“Survivor” What-Ifs?: Philippines

Hoo boy, I need a break. Two big seasons in a row, with lots to discuss? Yeah, time for something lighter and softer. Time, once again, for “‘Survivor’ What-Ifs?”. Since it’s been a while, let me recap: This is the series where I take a look at defining moments in a season, and examine how the season and “Survivor” history would change if they happened slightly differently. I divide my analysis into three sections. First, the “Impact”, where I look at what exactly the change will be, and how it affects the episode it takes place in. Second, the “Fallout”, where I see how the rest of the season changes after this one episode gets altered. Third and last, the “Legacy”, where I examine not only how the perception of the season is changed, but how the changes to this season impact future seasons. both in play style and in returnees.

With that in mind, let us get to the examination of our season. By popular demand, the season in question this time is “Survivor Philippines”. It’s an interesting season to start with, to be sure. “Survivor Philippines” is one of two seasons I describe as “Technically perfect”. It has no major flaws, and does many things right. Really, all that can be said negatively is that I find it’s just not as gripping as other seasons. Again, still a good season, just not one I think on as much. However, this does put it in an interesting position, as it has room to rise, but also a lot more room to fall. Which way will this change move it? Let’s find out.

THE IMPACT

Our change this time around comes about 2/3 of the way through the season. You may recall that at the final seven, we had three pairs, plus Abi-Maria. There were Lisa and Skupin, Malcolm and Denise, and Penner and Carter. Abi-Maria was commonly agreed to be the next to go, but Lisa and Skupin, whom both pairs wanted to work with, were deciding whom they wanted to take further. Skupin favored Malcolm and Denise, while Lisa favored Penner and Carter. Lisa got Skupin to agree with her, and so approached Penner with a final four deal. Here’s where the change comes in: In our timeline, Penner got what I like to call “A case of the stupids” and rejected this offer that was handed to him on a proverbial silver platter. I get what he was going for: Trying to get to the end without having truly betrayed anyone; but the timing was just wrong. You have to commit at some point, and final seven is a pretty good time to do so.

So, in this timeline change, Penner takes the offer. Presumably Lisa says something along the lines of “Skupin wants to go with Malcolm and Denise”, which wakes Penner up to the danger he’s in, and he takes the deal. What happens then? Well, as I discuss only one timeline change, Abi-Maria still wins immunity this episode, but the outcome of Tribal Council is now changed. Rather than Lisa, Skupin, Malcolm, and Denise banding together to take out Penner for being a threat, it’s now Lisa, Skupin, Penner, and Carter banding together to take out the safe target. For once, we have actual evidence of how things would have gone down, as even with both Malcolm and Denise available, Penner still sought to target Denise. Granted, this was because of Malcolm’s idol, and it’s not impossible he might play it on Denise, but I don’t think he would. Being so close to the end, and doubtless realizing he was on the outs, I suspect Malcolm would have kept it for himself as an insurance policy. Thus, Denise goes home, thereby depriving both of snark and of the “Survived Every Tribal Council” narrative. It also deprives us of Penner’s “DENISE!” voting confessional and famous exit, at least for now.

I must say, a season without Denise in it is a poorer season for it. But can “Survivor Philippines” do anything to make up for this loss? Read on.

THE FALLOUT

With our lead four now being changed, the whole tenor of the rest of the season changes. In our timeline, Malcolm, Denise, Lisa, and Skupin simply sought to consolidate their power. Neither Abi-Maria nor Carter was a true threat to them, so it was more a matter of “Which option keeps us safer?” than “Which option gives us the best chance at success?” There was no outside threat the group had to fear.

In this timeline, this is not the case. Malcolm is a force to be reckoned with, both physically and strategically. Thus, the goal of the remainder of the season is “Get Malcolm Out”, and all events happen according to this tenant. As I doubt that the presence of Penner gets rid of any of Malcolm’s challenge wins, the players who are weakest in challenges go out one by one. Abi-Maria therefore leaves at the Final Six, as not only is she not going to beat Malcolm without a challenge advantage (and even that’s a bit iffy), but she’s annoyed everyone beyond coping at this point in time, and is an easy target. At the Final Five, much as it pains me to say it, Penner still goes out. It could be argued that Lisa sided with him and Carter mostly because of Penner, but also bear in mind that she still voted Penner out, even in our timeline. With challenge performance now mattering more than ever, and Carter being fitter than Penner overall, he’s kept around in the hope he can beat Malcolm. At least Penner gets to make the loved-ones challenge this time around, and we do still get his memorable little exit dance.

