PODCAST #393 W/ STEPHEN FISHBACH TRANSCRIPT
What’s up, everybody? Welcome to podcast number 393. I’m your host, Reality Steve. Thank you all for tuning in. Great Thursday podcast for you. It’s our bi annual visit with Steven Fischbach from Survivor Token Chains and Survivor Second Chances. He comes on, you know, at the end of every season so we can discuss what happened on this season of Survivor.
His thoughts on the finale. It’s a first. This time around for Steven, because he just watched the finale two days ago. He was out of town. He was on vacation with his family. This is the first time he’s talked about his thoughts outside of social media, but he has not done a podcast yet that has aired where he talks about the finale.
So good to hear Stephen fish back again, twice a year on talking about the finale, and that’s coming up momentarily. It’s podcast brought to you by tropical. Smoothie Cafe Tropical Smoothie Cafe believes you deserve a getaway every day, not just once a year. Summer Mocktail smoothies are here for a limited time at Tropical Smoothie Cafe.
Mocktail Hour on the pool deck is a sip away. Visit one of Tropical Smoothies Cafes 1400 plus locations. Order online. Or through their app. So before we get to Steven, just want to talk about a couple of things that are happening on the daily roundup that I posted earlier today. The biggest one is the fact that Laura Owens, who is going to be on trial in two weeks, the Clayton Eckerd case, June 10th.
So less than two weeks now, she is actually, she actually took to social media yesterday through her lawyer’s blog. And he basically said, here’s something that Laura wanted to say. And. It’s a giant pity party. It’s exactly what I expect from Laura at this point. Less than two weeks away from her case, all she does is speak in generalizations.
She doesn’t give details of anything. She tells a bunch of half truths. So for, yeah, for someone who hasn’t followed this case, and was reading that for the first time, you’d probably feel sorry for her. And you’d probably be like, whoa, this woman’s really gotten it bad. Anybody with a half a brain, That has been listening to mostly Dave or Megan Fox, or even the updates that I give here and there knows very well that there have been so many things that have come to the light that Dave has proven that Laura has contradicted herself flat out lied about.
And she doesn’t address any of that in her blog. She doesn’t address. Anything where she has been actually proven to be lying in certain things that she said in a deposition, certain things that she said in emails, certain things that she said in text messages, none of it. So I go over a few things. I have a little fun with it.
So if you’re interested in that. Go listen to that. I don’t sit there and read her whole blog post cause my gosh, I might my eyes might start bleeding if I did. There are some things in there that even, even in a blog post where she’s trying to garner sympathy from people, she can’t keep her story straight.
She literally contradicts herself in yesterday’s post from a post she made back on December 7th for medium. So that’s pretty much all you need to know. About that, but go listen to the daily roundup if you want to have a good laugh today. I also bring up the fact that I was on Courtney Robertson’s podcast yesterday.
I hope you all got a chance to listen to that. The after reality podcast with Courtney Robertson. We talk about her coming to Vegas next week, the party fan appreciation party next Friday night in Las Vegas at the Venetian. First time it’s at a restaurant in the eight years that I’ve had it. And it is RSVP only.
You can’t just show up. I have a guest list that will be let in when they arrive. And it is something that. I’m looking forward to, I look forward to it every year. This one’s just going to be different because it’s at a restaurant and I’m just a little more, I guess I’m a little more relaxed because I don’t have to have to worry about anything happening to my room that I’m in because that’s where the party’s been for the first seven years.
It’s been in my hotel room and I don’t have to worry about it being a thousand degrees in there and which is why I changed the location of the party because it was just getting too hot and stuffy. The only way to remedy that would be to invite less people and max myself out at like 50 people in the room, which I wasn’t going to do.
I wanted to have as many people as possible and I can give you an early hint to the reality Steve fan appreciation party year number nine coming next year. We’re looking to blow this thing up a little bit. I don’t want to get into details yet cause we’re still at the very early planning stages.
Actually we’re not going to start planning until about August or September, but we’re going to give it a good nine months looking at venues, looking at what we want to do different, maybe make it a live event where it’s an actual podcast, which doesn’t go straight into the party. We’ll see. Definitely thinking about a lot of things.
