I read this morning that Colby from Survivor: All Stars was the most recent to be voted off the tribe. I, unfortunately, do not have access to even basic network channels so I have only managed to watch one episode this season. The one episode I saw was the one where Susan walked off at the end. On that episode, Colby chews out one of his Asian, female teammates (I forget her name) for basically "flying under the radar" (arguably, one of wisest strategies a contestant can use, since a large portion of the final winners have been "under the radar" people like Ethan and Tina, and no doubt others). But it pisses Colby off, and he chews her out in essence because he is the one who must bear all the costs for hard decisions, risking unpopularity, while a silent player gets all the benefits but takes no risks. The fact that this works so well should signal to a rational player, like Colby, that the player is not being dishonest, but rather, is playing the game well. But for whatever reason, Colby in that episode was weirdly preachy. I kept thinking he was going to do something productive from the perspective of his own strategy, but he never did. Instead, he just vented, and in the end, alienated her completely. She left the meeting not only unwilling to entertain an alliance with him, but wanting to vote him off. One is only powerful if one's alliance is larger than the residual non-alliance teammates, and Colby's wasn't. His also wasn't as strong as he thought.
A few thoughts. I think the strongest players routinely forget the rules of the game. I've seen this repeatedly. They become cocky, arrogant, and begin thinking that their actual productivity (brute strength, hunter-gatherer skills, etc.) can be a good strategy all alone. But it can't. Actually, none of those things matter, really, in the end. The game is not about surviving on a desert island; the game is about surviving on Survivor, which has little to nothing to do with stamina and endurance. Players like Colby understand this. Colby, in his first season's play, understood this better than any of the other players. He played the game with real finesse. His best moment from that first season a few years ago, in my opinion, was when the two teams had just merged. They were evenly matched: 5-to-5. The first tribal council would dictate who would, in the end, be voted off. If Colby's original team could avoid going under the knife, then they would go towards the end with a majority. If not, then his team would potentially be picked off one-by-one. Colby pulled his team together and came up with a plan. They had overheard someone on the other team state that one of the people had a vote against him. If it came down to a tie - which it undoubtedly would since 5 would be voting against 5 - then the tie breaker would be whomever had accumulated the most number of votes to date, including all previous tribal councils. Colby had no votes against him, and his team believed that someone on the other team did. So Colby attempted to do things over the course of a day that might draw some derision and anger from the other side, and hopefully accumulate five votes against himself. If he could get five votes, then they would still win if his team all block voted against this particular person who had a vote against him already. And it worked. It may seem like a small victory, but very few collective strategies had been planned and successfully executed on this show. Most of the strategies are individual strategies involving alliances, but to actually see one player coordinate a strategy involving deception and alliance was, in my opinion, breath-taking.
So what happened? Why the slip-up this time by one of the strongest players of the game? I was walking down the hall a moment ago, when I remembered the conversation he had had with the Asian girl. His conversation was weird. It was uncharacteristic. He was attacking her for going under the radar. He was recognizing to her that he deserved more for his efforts, and it angered him that a silent player could free-ride and ultimately steal the glory from a player like himself. And then it hit me. Tina won against Colby in the original Survivor by a margin of one vote, and he has never gotten over it. He gave Tina a million dollars, and while on one level, everyone who likes Colby came to like him even more when he did that, we also all thought the same thing: that was the stupidest thing Colby has ever done.
And I think his bitterness over that original loss cast a shadow over his play this time around - even if only a slight shadow. He let himself preach at a teammate, which alienated her, and put himself at the top of people's list of people to vote off. Colby had a lot of negatives against him going into this game. He was well-known beforehand as being one of the stronger players, for one. They knew that they needed him in the beginning to win and for leadership (note: physical strength will get you to the merger, but not beyond), but they remembered his winning streak towards the end (note: he won, I believe, something like four straight immunity challenges towards the end, all the way up until the final vote). He's intelligent, political and physically strong. This is not, note, a strength - since everyone knows this about him, it is undoubtedly a weakness. It can only become a strenght if Colby can forge an alliance with people who need him. People like Ethan, for instance, who also begin with a disadvantage being winners who most don't believe "deserve" a second win. Colby is almost as dangerous, though. People believe he "deserved" the original win, and so therefore if you want to win, you want to eliminate him. It's almost as though he forgot all of that, or chose to ignore, or chose to believe his own press clippings. Or something. Anyhow, I think he slipped partly because of how the previous game ended with Tina winning the whole kit and caboodle, and Colby getting second place and a bunch of hugs from Tina. (And no movie deals from Hollywood, either, which from what I've heard, is an angle he's been working since that first season. He even read for The Bourne Identity, and from what the director said, it was a great read. But come on - Damon or Colby?).
