User blog:Courierthekid/Production Mistakes

It's been a while since I've done one of these discussion blogs about the show. Since last year actually. I really like doing them, but sometimes it takes a while to come up with a decent subject, which is why I don't just do a YouTube series, though I would like to. But I found something interesting to talk about now and it's something I'm not entirely well versed on when it comes to foreign versions or even the American version, mostly because it's something the crew is fairly tight lipped about and rarely addresses unless it influences the outcome of the game. So for now I'll just go through times that are well known by all and some moments for speculation that I have rattling inside my head.

So in my [https://survivorfanon.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Courierthekid/Most_Deserving_Runners_up. Last Blog] I made a point of including that Chrissy losing to Ben wasn't a error on Production's part or that she even really deserved to win at all, but since then I've been thinking has there ever been a moment where production did actually cost someone their game unintentionally. By making an actual mistake. I looked into it and yes there have been, these may be well known by now of course but it's still worth discussing. Also let me just say I will not be including Ozzy Lusth, Devon Pinto or Chrissy Hofbeck on this list, mostly because while they may not expected to go the way they did, it was still intentionally done by production and worked the way it was intended to. These guys just happened to be the first victims of a pre-planned twist.

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Paschal English- Let's get the most obvious one out of the way first. Paschal's exit in Marquesas is infamous and has been addressed countless times. At the final four the votes came down to a tie between Kathy and Neleh. The votes deadlocked so they had to come to a tiebreaker. This was after the previous votes tiebreaker was killed off, but before the final four fire making tiebreaker was introduced. Production was kicking around new ways to do a tiebreaker and settled on Rocks. Paschal who had no votes against him up to this point and was in no danger at that Tribal Council was suddenly forced to pick a rock which caused him to go out. It's very well known, but I'm still hesitant to say Paschal was robbed of winning since if the fire-making were a thing back then, Neleh likely loses and Paschal goes next, but it's still worth pointing out as an unfortunate moment in the shows early history where the situation just wasn't really though of enough.

Lex van den Berghe- Courtesy shout out to Big Tom on the same season for the same reason, but I'm going to give this spot to Lex over Tom because like it or not, Lex was actually robbed of winning the game by this mistake. It's the final four of Survivor Africa, there's a three person alliance of Ethan, Big Tom and Lex versus Kim Johnson. The only way these three guys break up is if Kim wins Immunity. The final four Immunity challenge is a trivia game asking questions about former castaways which comes down to Lex and Kim. The question is asked, "Which female castaway had no piercing on her body?" Kim answers Kelly Goldsmith, which is correct. Lex answers Lindsey Richter, which is incorrect. Kim wins Immunity, and Big Tom is voted out. Except here's where things get messy. Lex was actually right. It was revealed at the Reunion show that Lindsey had no piercings, so the challenge should have continued, but because production had only Kelly as the answer Lex lost. This is another well known mistake in which production actually apologized and did end up giving both Lex and Tom the Runner-up prize for the mistake, but it is a time where Production actually made a mistake that cost somebody the game without question.

And well that's pretty much it for confirmed mistakes. Like I said I don't count first time implementations of twist as Production mess-ups, since they actually played out how they were supposed to, even if it cost deserving players the game. Instead, let's talk about speculation for a bit, because I have somethings on my mind along this topic. These are all things that feel out of place in their season, and even though they haven't been confirmed as mistakes, just seem too weird to have at least not been used incorrectly or in the wrong place.

Multiple Switches in Gabon- Gabon has the most Tribe switches without an expansion of any season of Survivor, and it's because of these switches that the Fang tribe ever had a chance of winning the game. They all sucked at challenges and constantly lost, but due to constant tribe shuffles they somehow made it to the merge with the numbers. They did this in spite of losing challenges because somehow they always ended up with a majority over the former Kotas.

Fake Merge- In Survivor Thailand there was another very infamous and out of place twist when the tribes started living together on the same beach. This was at the final ten when a merge usually takes place, but instead they didn't merge and stayed as two tribes living on the same beach. It's easy to see that the Sook Jai were supposed to be the heroes of this season, but no matter what they were going to be pagonged should Shii-ann flip, luckily she doesn't because there is no merge so when Sook Jai loses they just vote her out, but now we have the problem of them already being down 4-5 should they merge here. Oh well better go again, oops they lost again. Guess we'll merge. The fake merge is so out of place that it's hard to see any reason it could exist other than to give Sook Jai a little more time. Maybe I'm over thinking it, but the end result was the same anyway so it's not like it mattered.

Neal Gottlieb- This isn't in reference to his medical evacutaion. This is the most recent example of a twist in the game interfering where it doesn't really belong. I believe the "Remove a Juror" twist was pre-planned for use by production, but I don't think it belonged here, because well... Where would they have put it? Seriously Michele wins this advantage on Day 38 instead of Immunity, but had Joe not been evacuated would this twist have even been there? I really don't think so. Like I said I do believe this twist was planned for another season, but they had to toss it in last second when Joe was evacuated.