So looking forward to that and you’ll know, probably end of 2024 or beginning of 2025, the date, location, all the stuff, how many people I can actually bring this year, because right now I’m capped at a hundred for this party. And I think I’m at 99 right now. So I really cannot let anybody in and I’m waiting on a possible hundred that might be in as well.
So looking forward to it. But anyway, Courtney’s podcast. A lot of fun yesterday. We did talk about the Vegas stuff because she is coming delivered a baby a month ago, and she’s coming to the party. That is one hell of a trooper and one person I really can consider calling myself, calling her a friend in this franchise.
Also, we talk about my love for 1980s Madonna. Where did that come from? Steve? Well, Listen to the podcast because you talk about that. We talk about one of my all time favorite concerts that I’ve never went to, but I have seen online and I definitely have some FOMO for sure because every time I watch it online, I’m like, this had to have been one of the best nights ever.
We also talk about, I also talk about on the daily roundup, the show runner, Alex Baskin from Vanderpump rules did an interview with the Hollywood reporter. And. Basically gave his thoughts on season 11, everything we saw, what his thoughts were about hiding the final five minutes of season 11 from the cast until they were filming part three of the reunion episode or filming the reunion episode, what he thought about that.
And what he thinks about a possible season 12 is this show over. He gives some definite thoughts on that. Also, I end the daily roundup with rumors about the traders three cast, which Courtney actually had some rumors. If you listened to the podcast yesterday, she’s got some names that she heard are going to be on it.
And also the rumored cast list for special forces, which is already done filming and Trista isn’t on that list, but there are two people missing. So maybe she is on special forces. We know she went off and filmed a show, just a matter of which one it is. Allie was on the list for special forces on the rumored gas list.
So maybe they just forgot Trista, but we’ll see anyway, that’s all on the daily roundup, if you want to go check that out, this podcast brought to you by factor warmer, sunnier days are calling fuel up. With them for factors, no prep, no mess meals, meet your wellness goals in time for summer. Thanks to the menu of chef crafted meals with options like calorie smart protein plus and keto factors, fresh, never frozen meals are dietician approved and ready to eat in just two minutes.
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Podcast number three 93. All right, let’s bring them in. You first saw him on survivor token jeans and then on survivor second chances. He is our resident survivor expert as we bring him on at the end of every season. It is Steven Fishback. Steven, thanks for coming on.
Oh my gosh, it is my biannual honor.
I’m so excited to talk to you and especially about this season because such a crazy season. And like I was just saying to you before we started taping. I normally, you know, normally we talk a few days after I have watched the finale. And so I’ve had time to digest and think things through, but I really just watched it yesterday because I was on vacation last week.
So I’m, I’m like, you know, like bubbling over with all these things that happened. Cause it was a pretty eventful, exciting finale to a chaotic season.
Yeah, I, that was the first thing I was going to ask you was, you know, I had reached out to you last week and said, Hey, Finale’s Wednesday. Can we record maybe Thursday morning or sometime on Thursday?
And you’re like, I’m actually going to be out of town. And then the first thing I thought was, wait a second. So are you like, are you watching it when you’re out of town and record know it alls wherever you were on vacation? And it’s no, it sounds like you just watched it and you haven’t done. Your know it alls until obviously you watched it.
So I’m assuming that’s the way it went. Yeah,
I haven’t even recorded that. So we’re actually recording that tomorrow. So, so this is like my, really my first time talking about the the finale at all, so I’m very excited to kind of like, you know, hash it out with you. And I’m really, you know, I think as you’re a person who’s, I think I’m really like particularly keen to get, because it’s like, there’s so many, like many controversies and, you know, being so deep in like survivor Twitter and the survivor community.
I feel like I have like. Too much, too many opinions. And I kind of want to get your perspective cause you’re obviously a huge fan of the show, but you know, you’re, you’re able to take that sort of like outsider’s perspective where, or I think you may have a clearer, a clearer view of some of these things.
Well, one of the things that I told you before we recorded is this is the first season that I was actually writing stuff down and questions that I specifically wanted to ask you. Cause normally at the end of the season, I’m just like, all right, I’m going to have Steven on. And we usually just talk about the finale.