Whether or not Carter wins final immunity is impossible to say, but it really doesn’t matter. If Malcolm didn’t win that challenge, he was gone, even in our timeline. As he didn’t win the challenge in our timeline, and lost to someone still present now, it’s safe to say that Malcolm doesn’t win this time either, and so once again goes out at the Final Four.

This leaves us with a final three very similar to the one we know, just with Carter in place of Denise. Naturally, this means Carter is victorious… Ha ha ha! Just messing with you. Yeah, it’s pretty hard to find a timeline where Carter is the victor, given his performance. No, I think it’s safe to say with this final three that Lisa is the victor. Skupin was not well-respected by the jury, and Carter was just seen as having done nothing. Lisa, though she rubbed a few people the wrong way, still played a strong game, and had a very clear story arc. It helps that Penner, no longer feeling as burned by his placement, is probably a strong advocate for Lisa on the jury. I doubt it’s a shutout, but if Penner hadn’t had his case of the stupids, it seems to me that the person who would benefit the most is not himself, but Lisa.

THE LEGACY
A Lisa win versus a Denise win? On a subjective level, I’m disappointed. Denise is my psychology peep, and psychology peeps stick together. That said, as much as I love Denise, Lisa’s story arc was much clearer. It’s also fair to say that Lisa was more beloved by the fanbase overall, since she won the “fan favorite” prize for the season in our timeline. When that person’s the winner as well? You know the crowd is going to love it. “Survivor Philippines” is already seen as the season that pulled the show out of the slump it had been in since “Survivor Nicaragua”, and a Lisa win only makes this more pronounced.

Apart from making the season more beloved as a whole, though, this win surprisingly changes little, at least in terms of the immediate future. Malcolm still comes back for “Survivor Caramoan” and “Survivor Game Changers”, and is probably an even bigger darling of the fanbase, due to nearly immunity-ing his way to a victory. He’s basically a younger version of Terry on “Survivor Exile Island”. Abi-Maria, despite not making it quite as far in this timeline, still makes it deep, still has her fights with pretty much everyone, and so gets voted back on “Survivor Cambodia” as well. In this timeline, it’s certainly possible that Denise gets put on the “Second Chances” ballot, but I’d be somewhat surprised if she got on, even if she was eligible. Much as I may like her, without the “Survived Every Tribal Council” aspect to her story, she’s just not memorable enough to the fanbase as a whole, particularly when Malcolm is hogging the “underdog” spotlight. No, if there’s a Lisa win, I think it’s fair, if unfortunate, to say Denise is a one-time player.

And this leads us to the biggest legacy left by a Lisa win: How it impacts “Survivor Winners at War”. Lisa, in our timeline, has been asked back a couple of times, and always declined. Even a victory from her probably doesn’t change that fact. That means someone entirely different is taking the place that Denise filled on that season. Based on what we know of the casting process, my money would be on Tina from “Survivor The Australian Outback” to return, though one could also hope for Vecepia from “Survivor Marquesas”. Now, with “Survivor Winners at War” so fresh in our minds at the time of this writing, I’m sure some of you are thinking “So what?” Yeah, we lose the snark, but we get more representation from “Old School ‘Survivor’”; what’s so wrong with that? There’s no “Queenslayer”, that’s what. Arguably the best single moment of the season is now gone, because Denise isn’t there to do it. Even if everything else played out exactly the same, but with Tina or Vecepia there instead of Denise, I doubt Sandra leaves when she does. The old school players would want to stick together, and thereby have little incentive to vote out Sandra. Instead, Tony probably goes, thereby depriving us of our current winner, and of Tony’s character development over the season. Of course, all that is predicated on everything else proceeding exactly the same way in that season, which would be folly. My guess is that Adam (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”) probably goes out first, as I doubt Tina or Vecepia bond with him in the same way, leaving him vulnerable early on. But again, we’re getting far enough in the future that accurate prediction is impossible.

