, which was their strong suit and since they weren't that far behind in pieces, they were able to take advantage of that and win. Blue actually kind of reminds me of Red from Tehachapi, while Red was considered a strong team (mainly thanks to Erika being a beast in Drop-Out), they only won two missions, Drop-Out and the final Temple mission, Circle of Trust. Before Spin-Fly, they had four pieces, but had only actually won one piece, the others were the one they started with and two that had been given to them by other teams. Purple on the other hand, while only having two pieces before Spin-Fly, had won four missions (one Endurance and three Temple). This season also only had three Endurance missions with all of the other seasons having at least four (Tehachapi had 5), giving Blue less of a chance to pick up a piece for their own before the final mission.

Anyway, I feel like now I'm just rambling, but this season and High Sierras have always felt really off to me compared to the other four seasons and I really think one of the reasons has to do with how those two seasons were edited and the episodes were structured. The first four seasons (excluding the first few episodes of Hawaii) were very formulaic: every episode starts at camp where we see a little bit of behind-the-scenes, they discuss the samadhi/what happened at Temple the night before, JD comes to talk to them about the day and on Endurance mission days they have the letter reading, there's a few confessionals, then they do the mission, then go back to camp and show the direct aftermath of the mission w/ more confessionals and showing the winning team discussing what to do while the losing teams either try to convince them who to send to Temple/give the Samadhi to or talk to the other losing teams and on Temple days the winning team picks who to send to temple, the two chosen teams go to Temple/they go to the designated place where they give the Samadhi to another team, the winning team from Temple goes back to camp/the teams head back to camp, episode ends. This season (as well as High Sierras to some extent) does't really follow that, having a lot more cliffhangers (sometimes in the middle of missions!) that kind of disrupt the momentum? of the show (not sure the right word, but whenever the show ended on a cliffhanger and then came back a replayed exactly what happened, I lost some of that excitement), as well has cutting out a lot of scenes back at camp, jumping from missions to choosing who goes to Temple, or JD comes to talk to them about today's mission and it immediately cuts to the mission. We missed so much of what happened in between the missions I feel like. We didn't get to really see these kids bond like we did in previous seasons. All these kids were like "I had so much fun with everyone here" or "[insert name here] was my best friend" and I'm like:



There were some great moments, but I felt really disconnected to these kids because I didn't know anything about them like I did in previous seasons. Anyway, the whole production of this season seemed really rushed and it really contributed to why the season felt so off, but kudos to them showing everyone (normally they just have the winners talk over the credits) talk about their Endurance experience while playing that one song in the background that never fails to make me cry. It felt like the perfect way to send this series off even with a lackluster final season.


Also, whatever happened to Temple at night? Night made temple seem way more foreboding.

[Cruise meerkat Youssy]

Yes I totally agree about the editing! It just skips right over camp life which is how we actually get to know the contestants! And I think the first few episodes of E6 actually started off pretty well in this regard... we get to know Cinnamon a little, the whole Briana vs Hannah drama, the Green/Orange alliance starts to form...but on like episode 3 it’s like they just stopped caring.

[runesandribbons]

Exactly! I probably couldn't tell you one thing about most of the contestants. And there were plot threads that were brought up, but never expanded upon like Caleb's dad. And Jonathan's portrayal on the show did him absolutely no favors with his partnership with Hannah, but several of the other kids also mention he's a pretty great guy, but there's like absolutely no content that really shows that. Fiji really focuses on the staged confessionals (where they sit them down in a certain location in front of an actual camera) as opposed to the actual confessional booth (that at least looked like the kids videotaped themselves), which was really unfortunate because the booth really helps to show each kid's personality and gave us some really iconic lines like Daniela's "who's in charge now?" from E4 or Sarah's "I won... the thingy!" and so many of Monroe's iconic quotes from E3. I think it was a missed opportunity on the editors part for this.

I wonder if the shortened filming schedule had anything to with how choppy the editing seems compared to other seasons. According to the wiki, Fiji was filmed in only 12 days, whereas High Sierras and Catalina were tied for the next shortest schedule at 17 days, a full 5 days longer than Fiji (in contrast to Fiji, Hawaii was filmed in 21 days, Tehachapi in 20, and Mexico in 18). Also, since they're minors, they can only film for so long in a day, so maybe since they were so crunched for time, they weren't able to get much footage of camp life since so much of their filming time was devoted to filming missions. That's just a theory, though.