The producers seem to want to keep players off balance, because the show gets really boring when one solid alliance marches in lockstep to victory. This past season, "Game Changers," actually had a few people follow through on their diary promises to "make a big move." It was really interesting.
Most of the time, when a player tells the camera that he or she is ready shake things up, they lose their nerve and bolt back to the security of their alliance. This season, there was a LOT more discussion by players about feeling or being on the bottom of the totem pole, knowing that once their alliance began to cannibalize itself, they were going to be the first to go. That led to some actual big moves, instead of watching the doomed omega player walk inevitably off the cliff. Tribal councils were also confounding, as more than once the whole group broke into smaller groups to discuss developments. There was no secret at all what the alliances were or who was with whom.
I'm still a bit baffled by the round of six council where Cirie got booted because five (!) immunity idols got played (four hidden idols and the one from the immunity competition), one for each of the other survivors at council. After all the idols came out, Jeff Probst mentioned that none of the votes in the urn were for Cirie, but because everyone else had immunity, she was the player to go, evicted without getting any votes. Going forward, I think the producers might limit the number of hidden immunity idols in play at any one time, because Cirie really got cheated on that.
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