Hi friends, thought i'd pop on real quick just to share my first impressions with the new cast and see how you guys are feeling towards them. Overall i'm a fan of this cast, there aren't a ton of SUPER interesting people like Kaoh Rong but moreso a lot of fairly interesting, more middle ground-positive people like MvGX. Here's my current ranking, according to pre-season first impressions:
18. Lauren Rimmer.
Lauren is boring. She talks slowly and straight to the point. She talks about how stubborn and take-charge she can be, which is of course huge red flags when it comes to playing Survivor. I don't often use this term, because I often like the Southerners, but Lauren does just strike me as a boring redneck. My pick for first boot.
17. Simone Nguyen.
I haven't checked the blogs for the general consensus yet but I predict Simone is who Tengaged has chosen to worship right off the bat for no good reason. She's very dull to me. We've seen this a thousand times already- some young, attractive female who talks about how she's going to manipulate everyone and slit their throats and use their insecurities against them and blah blah blah, then they get out pre-merge because lol what's a social bond amirite?I predict she's just going to be another Liz Markham or Anna Khait or So Kim or Mari Takahashi or so forth.
16. Desi Williams.
I mean, she's alright. I don't see her doing very well, she strikes me as a bit of a know it all and really outside of her element in a physical game like this. I don't see her bonding well with people. Kinda getting Tasha Fox vibes. Pass.
15. John-Paul Hilsabeck.
He's a likable guy, but likable only goes so far. Doesn't seem to be too much to him. Like I said, he's pretty likable, very nice, but that seems to be about as far as his character goes as of right now. I probably won't root against him but not for him either. I don't really see a winner in him, but he has potential to do well. Reminds me of Hunter Ellis.
14. Katrina Radke.
Katrina's kinda cool. She seems to bring a lot of energy to the table, which is something this cast kinda needs as it would seem, so that's great, however I don't see her lasting long either. I get very strong Wendy Jo vibes. She may be a bit of a physical liability and a bit of a talker early on, and she's actually my next bet for first boot outside Lauren. I don't think she's dumb though, I think she does potentially have the capacity to surprise me, maybe get the coveted "older mom character that makes finals but doesn't garner any respect from the jury" slot.
13. Chrissy Hofbeck.
She's more fun than I thought she'd be. Like Katrina, seems to bring a bit of energy to the table, which is good. I don't really understand why she's a hero? As she put it herself, her job is kinda like assessing situations and forming a plan for the future? I dont know, I dont really get it/care enough to research the subject. She's ok
12. Ben Driebergen.
My initial impression of Ben was: easy pre merge fodder. Going to come in, take charge, get booted for it. But after watching his videos, and listening to him speak, he has much more potential than that, both for entertainment and gameplay. He's actually a much bigger softie than he appeared to be. I like that. I'll admit I kinda bought into the "wow looks kinda like a dumb hick" prejudice at first, and I regret it. I like Ben. Also he looks, sounds, and acts exactly like my boss's husband, so there's that. Getting Chris Hammons vibes, which is a good thing in my book.
11. Jessica Johnston.
She's cool, I think she has potential to do fairly well. She strikes me as a very driven person, someone who would put up a big fight if she thought she was in trouble. She started getting all religious near the end of her cast vid, which was a little groan-y, but I think she's pretty likable.
10. Patrick Bolton.
Patrick is a big question mark to me. I really can't get a read on his character at all. He seems kinda preppy but not really snobby? He seems kinda smart but not like a schemer or anything. The last person that was a huge question mark to me was Will Wahl, and as the season progressed, it was deduced that the reason I couldn't get a read on his personality was because he didn't really have one, and I hope that's not the case here. Pat seems more likable than Will, although he appeared to be really low energy when he spoke in his cast video, but im willing to chalk that up to the dull format the videos are set in ("my name is ____, I do _______, im from ______, heres why im unique". Them talking to the camera like this is not exciting, its not fun)
9. Devon Pinto.
Another question mark for me. I like the surfer dude characters, I identify with them, Jay, Fabio, Joe, they're pretty much how I am in my day to day life. But he seems like a much more mellow version of the archetype. He seems to live the lifestyle, but doesn't seem like he'll give us any fun confessionals or goofy moments,he seems much more chill. That's probably better for his game but worse for his character. I don't know, we'll see.
