User blog:Sambarnes/Survivor: Hustle and Heat

Rumor has it that while Survivor: Book Smart vs. Street Smart was airing, the production team of Sam's fanon Survivor filmed and produced an additional season. For months, footage from this unaired season has been missing, but it has recently been found in a file in the show's archive. When Sneaky Sam asked if it was real, producers said that it wasn't; however, they would rather see what the fans think of this unaired season...

Basically, this is what happens when you have writer's block and can't put together the words to write your season. It's a fun writing exercise and I've put together perhaps the definitive train wreck season.

Production
This season began as a joke. I typed in the names, ages, occupations, and residences of my twenty castaways and ran it through this very handy website, creating a pool of characters. From that cesspool of nonsense characters (honorable mention to Jia Chen, the 15-year-old elementary school teacher from New York, NY), I cut the cast down to 18 and randomly divided them into tribes. From there, I came up with a handful of scenarios (such as who would align with whom, any sort of drama, who would find an idol, etc.) and randomized challenge winners. The storyline though, was written entirely through the use of Talk to Transformer.

Fictionally speaking, let's just say that the Survivor production team got excited and cast 18 random commenters they found on the Survivor Facebook page to participate on a Survivor themed get-away.

Twists

 * Hustle and Heat: This season's theme revolves around how sporadic and unpredictable the game of Survivor can be and it was definitely not named that because of the Talk to Transformer . Keeping with the theme, the castaways this season must deal with scorching temperatures while preparing themselves for new and innovative twists.
 * Hidden Immunity Idol: For this season, clues for the regular Hidden Immunity Idols will be etched on a tree to be found in each island. The clue will be placed on the island to attract a villager.
 * Three Tribes: tbh this isn't even a twist because every season has three tribes now Three tribes will compete starting at the beginning of the season.
 * Wheel of Wonders: After every reward challenge, the winners will have an opportunity to spin the Wheel of Wonders to receive a bonus reward.
 * Challenges: The challenges this season will start off normally, but they will ultimately end up finishing with unique and never before seen twists.
 * Early Merge: This season will merge with twelve castaways in the game.
 * Simplified Final Four Tribal Council: Instead of a traditional vote, the person who wins the final four Immunity Challenge will get to choose one person to take with them to the Final Three. The remaining two castaways would compete in a fire-making challenge, keeping with the theme of Hustle and Heat for the right to reach Day 39.
 * Expanded Jury and Final Three: Instead of the conventional Final Two facing the jury of seven, the Final Tribal Council was held with a Final Three facing an eight-person jury.
 * Reformatted Final Tribal Council: Instead of having each jury member speak one by one, an open forum was held to ensure a more insightful rapport between the jury and finalists.

Castaways

 * Andre Palacios, a 36-year-old from Chicago, IL
 * Brian “Big Joe” Smith, a 28-year-old finance director from New York, NY
 * Carmen De Jesus, a 20-year-old former marketing manager/content strategist from Los Angeles, CA
 * Catherine O. O'Keefe, a 47-year-old housewife from Rocklin, CA
 * Christopher L. Smith, a 31-year-old marketing manager from South Bend, IN
 * James “DJ” Cooper, a 42-year-old public defender from Baltimore, MD
 * Drew Smith, a 34-year-old finance manager (of an engineering design firm) in New York City, NY
 * Hans-Günther “Hans” Hüllmann, a 47-year-old film producer from Stockton, CA
 * James F. Cohen, a 50-year-old rabbinical rabbi from Cleveland, OH
 * James Harnett, a 50-year-old former food and clothing designer from Los Angeles, CA
 * Janet K. Hilderband, a 43-year-old financial reporter from Philadelphia, PA
 * Juanita Lopez, a 64-year-old pineapple sommelier from New Albany, GA
 * Julianita Rodriguez, a 32-year-old nurse from El Camino Real, CA
 * Marissa Deleon, a 41-year-old sales manager from New Orleans, LA
 * Melissa C. Johnson, a 44-year-old marine from Alameda, CA
 * Monique Kemp, a 47-year-old housekeeper from Taos, NM
 * Moses Yukimura, a 23-year-old bartender from Aiea, HI
 * Martha “Peaches” O'Connor, a 66-year-old oil fields technician from Dallas, TX

Author's Notes

 * Shoutout to Talk to Transformer for doing 99% of the work this season it's only 99% because maybe there's a few castaways that are from future seasons
 * I actually enjoyed designing the logo for this season; it was based on my scrapped first draft of the Book Smart vs. Street Smart logo.
 * I have no idea why almost everyone in this cast is 40 years old and above.
 * This season will run concurrently during Survivor: Book Smart vs. Street Smart and Survivor: Belize.
 * I was going to including cast bios, but node count strikes again!
 * I did some lurking and found ItsAjNeale's Survivor: Penang. I was inspired to write a season based on randomness.