We don’t dive back too deep into what happened earlier. Cause a lot of people just kind of want to focus on the ending and how it played out or whatever, but I was writing stuff down as the season was going on saying, I definitely want to ask Steven about this. Now, the first thing I want to talk about happened earlier in the season.
And I was wondering if you knew when this particular challenge came up, it was the first thing I wrote down about, I got to ask Steven about this. Do you know which challenge I’m talking about?
No. And I’m intrigued and a little nervous that I’m not going to have anything insightful to say. Oh, you
will.
And it was, it was when Hunter. Had to put the seasons in order. And I was like, Oh my God, fish back would have finished this in 13 seconds. Right? Like you would have nailed that particular, you would have nailed that challenge, right?
I mean, that was, yes, yes. That is one that would have played to my skillset.
That is not one I would have struggled with, but I do think it’s always like a, for he went to the, it was when he was on the it took the journey, right? And he had to put the seasons in order to win an advantage. Right. And I, yes, for me, I probably would have aced that, but I do think for even like a normal super fan of the show, like there were some tricky ones, you know, in that mix, you know, it was in season 13 in there, you know, 12, I, you know, a little bit of Guatemala.
You know, there was, there was not, it was not all straight forward. And certainly you know, in that kind of like mid teens, it gets a little bit hard to remember what was what
I was going to say. It was 20 in a row, right? 20 consecutive seasons in a row that he had to name. Or was it the first one?
If they were consecutive though, I think there might’ve been gaps. I think that might’ve been what he was. And I actually think, I mean, just looking over how he performed, it seemed like, you know, he definitely got a couple wrong, but it was one of those things where like, if you get one wrong, you’re inherently getting like four wrong, you know, because you just like have this one season that you, You know, it was in the late twenties and you put it as 11.
So you’ve got like seven wrong in a row. And I think he kind of, his actual errors of order were, were few, but it ended up kind of having a disproportionate impact on his final score. It didn’t matter. He had to get the perfect that he didn’t.
Yeah. And it’d be in a chain reaction basically of you get one wrong.
Exactly, exactly.
Now I’m trying to remember when they did that particular challenge. Did it just say the number season on it or did it say Guatemala Africa? Did it say the names of the, the seasons? Well, it didn’t,
it definitely didn’t say the number.
Well, that would have made it
easier. Yeah. That would have been a hell of a lot easier.
Steve, you
dumb ass.
You know, it was just the name of the season. Yeah.
Yeah. It was just the name of the season. Okay. Yeah, I just, the second I saw that, I’m like, Oh my gosh. Steven Fischbach must be sitting at home, screaming at the television like, Oh, Hunter, come on, this season goes here, and this season goes here.
I knew you would, I knew you would know that. No, but
I have a lot of empathy because like, I’m always asked like, Oh, you know, well, who, what were the, you know, I have friends who, you know, you know, former survivors or even in the fan community who, You can name every tribe and I’m like, I, I don’t know. I know the tribes of my seasons.
I got no idea. There’s a few other random tribes that I know, but I, you know, the blue tribe, I’ve got that one down, but, you know, I don’t remember you know, what the tribes were on, I mean, maybe season that probably wasn’t like season 27. I have no idea. So, so it’s different levels of specificity for, for knowledge here.
So overall I guess, just give me your impression of this season. I’ll give you my short impression, which was, I think this goes along with what a lot of people said. I thought the first four episodes might’ve been four of the worst episodes we’ve ever seen. And maybe that was just because you had four people that did not even know how to play the game or did not care how to play the game.
And you had a, an evacuation, but yeah, those first four with Zelinsky. And who was the second one voted out? Who was the,
Well, Jess was, she’s second or third. Jess was second. Right. And then Bonu was third, Bonu, and then, and then Ranjan was metamagnetic episode three, and then Bonu was episode four. I mean, the Bonu were all about Bonu, you know, were, I mean, I’m with you, Steve, like three, four of the worst episodes in a row, you know, maybe in the history, in the history of the show.
It was,
and I don’t think, I don’t think that’s being mean or anything. It was just, especially since this show has really, since in the new era focused on. It seems like everybody that they bring on the show is a super fan or whatever. And it was just horrible gameplay. And you’re just like, we expect better, I guess, is what we, we have a higher expectation for the players on this show.
