Well, I said that “Survivor Cagayan” was the culmination of what some consider the greatest 4-season run of “Survivor”, so naturally you can guess where San Juan del Sur falls overall. Strangely, though, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone today who echoes that sentiment. True, you’re hard-pressed to find anyone who says San Juan del Sur is a FANTASTIC season, but most seem to consider it either underrated or just kind of ok. Hell, even back in the day, very few would particularly bad-mouth the season. So, why the drastic turnaround? Well, putting the last bit first, we would get some San Juan del Sur returnees in the near future, and put simply, they would kick butt majorly on their return. In other words, there’s a bit of retroactive continuity going on. Because some players on this season became major fan favorites later, they’re considered great players in their first go-around, and their original season is considered great by association. But does the season actually have anything within itself worthy of its reputation? That is the question we are here to answer today.
First, though, is the obligatory spoiler warning. This blog will be talking about the season as though the person reading it already knows the ending and the major plot points, merely recapping them as a refresher, and analyzing them as a result. If this is not what you’re looking for, and instead you want a spoiler-free analysis of the season, please scroll to the bottom of the page. There, in a section labeled “Abstract”, is what you’re looking for. Should an astute but spoiler-filled analysis be more to your taste, read on.
CAST
This is going to be a hard one to do. I usually like to start the cast off on a positive note, but I also feel obligated to talk about the main character, or what could be considered a contender for the main character, first. And what we consider our main character is someone I don’t have kind words for. Yes, let the hate commence: I am not a fan of Keith Nale.
Now, don’t misunderstand me: I completely get his appeal. A fireman from Louisiana, Keith serves as kind of the everyman for the show. He’s simple, bordering on stupid at times, but he was remarkably impressive at challenges, and a lot of people like his speaking style. The words he speaks are honest, not malicious, and done with just enough self-irony that they can be considered funny. Here’s the big problem though: humor, unlike other likability factors, is incredibly subjective. If Keith’s humor hits the home run for you, then he’s a great addition to the season. If it does NOT hit the mark for you, well then, be prepared to be annoyed. Keith is, for good and for ill, the main character to come out of this season, so hopefully you like him, because if not, then this season will be a drag. Given my earlier editorials about Keith, you can guess where I stand, though it’s worth noting that my stance of Keith has softened somewhat since this season. While I still find a lot of his humor crude and not worth my time, I can appreciate his down-to-earth-ness, and to certain degree his refreshing simplicity. The trouble is, I only came to appreciate these aspects of Keith during his appearance on “Survivor Cambodia”, and while that does make him retroactively somewhat more tolerable, it still doesn’t help matters. I know this seems all over the place, but the truth is that I can’t really talk about why I mind Keith on this season, but don’t really mind him on second appearance, without talking about problems with the season as a whole, which of course I save for the “Overall” section of the blog. For now, the best way I can put it is this: Keith, for me, is an amplifying agent. If the season he’s on is of good quality, he makes it better. If the season he’s on isn’t that good, my GOD does he make it worse!
Thankfully, our second character is all-around much better. In keeping with our “firefighter” theme, we have Jeremy Collins. Jeremy, especially in the first part of our season, is the main strategist, but don’t take that to mean it’s all he is. True, it’s the main focus of his character, but he does get in some good quips, particularly at the expense of some of the stupid moves his tribe makes. On top of that, the dude is just likable. A family man with a heart of gold, the dude managed to be a fan favorite, despite arguably playing villainously. It was probably that smile. Dude has a great smile. For myself, Jeremy is great. A welcome addition to the season, both for his snark, and for his strategy.
