User blog:VeryUnknownFan/"Conveniences" that made players last a lot longer than usual (whether by writing, production, etc).

Hey everyone. It has been a while since I have made a blog, and I am really interested in looking at the players capability as strategic and social forces, but there are those times where those skills are absent in justifying how some got out of sticky situaitons. Of course this comes into form through these "conveniences" that is just the writers getting themselves out of a jam. I am going through each of the 5.5 seasons to see where this happened.

Not So Happy Campers - Part 2


Courtney making it through the first episode was definitely a "convenience" by the writers, which will be a repeated pattern with her this season. From what we have seen, she is overtly bossy, takes the leadership position, and judges the others, while she fails to deliver when it is her time to perform for the team by refusing to jump. We see this throughout the entire episode, and as she tries to shift the target for elimination to DJ and Tyler, it is rejected because they have potential in future challenges. Of course Ezekiel's last minute sexist comments caused her to be saved. But...... why did he not say any weird comment throughout the entire episode that shows his lack of social equity? Sure, he did pick his nose, but they focused so much on Courtney's failings.

The Big Sleep
This is not much about Eva's failings, but is more about Heather's skills being overestimated. How would she know that stealing Eva's IPod early in the episode would result in Eva's elimination? I mean, she has shown her temper with Ezekiel, but none of this would have mattered if a Killer Bass member won the challenge. If this happened, Eva would have had more time to ask people who stole it, which means more time that Heather could get caught, and have her game exposed. If Heatheer stole it after all of the Killer Bass members were asleep or after the challenge, than it would have been a lot less convenient.

Not Quite Famous
I give them credit for explaning how Justin got eliminated, but it is still a "convenience". In the beginning of the episode, we see Justin flame out a fire shirtless, and the entire team is in awe. Clearly, this shows that they hold him to high value. In comparison to Heather's horrible attitude in the last 3 episodes prior, it's hard to believe that one of the most popular people on the team would be voted off so early. Heather apparently had to bribe one of Justin's largest fans (Owen) to vote her off, how "convenient". And after looking at ArtDraw's voting blog, there are a lot of "unknown" votes. Heather confirmed that only 5 people voted Justin out, but of course they ignore how the other 5 voted. This is an easy (and logical) Heather boot that was "conveniently" twisted to keep her in the game for further antagonism.

Phobia Factor
Another prime example of "convenience" used to keep Courtney in the game, when the episode was painting towards a probable and logical Courtney boot. At this point in the season, she has yet to prove her worth competitively or socially to justify her lasting her so long, but I also have to argue that Tyler and Lindsay's inter-teamed relationship caused concern amongst the entire Island. But to counter it, their inter-team relationship was never brought up in any capacity since Not Quite Famous, so no one really cared anymore...... Tyler has to face his fear twice (he bit into what is clearly a fried chicken). Once again, Courtney is bossing everyone around, but is yet again refusing to pull her weight once again, causing her team to lose. An argument could be that Courtney is more popular than Tyler, but she was only close to Bridgette. Unless Duncan bossed his friends around to vote out Tyler, this was an easy Courtney boot that was kind of emphasized, but she yet again gets passed by.

Paintball Deer Hunt
Most of the remaining ones this season will probably be about discussing Heather. She gets into a bunch of verbal arguments, and single-handedly loses the challenge for her team by intentionally shooting her teammates. She purposely blew the challenge because she did not get her way, and no one in the team seemed to have cared? But of course Cody "conveniently" gets an injury that completely overshadows Heather single-handedly losing the challenge, and everyone votes him out for being deemed useless in the future. You know what makes this even more "convenient?" There have been people in this season (past and future) that have been injured just as badly as Cody have, but they are completely back to normal by the next episode. Just a pathetic deus ex machina to keep Heather in the game for her antagonism to continue.

If You Can't Take The Heat...
I will be a bit easier on this one, since Beth's elimination was built up 2 episodes prior with the cursed idol. But the fact that it even existed was created clearly to buy Heather even more time in the game than logic would imply otherwise. And it coming out right before the challenge ending (the challenge where Heather yet again pissing off the entire team, and putting their health at risk at various points) just shows that this was nothing but prolonged deus-ex machina. Also, Owen was the one that LOST THEM THE CHALLENGE, but was in absolutely no danger.

Search and Do Not Destroy
Trent's elimination could have been handled a lot easier and a lot differently than it was. Him and Gwen, as well as Geoff and Bridgette are the only remaining couples in the game, so it would make sense for all of the singular players to split them up. But OF COURSE they had to "conveniently" make Heather get her immunity randomly, after her kising Trent got around to the entire camp, making it almost unanimous for Trent to be booted instead. They could have easily done what I mentioned above, which would explain why Heather could be saved instead of the clustercrap we got instead.

Hide and Be Sneaky
The reason for targeting Bridgette isn't really a convenience (the main one at least), but the deus-ex machina of her being sprayed by a skunk definitely added to that justification, especially since the votes itself makes no sense. They could have easily made it like she was targeted for being the final showmance in the island, but with what we were given, it was another reason to keep Duncan in the game.

That's Off the Chain!
Lindsay's elimination was one of the biggest "conveniences" in the entire series. Duncan and Owen were exempt from being eliminated because they did not complete the obstacle course, but Lindsay did not either, since her bike never crossed the final obstacle. And even if she did complete it, the person out of the 4 who came last should have been eliminated. Heck, Leshawna and Izzy did not even do the challenge, but were immune? This was all "convenient" to build up Heather's antagonism, and to keep the pets (Duncan and Owen) in the game.

Hook, Line, and Screamer
DJ was debatably the most popuar cahracter in-universe during the season to the point that there was no legitimate reason they could create to eliminate him, especially this soon. So what was "conveniently" created was that Chris chose to eliminate DJ for not completing the challenge. Take note that they didn't do this in the previous episode, when the favourites were in danger, right? Anyways, this episode was systematically created to protect another chance of the favourites getting eliminated.

Trial by Tri-Armed Trialthlon
I don't know if the pairs thing was a "convenience", but yall can pick and choose about that. What was "convenient" is that Geoff was all of a sudden targeted because he was too nice. If this is the case, why wasn't Owen targeted? I mean, Owen has been more friendly to everyone over the course of the season in comparison. And take note that they never said that Geoff was more threatening than Owen was, which would be a more compelling argument. There was no possible way they could eliminate Geoff earlier in the season with it making sense, to the point where they were stuck in a corner with how to eliminate him. It makes it even worse when turns out, there is no jury, so eliminating someone for being "too nice" was pointless. Just another reason to keep the faves in.

Haute Camp-ture
Do I seriously need to expain this one? They accidentally saying Leshawna's name all of a sudden means it's a vote to evict her? A parrot's votes all of a sudden counted? Clearly the eliminated cast hates Heather and woul have voted her out, but this was systematically created to protect her, and Leshawna was the sacrifice.

Are We There Yeti?
Chef all of a sudden having the sole vote to evict? All of the pets made it to the final 4, but which one was more mportant? The choice was Owen, so Chef just decided to eliminate Duncan.