Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-33309113-20171214174455/@comment-5002930-20171216184420

I have to admit that I was on the fence about this season for some time, but this latest episode was the final straw for me. I can take camera hogs, I can deal with idiot players making BIG MOVEZ without much reasoning. But I cannot stomach blatant rigging.

Not one, but BOTH of Ben's idols have been suspicious. Having Ben do a confessional at an elevated area and the clue just happening to be at the exact path he had to look down at after his confessional? Then with this second idol, he mentioned some box on the ground, but we never even got a clear shot of the damn box!

And then there's that idol play. The point of the rule change 11 years ago in was because the super idol in  and  made people afraid of even trying to flush it out. The new rule of playing it after the votes had been cast, but before they were read was to introduce an element of RISK to having an idol. That way, there was still a chance of an idol being flushed, but an equal one of it being played properly.

Probst made 2 very questionable decisions there: 1) confirming that it was an idol before any votes were cast (Mike Holloway tried the same thing in and Probst outright refused to confirm it at that point. And before anyone mentions Tony Vlachos in, he did so at the time the rules legally allowed idols to be played.); 2) accepting the idol right then and there (By accepting it, he changed the way the tribe approached the vote and potentially cost Ashley the game since Ben was targeting Mike.) Probst shouldn't have done either thing and returned the idol to Ben until the time the rules state that it should be played. And of course Probst is defending the decision to allow it. Why would he want to taint a season that he's still trying to sell to the viewing audience for at least one more week?

That, along with the extremely forced positive edit for Ben, has really left a bad taste in my mouth. Right now, this season is firmly in the bottom 2 of my rankings, only ahead of the other, more blatantly-rigged season,. It could still rise depending on how the finale goes and if we get a non-Ben winner. But even that seems like too much to ask now.