Filmed: July 12-14, 2005 | Aired:
October 27, 2005
- Ep7 Reward challenge: "Spooling Around"
- Rafe/Lydia/Steph fall; Yaxhá wins ziplining and
chocolate.
- Ep7 Immunity challenge: "Tomb
Raider" - Brandon can't dig up the 11th piece; Nakúm
wins.
- Voted out: Amy, 4-1 over perennial decoy
Bobby Jon.
Episode 7 scoring notes
- The outcome here, particularly in the IC, highlights just
how much of a factor luck plays in Survivor.
Yaxhá had a late-IC advantage of two pieces, only to
watch helplessly as Nakúm dug up piece after piece that
they needed. And it was particularly frustrating because the
pieces that were actually buried could have been for either
team, but Nakúm only ever seemed to find their own,
going from down 10-8 to completed at 12-10 in seemingly no
time. Had Nakúm lost, it would have been an even 5-5
merge, and original tribes might have played more of a
factor in post-merge alliances. Instead, the 6-4 advantage
Nakúm enjoys plays out almost exactly as expected
(except for Danni winning).
- It's also a bit galling to watch Gary feign concern over
Amy's boot, when Brian's last-ditch pitch for
original-Yaxhá unity to Gary went unheeded just three
days earlier. Clearly, Gary felt closer to Danni than to
Amy. Maybe it was Amy's constant "Gary, if you're really an
ex-NFL player, I am gonna BEAT YOU DOWN" refrain. Maybe it
was that Gary and Danni bonded over their shared
religiosity. Whatever the case, the half-hearted attempt to
make Amy seem like she had a shot (prior to Tribal Council)
seemed particularly cruel, especially because the four
people who voted against her got to merge immediately
afterward.
- That and all the talk of Amy's being "deserving" (which
she obviously was) failed to carry over to her even being
eligible to be voted in for Second Chance. Maybe
they'll remember her for Second Chance the Second.
- One final note of praise: that sequence of Rafe and Lydia
(and Stephenie) repeatedly falling over in the RC? It was
topped in hilarity only by Bobby Jon trying to catch fish
(with his mouth!) using his shoulder scabs as bait. For all
the dark hints of looming pathos (Cindy and Jamie not
wanting to even visit the Yaxhás), this was a
well-balanced episode, leavening the struggle with dark
humor.
Vote count:
- Amy received 4 votes, from Danni, Gary,
Bobby Jon, and Brandon (voted out, 4-1).
- Bobby Jon received 1 vote, from Amy.
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.