I always have a hard time sleeping on Thursdays, because I get so wound up while watching the show. After I am done mulling over the stupid things the Survivors have done, I try to calm myself by coming up with ideas for the show. Here are some of the things I have come up with.

Start the season without tribes, with everyone in one camp. This would eliminate the boring voting along tribal lines after the merge, and the need for a tribal switch. It could also make for some interesting challenge dynamics: Have more then one person win immunity (maybe even the top half). At an even number, have the person who comes in last at immunity lose the right to vote. Break the tribe up (gender lines, age lines), take them to different challenges, and meet up at tribal council, with no strategizing time. Some challenges could be individual, others could be 'team'. You could have them pair themselves off, thinking they were picking a partner, then have a head to head competition - all winners get immunity (or reward).

And this is my most complicated idea (remember, I came up with this very late Thursday night.) Have the players take a poll like they did this week with the following questions:

Who has lost the most weight?
Who talks about food the most?
Who needs a shower the most?
Who wants a shower the most?
Who is the biggest threat to win the million?
Who is the biggest immunity threat?

Have them do this when six players are left, you must right down each name (including own) once. Don't tell them what they are competing for, have them do a head to head competition. The winners to the top two questions go head to head, competing for a meal. The next two compete for a shower. The last two compete for the car.


Any other ideas?

I really liked the idea of telling people to choose a partner, and then learning that the partner you chose would be going up against you. ITA about the tribal merges too, it don't even seem necessary to have seperate tribes anymore.

I like the idea of no separate tribes, with multiple immunities. Perhaps a different number each time. Get them thinking they just have to finish in the top 4, and then announce week 3, "This time only one will win immunity." I like the idea of the players scrambling to juggle multiple alliances, to cover all angles. And talk about a pissed jury! Everyone will be saying they were lied to, etc.

another idea:
It would be a little unwieldy, but shuffling tribes every week would be awesome. Do it the morning after TC, give everyone a day to get used to each other, then do RC, and the next day, IC. The next morning, shuffle AGAIN. This would again lead to mad scrambling to have multiple alliances, so you wouldn't end up on a tribe friendless.

What if they had an immunity challenge and then didn't tell the tribes who the winner was? Maybe like a puzzle challenge where whoever got the most right would win only they announced that the winner would be told later. Then you bring each tribe separately to tribal council. They go through the questions and the voting and then Jeff leaves to tally the votes. Only he doesn't come back. The tribe that sits there the longest before leaving wins IC. Whoever the losing tribe voted off goes.

Or how about a guest host for an immunity challenge?

Or how about an emergency tribal council in the dark with night vision?

Or tell them the IC involves not getting within 10 feet of each other. Would break up cuddling and group meals for a while.

Or give them treemail for an IC and send them each to a different spot on the island. Nothing will happen and the last person to give up and return to camp gets immunity.

Or have the tribal council right after the IC, with no chance to discuss strategery.

Messing with their minds...

This has been done at least twice. The final immunity of S6, and the jury vs F4 immunity of S7, when no-one was immune.

I'd like to see some structure to the game that encourages tribe spirit. I know we tune in every week to watch people compete against each other, lie, backstab, and generally try to win at others' expense.

Just thought it might add a nice flavor to the game to have some things that prompt people to act selflessly. Maybe have the IC winner get a great reward for everyone but himself. Or have the person who behaves selfishly be sent home without a vote.

Maybe there could be some challenges that promote the tribe as a whole. Like rewarding skills that benefit everyone (maybe shelter building, or navigating to a reward through the jungle, yes fishing, even singing or something else to lift everyone's spirits).

It would be interesting to see some game elements that create a sort of cycle or reinforcement. Like the more they cooperate and work together, the more they all get; when one person tries to get ahead, they all lose.

I'm probably a lone voice on this but sometimes I get tired of watching people treat each other badly.

You're not a lone voice in that amke. I'd like to see that too. I think Survivor is like watching a tiny piece of humanity and community. It's very indicative of the way we live in this world. And it would be nice to see people work together, instead of trying to kill each other off.

They had the men and the women, how about the skinny and the fat, or the old and the young?
The competitions would have to be physically neutral.
How about one show where everyone is physically equal?
How about one with all ex-cons? Scary Survivor! Devils Island Survivor!