8. Mike Zahalsky.
I first saw Mike, I thought to myself "David Samson". I thought he'd be easy pre-merge overly strategic fodder. But the more I heard from him the more I started liking him. I still think it's very much possible my intial impression will still be accurate, but he seems much more likable, much more self-aware and less pretentious than I initially thought he'd be. The whole obsession with Ethan Zohn is kinda weird tho, did anyone else catch that? Talked about him for like a solid minute. You do you, Mike. I hope he makes urine/dick jokes
7. Cole Medders.
Hugely likable guy. I very much relate to the way he views the world and his beliefs and lifestyle and such. However, relatability to me only does so far. I relate a good amount to Woo Hwang too, doesn't mean I find his character fun to watch. Actually if we're being accurate I feel Cole should be moved down a few spaces on this ranking, but, ya know, I already done typed all this shit out so here he's staying. Anyway, really likable guy, doesn't seem to have a huge clue strategically, a lot of people have him as winner picks, im not sure i buy into that, but I like him. Weirdly I have Jay Byars vibes
6. Joe Mena.
Seems like we found our potential season villain. Kinda seems like the Walmart Knockoff Brand of Tony Vlachos. Like they have similar jobs, same hair/facial hair, same body type with tattoos, same cutthroat philsosophy. I definitely think he was cast to try and become the next Tony. Will he be? No. There's only one Big Tone Vlachos. But I see us getting some good drama with him. Also he got into a Twitter fight with Scot Pollard lel
5. Roark Luskin.
Roark is another big question mark to me, but im leaning towards the positive here. Some stuff she's said in her interviews make me laugh (like saying her hero is Blue Ivy, Beyonce's daughter), so I like her. She seems like someone i'd enjoy as a person but not enjoy watching as much, as I get HEAVY Spencebot 9000 vibes from her. Plus she's good friends with Corinne Kaplan, which is a huge negative. Gross. But I like Roark, I hope she isn't a gamebot. I don't think she's going to win at all but as of now im a fan.
4. Ashley Nolan.
Im not sure why I like Ashley so much, but I do. She's fun to me. She has this determination to her, shes interesting. I think she has fair winner potential, but I also see her as a potential wreck that clashes with people. I think she could go either way, but, either course im eager to see play out.
3. Ali Elliott.
Ali seems to me what Desi/Simone think they are. Ali strikes me as a smart, resourceful girl who could play under the radar very well while still pulling some strings. I know loosely who Glozell Green is, I don't really care, Youtube is cringey as fuck in general, so that angle I couldn't care less about, but I definitely like Ali and I want to see her go far.
2. Alan Ball.
I think Alan is very likable. He's not really a big fan of the show and he owns that. I think he's very charismatic and he was my pre-interviews/videos winner pick. Now that i;ve heard from him some more, I think his winnability has gone down some, but I think he's still up there with a good shot.
1. Ryan Ulrich.
This is probably biased because I feel such heavy David Wright vibes from him, and i'm a huge Big Dick Dave fan. He seems like he's going to get the Aubry/David growth storyline, and at first I was kinda pissy about this- Aubry and David are two of my favorite modern characters, I dont want their genuinely interesting story arcs to turn into some gimmick that happens every season. But after hearing Ryan out a bit, I think he's very likable aswell. If you know me, you know I like very well-spoken people, I love the narrators of Survivor, and I think there's a lot of potential there for him. Turtleneck's dumb tho
Joe seems like if Tony and Rodney had a child together and I already love it.
I feel like with people like Aubry and David in recent years this cast might knock Ryan out like 8th-7th. I think someone is going to associate Ryan with David and think 'Oh shit. David was one day from winning. We can't let this guy get as close as they let him get'
Based on potential to win I'm thinking
1. Ben
2. Roark
3. Joe
I really feel if Ben doesn't act bossy and gets into a good alliance early he has a good shot to win
DumbGinger After watching all the videos, I must say, I almost completely disagree with everything.
My personal pre-season rankings:
Simone - entertaining trainwreck me thinks
Desi - very easy to root for
Roark - sassy and will give sophie-esque confessionals i hope
Ryan - easily the most potential for a male this season
Chrissy - smart and cunning old lady which is one of my favorite archetypes
Katrina - zany old lady which is one of my favorite archetypes
Jessica - good and entertaining female
Cole - best male in the cast besides ryan. obviously interesting.
Ben - sort of interesting nice guy vet, maybe i should rank him lower
Joe - seems to be a more restrained tony vlachos which is good
Alan - ok/good/kinda funny
Ali - ok/good
Ashley - the "oh im a girl but i hate other girls and want to work with the guys" type that is endlessly played out and one of the worst archetypes
JP - boring alpha male
Devon - boring alpha male
Mike - weird and gross
Patrick - boring alpha male
Lauren - terrible casting choice
