Summer Schedule

So as not to bury the lead, it would be wise on our part to announce that we'll be recording our final Survivor retrospective of the season with Stephen Fishbach tomorrow afternoon.

And with Survivor: Philippines waiting in the wings for September, we'll be turning our attention this summer to another one of our favorites: Big Brother.  Tune in each week as we'll be bringing you coverage of all of the goings-on within the BB14 house along with the most in-depth strategy analysis in Podcastland.

To get you all in the mood, we're happy to announce that we've lined up our first Big Brother retrospective.  Joining us for this landmark occasion is none other than America's favorite diabolical super-genius, BB12's Matt Hoffman.  That episode will be available sometime during the week leading up to the BB14 premiere.

We're also planning on covering our first scripted series, Breaking Bad, when its fifth season premieres in July.  To catch up on this show, you can stream episodes instantly if you're fortunate enough to know your mom's Netflix log-in information.

Speaking of scripted shows, we'll be completing our coverage of the first season of the latest Russell Hantz vehicle, Flipped Off, once again joined by friend of the show Matt Rodrigues sometime as Big Brother is airing.

We also still hope to have a conversation about old school Survivor spoiling with True Dork Times godfather Jeff Pitman and we'll let you know more about that as we figure it out ourselves.

Lastly, you'd already know all of these things if you had liked our Facebook page.

Survivor: We have a RobCast

After a month-long hiatus, we are back with a show that we hope is worth the wait: we are grateful to be joined by Survivor icon and podcaster extraordinaire Rob Cesternino. The original consensus 'best player to never win' takes us through the game he played to earn that title, responding in detail to a number of popular but previously unanswered questions about the decisions he made in the Amazon, as well as giving us his perspective on the events leading up to and during All-Stars. You can listen here or on iTunes here; we're looking at embedding the audio streams within the blog page for greater convenience.

We will hopefully record a podcast with Stephen Fishbach very soon; and we'll be talking about shows from Big Brother to Breaking Bad throughout the summer. In the meantime, you can stay updated by following us on Twitter or subscribing on iTunes using the link above; and now, by clicking 'Like' on our new Facebook page. Enjoy!

Coming soon...

Survivor: Winner/gameplay analysis ft. Kos

A week after the finale of Survivor: One World, debate continues on the topic of Kim's game: is she one of the most dominant players of all time, earning a place in the pantheon of all-time greats, or is the fan community blinded by her recency and other bias, ignoring the role played by luck and the weakness of her competition? Is her game representative of her skillset as a player? And just how does she compare to previous winners? To answer these questions we are joined once again by Kos Kosdrosky for a marathon-length, in-depth podcast about Survivor strategy. We go back through all previous winners, analyzing their games on their own merits and showing how they stack up against Kim's, before discussing some of our favourite non-winners and touching on some more abstract points about general Survivor strategy. If this sounds like your sort of thing, you can listen here or on iTunes here.

We have tentative commitments from a few more former Survivors for retrospective podcasts over the next month or two; as that becomes concrete we'll give you more info. Until then, you can stay updated by subscribing on iTunes using the link above. Enjoy!

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Blog/iTunes technical problems

Some listeners reported having issues with the links on the blog posts not working. The problem seems to be to do with the file-hosting site we use, so we've emailed them to see if they can fix it; if not, we'll find an alternative as soon as possible. As far as we're aware, if you're subscribed to us in iTunes you should still get accessible versions of the episodes there.  UPDATE: FIXED!

We just finished recording a podcast with friend of the show Kos, so if the above problems are resolved then we should be able to get that to you later this week. We have no definite plan for the next few weeks yet, but we'll let you know when that changes. Until then, sorry once again for the technical problems, and we'll see you again soon!

Survivor 24: season review with Gary Wise

Another year of Survivor ended on Sunday night when, to the surprise of nobody, Kim Spradlin was crowned the winner of Survivor: One World. ESPN's Gary Wise joins us to break down the season, revisiting the judgements he made when he was on the podcast after the premiere and giving his thoughts on everything that happened since then. He tells us how he rates both Kim and this season against their respective predecessors and gives his first impressions of the S25 format based on the reunion announcements (WARNING: don't listen to the end if you don't want to know who the returnees are!).

This isn't the end of our Survivor content this season; later this week Kos returns to the show as we put Kim's win in a historical perspective, going over her game in detail and using it as a platform for in-depth discussion of both general gameplay and specific players we admire. Until then, this podcast with Gary can be found here or on iTunes here, and you can stay updated by subscribing on iTunes using that link or following us on Twitter using the icons on the blog page. Follow @colinstone Follow @MC_Usher

Survivor 24: Finale preview ft. Albert Destrade

In less than 72 hours, the winner of Survivor: One World will be crowned, and today Albert Destrade returns to the podcast to preview the finale. He gives us his thoughts on the season so far, from the dynamics on the original gender-split tribes through the fall of Colton and the merge to the rapidly approaching endgame. He contrasts this season to his own, notably assessing how Sophie compares to Kim, and makes his predictions for Sunday. This week's show, featuring all this and more, can be found here or on iTunes here.