Let the game begin!

[dbkelly]

Good luck everybody for a great Survivor Season!

Mark, Thanks again for running the contest. We all appreciate it! Same goes for Dish Depot and Americate Sat. and Ent. We appreciate you providing such great prizes!

[Lee L]

Should be an interesting show tonight. I'm waiting for puzzelled looks all around followed by the men gloating that they will kick the women's rears in all the challenges.

Thanks to all for the contest. (not that I stand a chance of winning)

Hey I wonder if Mark Burnett, oops I mean Lamutt can lead the pack again.

[Danny R]

Yay! We are finally here. Hope everyone does well. Actually I don't, because 4 months from now I want to win big. ;)

[Mark Lamutt]

Ahhhh...time to get to work... :D

Seriously, I'd like to wish everyone Good Luck! throughout the contest.

If I didn't enjoy running this thing, I'd be playing right along side the rest of you (assuming of course some other glutton for punishment wanted to run this thing). And, of course I'm going to lead the pack again...that's a foregone conclusion isn't it? :D:D:D

[Mark Lamutt]

So, what'd everyone think of the episode?

I think the women are going to surprise everyone for a while here - yeah, the guys are stronger, but as Jeff said tonight - they have a pretty serious division forming already. I loved that first challenge - had elements of everything in it (did using the poles to grab the first keys flash anyone else back to Thailand?). Very reminisent of the first challenge in Australia. Love the tribal council set - wonder if it has a roof to keep the rain out...speaking of roofs - that is one heck of a shelter that Roger led the building of. Looks very solid, and should keep them pretty dry with the upcoming rains (as seen in the preview for next week).

Results will be up shortly on the results site - quick rundown now though: 16 people ended up with perfect scores of 11 for Week #1 (including yours truly...hmmm...that makes 3 episodes in a row of "trifecta" voting going back to Thailand :D). No one out of the 179 players scored less than 3 points (which was possible because a few people didn't vote in all three polls). This is going to be anybody's game for a long time I think.

EDIT: Ok, I don't have the excel to html converter that I use to make the results page at home here, and the website where I got it seems to be gone...so, it'll be at least tomorrow night before I get the results up unless someone knows where I can get XLS2HTML - it's an addin to Excel. Not the one that is built into Excel - I can't seem to keep my text formatting from that one.

[Jason]

They didn't have a reward challenge on the first episode...is that typical? I thought they had one on every episode?

[Mark Lamutt]

They've never had a reward challenge in the first episode. According to the book that Mark Burnett wrote about the first Survivor, the did have a reward challenge on day 2 of the original, but had so many technical problems with it, they scrapped it. Probably that's why they've never done one since.

But, I keep putting in a poll for one just in case. Because there wasn't one, everyone who voted in the reward challenge poll was awarded full points for the poll.

[Danny R]

think the women are going to surprise everyone for a while here

If they don't get that shelter up they are all going to be sick like Janet. Also they don't seem to have any idea how to use the food they were provided... the stuff they were eating looked burned and nasty. I don't hold out much hope at this point for the ladies in the near future.

I thought they had one on every episode?

Not every episode. Last season had 3 shows that didn't include any sort of reward challenge if I remember correctly, including the premiere, conclusion and one in-between.

16 people ended up with perfect scores of 11 for Week #1

A lot of familiar names there too from last season. And a lot more people had perfect scores than this time last season as well. Bodes well for a close competition.

[Bill R]

Originally posted by Mark Lamutt
Ok, I don't have the excel to html converter that I use to make the results page at home here, and the website where I got it seems to be gone...so, it'll be at least tomorrow night before I get the results up unless someone knows where I can get XLS2HTML - it's an addin to Excel. Not the one that is built into Excel - I can't seem to keep my text formatting from that one.

Mark,

Thanks for all your hard work on the contest. Since the results are up now I'll assume that you found the XLS2HTML utility. If anyone else needs it (it is a nice utility if you use Excel and HTML) you can get it HERE (http://www.binf.ch/xls2html/download.htm)

[Mark Holtz]

I'm picking Christy as the dark (and deaf) horse in winning this game.

Stranger things have happened.

[George_F]

:eek: Boy did I ever get LUCKY with my picks.

[jcrash]

What are the odds of 16 people getting perfect scores?

Is there some website hypothesizing on winners or something?

[Mark Lamutt]

jcrash - I'm sure you can find lots of sites out there that have lots of speculation as to what's going to happen in upcoming episodes. Now how reliable that speculation is...that's anyone's guess.

What I do is watch every promo very closely over and over again to try to spot any clues that might be in them.

[Dgenx321]

I plead the fifth :)

[Danny R]

Guessing who goes in the first episode is done by looking at all the promotional commercials aired. MTV had a short sequence, and I believe Saturn gave out a promotional DVD for people test driving the car they will be giving away this year. From such shots you might be able to see someone noticably absent. However such images usually only help with the first episode. After that you have to rely upon other clues.

Usually there are 2 or 3 different video sequences aired each week. The first is shown at the end of each episode, with a new one usually shown on Sunday nights, and occassionally a third aired thursday mornings (too late for us). The <a href="http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor6/">CBS Survivor website</a> usually keeps a copy of the released commercials in its images gallery.

For instance this week we can see Christy (deaf girl) shouting in joy. Does this mean the women kick butt again and win a second immunity in a row? Based on such intel, you can then use psychology to take a guess at who might go next among the opposing tribe... ala who did people associate with Ryan. Psychology is more important than video clips in my opinion.

FYI: I suggest buying a 501/508/721 and using the slow motion feature. Its my main tool in examining the video sequences at the end of each episode.

[jcrash]

Well, I have done my research and am now fully "spoiled" for the week's episode.

Game on!