For once, we’ve got a change where whether it was good or bad is hard to determine. “Survivor Philippines” is slightly more legendary because of a Lisa win, but you also have a winner even more inclined to avoid the public eye. Moreover, “Survivor Winners at War” becomes weaker as a result. So, a slight short term gain for a decently large long-term loss. While I’m happy Penner makes it farther in this timeline, in the end, I think his case of the stupids meant “Survivor” as a whole dodged a bullet.

But that’s not the end of these explorations, not by any means! There are so many more moments in “Survivor” history where one little tweak could change so many things, and we’re going to spend the now extra-long off-season discussing them! As always, I’d like to hear what scenarios you want covered on this blog. Submit ideas in the comments section, either on the blog or anywhere else I post it! Credit will be given to the first person to submit an idea, should I decide to use it. As always, there are a few rules about submissions to bear in mind, which I’ve listed below:

1. One Change Only: This can’t be a whole bunch of things or multiple things going another way to alter the course of a season. This must be one singular event that alters the season in some way. Cascade effects, where one change naturally leads to another, are ok, but they have to be natural and logical. As an example, Shii-Ann not flipping and Chuay Gahn losing the final 10 immunity challenge on “Survivor Thailand” would definitely change things, but those are two independent changes that need to happen, and therefore not for this blog. I should also mention that the change has to be an EVENT, not a play style. Yes, “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” probably goes much differently if Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) isn’t an asshole to everyone, but apart from that never happening, it’s a change in overall play style, not a single moment. It’s also, as I say, implausible, which leads to my next ground rule…

2. The Change Must Be Realistic: An unlikely change is ok, but it has to be something that COULD have happened, or it’s not worth writing about. Yes, Fang winning the first challenge on “Survivor Gabon” would drastically change the season. Would it ever happen? No. So there’s no point in writing about it.

3. The Change Must Have An Impact: By this, I mean the change has to actually alter the season in some significant way. Simply changing up the boot order is not enough. Someone new has to win, the perception of the season has to change, or both. As an example, I originally planned to do a blog on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, with a timeline where Candice didn’t flip at the final 9. I thought this could lead to a Heroes Victory. Then I remembered that Russell Hantz plays his idol for himself in that same episode, meaning the flip doesn’t matter, and apart from a slight boot order change, the season as a whole remains untouched. Uninteresting, and therefore not worth talking about.

In addition to these hard-and-fast rules, I’m adding two what I call “Flexible Rules”. As the name would imply, these rules can be bent with a compelling argument, but they are two things that should be borne in mind when suggesting new situations to examine:

4. US Seasons Only: This is nothing against international seasons of “Survivor”. From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, they can be quite good. The trouble is, as a citizen on the US, the US version of “Survivor” is the one I’m most familiar with, know the most about, and have seen the most of. I haven’t even seen a full international season of “Survivor”, just the occasional clip. Nothing knocking them, of course. I just haven’t gotten around to viewing them. So, while I won’t outright ban the suggesting of changes from non-US seasons of “Survivor”, bear in mind that I’m unlikely to pick them due to a lack of knowledge and lack of time to catch up on the seasons.

5. I Will Not Do Brandon Flipping At The Africa Final 9: A flip by Brandon Quinton at the Final 9 of “Survivor Africa”, voting out Lex instead of Kelly, would indeed fit all the criteria mentioned above. I’m refusing this particular scenario, not because it isn’t interesting or worth talking about, but because it was already covered by Mario Lanza in his book “When it Was Worth Playing For”. He covered it so well and so thoroughly that I don’t think I would have anything to add. I’m willing to consider this scenario if someone can give me a compelling reason that Mario is wrong, or there’s some aspect he didn’t consider, but until that time, this scenario is out. Other “Survivor Africa” scenarios are ok, though.

And there you have it! It’s great to be back, and I look froward to the scenarios you come up with!

-Matt

“Survivor” Retrospectives: Kaoh Rong

Having gone through a controversial opinion on a season with our last blog, let’s now talk about a season that was, in and of itself, controversial. Yes, the time has come for us to discuss “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, a season that I’m confident in saying has been the most divisive amongst the fanbase since “Survivor Samoa”, at least in terms of outcome. But did it have to be that way? And does that controversy come from a good place, or a bad one? Hopefully, by dissecting this season, we can uncover the answer.