And then we find out, I don’t know if you know this, because you just watched the finale yesterday. I don’t know how much you’ve been on social media. It looks like Zelinsky and Jess are now a couple. I think they’re dating now. Wait, no. Are you serious? Is that real? He posted a ten photo slide on his Instagram yesterday where he said this is how Jess Linsky came to be.
And it was ten pictures of him and Jess. I think they might be dating.
Wow. How fun. Well, congratulations to them. I guess, good for them for finding a couple. Love finding, you know, love out there on the island. Yeah,
unless I could be completely reading it wrong, but he did say, like the caption says basically like a recap of how Jess Linsky came to be.
So maybe it’s just they’re good friends. I don’t know, but that’s the way I read it. Interesting that there are a couple now. I think one of the most polarizing figures of this season and maybe in the last five seasons was Q. And all season I was watching this guy got a kick out of his canceling Christmas comments and he had so many great one liners yet the whole season I’m sitting here going, is Q a good player or is he not a good player?
He’s great TV, but I didn’t, I couldn’t get a grasp on if he was playing this mindless game to get in people’s heads. Cause he was this mastermind. Or he was just a shitty player and really didn’t know what he was doing. What was your take on Q?
What was interesting was the first few episodes, you know, which were such terrible episodes.
I thought Q was playing a great game. You know, he was in the center of everything on his, on his tribe, the Yanu tribe. And And, you know, he was the one who was chatting with Banu, keeping Banu level, you know, he was the one who seemed to be you know, he was, he was able to like form these bonds. He was also kind of guiding the strategy, you know, he correctfully pegged Kenzie out of the gate as a potential social threat, but still, you know, wanted to work with her because, you know, she was part of his little group and You know, so he seemed to really be playing a very smart game.
And I kind of speculated that just the insanely terrible conditions, right? This was the group that went the longest ever without fire, which is crazy how long they went, you know, on survivor have zero fire, it gets really cold at night, you know, And then there was a giant rainstorm and I, I feel like something shifted and everybody on that group, you know, I think they all went a little crazy.
And maybe him more than the others, but so he was playing like a very like normal kind of strategic game, you know, in the, in the first few episodes. And then suddenly. Emerge like it just like explodes and maybe because he finally felt like he had room to play or maybe he did like he was just like, you know, mentally taxed by that point where he was doing these extremely erratic things, you know, most notably the tribal council where he told everybody to vote him out, which, you know, I said so many different explanations.
I don’t really remember what the correct one is. I think like in his exit press, he said that he felt bad it. That Liz had this plan to vote out Kevin and he got in the way of that plan. And he wanted, cause he wanted to vote out Tiff. So he was gonna, you know, as, as penance basically offer himself up to be voted out for that.
That’s what he claimed in his exit press. Yeah. So. You know, and like you said, like, just like, it seemed like more than, like, he was a good player, but more than anything, he was a chaotic player, you know, he liked to be in control, he liked to just be doing stuff, and he got impatient when things got boring, and then would just, like, mix it up, or throw a wrench into the thing, into things, and that, to him, I think, was more fun.
Yeah. Interesting and important, or maybe that’s just who he was, you know, and more than he was a good player. So I feel like the, like the good play instincts were there, but like the chaos instincts were just stronger.
Well, whatever you think of him, he was great TV. And now that we know that season 50 is going to be returning players, not just as necessarily all new era players.
They did say that they will bring back some players before the new era. I think we can pretty much solidify the fact that. I mean, I’d be shocked if Q wasn’t brought back for season 50. I just think he’s,
I agree. I think he’s my, Oh, go ahead.
Go ahead. No, I was going to, I was just going to say, I think he, it’d be, I’d be shocked.
No, he’s
my number two lock. I mean, my number one lock, you know, can you guess who my number one lock of new era players, new era players is of new era players from this season or overall. No, from any, from just from like post, post 40, like 41 to 46. Who, who, who like the most definite player from that group to like, that I think is going to come back on, on season 50.
First one that comes to mind is Carolyn.
Yeah, I think Carolyn cause she’s just, she really had it all. She was a huge character. You know, even in the finale of this past season, people were saying that they, you know, applied because of Carolyn, because they inspired her to, you know, they could be messy individuals and still play the game.
