SenseiKreese wrote:
once the show moved to a Final 3 format, I just gave up caring. I will never accept a final 3 season as one of my favorites. Can't happen. That twist bugs me more than any of them.

Ditto. The final three is the only thing that keeps China from being in the top tier for me. The finale itself wasn't even that awful (although it did move slowly during the first hour), since it had Todd's "Oh snap!" with Denise and Amanda and some good Courtney moments. But it had the final three, which doesn't negate the 12 great episodes that preceded it, but keeps it towards the top of my second-rate seasons list. Call me stubborn, call me a Puritan, say that I'm too nostalgic for the early seasons and don't allow the game to progress--whatever. I won't get into the many reasons why I despise the final three since I've done it multiple times since it was introduced. But any season with the final three automatically has a huge mark against it. (I'm big on 16 contestants too but that's hardly a dealbreaker in the way the F3 is.)

That's why I loved the Micronesia finale. Sure, I like Cirie but I was so fucking thrilled when it became clear that we were gonna have a F2. Best surprise from the producers since the switch in Africa.

(And oh yeah, before anyone points it out, I know that one of the arguments I used against the final three was that in CI and Fiji, the players were not informed of it well enough in advance and that you can't run a fair game if the players don't know all the rules, yet was ecstatic to see the F2 in Micronesia under the exact same circumstances. Yep, I'm a hypocrite. I couldn't care less about the game itself; I'm not one of the contestants. It's a TV show and I want it to play out in the most entertaining and personally satisfying matter. And that is never going to happen if there's a F3.)