Week One Backdoors and Other Dumb Stuff

This Week in Bold Strategy #4

Welcome back to This Week in BS, where we break down highlights of Bold Strategy from Survivor, Survivor Australia, Big Brother Canada, and whatever the hell I want, including becoming a celebrity in Albania this week.

As always, scroll to the shows you watch and skip the ones you don’t. Or read everything and see how consuming seven hours of competitive reality TV programming a week affects your personal relationships, your career, and the rest of your life.

Survivor Australia: Heroes V Villains

💃Lookin’ Pretty Doin’ Dirty

Spa Liz summed up why this season has been so great. She told us, “If you’re gonna get rid of people from the game, you may as well do it looking cute.” To me, this is the core of why this season has been a top tier season of any competitive reality TV series - yes, I’m ready to say that, regardless of winner. The players are all having fun…. even Simon.

It’s as simple as that. When they take joy in the absurdity, the madness, the calamity of being thrown together into this society that Charlies Parsons and Mark Burnett and Probst and LaPaglia mixed up in this fucked up blender, well damnit, we have fun too. In these two episodes alone we got so much joy and chaos: Simon dumping out the rice to weaken the tribe so he could win immunity, George and Hayley battling the incongruence of their real world friendship and their desire to win, George’s double entendres at tribal about taking out the “unstable traitor”, Simon fumbling his way through to the final 6 and calling out George’s pawns, THIS IS MAGICAL.

This joy, this madness, is why we watch these shows and although there was a stupid Australian Survivor non-elim, at least we get to watch Nina Diaz-Immunity-Winner-Twine hanging out with Gerry in isolation for a little. I’ve thought Liz was winning since she mutinied, so let’s see if the Olympian can grab gold here as we head towards the endgame.

Big Brother Canada 11

As Survivor Australia comes to its final couple of weeks, BBCAN11 has an opening with some bad gameplay and lots of promise.

🚪Week One Backdoors and Other Bad Ideas

Let’s get a definition straight first: a successful backdoor.

1. The HOH has their backdoor target in mind before nominations

2. They nominate two people who are not the intended target in order to attempt to keep the intended target from playing in the power of veto (POV) competition

3. Target doesn’t play POV

4. The people playing the POV are in on it (this one is debatable, it’s probably still a true backdoor if 3/5 or 4/5 people in the POV are in on it)

5. Target is replacement nominee at the POV ceremony.

Santina did that this week with JM. I have never seen someone backdoor their Wendy’s date and my god, that’s a Spicy Chicken move. For the record, I don’t believe he was the target when they had their breakfast, which would make it even spicier. I propose a new named move with another requirement, that you take out your Wendy’s date and I’m calling it the Wendy’s Chicken Stripped of your Dignity Backdoor from now on.

In Week One, you make assumptions why people were casted or who they are. You label people as the genius, the dumb blonde, the jock, the big threat, and more. These are all oversimplifications and in some cases, actually offensive. Big Brother Canada tends to do a better job of breaking these stereotypes in their casting than other countries, and I say this as someone who went in as the cocky genius nerd, yet JM was one of those people who got a label week one and couldn’t escape it.

The ideal first HOH involves creating a power structure that benefits you. You need alliances or agreements that will take care of you when you’re not in power in Week Two and beyond. While Santina seemed to latch onto the boys, it doesn’t seem like they put anything in writing, or flour, as we write with in the BBCAN Manor. She should have created an ironclad group that locked her into safety for a few weeks.

Nominating three people in Week One is awful. Even if someone agrees to be your pawn, you’re still putting them on the block. For you, you’ve just got to act agreeable. Pretend to get swayed, let people push you in the direction you want, but don’t let them control you like Zach did. Anika and Szabo would have been easy noms to make - and they weren’t bad noms based on what we saw - but Santina should have pushed Ty to keep noms the same. When the veto was used, she should have put up a pawn.

Speaking of Wendy’s, Hermon delivered this week and let’s look to him for a well-executed first HOH. Hermon put me up as the harmless post-veto pawn that would be easy to keep around and wouldn’t be too upset. While he turned out to be wrong about me, his HOH week was actually pretty damn good. He formed the Savage Seven that could have run the pre-jury if not for a really wild week three. His initial target, Jess, won the veto which was out of his control, and he made it well known that he wanted Melina out as the backup option. In Week One, no one wants to go against the HOH. Recognize your power and use it. I think JM would still be open to working with Santina if he was used as a pawn and she let everyone know that that was the case.

I feel for JM, and actually for Santina, because he would have been a great player for her to weaponize. He was targeting the guys, who are clearly strong, and she wouldn’t get blood on her hands when he did. If you’ve seen who the new HOH is, you know that this won’t be a simple week for her.

There was a lot of chatter, and a lot of Thursday night’s episode dedicated to the idea that JM had a chance to stay. Although he was probably better for certain people’s games, flipping a backdoor in Week One makes absolutely no sense. Daniel basically said to Hope that he saw the opportunity cost of campaigning for JM as too great to keep JM around. Sometimes you got to let the player that you want around actually leave in order to increase your standing or leverage for the next round(s) of play. The little we’ve seen of Daniel tells me he is ready to do damage when the time is right, and the foundations of this manor are about to give out. The boys are in-fighting, the women see them scheming, and Santina is realizing that maybe this week, she was a little too Frosty.

Other thoughts

• I don’t blame Shanaya crying about Roberto. Week One means a lack of sleep, tons of bright lights, and adjusting to a new environment. Feel it all, girl

• Zach is very visibly out in front. Lean into the villainy all the way. Go full Hantz while you’re in there, why not?