You know, she’s, she’s a great story where she goes all the way to the end. A lot of people felt she should have won and she had no votes. The only potential wrinkle in this plan is that allegedly there’s a rumor she’s going to be on next season of traders. So who knows if that will You know, affect her standing in the, in the season 50 casting process.
But yeah,
her and her and Tony are on the her and Tony Vlachos are on the rumored cast list for traders season three. You know, they love their survivor people. They have what four on four survivor people on last season. Or was it three? So three. Parvati will stream the season one, at
least he’s with Sandra Parvati.
And who else,
Yeah, I’m blanking. There was, there was a third. Yeah. Anyway. But yeah, Q definitely going to be back for, unless doesn’t want to do it, but it didn’t sound like that’s something that he would turn down. I think the other big thing that happened this season, which we had never seen before was four straight episodes and five out of six, I believe.
Yeah. Of people getting voted out with idols, which I think it was fascinating to me although as I was watching the episodes the editing kind of led you to believe because it seemed like and I can’t remember off the Top of my head But it seemed like at some point during all four of those episodes where hunter tiffany venus and then q were voted out With idols at some point during the episode each one of those four said something that was basically like They said that there was no way they were going home and I was just like, okay, they wouldn’t leave that in there unless they knew they were getting blindsided.
But I mean, it was as a game player, it was just fascinating to watch. And I think, I think that’s why this season really picked up at the end because we had never seen this before four straight episodes of a blindside. Usually you’re blindsiding somebody just to get them out of the game, but not four straight with idols in their pocket.
It’s just, it was amazing. That’s so crazy.
Yeah. I mean, one, the only like one mitigating factor is that, you know, they didn’t all know right. Who had idols. So like when Venus is blindsided with an idol, They didn’t necessarily like, you know, Q didn’t know that Venus had just been blindsided with an idol.
Although I guess they did know that Tiffany had been blindsided with an idol. They didn’t necessarily know that Hunter had an idol. Cause they, that wasn’t, I don’t know if they, if they all believed him, he claimed to have an idol and we knew he had an idol. So, you know, from our perspective, like once you’ve seen three people in a row be blindsided with an idol, you know, maybe play your idol Q, but it’s not clear that they all knew that it had been three people in a row who had been blindsided with an idol.
Yeah. And you know what? Actually, now that I think about it. Did Jeff go over this on the after show and say we had four and get an end and they all acknowledged Oh, yeah. No, we knew we foreigner like I almost feel like it was overlooked at the after show Which by the way, the after show is getting shorter and shorter if I’m not mistaken They crowned Kenzie as the winner 25 minutes into episode into our number three.
We literally had I think a 35 minute After show where, you know, you and I both agree, we don’t like really fast. It was short and I, and I, I remember looking at the clock saying. We’re 25 minutes into hour three and they’re just crowning. We got 35 minutes to recap all of this. I just, I don’t like it, but it doesn’t look like it’s ever going to change.
It doesn’t look like they’re ever going back to a live finale. Now, something that was interesting with this finale was the fact that as far as I know, from what I read the next day, I think it was in Dalton’s column is that they’re 10 days into filming season 47. At the time of this finale. So they couldn’t have done a live finale, but I always thought, did they, did they push back the schedule because they had done live finales in the past where They were filming back to back seasons.
What did I miss here? Did this 47 get pushed back or something?
Well, it used to be that they would basically have the live finale and then go out to, you know, right. Basically go out and film over the summer. And now, you know, I, I guess there was just a little bit, you know, they, they just, yeah, change the filming dates because they know they’re not having the live finale, but you know, by a small amount, right.
Like by. You know, like you said, 10 days. So it’s not a huge, a huge amount of time. And I think in the past, like the crews have been out there, you know, but like Jeff will come home. I don’t know if Jeff flies home or if he doesn’t fly out there in the first place, but you know, the crew is out there like getting it ready.
And then, and then, you know, there’s like, and then Jeff is, is doing the finale at the same time. I’m sure it’s, you know, it’s a lot easier that they don’t have to do, produce a giant show in the middle of Times Square.
