I’m not about to suggest that the rules of Survivor are sacrosanct and must be upheld with the strictest integrity; lord knows countless challenges are edited to fit the TV broadcast and things aren’t always *necessarily* what they seem. But even I have my limits, and in last night’s Australian Survivor: All Stars reward challenge, they were exceeded.
Let’s set the scene here: Two tribes, with a fucken shitheap of spaghetti bolognese up for grabs, were tasked with placing a string of large panels in such a way that, when pushed, they would fall domino-style and trigger a banner at the end of the course. The first team to successfully pull this off won.
The catch here was two-fold: First, members of each tribe would be tethered together in pairs, working in tandem to place one panel on the course at time. Second, the entire course itself is comprised of precariously suspended grids, forcing competitors to high step their way through it, with even the slightest nudge capable of sending the half-constructed run tumbling down.
And it’s a tumbling that happened repeatedly throughout the challenge. High winds and errant heels knocked the platforms about willy nilly, forcing both tribes to rebuild parts of their runs on multiple occasions.
Trying to balance our social life, sleep pattern, relationships, exercise during #SurvivorAU season pic.twitter.com/E9ECywrlHD
— SurvivorAU (@Survivor_AU) February 12, 2020
Ultimately, it was the Vakuma tribe who “emerged” victorious. But I’m here today to tell you that the win was bullshit and should never have counted.
After successfully setting their course up, the Vakuma tribe set their domino track in motion, successfully triggering the banner at the end of the run.
Only it wasn’t really a fully domino effect.
Look at the replay here.
Domino #1 crashes into Domino #2 with such force that it twists #2 completely off the track, missing Domino #3 by a screaming bloody mile. In fact, it’s the wobbling platform – knocked about because Phoebe and Brooke shove #1 down so hard the panel could probably press charges if it wanted to – that drops Dominoes #3 and #4.
That’s not a true Domino effect. The panels did not crash into each other It should never have counted as a win. That is garbage officiating.
Vakuma, in a right and just world, should have been made to set their entire run up again, just like any other instance in the challenge where the momentum of the structure knocked a panel down.
If we’re really letting that get through as a win, then there was nothing stopping either tribe simply bashing each of the structure frames into each other like a giant Newton’s Cradle and knocking the panels down that way.
This is absolute bullshit. What kind of Mickey Mouse, Fail Mary operation is JLP running out there.
Mokuta are owed a nice pasta dinner at minimum. At MINIMUM.