A quick word of warning before we begin: This season will be providing an objective summary of, and subjective critique of, the entire season of Kaoh Rong. This means there will be SPOILERS, as we’ll be talking about the season from the standpoint of someone who has seen the whole thing. If you are not one such person, you do not want to read the entirety of this blog. If you still wish to hear my subjective opinion on this season, without worrying about spoilers, simply scroll to the bottom of this page. There is a section labeled “Abstract”, where I give just such an opinion. For those of you who do want the details, read on.

CAST

This cast gave us Aubry Bracco. Aubry Bracco is the most perfect contestant the show has ever had.

Score: 10 out of 10

Ok, ok, let’s actually talk about the cast now. In all seriousness, Aubry is easily the biggest name to come out of the cast of this entire season. It’s actually fairly easy to detail why, as Aubry’s whole story was laid out in a microcosm during the first episode. As such, we’ll summarize Aubry’s episode 1 story arc, and use that to explain her overall story arc. Initially, Aubry was not doing so well. Heat was a big problem this season, and it hit Aubry hard in the first two days. She got severely dehydrated, and even talked about quitting. She was talked out of it by her fellow contestants (Debbie in particular), but was still on thin ice going into the immunity challenge. Said challenge involved a lot of individual phases, including diving down to retrieve paddles, pulling a heavy boat up on shore, and of course, solving a puzzle. All physically and mentally demanding tasks, yet Aubry did them all for her tribe. Sure, she had help on the puzzle and pulling the boat, but it’s still no easy feat. Plus, as Probst pointed out, Aubry retrieved all the paddles for her tribe, when the other tribes had to switch out at some point. This, on a season wherein one tribe was explicitly labeled “Brawn”. The nerdy kid schools everyone, shows hidden depths, and overcomes great adversity. This shows us Aubry in episode 1, and shows us her throughout the season. While not quite to the degree of Spencer (“Survivor Cagayan”), Aubry was plagued by bad luck, often not of her own making, yet somehow managed to not only hang on, but become a dominant strategic force as the season progressed. Through it all, she was a charming and likable narrator, with a lot of good metaphors for the game (I’m particularly fond of the “Oregon Trail” one). Admittedly, Aubry did occasionally shoot herself in the foot (note that a large part of what she had to prove in the end during that first challenge was because of her own collapse), and had some good luck as well. However, the former is rarer than people give her credit for, and the latter could be said of just about every winner. Not that Aubry wins. Oh, we’ll be getting to that, I assure you. But the perception definitely comes across, and Aubry both benefits and suffers for it in future seasons. For now, though, Aubry is the narrator and driving force of the season, coming in an unexpected package, and making her my personal favorite player of all time. Definitely a benefit to the season.

Not to say that Aubry was or is the most universally beloved of the cast. No, that honor could only go to one Tai Trang. A diminutive Vietnamese man, Tai was going to be a bit of an odd duck from the beginning. Placed on the “Beauty” tribe despite not being conventionally attractive, Tai further stood out by being a staunch vegetarian and general friend of the environment. He looked for an idol early on, but dug up entire saplings so as not to damage them in the process. When the tribe won chickens, Tai made sure they were able to roam relatively free, and even saved one (Mark) from overall execution. Further, Tai developed a close bond with Caleb Reynolds. Caleb would fall into the category of “Memorable at the time, but now forgotten”, but since he’s so closely tied in to Tai, we’ll talk about him here. Caleb was already well-known coming into the season, having previously been a player on “Big Brother”. Caleb was also well known for being fairly socially conservative, particularly when it came to homosexuality. This could easily have put him in conflict with Tai, who’s gay. However, echoing the Richard/Rudy dynamic of “Survivor Borneo”, the pair seemed to move past that obstacle, and formed a tight bond during their mutual time on the island. True, they didn’t have the same cutthroatness that Richard and Rudy had, but they made up for it with more heart than the former pair. True, Rudy did come to accept Richard, sexuality and all, but Caleb was even willing to let Tai playfully kiss him, the sort of open embrace I’m not sure Rudy would ever have been capable of. That helped Caleb and Tai stand out, and made everyone like them all the more. We’ll have to save the thoughts on Caleb (and why he’s now largely forgotten) for the “Twist” section as a lot of it relates to the manner of his exit. Getting back to Tai, though, the fact is we’d really never seen anyone quite like Tai, and he was nothing if not unapologetically himself. Many of his stances, particularly regarding the chickens, should have got him voted out. We’d seen it in previous seasons (see Kappenberg, Kimmi). Yet, thanks in part to avoiding early Tribal Councils, Tai survived, and came to be accepted, quirks and all. Always an uplifting story, and one that made Tai, for my part, a rightly beloved part of the season.

