And then there were seventeen…

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This season of survivor has an extra-added element to it: playing against a loved one in Survivor Blood vs. Water. This added challenge to an already intense game is really raising the stakes for all contestants. Also, since the contestants are playing against their loved ones it makes for an interesting group dynamic. After losing the first challenge to her husband, Val was sent to exile island and her husband, Jeremy, had to choose who from his own team would be the best choice to send with his wife. He chose Keith, which ended up being a great advantage to both people. Keith formed an alliance with Jeremy and made a bond with Val that could help him later on in the game.

The biggest disadvantage to being sent to exile island was that while Keith and Val were away the rest of their team members had a chance to bond and form alliances. This made the period of primary tension longer for both team members who weren’t with the groups to initially set up camp and help build shelters. Dale also felt some primary tension, so much so that he was up for being eliminated at the tribal council meeting. His age had really created a gap between him and the rest of his team members, and to try and solve this tension Dale sacrificed his glasses to help make fire to benefit his whole team.

Another very obvious stage of group formation that was shown in this episode was the performing stage. John, the former professional baseball player was determined to not let his past ‘infamous’ commentary to affect his experience on the show and took charge in the final challenge of the episode helping all of his team members climb up the multiple walls on the structure. Likewise, Drew took charge in building an elevated shelter for his tribe and wanted people to see that he was carrying his weight in the game.

So far so good, there have been only positive commentary from players and everyone seems to get along, for now.

May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor

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And. . they’re off. I personally have never watched survivor before so this is my first experience with the show. From what i can tell the groups didn’t have a good  opportunity to connect in episode one. To connect the show to the reading, it was easy to see the early stages of  Group Development Stages occurring on the show.   After the groups were divided you had the Forming Stage, noone really knew each other so everyone appeared to be polite to one another. In this stage both you could see members of both orange and blue groups trying to prove their worth. Examples were, Dale AKA the old man from the orange group making fire on day one and Drew from the blue group making a shelter for the group.  After the elimination challenge, in group orange you could start to see the beginning of the Storming Stage.  You could openly see the men and the women dividing already, while trying to figure out who should get voted off at the next tribal council. When you think about the elimination challenge, its interesting to see how the group goals connect to the motivation of the group. Its a cross between personal and group success in order to win the game. To win your group has to win, but you also have to consider that your group is also your greatest competition. In the blue group,  you could clearly see Jeremy had a hidden agenda when he started to approach all the women in his group to make alliances for votes. The contrast between Indivdual Goals vs. Group Goals is very interesting on this show and i am exciting to see how it plays out. What do you Guys think? About How the Groups are Developing? Who’s Playing What Roles, and What Strategies are the castaways already implementing?

First Time Ever Watching Survivor

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The first episode of survivor has two groups blood vs water. The loved ones were separated and they had to compete against each other. Each pair was put into a tribe called- Hunahpu which was (blue) and Coyopa (orange). The groups had to introduce each other so that they can bond with one another later on as a team. Everyone is able to see how the groups come together and motivate each other to win the opposite team.

As the show continues the groups start the forming stage by starting to be cautiously polite with one another. Everyone starts to show faces of the storming stage by noticing that one person builds status in the group. During the episode everyone in  the Hunahpu tribe saw that Jeremy built status after winning the first competition. With one person having greater status it brings others danger to the competition. Jeremy won the first challenge and is earned respect by his tribe members. Respect by others in a group will benefit him later on by having a better chance of stayinng in the competion longer.  The Coyopa tribe lost two challenges already and primary tension is their because they were not able to build that bond like the other group did. The Coyopa tribes  younger members come together except for Dale, the oldest. Due to Dales age  difference he struggles to fit in and he feels  like  he needs to stand out so that they  wont eliminate him. Dale is seen as the weakest but in my opinion he should of been seen as the person with more experience and knowledge. Dale starts a fire first in the group and brakes his  glasses apart to show his other tribe members that he is scarifying for them. With that the group starts to become stronger and every one seems to accept one another and Dale does not seem to be the target anymore.

When the Coyopa group starts building a shelter they put tree branches as a covering    and one of the group members notices that he has a bad rash on his eyes. They all ask him if he is okay and they notice that the branches are poisonous. So they all get together to change the shelter for other branches, this is an example of resolving primary tension. Since Coyopa has lost two competitions secondary tension kicks in because the men want to eliminate one of the girls while the girls want to eliminate one of the guys. I really enjoyed watching this show and I am looking forward to the other episodes.