Yuku free message boards

I'm one of the few here that believe that the introduction of the Final 3 actually improved the series. Originally, the Final 2 was great and I was on the edge of my seat when Probst read the Final votes for Borneo and Outback. But by the tenth season, the Final Tribal Council and the reading of the final votes had became totally anti-climactic. It became clear that the winner of the final IC had too much power and the best player often finished third.

First, if the IC gave the winner of that challenge too much power (which I can't really disagree with), then all they had to do to fix it was remove the challenge. Its not the end of the world if we have one round without immunity. Then each player has an equal amount of power.

Oh, and the third placer has never been the best player. To be the best player you need to first get to the end and second get enough jury votes. While the third placer may have been able to pull of #2, the sheer fact that they couldn't arrange things so they got to the end means they weren't the best. The best players are those like Hatch or Tina that guaranteed they'd be in F2 even if they lost (or threw) the final challenge or those like Brian that arranged it so that they'd win the final challenge no matter what (something Rafe passed up on, one reason why he is one of many third placers who was not the best player :P) Positioning is an important part of the game that you can't ignore.

They could have easily cancelled the Final Tribal Councils for Palau, Guatemala and Panama and just had the jury vote and I would have been just as satisfied since it was obvious who would win in each case.

In Palau much of the entertainment was the Katie bashing at FTC though. Can't get rid of that! :P

In Guatemala we had a huge number of people picking Stephenie to win it. Edgic picked her. Spoilers picked her (wow, could there be a correlation there?!) A great many Stephenie lovers picked her. It sure as hell was obvious to me that Danni won it once she won the final immunity, but could all say that? Only in hindsight.

In Exile Island, thats hindsight. We didn't know at the time that Sally & Austin would vote Aras over Danielle. Danielle had connections to both (Bayoneta & Exile Island time) that may have netted her those votes. 5-2 votes aren't obvious blowouts like F3 supporters will try and make you believe.

Starting with Cook Islands when the final 3 was introduced:

Cook Islands - Final 3, I'm again on the edge of my seat when Probst reads the votes since we have 2 worthy finalists as opposed to a probable Ozzy vs. Becky Final 2 (snore!)

Indeed. As a one time twist, it was terrific. That said, it was completely unfair to Ozzy and Becky to hide the fact that there'd be a F3 and not make Yul's idol expire at F4.

Fiji - The Final 3 averted a disasterous Dreamz/Cassandra Final 2. Fiji was a bad season with Earl's victory being the only reason that I can tolerate rewatching it. Production was so displeased with Fiji, that Probst admitted that they were considering ending Survivor after Micronesia. That disasterous Final 2 (which would even be more hated by the public than Brian/Clay) might have been the final nail in the coffin for the show.

We may hate the those two players, but they set themselves up better for F2 than Earl did. In the traditional Survivor game, Cassandra is a better player than Earl as she was set up better to make F2 and win. Earl is just another one of those third placers without the F3.

And no, the show would not have been cancelled had they been the F2.

Overall, the Final 2 structure has resulted in too many mediocre players winning.

Who? I can see you arguing that the F2 resulted in some blowouts, but I don't agree with you saying it resulted in mediocre players winning. Stop praising third placers so much.

And last I checked, F3 gave us the worst winner of all time by far (Bob), a guy who tried as hard he could to lose at FTC his jury speech was so bad.