This Week in Bold Strategy

Welcome to This Week in BS (Bold Strategy) where I’ll break down some highlights and strategy from my favourite competitive reality TV shows. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

This week I’ve got takes on Survivor Australia, Survivor 44, and a little more. You can read the whole thing or just scroll down to the show you’re into.

Survivor Australia: Heroes V Villains

⏱A Well Timed Mutiny

People talk too much in the mid-game of competitive reality shows about setting themselves up for the end and not enough about surviving the next round or two. It seemed like Liz was in a solid spot on the nuVillains, as I’ll call them, and she still mutinied. She moves over to become the newest member of the nuHeroes, and is right back in with her Spice Girls.

Right move. She shouldn’t be close to the chopping block for the nuHeroes at any upcoming tribal and sets herself up for the next few rounds.

Now, she goes back to George and Shonee, the visible leaders of the new Heroes tribe, as Shonee’s #1 and George’s #2. She has this new alliance brewing with Nina, Sam, and David, and that’s there for her when the tribes merge. With an alliance on each “side” she’s also prepared to be flexible in a merge that’s promising fluid dynamics.

Once you’ve turned on someone, it’s hard to rekindle and work with them again. Seeing how difficult it was for Sam to break bad, I imagine he’s going to have a tough time working with Shaun/Hayley in the future, especially after learning how Hayley lied to him about telling Simon to send a vote his way. Liz has options, an idol, and probably six or seven big visible threats to shield her at the merge. She’s in a great position and would be my pick to win right now.

This season has top tier potential if the post-merge involves an imploding group of OG Heroes and the remaining OG Villains rising above their ashes. Liz just needs to let all the returnees bite each other’s heads off and vault above the carnage.

🟤 Simon Says

Be weary about what Simon says because it’s usually wrong this season. I was watching the nuVillains gang up on him after Flick revealed that his idol was fake… and I realized I’ve become a fan of his based on how tough things are for him. This dude has been through it all.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!? All I want out of reality TV contestants is for them to act self-interested. I don’t care if they make the right move or if they’re a strategic mastermind (not all of us can be); I care that they’re playing to win.

And at every stage, Simon has been playing to win. You have to respect that even if it leads to ridiculous scenarios, including infiltrating the OG Heroes then immediately being scorned for his innocent mistake.

Survivor 44 Preview

🌴 What I Want Out of Survivor 44

1. People who don’t like each other: part of the beauty of these shows is they put people who would never interact in these new environments and make them live together while playing a game. Sometimes they like each other and sometimes they don’t. We got more drama out of the Survivor 43 cast after the season than during it. One of my highlights was Owen and James going at it. I want to see more of the fireworks happen on screen and in the edit this time.

2. More focus on the characters: I watch these shows because I’m curious about people, not about whether they have an idol or not. That’s part of the game and it’s important to show, so the strategy needs to make sense in the context of character. I thought 43 did a great job of this, really raising the stakes at strategic moments by incorporating the new school backstories in conjunction with the big decisions being made.

3. Fun: when the castaways have fun we have fun. Lemme go back to Owen - he was someone on the last season who did this well. He was constantly left out of the vote and on the bottom of the numbers. If someone realizes that it’s just a game (sure, a high stakes game for a million dollars) and embraces the journey, it’s fun to watch.

👟 The Frontrunners

Here are a couple of my favourites to do well this season.

Claire seems to be the chalk winner pick this year so you can almost guarantee she loses. I get it though. She’s a tech investor so she has to cut through bullshit all the time, she’s from New York so she’s tough (meh), and she’s a big fan.

Firefighters just tend to do well on this show. Jeremy won Second Chances. Tom won Palau. Mike (42) was the runner up. Keith and Wes were there. There was even a really boring dude named JP that somehow made the merge in Heroes/Healers/Hustlers.

Point is, I’m looking for a way to justify talking about this guy because he’s doing a Wim Hof breathwork/ice bath class in Toronto next week and I’m obsessed with that. While I’ll be 9-5ing, he’ll be teaching people how to relax and control their breath. That’s the kind of weird talent that can help you win a weird game like Survivor. If you’re not familiar with Wim Hof, he does barefoot half-marathons on snow and is basically superhuman when it comes to cold.

I’m dead serious, check out Danny’s Instagram if you want to go. I don’t care, I’ll promote this. It’s amazing and funny and if you go let me know how much clarity you feel about your entire life now that you’ve taken a dunk in an ice bath. Sorry in advance if I buy myself a DIY ice bath and become an ice bath TikToker.

You need to know your starting position. Not everyone is coming in with the same perception or first impression. Helen knows that she might be underestimated and will use that to her advantage. I love that.

This is my own preference but I often look to people in their late 20s/early 30s as potential winners on these shows and she’s right in that age 29 sweet spot. It’s a good age to connect with a large variety of people without being seen as too young or too old.

🦜The Characters

Here are a couple of my favourites to be entertaining this season.

This is Yam Yam. Yes, you read that right, Yam Yam.

Yam Yam seems like a fun dude and he says in his pre-season press that he wants to have fun. We often overcomplicate things with strategy and plurality votes and idol nullifiers; if you’re fun to be around you’re probably not going to be one of the first few targets. A lot easier said than done on a beach when you’re starving although this guy seems like he has such a zest for life that it’s going to be contagious.

Ok. We got another Canadian so I guess I gotta mention him. This is a unique Canuck (say that five times fast), a lawyer from Saskatchewan. Interesting casting for sure: it’s a part of Canada that we haven’t seen a ton of reality TV contestants from, so consider me intrigued. He’s another one who knows how he’s going to come off - as a “big animal” in his words - so if he can use that to his advantage, he might be more than just a fun character.

The moment you hear her talk you’ll know why she’s here. She shouted out Noura as inspiration. I digress.

🎤 Talking About It

I’ll be on the RHAP B&B with Mike Bloom and Liana Boraas to talk about the first episode after it airs this week. If you haven’t listened to the Bed & Breakfast, it’s a pretty fun podcast and specifically focused on being a little more light-hearted than a lot of what’s out there. I had a blast jumping on during Survivor 43 and it’ll be fun to do it again. Mike’s preseason coverage in Parade is excellent + Liana is one of my favourite (we spell Canadian here) analysts.

👁 BBCAN11

I’m not going to say too much here, but I will share that having feeds in their prior form was really fun for Jillian and for my family and especially my friends who woke up to “Good Morning Houseguests” and went to sleep at “Good Night Houseguests” and almost got fired from their jobs because of it.

BBCAN9 and 10 were really good, despite my obvious bias on 10, and I have confidence that 11 will be great too. I’m excited to see what the team creates and I’m looking forward to watching from this side.

To answer your other question, of course I’ll be podcasting about the season.

Stay tuned for more news on that.

🕊Tweet of the Week

I love how seriously this season of Australian Survivor takes itself, while still being really, really funny, like, say, a man who calls himself King George declaring war based on the other tribe voting out someone he was only kind of working with.

Until next time… I’ll be talking through week one of Survivor, previewing BBCAN11, and jumping into the merge on SurvivorAU. This is the first week of this newsletter so if you have any feedback I’ve stuck around Big Brother Twitter since my season so I can take a punch. I like feedback.

If anyone reading this is going to Brice and Wen’s Survivor Premiere Party, I’ll be there so say hi!

And if you know anyone who might enjoy the newsletter, feel free to copy and share the link to subscribe: https://thisweekinbs.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Until Next Time,

Kevin 🐍