Maybe mix the idea of having no tribe with this idea. Still do team-style immunity challenges before you get to the traditional "merge" time, but randomly select the teams for every challenge. That lets you keep the managable size for TC, but gives the benefit of no chance of a pure Pagonging.

HI Everyone,

I'm new here, though I've lurked for a while.

On the subject of improving Survivor, I've got a couple of suggestions.

1. First and foremost, cut back on the rewards. This season has been almost like Survivor Hyatt Hotel: every other day they're having drops of tools, mattresses, going to five star restaurants, luxury yachts, and recently Pizzas and beer. The name of the show, and the beginning where they jump off a boat suggests that they are simulating survivng a shipwreck or something. For a million dollars, surely they can go without manicures and buffet dinners for a month?

Also, it makes for boring TV: 20 minutes of Tom getting drunk, Rupert stuffing his beard and girls ooohing, aaaahing and ohmygodding incessantly. Oh, and keep their relatives to a minimum, too.

2. Get some new challenge ideas. I'm over the 'traditional Thai puzzle' already, though thankfully we've lost the food auction. Challenges should include more mental aspects, too. The quiz about each other was interesting, but loaded (who thinks she's intelligent, when she's not?

That's all for now..

As for tribal shake ups what if Burnett reached into The Apprentice's bag of tricks and kept the tribes seperate until it's down to 4, two on each tribe? Do trades if nessecary to keep numbers even or at least relativly even. I'd say have the tribes still live together when it gets to be 9 or 10 people to keep the jury informed. It's certainly not something any player would expect.

I don't think that would work in Survivor Tygrkatt. A solid alliance could just keep voting out whoever was traded onto their side every week.

Maybe, but then there will be times when it's a member of a strong alliance that gets moved. Trades would have to be random, since who stays and who goes is decided by players, but it could work. I'm not saying the idea is flawless, and it could bomb horribly. It could be intersting to try it.

Call me deranged, but I would like to see the contestants unanimously vote out Jeff P. At least we would see if he does have a peak at the votes first, and rearrange them into a tension building order. Sadly I don't think they will ever cross Survivor with Monty Python.

Somebody a while back suggested that the TAR route should intersect with the Survivor camp, which I found to be a hilarious, if unlikely, idea to contemplate.

Or how about this idea? Many countries have had their own version of Survivor, with varying degrees of success. Why not have an international one. With at least 6 that speak little or no English. They are already trialling this with Big Tom.

Tasmaniac, according to Jenna, the first season already tried it. They just revoted.

Tasmaniac, I like the idea of an international Survivor. In Africa they did a multicountry Big Brother, that I think was a big success. It wouldn't be hard to get 16 English speakers of various fluency. I've known some Scots with impossible accents that would be great to see interacting with a downhome boy like Tom.

Interesting article on what's wrong with Survivor on the Slate web magazine at Slate

I read the Slate piece, and it made me think about what I think would encourage smarter gameplay. Instead of piling on twist after twist, they need to strip away everything that interferes with the gameplay. No tribes and single immunity from the beginning. Only one person is safe at every TC. Small teams allow even smaller groups to assemble and with no immediate consequences, that small group controls its team until the merge, and then the larger team (with only one exception to date) decimates the smaller one because it's better to stick with the devil you know. Lazy, weak and dumb players thrive in this environment and turn the game into tedium just when it should be heating up.

To add to this, and to minimize the effect of an immunity monster, the person with immunity is the only person who votes. He or she has sole say in who gets voted out. That way the game is constantly changing and evolving, and choosing your allies becomes critical. No more smart player picks three morons to carry him or her to the end. Every action will have immediate consequences and it's up to the individual players to determine when to play it safe and when to make a move. They all can't play UTR because someone will have to win immunity. Win too many immunities and paint a target on yourself. Weighing your options and taking calculated risks will become the norm instead of following the leader off the cliff.

Finally, after each TC, they receive the bare minimum rations they will need to survive until the next TC. (1 cup of cooked rice per day per person for three days) They will be responsible for providing the rest. No more starving Survivors.