Jeremy’s counterpart on the other side would be Josh Canfield, the man determined to prove that appearances are deceiving. Josh, at the outset, seemed to be every gay stereotype. Apart from being a man working in theatre, the man was overall flamboyant and effeminate in his mannerisms. And, if I may say so, he was the biggest badass on his tribe in the beginning. Jumping ahead a bit to talk about stuff normally gone over in the “Twist” section, Jeremy had a lot of lucky breaks early on the show. Josh had no such luck. He was on what ended up being the inferior tribe, and was playing with a lot of people who had no idea what they were doing. Josh, being more than a competent strategist even in the worst of times, effectively ran circles around everyone on his tribe, and even the other tribe (save perhaps Jeremy). He was cunning, witty, and like Tony Vlachos (“Survivor Cagayan”) before him, pulled crazy plans that shouldn’t have had their intended outcome, but somehow did. Yes, Josh might not have been as crazy as Tony, but he followed in a similar vein. Further helping Josh’s case was the fact that, again like another “Survivor Cagayan” player (in this case Spencer Bledsoe), he continually got the rug pulled out from under him. Again, Josh wasn’t in QUITE the same boat, but it’s worth noting that every time he seemed to have his footing, some twist happened that upset that footing somehow, ultimately leading to his eviction. Josh, like Jeremy, is a fun watch, and a breath of fresh air on a strategy-lite season. His lack of inclusion for the “Second Chances” vote, while understandable due to work commitments, is a crying shame.
Well, now the good outweigh the bad, time to even things out. Up next is Jon Misch. Now, normally Jon would have fallen into our “Generic Good-Looking Guy” slot for the season, and make no real impact. He might make it FAR, sure, but he’s going to be bland. I mean, he’s a guy named “Jon” who has no nickname. How can THAT be memorable? Well, in an interesting twist, JON of all people ends up being our main late-game strategist. I mind this for two reasons. One I’ll get into during the “Overall” section, but the other is that Jon, despite being SMARTER than the average “Generic Good-Looking Guy”, did not have a PERSONALITY better than the average “Generic Good-Looking Guy”. Now, would I prefer that Jon brought nothing to the table? Of course not! Would I say that Jeremy and Josh are the biggest characters ever? Of course not! But the pair at least had SOME personality to compliment their strategy. Jon, however, has absolutely none, and that, to me, makes him a stain on the season.
Speaking of stain-like players, we have Drew “Badass” Christy up next. I can’t talk too much about Drew, since he’s mainly remembered for his manner of exit. Suffice to say, though, that the “Badass” nickname was self-bestowed and completely inappropriate for who he was. He’s remembered in a sort of “So bad, it’s good.” way, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a chuckle for this same fact. However, I prefer my seasons to be remembered for people playing WELL, rather than people being idiots, so at best, Drew breaks even.
And now, we come to our pair of “Celebrity Casting” people for this season. I’d mention them in this section anyway, but for once, both of them are actually relevant characters to the season. Mainly because, well, one of them WON! Yes, Natalie Anderson, who had previously appeared on “The Amazing Race” with he twin sister Nadiya (who also appeared on this season of “Survivor”, but was voted off first, and so is irrelevant to this blog), ended up being our victor. And, for what she was, she wasn’t a bad choice to have as a winner. Known for having something of a temper on “The Amazing Race”, and many finding her a tough watch as a result, Natalie actually managed to be quite palatable on this season. True, it would be fair to say she still had something of a temper, but it was itself tempered somewhat by the fact that, first night aside, Natalie was never with her sister. Natalie will always have an edge to her, but without her sister to bounce off of, it never gets too out of hand, and makes her a breath of fresh air in a season sorely lacking in strong female characters (at least that we were SHOWN!). I cam in expecting not to like Natalie, but she grew on me, like she did with the rest of the audience. I think I look on her victory kind of like I look on Sophie Clarke’s from “Survivor South Pacific”. A good win by a good character, but there are more interesting people to be found on the season.