If you were to ask about the biggest character of the season, and another unapologetic personality, one could only look to Debbie Wanner. How to describe Debbie? I’m not sure there’s a way, since even the show couldn’t. Debbie had a running gag, having listed off her many careers in the first episode, of having her career change in every chyron for every interview she gave. They even had it change MID-INTERVIEW once, when she mentioned a career that she had previously forgotten. Debbie was also a cheerleader, though, and so could often be heard yelling such gems as “We have the biggest frontal lobes!” in the background of scenes, even if she wasn’t the focus. Debbie was there, and much like Tai, always herself. If someone makes it deep, this is endearing. Debbie did make it deep, and so she is endearing.

But for all this talk, we’ve yet to actually talk about our winner of the season. Michele Fitzgerald falls into the odd category of “Memorable for Not Being Memorable”, kind of similar to Purple Kelly from “Survivor Nicaragua”. Michele had her moments, to be sure. A few key challenge victories, and some snarky comments helped keep her in the public eye. Yet, it’s the fact that she won, up against steep competition, that people remember her for. In my opinion, despite this relative lack of screentime, Michele is still a good addition to the season. She’s not the main draw, but what she does bring is good, and you see enough of her game to make her a solid winner in her own right. Of course, she doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but we’ll talk about THAT controversy in the “Overall” section. For now, Michele may not be the biggest character to come out of the season, but she’s certainly a sound player.

Rounding out our players who are still memorable to this day would be Cydney Gillon. Our only “Brawn” representative in this category, Cydney actually started out a bit low-key. Despite promising confrontation and drama (she mentioned having “split personalities” in her cast bio), she got herself into the majority alliance on her tribe and just kind of sat there. We saw her make a few sub alliances, and play both sides of the fence, so we knew she was a player, but she didn’t really come into her own until after the merge. Cydney was once again in a solid majority there, but due to some miscommunication and suspicion, Cydney flipped on her alliance to become what was shown as a power couple with the aforementioned Aubry, effectively running the game from that point on. What works best about Cydney for me is that she defies expectations. You hear “brawn” as a designation, and you think of them as being the “dumb jocks”, the effective opposite of a “brain”. And yes, Cydney definitely has physical skills, but what really made her stand out was her social and strategic prowess. She may not have made the smartest move in flipping the game when she did, but damn if she didn’t do a good job of keeping control once she had it. A fascinating arc, meaning all the memorable characters from this season are still memorable for a good reason.

Moving on to the players who were remembered at the time, but now seem to be lost to “Survivor” history as a whole, this is where the bulk of the “Brawn” tribe ends up. Chief amongst these would be our villains for the season, Scot Pollard and Kyle Jason, who went by his last name. Scot and Jason were the aforementioned dominant alliance on the “Brawn” tribe, and, to put it mildly, were not the nicest people around. Bossy, arrogant, and hypocritical, the pair effectively used their might as a reason to keep them around, and felt they could behave however they wanted. Post-merge, this led to a lot of camp sabotage once it was clear they were no longer in the majority, but pre-merge, this led to the bullying of one Alecia Holden. Alecia was a bit of an oddity on the “Brawn” tribe, having no obvious physical strength, and making few contributions to anything survival-wise or challenge-wise. Despite this, she continued to stand up for herself, and even survived a few votes (admittedly mostly due to other members of her tribe self-destructing, but survived nonetheless). I have to admire her for refusing to kowtow even in the face of scathing attacks, even if she wasn’t my favorite, and brought little to the table besides. Our first boot is really not memorable as first boots go, so rounding out our “Brawn” tribe is Jennifer Lanzetti, a Ming-Na Wen lookalike who did little in the game, but did have to have a bug floated out of her ear, and stood up during her exit Tribal Council to protest the way the vote seemed to be headed. Not the biggest character, but deserves some respect for being willing to shake things up. That said, I can’t fault most of these players for being forgotten. They made for some interesting pre-merge drama, but even Scot and Jason, the only two to make it deep, were, well, villains, and so not the most pleasant. I will say it’s a bit of a shame that Jason has fallen by the wayside, since he does seem to be open to criticism and change in post-game interviews, and could make for a decently interesting returnee.