My worry with Survivor: So much English, So Little Time, would be that 1) a lot of people already hate us, imagine if we put Rob, Tom & Rupert with our brothers & sisters from other nations?, and 2) It would have to be balanced IMO. For instance, 4 each US, Canada, Australia & England - I just think that puts people on a better playing field and prevents, at least initially, an international gang-up on another country.

However, I think it's a great idea for shaking it up the show a bit, without losing the integrity. From I've gathered from our Aussie friends, the love that is Probst is definitely an international language o' love. And I think it would be a great way to see new strategies put in to play from people (although I guess a lot of other countries get US Survivor) who haven't seen this version.

They just need to do something to shakeup the concept of alliances. It was something new in the first season, and now the minute the contestants meet their tribemates, they immediately start forming alliances. It's starting to get old and it has really dragged down this season.

I think that one season where all the immunities are individual from the start would help. I do like having two tribes, but I'd like to shake that up a bit. Here are two odd ideas...

1. Two tribes. All immunity challenges are individual from the get-go. In each IC, the first place person wins immunity and the second-place person wins a switch card. Both tribes go to Tribal Council. Both tribes vote. The only people who are eligible to be voted for are the non-immune people on the tribe of the person who won immunity. Right before the vote, the second-place person can switch places with one person on the other tribe. The other person has no choice but to switch and (if switched to the vulnerable tribe) becomes eligible to be voted off.

2. Two tribes. Two kinds of immunity. All RCs are individual from the start. When you win an RC, you also get an immunity necklace. The ICs are tribal, and the winner gets the immunity idol. Both tribes go to Tribal Council. Only the losing tribe votes, and only the members of the losing tribe are eligible to be voted for. However, the person with the IC necklace can give it away, and they can give it away cross-tribe.

I'm not sure what a solution looks like, but both these ideas, unworkable as they probably are, try to address the heavy dependence on alliances that is now bogging down the game.

This is something about which I have thought for quite some time. An international cast of native English speakers would be great. The only caveat would be that the nationalities would have to be divvied up evenly. Have anglophones from Africa and India thrown into the mix, too, so that it's not just white folk from USA, Canada, the UK and Down Under.

One problem with Survivor is always that the first person is booted out way too soon. It has always struck me as unfair. I think that the first few challenges should be reward challenges. Maybe after seven days the first Tribal Council could be held. One week is enough time for the survivors to get a feel for one another.

Given how the international concept flamed spectacularly on Joe Millionaire 2, I doubt the Survivor PTB will be adapting this idea anytime soon.

If Survivor used the "only one tribe" idea, it really would just be Big Brother on a beach. But I do often find the politics of the Big Brother game more interesting than Survivor, so I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It would completely change the game, though, and I'm not sure MB wants to make that big an adjustment.

One thing I think they should do in the future is sequester the jury members seperately. I don't think PI's Let's-All-Shit-on-Lill Party would have been nearly as ugly if they jury was not allowed to communicate. Sequestering the jury prevents people like Rupert, Burton, Rob C (I'm convinced he said things about Matthew that made the others not want to vote for him, and I don't even like Matthew), and Lex, from swaying votes away from the people they don't like.

How about only one immunity per contestant? Once a person wins an IC, they sit out the rest of the IC's and can't win it again. Strong players might avoid winning an IC too early in the game.

I think shifting the tribes around as much as possible is a great idea, and do it early, if only to disrupt (but not necessarily kill off) strong alliances. I could see the 3 tribes idea used in ASS moved to a regular series, or even up it to 4 (maybe with 20 contestants, with 2 players lost during the first two TCs from the 2 losing teams).

Personally (but would not make for great MB television), I'd start off every player on their own tiny camp, with no allowed contact with anyone else for the first two days. Then they would introduce teams at the first IC, but after that, they must live individually. Make it so that the weak players are suffering, and suffering badly. At some point afterwards, they could then start moving into individual team camps but not at least for 2-3 IC bootings.

Actually, the IC itself could be made a lot more fun by having it right then and there after the IC challange (as the Trivia ones tend to be). Sure, it won't be dark and brooding, but this means that the players have to make up their minds on the spot of who to vote for, getting some rather juicy debates as Kathy did with Vee at F4. Lots of pandamonium if a team doesn't plan well or alliances fail to account for all options.