• That house is going to be nasty this season. Cool design on the veto comp but that liquid they slid on is getting into the rugs and it ain’t coming out

• If someone I don’t like tickles me I don’t get ticklish either, Santina

• Not a fan of telling people you’re a superfan of the show, at least when you look like me. Probably a part of JM’s downfall

• I don’t know what she did but Renee played the Deadlast twist well to the point where she had at least two locked in allies (Claudia+Naynay) in Week One, which is very powerful. I love when she gets fired up about things, e.g. The Savage Sisters, which may or may not be a real alliance, minus JM of course. Week One on the block is tough and we’ll see if the good work she did can help her overcome that stigma or if the Deadlast twist makes her a dead woman walking

Survivor 44

Let’s continue the trend and talk about a couple of players who broke out of the assumptions about who they are this week.

🎨The Renaissance Man

Brandon wasn’t JUST AN NFL player. In the montage we saw, he baked a pie, snowboarded, did a cool dive, and more. While I’m being a bit facetious here, largely because being an NFL player is already exceptional, I do like how Survivor portrayed him here. No player in any of these games is the simple thing they’re perceived to be. And thinking they are is stupid, both for the audience and for the players in the game.

We got a taste of this with Kane. When he attempted to sing O’ Canada, swung around his immunity sword, and talked about being a nerd, well, he won me over. He’s a very different type of person than we’ve seen on the show, because he’s just so wholly Kane, and him saying that he wanted to be seen as a hero… well I’m paying attention now.

Voting out Claire is unfortunately the right move for most of Soka. Tribe strength, as has been discussed a lot this week, is overpowered in the three tribe format. Erika, Maryanne, and even Gabler, the three new school winners so far, were all on the tribes that had the fewest people voted out in the pre-merge. It’s hard to win the game if you’re not playing it, and you’re not playing it if you lose in the first couple of tribals because you’re perceived to be weak.

It was cool, however, that Heidi seemed to be in charge of this vote. She has 40+ patents filed as an engineer so of course she can handle a little pre-merge tribal action balancing loyalties with Frannie and Danny (and Matty and Brandy). Keeping in line with the theme, it’s a pity to see Claire go. She wasn’t just one thing. She’s the tech-investing-philanthropic-music-festival-going fun character who whispers on the sit-out-bench and it would have been nice to see more of her.

🇦🇱 Albania Stuff

So here’s an overly simplified version of the saga. In some countries, Big Brother is massive to the point that things shut down and everyone watches it. Albania is one of those countries. Right now, this Eurovision singer, diplomat, and lawyer, Luiz Ejlli, has become wildly popular with Albanians, both in Albania and around the world while starring in Big Brother VIP, their celebrity version. Before the show, he studied Big Brother players from around the world and adopted their strategies, including some of mine.

Last Friday I heard about this from someone, but things got really crazy when he did “The Bathroom Move”. He broke a house rule by taking people into the bathroom alone with him, knowing it would get them nominated. Their format is quite different and the rules vary a ton, but from what I understand, the public decides on who gets evicted. He messed with production, got two big threats on the block, and credited me with The Bathroom Move, which if I did inspire, was likely derived from watching The Gummy Bear draw (people in the bathroom, forcing them on the block). I think he likely was just being creative knowing I pulled a move in the bathroom. Anyway, his fans went wild about this.

I posted an Instagram story saying that it was cool that he was shouting me out and then that got picked up by a bunch of Albanian media outlets and people are telling me I’m famous there. My social media blew up and against months of fighting it, I had to make a TikTok account because someone took all my videos from Instagram and made a fake TikTok that went viral with millions of views on a fake video of me flying to Albania. There is a lot more to the story but that’s the simple version. I have some people translating and I think I understand how I’ve influenced his game a bit, but I don’t want to comment because there is too much public involvement and I don’t want to mess with that. Either way, studying international versions of your show is a smart thing to do, no matter the format.

I am writing this on Friday so by the time you get this I’ll have done an Instagram Live with a Toronto-based Albanian Big Brother champion, which will apparently break the record for viewers in the Balkans according to the people on it. He and this lovely former President of the Albanian-Canadian Community Association have helped a lot, especially considering I don’t speak the language or have a good grasp on the culture. I find it funny that this happened to me because I haven’t pursued any kind of serious social media presence in the past, but I’m also not surprised. I’m a magnet for this kind of madness.

We’ll see what the future holds, and I anticipate that I will take a break from everything but Twitter and this newsletter soon. My thoughts are better in writing than pictures. It’s really fun to be famous in Albania although I’ve seen (D-list) fame in Canada and it’s not high on my list of needs. The Albanian followers are incredibly nice and friendly and all I really want is for this guy to win. I think it’s nice that he gave me a lot of credit in another country and although I can’t understand a word he says or 90% of the tens of thousands of messages I’ve gotten or even half of the many cultural differences that I’m trying to understand, I’ll root for the guy.

Pretty cool how these shows about people connect us.

🕊 Tweet of the Week

The new meta isn’t just learning how to make fire. It’s learning how to make fire, studying every single puzzle that has ever been repeated in any international version of Survivor, optimizing your bodyweight and body fat %, optimizing your stress levels, optimizing your sleep, reading hostage negotiation books, learning how to silent fart while sleeping on bamboo in your backyard, searching for dinosaur fossils as prep for finding idols, and going to your local YMCA with an iron fence to hold over your face as prep for Last Gasp.

My life has been pretty weird lately. Just looking forward to focusing on work and watching my favourite shows. Work-wise I’m trying to make therapy better for children online, and while I’m flattered that, amongst other things, an Albanian cosmetic surgery clinic wants to partner with me, if you know me, you know that’s like the worst possible brand partnership imaginable.

Until next time,

Kevin 🐍

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