Episode 1: "Want to See the Elephant Dung?" (Part 1)
S17: Gabon boxscores Episode 1
Filmed: June 23-25, 2008 |
Aired: September 25, 2008
- Ep.1 arrival: As the two eldest, Bob
and Gillian kick off the tribe split, via chain pick.
Probst gives them freedom to not worry about gender, and
that works out great for Fang, which corners the market
on older moms.
- Ep.1 Reward (+ individual Immunity) challenge: "One for All" - Marcus and GC race to the top alone, snag single-use idols for themselves (Michelle just misses out); meanwhile, Kota easily beats Fang up the hill, gets corn and beans.
- Ep.1 exile: Thankfully, none.
- Ep.1 Immunity challenge: "Temptation Valley" - It's neck and neck until the digging, where Fang completely blows it. Kota gets immunity and flint.
- Ep.1 voted out: Michelle, 8-1 over Gillian.
Episode 1 scoring notes
- The opening race up the hill: On the first pass, we scored the opening reward challenge as an individual IC. It was, technically. But we've reversed course here: that wasn't the sole or even main purpose. In fact, you could plausibly argue that by racing up the hill ahead of their tribe, GC and Michelle cost Fang a shot at the reward. (Kidding, there's nothing they could have done to haul Gillian and Crystal up that hill in time.) The challenge was clearly *at least* a tribal reward challenge. It just had an added, potentially counter-productive element (as did Kelley Wentworth grabbing an idol at an IC in Cambodia). So to sum up: Two tribal challenges this first hour, zero individual challenges.
- Episode numbering: As is customary, we're ignoring the CBS numerical nomenclature. This is not a "two-hour premiere," it's two regular 1-hour episodes aired back-to-back. (Don't worry, it'll all match up in the end because there was also a recap episode, which doesn't count.)
Vote count:
- Michelle received 8 votes, from Crystal, Dan, GC, Ken, Matty, Randy, Susie, and Gillian (voted out, 8-1).
- Gillian received 1 vote, from Michelle.
| Reward challenge stats | Immunity challenge stats | Tribal council stats | Overall scores | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contestant | ChW | ChA | ChW | ChA | VFB | VAP | TotV | TCA | SurvSc | SurvAv |
| Crystal | 0.00 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.11 | 1 | - | 9 | 1 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
| Dan | 0.00 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.11 | 1 | - | 9 | 1 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
| GC | 0.00 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.11 | 1 | - | 9 | 1 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
| Ken | 0.00 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.11 | 1 | - | 9 | 1 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
| Matty | 0.00 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.11 | 1 | - | 9 | 1 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
| Randy | 0.00 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.11 | 1 | - | 9 | 1 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
| Susie | 0.00 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.11 | 1 | - | 9 | 1 | 1.00 | 7.00 |
| Gillian | 0.00 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.11 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 0.89 | 5.60 |
| Michelle | 0.00 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.11 | 1 | - | 9 | 1 | -0.89 | 0.00 |
| Ace | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | - | - | - | - | N/A | N/A |
| Bob | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | - | - | - | - | N/A | N/A |
| Charlie | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | - | - | - | - | N/A | N/A |
| Corinne | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | - | - | - | - | N/A | N/A |
| Jacquie | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | - | - | - | - | N/A | N/A |
| Kelly | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | - | - | - | - | N/A | N/A |
| Marcus | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | - | - | - | - | N/A | N/A |
| Paloma | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | - | - | - | - | N/A | N/A |
| Sugar | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | - | - | - | - | N/A | N/A |
Glossary of terms
-
Challenge stats
- ChW: Challenge Wins. For tribal challenges, a contestant earns a fraction of 1 win, depending on if they participated (no points for sitting out). So in a five-person tribe's win, each participant gets (1/5) of a point, or 0.2 points. Duels (or individual RCs as in Ep1) at Redemption Island count as half a challenge (and half a win). Individual challenge wins count as a full point.
- ChA: Challenge Appearances. Used to calculate ChW%. Fractional for tribal challenges (same as ChW), except sit-outs get charged for an appearance, because they could have participated.
- ChW%: Challenge Win%. Simply, ChW% = ChW / ChA.
- SO: The number of times a contestant sat out of a challenge.
- Tribal
Council stats
- VFB: Votes For Bootee. The number of times the contestant has voted for the person who was ultimately voted out. Applies only to initial votes (no points for revotes in case of a tie). Special case: In a final three TC, where only one vote is cast (by the F3 IC winner), only that vote counts.
- VAP: Votes Against the Player. The total number of tribal council votes cast against the contestant. Again, only initial votes count (no penalty for revotes), and here a hidden immunity idol (if played) erases the votes. In the special case of a final three tribal council above, only the F3 bootee receives a vote against.
- TotV: Total votes cast during the tribal councils the player has attended (again, only initial votes count). Used to adjust for different vote totals as tribes shrink.
- TCA: Tribal council appearances. The number of times a contestant has attended tribal council (at which they voted).
- TC%: Tribal Council percent. Attempts to reward voting for the bootee (which players controlling the vote almost always do), while punishing receiving votes yourself. The formula is: TC% = [VFB - (VAP/TotV)] / TCA.
- wTCR: weighted Tribal Council Ratio. Very similar in intent to TC%, but calculated as a ratio of VFB to VAP, while also scaling to a uniform number of TC appearances. The formula is as follows: wTCR =2* [VFB / (4+VAP)] x (14/TCA). I originally tried (1+VAP) to avoid dividing by zero, but this overly rewarded getting zero votes against relative to just one vote against, which seemed silly. (4+VAP) scaled that effect back comfortably. 14 was used as the scaling factor for TC appearances because there are usually 14 episodes, then a final scaling factor of 2 to bring maximal scores up to roughly even with ChW and JV% high scores.
- Jury
stats
- JVF: Number of jury votes for the contestant to win. Maximum nine (Earl Cole, Fiji), theoretically.
- TotJ: Total number of jurors. Necessary to not punish unanimous 7-juror winners (JT Thomas, Tocantins).
- JV%: The percent of total jury votes cast for the contestant, or Jur% = JVF/ TotJ. This number is used, raw, in SurvSc, and is scaled in SurvAv (multiplied by six) to make it similar in size to ChW and wTCR.
- Overall
scores
- Survival Score (SurvSc). It's simply the sum of Challenge Win% (ChW%) + Tribal Council% (TC%) + Jury Vote%, for a maximum possible score of 2 (3 after the finale).
- Survival Average (SurvAv). It's a simple sum of fractional Challenge Wins (ChW), weighted TC Ratio (wTCR), and (eventually) a weighted Jury%. The latter two max out at six points total, for a theoretical maximum score of around 18 or so.