Building on what's been said upthread, put everybody on one beach. Production divides them into two teams of eight, along the usual lines - carefully balanced for sex, race, and age. Run the first IC as usual, and send the losing team to tribal council. Run the first RC as usual.
When they get to the second IC (15 people), appoint three leaders to pick teams of five. Run the second IC as a three-way event, and send the losing team to TC. RC in the same teams, winning team gets reward.
Next IC (14 people), appoint two leaders to pick two teams of seven. RC in same teams.
At 13 people, make it an individual challenge, and give immunty to the first 7 finishers. Everybody votes. RC in pairs chosen on the spot, winning pair gets reward.
At 12 people, divide them into four teams of 3, and send the two bottom teams to TC. RC in same teams, winning team gets reward.
At 11 people, for the first time, keep them in the teams from the previous IC, and again send the bottom two teams to TC. RC in same teams, winning team gets reward.
At 10, two teams of five. The winning team all gets immunity, and everybody votes. RC in same teams, winning team gets reward.
At 9, three teams of three. Winning team gets immunity, everybody votes. RC in same teams, winning team gets reward.
At 8, four teams of two. Winning pair gets immunity, everybody votes. Individual RC, no sharing.
At 7, 6, 5, 4, and 3, individual immunity & RC's; rewards to be shared with a different number of fellow players each time.
At 2, jury vote by the last 7 bootees.

I think that's about as many tribal shake-ups as can be fit into one season of tv. The players would each be trying to preserve their own alliances, and here's the cool part, in doing so, they would have to expose those alliances every three days or so. Or would they? Get an experienced con-man like Thailand Brian in there, and he'd have half the crew convinced that him not picking them was proof that they were his nearest and dearest. Another cool part: keeping everybody on the same beach first to last means lots o' strategizing (which is dear to my heart), and also lots o' drama (dear to the hearts of the production company). With that many people, I'd bet we'd finally see a revolt of the worker bees: "Screw you guys. We're moving to the other end of the beach. If you want water, get it yourself." I sooo want to see how that would play out.

The coolest part of all: with things changing every three days, nobody can just go along for the ride. Everybody would get caught on the hop at some point, and would have to solve their own strategic problems. And there wouldn't be this eternal dissatisfaction about "undeserving" winners. Heaven.

Great idea. I think the picking of the teams would be problematic, but would make for very interesting strategy. Maybe the top x number of players in the RC challange would pick the new teams at IC. Would the person picking the team go for alliance mates? strong people? or people more hated then themselves, so if they end up at TC, it won't be themselves that get the boot.

I don't know the best spot to put this post so I'm putting it here. Apologies if I'm wrong. I don't know how to improve Survivor, but one thing that bugs me about this game is that the strongest players often don't win because of the jury. There are two games going on -- one to get to F2 and one to get the money by asking 7 people you've beaten to give you money. These two games are usually counteractive. It takes brains, strategy and sometimes screwing someone over to get to the second part of the game. But those actions have in fact made winning the second part of the game that much more difficult.

I've watched every season of this damn game, but with 2 exceptions, I've been really disappointed with the winner. So I finally figured out what bothers me most. The jury. Using that word connotates to me an impartial panel, and as this season would seem to prove, the jury is not exactly going to vote based on the merits of the game. And that usually means I am upset when the final votes are tallied. Is there a way to have the jury vote objectively, or do other posters think that pettiness is just as valid a reason to vote as any other? I agreed to that statement in another thread because it's objectively true, but I don't necessarily like it.

So what can be done to make it so that the active players don't get booted at F3 or that the jury isn't so vindictive that they vote against the power player? Or does it matter to anyone other than me?

And BTW: excellent idea ems7. Your post was amazing.

ems7, that sounds awesome. Not only does it diminish the power of alliances, but it also makes the UTR strategy a much less effective one. Which is good, because UTR is boring (I find).

ems7, that is awesome. The people who select the teams (the team-pickers) could be chosen by a simple spin of a wheel, done right there. Some players may be picked more than once, some never. It's diabolical.

It could be cool to have the winner at the RC not get to pick, but the 2nd through whatever finishers having to pick.

