I've been quite fascinated with the last two seasons of Survivor, not so much for what the players have been doing, but for what the producers have been doing to try to keep the players off balance.
Old formula: Team vs team. Strongest team at the merge spends n weeks picking off members of the weaker team. Therefore, don't bother watching the middle N episodes, because it's pretty clear what's going to happen.
That's why they do the team shuffle after a couple of weeks, and that's why they changed the tie-breaker rules. For that matter, did no one else think it sort of interesting that they scheduled the "popularity contest" challenge when they did? It very clearly laid bare the alliances and their plans, and were it not for that challenge, we'd have seen the arrogant whiners in the final four instead.
Unfortunately, each season of the show has the people acting more and more decently... at least in the end. I mean, there are always a few whiney slackers to lose in the early weeks (if we're lucky). I knew that the putrid selfish malevolence that so attracted me to the first season was gone when Colby pissed away $900,000 just because he didn't want to break his word. (Only partially compensated for when he said he had a conjugal visit with his mother.)
And on an unrelated note, I sure am glad that Wil and Tara didn't win. I quite enjoyed hating them a lot.