More short-lived, but still impactful, would be John Rocker. A former major-league baseball pitcher, John Rocker was and is best known for making racist and homophobic comments in reference to New York City during his tenure in baseball. Presumably, this controversial personality is why he was cast, and he did not disappoint in this respect. While it wasn’t EVERY word out of his mouth, the comments did happen, and he was appropriately voted out for them. While a satisfying exit, pretty much no one found John Rocker entertaining, and I, like so many others, would prefer that he not have been on the season in any capacity, so as to spare us this unpleasantness. To make matters worse, he brought along his girlfriend, Julie McGee, who is ONLY remembered for having a painful quit that ended up forcing out Josh by proxy. Yeah, great choices there, CBS!
As to the characters who were remembered at the time of airing, but have since fallen by the wayside… Well, I think for the first time, there aren’t any. Everyone who was remembered at the time would still be remembered today, and I can’t say I find anyone else particularly worthy of a write up. You could ARGUE that Dale Wentworth or Reed Kelly (at the time, boyfriend of the aforementioned Josh) might be worthy of this spot, but the former made one too many social screw-ups and the latter so little impact that neither is really worth the effort. Now, I can already hear the complaints about how I’m not talking about Kelley Wentworth, and how she was one of the greatest things to come out of this season. And yes, I completely agree that Kelley is a great “Survivor” player, worthy of her own write-up… ON “SURVIVOR CAMBODIA”! I know that she’s awesome, but we the audience don’t see that until a year later. At the moment, she’s an early boot who probably had all of about six confessionals. Not worth it! I suppose I should bring up Jaclyn Shultz (girlfriend of Jon Misch) and Missy Payne, since both will be semi-important strategically later on, but apart from that, they have little personality, so I’ll mention here that they exist, and talk about them more in the “Twist” section.
Ultimately, San Juan del Sur’s positives and negatives seem to balance out in terms of characters. You will note, however, this is one of the shortest “Cast” sections I’ve had. While we had a few good players in here, the season was mostly made up of bland and forgettable duds, which, unsurprisingly, makes for a bland and forgettable season.
Score: 3 out of 10.
CHALLENGES
At this point, are we really expecting any great original challenges to come out of this season? Of course not! But you;d be surprised, though, that San Juan del Sur actually had a couple of gems. There was a basketball game under a bunch of branches, and challenge involving shaking a giant bag of dirt (more awesome than it sounds, I promise), and even some of the individual challenges stack up, particularly one involving dueling people on a balance beam. But sadly, even this is no quite enough to overcome the number of bland, reused challenges provided by the season. Close to average for this point in the show’s history, but still not necessarily a good thing.
Score: 4 out of 10.
TWISTS
San Juan del Sur was meant to be a carbon copy of “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, and a lot of the initial twists reflect this. Obviously, the mechanic of playing against a family member or “loved one” comes back, and we also get the “Day 0” twist again. Oddly, I was initially more excited for the latter twist than the former. While I can’t deny that ultimately, playing against your family the first time made for new, compelling strategy, and good drama, the potential for tearing families apart was still there. “Day 0”, on the other hand, was kind of a fun idea that didn’t really get explored very much the first time around. Unfortunately, this opportunity was pretty well wasted once again, with the only impact of “Day 0” being that Wes and Keith Nale lose their flint, and take some flak as a result. Talking about the “Blood vs. Water” twist on this season, it didn’t make any gaffes as I feared it might, and having no returnees changed things up a bit. However, it also didn’t bring much to the season, and the fact that it was reused from a season only a year previously stunk of desperation. Ultimately, neither of these twists really affects the season positively or negatively, but when one of these is your flagship twist, it’s a bit concerning.
One area where this season thankfully differs from “Survivor Blood vs. Water” was in nixing Redemption Island in favor of Exile Island. Definitely a plus in my book, but even if Redemption Island had never been on the table, this would have been pretty good in my book. While Exile Island itself repeated a number of beats we had seen previously (sending two people, one from each tribe initially, to Exile, with a choice of urns determining whether or not they get the idol clue), it had been a while since we’d seen it, and while few Exile Island moments would be the stuff of legend, it was a welcome diversion that helped give the season its own identity. Really, the only criticism I have is that reward challenges took the form of one-on-one competitions at an arena, which was unfortunate in terms of challenge size, but did have a good bit of drama, at least when playing against a loved one.
