Elimination Houdini: Difference between revisions

On competition-based [[Reality TV]], especially [[Talent Show|Talent Shows]]s, one needs to exhibit the talent or skill necessary to win in order to justify their continuing existence on the show. Some contestants just don't have that, and most are quickly jettisoned.

Personality can sometimes play a role, but it doesn't matter whether the contestant is a nice person or a [[Jerkass]]. There is one and only one trait required to be a Elimination Houdini: an utter lack of the talent necessary to win the show, especially in comparison to the other contestants, including those already eliminated.

It's not enough for a contestant to be deemed incompetent by a mere sizable portion of viewers, though. There needs to be an overwhelming consensus that the Elimination Houdini just doesn't belong on the show anymore. What's more, this sentiment should also be shared by the other contestants (for shows with [[Confession Cam|Confession Cams]]s) or the judges (where the home audience votes and the judges have little to no influence anymore).

There is also another form of [['''Elimination Houdini]]''', commonly seen in shows like ''[[Survivor]]'' in which the contestants vote people out and not the audience. They may be the second person or another target for elimination, but somehow manage to avoid it, and they can do it in several ways. Either they get lucky and someone makes a bone-headed move that gets ''them'' on the chopping block instead, they instead gun for a different threat, a [[Non Gameplay Elimination]] spares them a round, or the [['''Elimination Houdini]]''' manages to talk their way out of elimination and avoids death. If the players are moderately [[Genre Savvy]], a bad player may become a Houdini through stronger players actively protecting them - why knock them out now when they could be easy competition in the finals? Often this happens when [[Tall Poppy Syndrome]] kicks up.

It is actually fully possible for the [['''Elimination Houdini]]''' to ''win''. In shows about alliances, they may be somewhat of a "Deadly Floater" who floats along then slips through the cracks in alliances, or plays enough of a social game their [[Entitled Bastard]] opponent(s) get a good "Not you!" in the final round. Or, in a talent-based show, they have a fanbase who votes for them because they want to see them continue. Maybe they're [[So Bad It's Good]].

{{examples|Examples: }}

* Every season of ''[[American Idol]]'' has had at least one [['''Elimination Houdini]]''', usually endorsed by VoteForTheWorst.com:

** Season 1 had Nikki Mckibbin

** Season 4 had Scott Savol

*** ...and some say the eventual winner, Taylor Hicks, was one of these as well.

** Season 6 had Sanjaya Malakar, who almost became the Trope Namer

*** Because ''[[Survivor]]'' doesn't really have any [[Audience Participation]] beyond a $100,000 bonus prize awarded by Sprint, being disliked by the fans probably doesn't really count. Now if you were strongly disliked by the fans in a version of ''[[Survivor]]'' where the audience ''has'' a say in how the game goes (or who wins), that's a completely different story. (for example, Richard Hatch, the original sole survivor, inventor of many people's strategies they employed in later seasons, was ''HATED'' by the fans. Not to mention, Sandra, the only ''two-time winner'', likewise has a Hatedom on several boards who tout the "Parvati should have won!"-mantra.<ref>Course it's hard to tell whether or not these are just butthurt Parvati fans who are angered that ''she'' didn't win.</ref>)

** Ladies and gentlemen: I give you Phillip in ''Redemption Island''. Had literally ''the most'' votes cast for anyone, whenever the votes weren't cast for Rob, they were often cast for him. People constantly thought he was going to be the first to go out of the [[Too Dumb to Live|Ometepe six]], and [[Genre Blind|were surprised]] [[What an Idiot!|to see themselves voted out instead]]. Natalie was also one too, who was clearly lazy and just sat around 90% of the game. As the stupidest and most obnoxious members of their [[Cult]], they found themselves in the final three handing Rob a million dollars.

** ''One World'' brings us Christina and Tarzan. Both of them were constantly considered for elimination for being seen as weak. Tarzan manages to outlast everyone on his tribe and finishes sixth. Chelsea makes it to the final four - and even pulls a [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]] moment when she ''nearly beats Kim'' in the final immunity challenge.

*** Troyzan knew that he was going to be gunned for by everyone else so his strategy was to win every single challenge from then on out. He was [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know that, but not [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know that strategy outright ''relies'' on you being able to win every single challenge.

