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Palau's probably the closest to CI structurally but they actually bothered to edit Ulong in all their tribal dynamics instead of spending 80% of the screentime at Aitu and failing to make anyone on Raro remotely likeable or entertaining.

Exactly. Yes, there needs to be some story leading up to the endgame--when you don't you get people popping up all of a sudden in the last three or four episodes like Danni--but you've got to present the story at hand too. Whether it's short-term or long term, all 16 or 20 or however many people are either going to leave the game or end up in the finale. You can't just bake up a quick one-or-two-episode arc and expect that to work. When someone like Brad gets out, I'm not on the edge of my seat thinking "Who's next?" I'm thinking "Who cares?"

If the number of players was the issue, then you'd be hating on 20-strong Palau as well.

Two of them were out within the first half-hour so it essentially became an 18-cast member season. But of the pre-CI seasons, I certainly concede that Palau had the worst editing.

And Fiji had PLENTY of characters. It doesn't make sense when people lump CI and Fiji together except for the race ratios.

I lump them together because they had (intended) 20-person casts and a final three (and I think I've made it clear what I think about that). Fiji did have good characters--Sylvia, Anthony, Rocky, Lisi, Alex, Yau-man, and Dreamz were all entertaining, and you could probably argue Erika, Michelle, Boo, and Earl too. I liked Fiji although it's not a top tier season for me.

I still don't see what was so significantly more boring about those characters than the duds of all the other seasons. And I thought CI had some of the best females in the majority seasons

I still think that Rebecca is the most bland character of all time (with Liliana close behind), but all in all, they probably weren't that much more boring than duds from other seasons. But it gets called out on that for having so many duds--and Palau, CI, and Fiji are really the only seasons that have about half the cast in the 'dud' group (with Vanuatu and Guatemala close behind IMHO). I don't know exactly what you mean by majority seasons--but even the most entertaining woman of CI, Candice, would not stand out with that edit in most of the earlier seasons. She wasn't really interesting herself, she was just involved in big storylines. A few other women had their moments, but overall, it was a weak group...and unbelievably, Fiji's crop of women was even worse.

And seriously, the idea that people were so much more interesting in the other seasons is like . Again, how interesting was Diane Ogden of Africa or even a sweetheart character like Liz from Outback?

Diane wasn't that interesting. Hell, neither was Jessie. Or Kel (who's in the same boat as Candice as far as being involved in a memorable event). But Diane lasted one episode. Rebecca lasted nine; Becky lasted 14. That's like comparing someone who guest stars on Seinfeld for one episode to Newman or Elaine. It just doesn't make sense.

I found Rebecca's game more interesting than Elisabeth banking on "good people" and even as a character, Rebecca started fire for her tribe and spearheaded the women power movement against JP. Elisabeth's best moment was the heart-shaped rock she received from Rodg and saying she'd never vote for him. And that's it basically.

Elisabeth had a storyline though, even if it was pretty contrived. Starting fire and spearheading an alliance are both critical things in the game, but as far as the show goes, the alliance lasted only one episode, and starting fire was an incredibly minor point in the second episode (they ignored Hiki for the rest of the episode), let alone the entire season. She made no impact on the show whatsoever--I wasn't out there and I haven't read very many CI interviews, so for all I know, she was a mastermind that controlled the dynamics of her tribe. But that doesn't matter to anyone who wasn't playing that season. On the show, she was null. Elisabeth was a pretty big character, particularly post-merge. She had no sense of strategy, but she did leave her mark on the show at least.

But what else could it be?

For me, it's the large casts and the final three. They did stand out as blander than most (CI especially) with a higher percentage of duds but I realize that some people will disagree with that and I think it's related to the larger cast size. My only race-related issue with the two seasons was the quota factor--it's like the affirmative action debate, should a more entertaining contestant be turned down because they already have five contestants in that ethnic group? If you've got two contestants that would make for equally good TV and one's a minority, go ahead and choose them if you want that to be the tiebreaker--but if there are six entertaining Asians and only four entertaining Latinos, don't drop one of the Asians and look for another Latino just to even things out. In principle, allotting five slots for an ethnic group is no different than allotting two slots for them--it's still casting for 'tokens.'

You're a great debater, dude. I wouldn't be arguing this otherwise.