So, do you try to win the reward? Try to avoid the reward, because if you come in second, you will have to show your hand? Sit on the ground, scream and shout because you have no chance of ever winning a reward?

A simple idea would be allowing the winner of immunity challenges to cast two votes at TC.

I liked the idea of three tribes on ASS, but thought the way they handled it sucked. What about they have 3 tribes again, but this time only one tribe is allowed to win immunity and the other 2 go to TC? I think that would be great because they could go into different tribal combinations (Say in TC1 Tribe 1 & 2 go, next time TC2 Tribes 1&3, etc.) The only problem would be if there was another Chapera-like tribe on our hands, and they never lost immunity.

Although even if there was another Chapera immunity monster, they wouldnt always have complete control, once there is a merge the losing tribes could still easily outnumber them. Also as it's been said, shuffle the tribes. Shuffle them often! MB shuffling the tribes once, one TC away from merge time isnt going to change anything *coughASScough*.

Maybe once they get to merge, what if the person who wins immunity doesn't cast a vote in TC? On one hand your safe, but your alliance of 4 may not necessarily be in control at the F8 or F7 if only 3 can vote! If they kept the rule of being able to give your immunity away, it could make for some interesting gameplay.

No purple rock. Don't even entertain the thought of a purple rock. The idiotic, safe playing form the ASSes which caused this blight of a season can all be attributed to a desire to not cause any tie-breaking scenarios. Change back to past voting history tie breakers, and tell the Survivors in the beginning of the game that past voting history will determine tie breakers. It will make people more conscious of recieving votes, and might help improve the season overall.

There are a lot of good ideas on this thread. I hope Mark Burnett reads TWoP.

My idea would be to start without separate tribes. Immunity from day one would be individual. This would cut down on the stupid tribal loyalties that allow lazy players to coast into the final four.

The challenges would be a better combination of the physical and mental. There were too many "strength" challenges in Pearl Islands. To his credit, I think Burnett realized this, as there were almost none in All-Stars.

Voting patterns would decide tie-breakers, not the stupid rock trick Burnett has pulled. After a month in this game, no one should have their opportunity at the million taken away by a game of chance.

At the end of the game, it would be made known that the jury is made up of all the players, not just those that made it to the end of the game. I've always felt kind of sorry for the first person voted off. They never really get to participate in the game. Having them be a part of the jury at the end would make every action count throughout the entire game, not just the final couple of weeks.

Now that we have had an "All stars" I would like to see "All Stars" vs new people. You could have one tribe of the AS and one tribe of the new people and see what happens. But you don't tell either team who is on the other team. The AS could think that the other team is AS too.

Another idea is to keep the tribes, but still have each tribe compete of IC and both tribes vote out a player each ep until a point when you merge. (Maybe final four) that way the whole alliance thing would be thrown out of wack
.

Aside from the chance that it could end in a tie, I like the idea of all the booted Survivors voting, and give the deciding vote, if necessary, to the audience. That way, if the vote ends in a tie, at least the more popular player will win.

The idea I had was to have a "couples" survivor. 8 couples. No partners on the same tribe to start...this would make it kinda hard to pick off the other players after the merge.

Excellent idea. Possibly the early evictees could continue to live on the survivor beaches. Provide them with basic food and water and comfortable-ish sleeping arrangements. They wouldn't be able to talk to the remaining contestants, but they would see and hear most of what goes on. It would make strategising hard when you have all those beady, and hell-bent-on-retribution, eyes staring at you.

That seems too extreme, but maybe just use the Big Brother rule that you can't win two in a row? (Except the Final Three, which should be open to everyone).

Also, I think the PRoD should be replaced with a best 3 out of 5 Rock-Paper-Scissors contest. With that many tries, there's an element of both luck and strategy involved, enough strategy to make people less wary, but enough luck that people won't race to it.

I think the reason the producers went to PRoD to begin with was that I remember a few votes where the "previous votes" tiebreaker was being used almost as an extra vote to make sure that one alliance won. That was taking advantage of the tiebreaker a little too much, so it was replaced with something players would be less likely to risk.

But they took it too far the other way so nobody will ever risk a tie. Rock-Paper-Scissors I think fits perfectly in the middle.