* ''[[Project Runway]]'' contestants Wendy Pepper, Santino Rice, Vincent Libretti, Ricky Lizalde and Blayne Walsh have turned out crappy design after crappy design, landing in the bottom three more than any other contestant. And yet, they all stuck around (the first two even made it to the top three, getting to show at Fashion Week).

** Season nine's Joshua McKinley (for the '70s challenge as well as {{spoiler|knocking Viktor Luna out of second place in the season finale}}) and Anya Ayoung-Chee (who got to go to the final four despite submitting outfits that she herself admitted were horrible).

** Richard certainly had egg on his face after that considering both he and the judges agreed that his performance in the final round earned him a rather distant third place. Howie from the third season also counts, since he lacked even the most basic teamwork skills, couldn't cook anything but pork, was on the bottom 7 times (despite being eliminated just over halfway through the competition), and outlasting superior competitors like Lia, early favorite Tre, and arguably Sara N.

* Ann from the third cycle of ''[[America's Next Top Model]]'' remained in the game for a baffling amount of time. She was in the bottom two almost every episode, and even when she wasn't, the judges would complain about her "dead eyes" despite her beauty. Somehow she made it to the final four despite apparently being rubbish.

** The All-Stars season had [[Inferiority Superiority Complex|Angelea]], who survived elimination four times. While the first three times she survived was justified and believable, the fourth time she was in the bottom two was against [[Shocking Elimination|Dominique]], someone who was '''never'''' been in the bottom two and won best photos '''twice'''. Angelea even made it to the final 3 and ''[[Wild Mass Guessing|allegedly]] [[Ass Pull|won]]''. However, [[Noodle Incident|something happened]] and she got disqualified without explanation, thus the remaining two girls (both the front-runners of the season) fought for the title. It's just sad not to see the real top 4 front runners ([[Badass|Lisa]], [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Allison]], [[Southern Belle|Laura]] and Dominique) to duke it out in the final 4 (or at least final 3 if they kept Laura).

* The judges on ''America's Got Talent'' have sent a few EH-wannabes to the semifinals over some more deserving talent (e.g. Ronny B and Indiggo over Xclusive and Lil Countrie & Page 1ne in Season 3). Still, thanks to mass exodus eliminations, the audience has mostly avoided giving most of them another chance. David & Dania being the reason for the word "most," as they made it to the final round despite using the exact same routine ''every time''.

** It may be a general talent show, but god help you if you aren't a singer. A lot of rather mediocre singers go forward, while other types of talent are eliminted after the second round because "That's the same thing we saw last time." The abovementioned David was called back for a third performance because he called the judges on this, saying (paraphrased) "A singer only has to come onstage with a new song to sing. You expect us to change a magic act that took decades to perfect?"

** On the other hand, one could say that the ultimate [['''Elimination Houdini]]''' was Donald Braswell of Season 3. Who, thanks to an injury to a high-risk act that made the top 40, won the right to replace them. And made the top 5. Of course, many would argue he was actually snubbed from the top 40 to begin with.

* Some contestants from ''[[The Apprentice (TV series)|The Apprentice]]'' have managed to avoid being fired numerous times despite their collective screw-ups. Omarosa is the prime example, though Lenny from season 5 is another good one off the top of my head.

* The first ''WWE Diva Search'' featured Carmella De Cesare, who made it all the way to the final before losing at the very end, thus taking second place overall. She had managed to become so universally hated that it's seriously believed they deliberately fudged the votes and kept her on just so people would keep waiting to see her finally get eliminated (and thus hopefully keep watching.) This is the WWE, after all--totallyall—totally scripted [[Face]] vs. [[Heel]] matchups is what they do. Her existence was finally justified when, just before the winner was announced, Trish Stratus took both competitors apart in a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].

* Virginia from season 2 of ''[[Hell's Kitchen|Hells Kitchen]]'' actually made it to the finals. She choked under pressure, was on the chopping block a lot, yet survived by sole virtue of luck (and perhaps Gordon Ramsay's hard-on for her). There was also Bonnie from Season 3 who may have gotten to the finals for the same reason (though she did at least improve dramatically after the teams were merged).