In contrast to the “Brawn” tribe, there’s really only one person each from the “Brains” and the “Beauty” that’s been forgotten post-season. From the “Brains”, we get our pre-merge “Villain” of Peter Baggenstos. I say “villain” because while Peter was portrayed negatively, he didn’t really do much that was evil. Apart from conspiring to betray Aubry, this Barack Obama look-alike had sort of a mini-Spencer arc from “Survivor Cagayan” in and of that everything he tried to do blew up in his face. He had no traction, and was unceremoniously voted out pre-merge. He helped keep that part of the game interesting, but as he had no impact beyond that, I can’t fault his being forgotten. More upsetting is the vanishing of Julia Sokolowski of the “Beauty” tribe. Julia was a teenager playing “Survivor”, at this point a rarity but no unheard of. What separated Julia from previous teenage players, however, was her skill at the game. She successfully lied about her age, was considered a “threat” by the other big threats, and even managed to sneak in an immunity win at a crucial time. Maybe not as huge in the character department, but for such a youngster, that’s some serious skill! It’s a real crime that she hasn’t been invited back at this point.

This begs the question, though: Why were these people forgotten? Well, apart from there being such stiff competition (I really can’t overemphasize how big Aubry, Michele, Tai, Cydney, and Debbie are), the big problem will actually come up in the “Overall” section. As I’ve hinted at, there’s a controversy about this season we’ll talk about there, and that controversy kind of colored people’s perception of the season as a whole. Suffice to say, it was a negative effect, and people don’t like negativity (shocking, I know). Given that, it’s frankly astonishing we’ve had as many returnees as we’ve had, and speaks to the strength of the cast as a whole. True, we got a few duds, but we also got a good helping of being characters and strategists, most of whom made it fairly deep. Maybe not the best cast the show has ever had, but an above-average one to be sure.

Score: 8 out of 10.

CHALLENGES

Kaoh Rong continued the trend of newbie seasons not really caring about getting creative or innovative with the challenges at all. Not to say that the challenges were boring or uninteresting. Indeed, one thing I will credit this season with is making the individual challenges as big and epic as the tribal challenges. There was really no weak link, but few challenges from this season went on to become staples in later seasons, but the challenges are not this season’s main selling point. They hold their own, but do little more than that. I will make this score slightly higher than this summary might seem, for reasons that will become clear shortly in the “twist” section.

Score: 7 out of 10.

TWISTS

As I’ve hinted at before, the theme this time around was a rehash of “Survivor Cagayan”. This was “Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty 2”, and on paper, this seems like a very poor choice. However good Kaoh Rong ended up being, it was going to be compared to “Survivor Cagayan”, which was and is widely considered one of the best seasons ever, and of the “modern” era in particular. It’s sort of the same pitfall “Survivor Caramoan” had by being “Fans vs. Favorites 2”: However good you are, you most likely will be looked down upon for not being as good as the first. It’s true that Kaoh Rong does not live up to the standards of “Survivor Cagayan”, but oddly this choice doesn’t have as much of an impact as one might think. The theme is brought up less than it was on “Survivor Cagayan”, allowing the cast of Kaoh Rong to stand more on their own merits, and it is interesting to see the same twist play out differently with different casts. For instance, the “Brains” were the disaster tribe on “Survivor Cagayan”, while for Kaoh Rong, the disaster tribe were the “Brawn”. Also, if you HAVE to divide three tribes by some theme, “Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty” feels more natural a divide than any other one the show has tried, so I can’t fault them too much.

Our announced pre-season gimmick this time around was the essential return of the “Super idol”, which could be played after the votes were read. Unlike previous ones, however, it wasn’t just one idol to be found. Instead, individual hidden immunity idols could be locked together to form a super idol, thus necessitating cooperative play. I do like the increased emphasis on social play as facilitated by this twist, but that’s really about it. Super idols, as the name would imply, are just too overpowered, and while they ultimately didn’t factor in too much to this season, it’s more an absence of bad than the presence of good with this twist. Plus, if someone had managed to get their hands on two hidden immunity idols, they would have had basically a free super idol with no social play needed, a possibility too horrible to consider.