In terms of player twists, San Juan del Sur starts off on the slow side. Really nothing of note happens until episode three. At this point, two people have hidden immunity idols. One is Keith Nale, on Hunahpu. The other, more intriguing, is John Rocker, whose mouth has already gotten him in trouble, particularly with Natalie. Eventually, following the eviction of Jeremy’s wife Val (Jeremy saw this as a betrayal, as the pair had made an alliance on Exile Island), they shouted at Coyopa to get rid of John Rocker. Josh, being more strategically minded, used this opportunity to blindside John with his idol in tow. Actually a pretty fun blindside, and really only topped by what happened next episode.
For all that the pre-merge of San Juan del Sur is considered “boring” (and rightly so), the one exception to this is episode four. Hunahpu has been winning pretty handily at this point, but camp life proves to be a bit difficult. They lost their flint in an earlier episode, and traded a reward to Probst for it, which did lead to the nice touch of all future rewards being choices. However, they found it again, and attempted to trade Probst back. It goes about as well as you’d expect, and is actually kind of hilarious. Drew Christy is the brain trust behind this idea, and this episode doesn’t get better for him. Paranoid about the women coming together, Drew helps his tribe throw the immunity challenge. This leads to him being voted out, in the episode with his immortal “Basically, I’m a badass.” quote. Comedy gold.
Episode five brings us a switch, but very little goes on beyond that. The Wentworth’s, Dale and Kelley, get screwed by the swap, and Hunahpu once again tries to make deals that lead to very little. Probst DOES give them rice, but he takes pretty much all of their previous rewards from them. Just kind of pathetic.
Now we come to the merge, which starts out with a fizzle. Julie McGee, John Rocker’s girlfriend, gets upset at how John is perceived, being ostracized for stealing food from the merge feast, and how hard it is to play the game, and quits. We had two alliances, Jeremy vs. Josh, squaring up to do battle, and instead this little pipsqueak just quits? This is where San Juan del Sur REALLY goes downhill for me. This cast wasn’t the greatest to begin with, and now to have a QUIT amongst their ranks? Just a fail. No further elaboration needed.
While I may complain about the merge episode, the next two are probably the best for the season, with back to back blindsides. Jon and Jaclyn had been in the middle between the sides of Jeremy and Josh, unsure of where to go. On the day of Julie’s quit, it seemed as though Josh would have the other hand. The interpersonal dynamics rear their head again, though, as some of the men in Josh’s alliance are fairly dismissive of Jaclyn while Jon is out on Exile Island (where he finds a hidden immunity idol. Would have been nice to see, if Jon had actually had some personality.). This makes Jaclyn mad, and the pair flip on Josh’s alliance, sending him home. Exciting episode, when you get rid of a power-player. Not being stupid, however, they now realize this sets Jeremy up for a win, and so flip to vote him out. Somewhat more disappointing, both for how little it was foreshadowed, and for reasons I’ll bring up later. But still, good shakeups, leaving Jon and Jaclyn squarely in the power position.
From here on out, the positions get a little murkier. As such, there’s less shifting of alliances, and more blindsiding of individuals. There’s Keith Nale’s famous “Stick to the Plan” moment that ultimately results in his own son getting voted out. And then there’s Natalie’s revenge plot. Most of Jeremy’s loyal allies totally jumped ship after Jeremy’s exit. One, however, was only pretending. Natalie Anderson bided her time, and ultimately cut off Jon’s head (proverbially speaking) in two bigs moves. First, she got rid of non-entity Alec Christy over Keith, due the latter being willing to work with her, while the former was firmly with Jon and Jaclyn. In a hilarious moment, Natalie managed to get out scot-free from this (Natalie having exploited a split vote to get a slim majority) by basically saying she got confused by the split vote. And they bought it. The idiots deserved getting voted out in the next episode. Which she does, blindsiding Jon, and therefore walking to victory. Apart from concern about a Keith Nale immunity run, Natalie’s walk to victory is really the only other thing of note this season.