Jenna screwed herself because of fear of the rock, but there could be a tie on the past voting history as well. I still want to see the rules for this game published somewhere in advance, so we know what all the possibilities are.

We don't even know if the rock would ever happen again. Sure, they were all afraid of it, but pre-PRoD, people were afraid of getting one vote cause of the Jeff Varner incident.

I love the tribal shuffling idea, but you also have to remember that most viewers are pretty darned stupid. They'll get annoyed if they don't know who's on what team. They'll get annoyed if someone has too many alliances. Think of how long the previouslys would have to be for every damn episode.

Having said that, I want more shuffling. I want alliances to be broken up more often and I want the concept of an "alliance" to be changed. I have no clue how you would do this, but it's just a little too predictable now.

Oh, and the lots of places English speaking Survivor has already been feably (sp?) attempted in Canada (and the US on a cancelled show). No Boundaries had American's and Canadian's who worked together as a team and did some trek or something and normally they booted off the weakest member. There was no Canada/US ganging-up-on. I believe a American won, but I know there were Canadians in the final 3. I'll see if I can remember more about the show later.

I would like to see penalties for sucking at challanges. When the tribe is in even numbers, I think the person who comes in last at the immunity challange should not be allowed to vote, then there couldn't be a tie and alliance members would be scrambling to not come in last. There could be levels of rewards, instead of Rupert picking who gets what, the first finisher gets the steak, the last person gets the rice, and so on in between. Any other ideas for penalties?

I don't agree. First, because I think viewers are smart enough to follow whatever they want to follow, be it the ridiculously complicated rules of American football, or the relationship histories of soap opera characters.
Second, because "They're making them re-pick teams every episode," is actually a lot simpler to explain than "Alex and Roger started off in different factions on the same team (though they voted together a few times because it was convenient), but then Jenna and Dave re-picked teams because they were each the youngest on their respective teams, and Alex and Roger were split up, and now they're back on the same team again, but Alex has made an alliance with the second team he was on, and Roger is still expecting Alex to vote along original tribal lines."
Third, because people manage to follow Big Brother, which has no formal teams, constantly shifting loyalties, almost as many contestants as Survivor, and previouslies not noticeably longer than Survivor's.

The penalty aspect would only work if all the contestants were physically equal. If you penalized someone like Rudi, time after time, it would just look bad. They are trying to cover all demographics with a variety of contestants to keep the ratings up. They might be more sensible to pick people for the show who had more agreeable personalities and were actually able to work and cooperate and get along with other people.

First comment: ems7, I like your idea, too. Add me to the voices saying "MB, listen to this person!"

Second comment: Here's a mind game that MrRabrab and I have been playing since Thailand:

You get notification that you've been selected for the season, you get whatever little information about the area MB usually gives the participants. You get your departure date. You make your plans. All as usual.

5 days before you're due to be in LA for the pre-show sequester, a package shows up at your house from MB. It contains a mil-surplus map bag like this one:the fifth item down with a bit less than a cubic foot of storage area.

It also contains these instructions--you will be allowed to take to the island anything and everything you can fit into this bag, and only the items that will fit. This includes clothing. You'll be allowed to wear two layers of clothing (counting underwear as one) and whatever jewelry you want. Production will not remove or disallow anything. Production will not be providing anything on the island except a medical kit (the med kit includes sunscreen and menstrual supplies.) No pots, no fire, no machete. Nothing.

So. What do you put in your bag?

If you go to TC, do you pack up all your stuff and threaten to -literally- take your ball (or pot or knife, or fishhooks...) and go home if you're voted out? Do you leave stuff that your team will need? As a team, do you even consider voting off the gal who brought the canteen? the guy who brought the pot? or the space blanket? how about the really annoying asshole who looks like an imunity monster, but who owns the knife?

We've got manipulation and lying and backstabbing and dealmaking--why not add blackmail to the mix, especially if it can make actual wilderness survival skills a little more important again?

Possibly true. But I am not sure it makes for rivetting television. Australia did a local version of survivor. With one spectacular exception at the end, they were all agreeable and cooperative. And it was about as exciting as watching paint dry. You need the full array of humanity - paranoid, emotional, delusional, controlling etc. to make entertaining viewing. You get twice the viewing pleasure if you can love and HATE the players.