The other pre-season gimmick, though far less prevalent and less hyped, was the presence of choices at challenges. I’m not just talking about choosing between types of reward, though there was a certain amount of that in the season as well. Starting with the first immunity challenge, and used a few times throughout, people could choose how they wanted to do the challenge. For example, after a certain race, one could choose to either solve a puzzle or complete a balance portion. This was a brilliant move with the only flaw being that it wasn’t utilized more throughout the season. When it did show up, it led to greater strategizing regarding the challenges, and fun dilemmas you could debate with fellow fans. The downside? None I can think of.

Episode one actually played out in a pretty straightforward manner, after our usual “Grab supplies off the boat” opener, with our first blindside coming in episode two. The Brawn tribe had an initial majority of four, being Cydney, Jennifer, Jason, and Scot. However, when Jennifer got caught trying to form a women’s alliance against Jason and Scot, the tables were turned on her, despite Jennifer not ultimately going through with the plan. This also was our first hint at the beauty of Cydney’s game, since she used the opportunity to get close to Alecia, and then get Jason and Scot to grab the idol from Alecia, despite Alecia having found the clue first. The Brains tribe followed a similar blindside pattern in Episode three. The majority had originally been the pairs of Peter and Liz, plus Aubry and Neal, joining up against Debbie and Joe, the latter of whom is really only notable for being the second-oldest person to ever play, behind Rudy Boesch of “Survivor Borneo”. This plan got derailed when Peter and Liz planned to split the vote to blindside Aubry. Debbie, however, got wind of the plan, informed Aubry and Neal, and used that information to flip the vote against Liz, explaining why she didn’t get mentioned earlier. While none of these blindsides are earth-shattering, they did set the stage for the majority alliance never being quite safe this season, which is always good in terms of mystery and unpredictability. Maybe not spectacular, but still a solid start to the season, setting up for good things to come.

Episode four is infamous, but not for any blindsides. Rather than market the challenge choices pre-season, one thing the show DID hype up was a record number of medical evacuations, the first of which occurred in this episode. Players competed in a challenge that involved digging in the sand. The trouble was, they had the hottest weather yet, and the challenge took longer than expected, leading to three players (one from each tribe) getting heat stroke. Debbie got it for the Brains, and Cydney for the Brawn, but it was Caleb, so determined to get his tribe even a second-place finish, who pushed himself too far and needed to be evacuated, the first beauty loss. Frankly, a painful thing to watch, and not helped by the lackluster back-half of the episode. Alecia was predictably booted, and while I respect her refusal to hold Tribal Council immediately after the challenge, as suggested by Jason, it did lead to a forgettable exit. This is also pretty much the only reason Caleb was remembered, as he brought little else to the season. He was determined, and wanted his second chance. He got it, and so now there’s no real further need for him in “Survivor”.

The usual tribe swap comes in episode 5, though with an odd number of people, we have someone getting left out. That someone was Julia, who got sent to live at the Brawn camp, renamed “Exile Island”, to rejoin the losing tribe later. While unplanned, this did make the shake-up more memorable than most of the recent tribe swaps, and gave us a good chance to see the inner strength of Julia, which was always a plus. Chan Loh (the former Brains tribe), had a 2-2-2 split of all original tribes, while Gondol (the former Beauty tribe) had 3-2-1 in Brains, Beauty, and Brawn. The former never went to Tribal Council, so the only thing of note there was that this was where Michele and Cydney low-key aligned themselves, and where Michele’s most snarky confessionals come from, as her fellow “Beauty” Nick was more than a little condescending to her. The latter was a little more complicated, however. As one would expect, Aubry, Peter, and Joe of the Brains agreed to work with Scot of the Brawn to get rid of a Beauty, in this case the heretofore unmentioned Anna Khait. However, Scot bonded with Tai, the other Beauty on the tribe, and once he found out that Tai had the Beauty idol, informed him of Jason’s idol, forming a Power Trio despite being on opposite tribes. When Julia returned to Gondol in episode six, this led to Scot wanting to turn the tables on the Brains. This was done through manipulation on Julia and Tai’s part, whispering to Aubry about Peter’s planned insurrection for the blindside of Liz a few episodes back. As Aubry had never trusted Peter since then, and Joe was able to get out of Peter that he had made these plans, Aubry went along with the plan, but did so in a way that just plain wasn’t smart. She made her decision AT Tribal Council. Normally not a major misstep, the issue here is that Aubry initially voted for Julia, then crossed out her name and wrote Peter, such that Julia knew she had voted against her. Unsurprisingly, this would sully their relationship for the rest of the game, and put Aubry in hot water in the immediate future. For all that it’s painful to watch as an Aubry fan, it must be said that this is one of the more memorable moments of the season, and again, prevents us from having a solid majority that just steamrolls the entire game through.

