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Arguing about the relative merits of JT and Stephen is a bit pointless: they were both pretty good players and were both possessed with great personal qualities. We seem to have three different realities here. The first is the actual one, the one where they're both great. The second is the reality that people there actually perceived. And the third is the editing reality that was presented to us.

What is intriguing to me is the editing choices that were made. Effectively, from what we saw at the Final TC, Stephen was no more than a goat. Given that the editors work back from the Final TC in mapping out how they were going to present the season, I don't see how they laid the groundwork for Stephen being thought of as 'the weakest in a long time'.

Scenes such Stephen's EI fire scene obviously paid off with his opening FTC statement about personal growth. But what about the rest of the edit? Being the brains behind the partnership is one story thread that was totally over-turned at the Final TC. There were many others. For example, what was the point of sprinkling manipulated scenes of Stephen's little kindnesses throughout the season if the ending showed that they were totally mis-placed? What was the point of not giving any clues of how people were going to perceive him?

As I noted earlier, the only clue the editing gave us that Stephen was heading for a fall of such magnitude, was Sandy's 'easily led nerd' first impression. As I see it, there wasn't much to tie Stpehen's edit with the FTC vote.





Something totally unrelated from the FTC questioning which has been bothering me: Stephen's disastrous FTC performance began with Brendan's question about whether effort and growth were more appreciated in sports than innate ability. It was a disastrous start for Stephen and he acknowledged as much in an I/V afterwards, stating that Brendan had got him with that one.

This is really annoying because the response to this is so obvious. Yes, footballers catching a football with difficulty doesn't result in a greater score than having it easily caught by gifted footballers, but the most memorable victories are by those who were, on paper, less gifted. All Stephen had to do was bring up the Miracle on Ice. Or, when JT brought up football, Namath's Jets beating the Colts and the Giants beating New England.

And then ask the jury, which victories they considered, deep down, more memorable and more meritorious: the ones where someone born with innate physical skills dominates because he can or the ones where an underdog works really hard to improve, plays his guts out and uses his brain overcome the physical odds against him?

Sorry about the rant. I've been wanting to kick the TV since I saw it.