Oddly quite a short twist section, but when you’ve got a lot of repeats and a relatively, for want of a better term, “normal” cast. This is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because it makes this blog far easier to write. Curse because it means a lot of the episodes just kind of exist, with little exciting happening, apart from a few comedically stupid moments.
Score: 3 out of 10.
OVERALL
I can’t fault this season for trying. Going Mayan on this season wasn’t the WORST in terms of theme, but it had just been done before. Tough to find new themes 29 seasons in, though, so I give them some leeway on this one. I can at least say Exile Island looked pretty cool.
Sadly, the rest of the season does not get this slack. I can say that no element is AWFUL, but nothing really sands out, and the result is a whole that is somehow LESS than its parts. For the most part, this season is just not memorable, and when it IS memorable, it’s more for being cringe-worthy than it is for being GOOD at anything. Hardly a ringing endorsement. And I know this season gets a few returnees who show how good they can really be, but that’s a discussion for that season. We’re talking about San Juan del Sur, and there, they’re just ok.
The weak pre-merge is obviously a big part of what drags this season down. When your cast is iffy at best, and only one-third of your pre-merge can be generously considered “exciting”, you’ve got troubles. Of course, I’m of the opinion that an exciting post-merge can more than make up for a lackluster pre-merge (hence my enjoyment of “Survivor Gabon” and to a lesser extent, “Survivor Caramoan”). And, initially, it seemed like we might get it. The two big characters to come out of the pre-merge were Jeremy and Josh, and when these two relative titans are set up to oppose each other, this should be an epic clash! When they do clash, it’s great! But then it’s over in two episodes.
Here’s where we come to the real crux of the problem with San Juan del Sur: the focus. Yes, the pre-merge was lackluster, but we could have gotten over that if we’d been treated to more scenes of the chief strategists making their plots early on. With Jeremy and Josh, it seemed like we were getting that. But then, suddenly, they’re both gone, and who are we left with? Jon Misch, basically a Wonder Bread sandwich, only less flavorful. True, we’d seen SOME of Jon rising to prominence in previous episodes, but this is mostly hindsight. San Juan del Sur was set up as the Josh and Jeremy show, with a bit of Keith thrown in, so seeing the two go one right after the other left us with kind of a void, and the feeling that we’d pretty much WASTED the first half of this season. If you want your season to be good, don’t make us feel like we could have found something better to do with our time! Thankfully, this season is saved from being TOTAL garbage by the emergence of Natalie, who was a better strategist and more exciting character than Jon ever was, but by then, it’s almost a case of too little, too late. We spent the first half of the season getting to know our exciting characters, and then the back half getting to know the people who replaced the people we were hoping to see more of. That letdown, on top of being weak in all other areas, is just a hurdle this season couldn’t overcome.
What’s worse is it didn’t have to be this way. Screen time could have been shared more equally quite easily. Either get rid of some of the extraneous antics, or show Natalie and Jon being more active in strategy earlier. Don’t get me wrong, the Josh and Jeremy boots were still going to hit the audience hard, but you could have softened the blow by giving us scenes of people OTHER THAN THEM early on.
Ultimately, San Juan del Sur is frustrating. I want to like it, I really do, but it just is an overall weak season with poor editing making things come together in one large lump of boring. That’s still better than being obnoxious, which thankfully we never devolve into, but still not enough to give this season a good score.
Score: 13 our of 40.
ABSTRACT
San Juan del Sur, despite what hindsight may say, is not an interesting season. It has its moments, but ultimately comes across as kind of dull overall at best, and really weak at worse. Its attempts at misdirection backfire horribly, making a lot of the season feel like a waste of time. That said, there’s nothing offensive about this season, and given the prominence it has in later returnee seasons, I DO recommend watching it, but only for historical value.
-Matt
idolspeculation 
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