Posted by scott at March 15, 2004 08:03 AM | TrackBacksome quick thoughts:
a)colby was not bitter about austrailia, in my opinion. he took tina to the finals, knowing full well that he could lose, while taking keith would have won him the million for sure. he did it because of an honest spirit. and he was not upset about it. he got 100 grand, and endorsement deals, so he is fine.
b)i don't think colby slipped up. the bottom line is that he hated shii ann from the very git go, and he even said as much. he wanted her gone as much as jerri, and "knew" he had the power to do just that. remember, he had that conversation with her BEFORE the lost challenge and kathy (a good ally) being taken away from tribal (of course, you probably didn't see that episode, so i understand). also, colby just figured he had lex and ethan with him. colby has always played the "friends" strategy...that good allegiances go to the end. it got him final 2 with tina, and i think he figured it would do the same for he and lex this time around. plus, he probably studied the season in africa and knew that lex supposedly kept his alliances, and was trustworthy. colby's only downfalls were 1)sending ethan into the woods in the challenge and 2)lex deciding to change his strategy and lie, and break alliance, which will kill him in the end.
c)i disagree that strength gets you to the merger and no further. look at the exact person we're talking about! he was the strongest player in the game in austrailia and for all practical purposes won the darn thing. the tide has turned in survivor. strength is becoming a bad thing BEFORE the merge nowadays, because people know that the strong players win immunity challenges. if colby had survived the merge, i think he was almost a lock to win it. oh and by the way, i'm pretty sure he won 7 straight immunity challenges in austrailia, which no one else has come even close to.
bottom line: colby was "preachy" and all that because he thought he could be. his alliance was "strong" and shii ann was going. that's how colby has always been. he was like that in austrailia: once he knew people were out, he let himself vent. he did it with keith, because he knew no one liked keith. sure, it didn't work out in the end for him, but i think that is a product of lex changing his strategy more than anything.
Posted by: UJ at March 15, 2004 09:40 AMUJ,
a) I know he wasn't bitter in the beginning. He jumped up and down when Tina won. I agree he has an honest spirit. But that was two or three years ago. His endorsement deals were short-lived, and I'm guessing they were more gimmicky than anything else. He probably got a million offers, like the guy from Joe Millinoaire, to play himself in a bunch of stupid UPN shows, and that was about it. He had a policy of not doing interviews if the interview had anything to do with Survivor, so of course, we heard very little from him since then. And his pursuit in Hollywood didn't result in any movies (except for a small, bit role in something). I thought it was interesting that the very thing he attacked the Asian girl for was the very thing that Tina did. That is, he was attacking her for basically living in Colby's shadows, letting Colby take all the risks, and being there to collect the fruit. So, seeing as how his post-Survivor success turned out, the particular things he said to the Asian girl seem strangely reminscent of the very things Tina did. Tina was a shadow player. She was carried entirely by Colby to the end. Her win was because Colby had alienated Keith in the end (causing him to vote for Tina), and because of one last minute switch in votes by another person. Of course he knew he didn't have Jerri, nor a couple of others who were voting female in block.
Also, remember what he was saying to the Asian girl? He was specifically telling her he was angry because he had been forced to lie that previous day. And he was angry, too, because he had become a target at the previous tribal council and had nearly been voted off. I think he was seeing that his honest play from the previous Survivor was a complete aberration. The thing about Survivor is that it actually punishes honesty and rewards deceit. Colby had his chance to win playing the game fairly, and lost. So maybe it wasn't bitterness necessarily towards Tina, but still, it's not entirely implausible that he regrets not winning that million, especially when he sees that chances like that don't come around very often.
b) Colby definitely slipped up. What possible valuye was there in telling that girl all that stuff? Was he wanting her to know that he knew she was silent? He was trying to scare her into thinking he might vote her off, I suppose, but that's supremely arrogant and risky. Alliances are, on this show, very unstable. And the strategy backfired completely - he made an enemy. You never want to burn bridges in this game. Information travels remarkably fast. People will overhear something, and a person's fortunes will change on a dime. Alliances will shift just as quickly. His decision to chew her out helped solidify a female voting block, and Lex sensing how things were going, threw his lot in with them.
c) You're right. If you can guarantee winning every time, then yes, physical braun is on your side. But Colby is the exception, not the rule. Usually, strong people go. In fact, strength actually begins to work against you after the merger because strength signals a threat. Before the merger, you need strong players to keep your team alive. You need strong players for immunity challenges so your team won't go to the block. But after the merger, it's every man for themselves, and strength is no longer worth as much - if anything. What matters is alliances. Colby never ran alone. He won challenges to protect himself, but he ran within an alliance. I can't remember all the plays of all the seasons, but it seems like more times than not, the final four are not strong people. It's striking how often really strong people get nixed much earlier. It's the more politic people who make it in the end.
You're right about him alienating Keith - that also cost him the match. Had he not done that, Keith might've played his side, and he might've won. That seems to be one of Colby's weaknesses. He vents, and those things come back to haunt him.
Posted by: scott cunningham at March 15, 2004 10:14 AMOne thing to keep in mind is that we aren't getting unfiltered information, what we see is what CBS wants, and they craft the storylines, setting characters up, shifting focus, blame, everything works toward the goal of the most entertaining story under 45 minutes.
That said, I feel like more was probably said between Colby and Shii Ann that would balance what was said. Nevertheless Colby probably felt secure until the merge because he, Ethan, and Lex (presumably) were tight, with Kathy being reasonably so, and the odds of one siding with Jerri or Shii Ann (notoriously untrustworthies) would be slim.
But the trend over the past two seasons is that strong people aren't safe before the merge, teams are sabatoging their chances of a strong entrance into the merge by playing the Survivor game too early.
But because alliances haven't been as strong after the merge being the weaker team doesn't mean losing. In fact three of the final four survivors last season were from the weaker team at the time of the merge.