*** Another example of an [['''Elimination Houdini]]''' winning is Christina from Season 4, who was nominated a total of five times, including in the penultimate round; compare to runner-up Petrozza, who was only nominated once, and then only because he chose to nominate himself rather than one of his teammates, causing Gordon to praise his selflessness and call him a "true gentleman".

*** Season 9's resident Elimination Houdini appears to be Elise. She's a decent but not stand-out chef, and has made several glaring errors. Where she does stand-out is her absolutely toxic attitude—no one on her team can stand her because of how arrogant and loud she is, she argues with them constantly, made a point of declaring her intent to get her [[Arch Enemy]] Carrie thrown out, and always blames others for her mistakes. Furthermore, when the team wins a challenge she makes sure to let them know it was thanks to her—if they lose, she refuses to help them with the prep work or other penalty, invoking [[I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder|"I'm A Chef, Not A Placeholder"]] to justify why she feels she doesn't have to help. She claimed several times that she will change her attitude, but has yet to actually do it.

* Would Marie Osmond have made it as far as she did on ''Dancing with the Stars'' if she wasn't so well known?

** Bristol Palin from Season 11. Three times she's finished at the bottom of the judges' standings, and is always near the bottom of the overall standings, yet has managed to make it all the way to the finale, even [[Shocking Elimination|beating Brandy in an elimination]] to do so, leaving the audience ''stunned''. Bristol ran out of luck in the finale and finished third.

** And of course, any character that was a human [[Conflict Ball]] was guaranteed to last a while. Especially Heather, who was the main antagonist (well, aside from Chris) through most of Season 1. Her getting to the final three was mostly a mix of luck, other people being idiots, and in-universe [[Executive Meddling]] that was pretty obvious.

** Duncan, however, may be a more disgusting example. While he played well on ''Island'', in ''Action'' he was saved in one instance by [[The Brainless Beauty|Lindsay]] being [[Too Dumb to Live]] and another by Harold revealing Owen as the mole. In ''World Tour'', however, [[It Gets Worse]]: {{spoiler|while Chris bent the rules specifically to allow Duncan in the game and to eliminate [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Noah]] after his team successfully completed the challenge, he says blatantly in the next episode that he is ignoring the votes to keep Duncan specifically in the game because of all the drama.}}

** ''Revenge of the Island'' brings us {{spoiler|eventual winner}} Cameron, who is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know he'll be targeted for being a weak bubble boy, so instead he plays this. Although Scott also aided him by sabotaging his team.

* This phenomenon has produced not one, but two winners of the civilian seasons of ''[[The Mole (TV series)|The Mole]]''. In season 2, Dorothy was set to be eliminated but another contestant took a bribe that week to leave the game sparing Dorothy, who would go onto win. In Season 5 the eventual winner scored last on the quiz ''three'' times, staving off elimination by being slightly faster than his opponents. Despite winning, he was confirmed as the only person in the final four who wasn't sure who the mole was going into the elimination.

** Dan & Andrew from Season 13, who only made it to the Final 3 because they were repeatedly saved by non-elimination legs or another team making an even worse blunder than they did. They are probably the Race's worst offenders, and are widely credited as being the worst team to ever make the Final 3. They even lampshaded this and said, "There needs to be a [[YouTube]] video on all our mistakes".

** Bopper and Mark were this, pretty much all out of [[Born Unlucky|just plain poor luck]]. Both of them were good at physical challenges, but they constantly kept having accidents such as themselves getting sick, lost, or in one of the worst cases, heat stroke from trying to do a challenge in India that required coordination, something neither of them were good at and one thing the other couldn't do because of an injury in the previous leg.

* ''[[Who Wants to Be a Superhero?]]'' got quite a few of these. How Fat Mama made it as far as she did is still unknown. Hyperstrike in the second season, despite being a less-charismatic version of Feedback from the first season, somehow made the final three (in part because Parthenon blew it on a [[Secret Test of Character]]).

** Hyperstrike/Parthenon is testament to how much character matters in reality TV. Although Parthenon performed well in challenges, he had a bland personality. Hyperstrike was an average player, but he played the superhero role [[Large Ham|to the hilt]] and impressed the audience (and Stan Lee) with his acrobatic skills.

** Almost every season has one of these, as a "non-threat" who is constantly kept around to give other contestants a better chance of winning. In season 10 it was Elizabeth, who was below the yellow line almost EVERY week, and yet made it to the final four.

