From: Robert S. Thau (rst@ai.mit.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 25 2000 - 05:04:53 PDT
Adam Rifkin writes:
> My observation on Survivor: In a way, it's beautiful that the show's
> producers did -nothing- to make Richard a sympathetic character.
> (www.survivorsucks.com calls him Machiabelly. :) What the show told us
> with the final vote is that nonsympathetic is, in the end, better than
> just plain pathetic.
For an interesting contrast to this view of Rich, you might want to
look at the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.diplomacy, where he's generally
admired --- he *had* a strategy, though not a very sophisticated one
by Diplomacy standards. (Rich *was* overconfident, and at least one
of the Rattana votes came very close to booting him).
BTW, the diplomacy aspect is one reason why a lot of the TV critics
Adam quoted are probably wrong about the prospects of Survivor II ---
it probably won't just be more of the same, because there will almost
certainly be duelling alliances, a situation which creates lots of
interesting possibilities for non-aligned players, and plenty of
telegenic intrigue.
rst
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