* Another US ''[[Big Brother]]'' example would be Season 9's Sharon. Despite never seeming to win any challenge (Sans the one Head of Household she won hands down early in the game), Sharon somehow made it to the final four by doing what 90% of reality contestants can't do...''keeping her mouth shut''. Despite being on the block ''five times in a row'', Sharon was perhaps in the best spot to win simply because she would sit in her bed and chew on her lip while everyone else was being yelled at by James, watching Chelsia have a meltdown & crush all the Easter Eggs, listening to Joshuah's put downs & Sheila's whining, and accusing Natalie of having a million secret alliances. Her elimination from the game resulted in quite the controversy, since the [[Guide Dang It]] answer had cost her the challenge. Had she gotten it right and won Head of Household or veto, Ryan would have said, "Well I got an alliance with Sharon, so I vote to evict YOU!". Sharon even purposely dropped out of an endurance challenge saying she had a bad back, which was, according to her, the biggest lie she made in the game.

** His fiancee Rachel in season 13. She was nominated week 4; Brendon used the Veto on her. She was up week 5; Kalia put up a pawn that ended up going home. She was put up again at the Double Eviction; she got saved on a tiebreaker. She managed to win the season after the most blatantly contrived bailout or biggest luck spree ever in the history of Big Brother.

* In ''[[There Goes The Neighborhood]]'', The Schindlers fit this trope to a T. They were almost ''always'' on the block, performed poorly at challenges (Until the last, in which they only won the right to host a neighbourhood barbeque and had more time to campaign to the others) and were only really used by the others to further their own social games.

* Fictional, but because the public voted in ''Sims Big Brother 5'', this still applies. Pamela was repeatedly put on the block and not evicted. Only when the housemates got to vote near the finals was she finally evicted from the house. She was more or less kept around ''solely'' because it seemed like anyone who was up against her on the block was evicted.

* In ''Big Brother Sim Edition 2'', [[Butt Monkey|Pepper]]. Pepper was almost ''constantly'' gunned for merely for being annoying, but she somehow managed to make the final two, mostly because Melissa quit and let her continue in her stead, she lucked out on a Termination Room Twist (Which meant one houseguest ''had'' to be eliminated, but they'd win a prize), because she managed to make a deal with Socks, and because Stella disliked Socks more.

* Minor examples happen in the UK version of ''[[Big Brother]]''. The way that series works is that everyone casts two nominations, and the ones with the most nominations are put up on the block, against public voting. Some contestants actually ''do'' receive a large number of nominations or are put up on the block (sometimes consecutively) against the public vote, but manage to survive, or never receive ''enough'' from fellow houseguests to be nominated. (Rex and Mohamed in ''2008'' for example received ''plenty'' of nominations but never enough at one point)

* Megan from [[Sy FySyfy]]'s special effects makeup competition ''Face/Off'' was an abysmal, egotistical competitor, consistently on the chopping block for her poor performance while showing active hostility toward anyone who badmouthed her, making excuses for her lack of skill, and often deferring to her partner for the bulk of the work on team challenges. Yet somehow, she managed to escape elimination...until the second to last episode, where the judges finally wised up and kicked her out on the spot. Even more shocking, while the judges seemed to accept her excuses up until that point, her last performance in the last challenge so disgusted them, they forewent conferring with the challenge winner first (a formality they usually indulged in, for the rest of the series).

* A notable example was in the first season of Sweden's version of ''[[Dancing With the Stars]]''. The line up included a comedian who wasn't that good to begin with, and who got sick of the show and wanted to be sent home after a while. The viewers wouldn't have it however, and he stayed on the show, doing increasingly bad performances to the point where he made one ''sitting down''.

* Many people feel this way about Alex from ''[[The Glee Project]]'', who was in the bottom three more than any other character (four weeks in a row), and complain that his [[Camp Gay]] diva personality and vocal range [[Author Appeal|appeal]] to Ryan the most.

* Since the ''entire premise'' of ''[[The Bachelor]]'' is watching dating drama unfold, it should come as no surprise that each season has had at least one contestant viewers almost unanimously agreed is a bad egg. Courtney, from the latest season, is an arguable example, since many viewers have come to despise her catty attitude and utter lack of tangible chemistry with Ben.

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