Then, the merge, and to pile on the “Royally Screwed”, we get our second evacuation of the season. Neal has a bad enough infection to need to be sent away, taking with him the Brains’ idol, and thus giving the former Brawn and Beauty complete control. While this is probably the least emotional of the medical evacuations, it’s probably the one that hurts the most, because it makes the entire merge feel pointless. We’re setting up dynamics already established by previous episodes, ending with no actual vote out, but the elimination of the player with the most ability to shake things up. This should set up for a predictable post-merge. Thankfully, this is Kaoh Rong, where the majority never stays the majority for very long. In the next episode, Cydney gets paranoid about a men’s alliance, and so counters with an alliance of the remaining women+Joe, leading to a blindside of Nick. I can’t overstate how awesome this move is. While it feels semi-foreshadowed, as we had seen Cydney make side deals before, it still shakes things up in an unexpected way, and the cocky and arrogant are usurped by the smart and likable, which is always nice to see (take note “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”). A brilliant move that breathes new life into the post-merge.

Say it with me now: This is Kaoh Rong, so the majority doesn’t last. With Scot, Tai, and Jason on the outs, they start sabotaging the camp, confident in the protection of their super idol. Julia starts playing both sides, with Aubry being the main one to take notice. Unfortunately with Julia immune in the next episode, and wanting to flush the idols, a new target is needed. Debbie is the decided victim, due to being a bit too dictatorial in her conversations with the alliance. Again, a good shakeup, though not as good a move, as it give a threesome with inordinate power for their size even more power. Plus, there’s a super idol to flush. Granted, the alliance can’t possibly know about that (Scot and Jason had shown off the idols at Tribal Council, but did not mention the Super Idol twist), but still, objectively a bad move in that regard.

Our next reward challenge brings a twist, and I’m not just talking about the reward choice again. The extra-vote advantage is back from “Survivor Worlds Apart”, won in this case by Tai. Not a bad twist to bring back, but unneeded in this environment. What IS needed is another power dynamic shakeup. With seven people left, and no idols flushed, plus the Super Idol, Scot, Jason, Julia, and Tai seem set to control the rest of the game. Aubry, however, has other plans. Noting that Scot and Jason in particular come across as bullies, Aubry talks to Tai and gets him to side with herself, Cydney, Michele, and Joe. Thus, when Scot gets the majority of votes, Tai refuses to join up and make the Super Idol, leading to Scot’s elimination with the idol in his pocket. If you’re wondering why Cydney’s women’s alliance wasn’t the greatest move of the season, it’s only because this flip was. Not only were the twists of the season beaten, they were beaten purely though social manipulation, the core of what “Survivor” is about. Plus, it’s always nice to see the villains and bullies get so thoroughly beaten in such an ironic way.

The next two votes actually remain fairly predictable, in a rarity for the season. Michele does agree to vote out Julia, despite being allied with her, and Tai wastes his extra vote against Michele, but really not much happens until the final five. This comes in the form of our third medical evacuation, and probably the most pathetic yet. Joe, going on a reward, ate too much red meat, got his colon blocked, and needed to be evacuated. Rough to see, and yet another obstacle going into the finals.

Good manipulation of Cydney by Aubry puts Michele on the chopping block. When Michele wins immunity, and gets Cydney back on her side, Aubry uses her connection with Tai to get it to fire making, which she wins. An exciting start to the finale, and a good demonstration of why, despite being an excellent strategist, Cydney still had some flaws in her game. It was clear from their chatter that the jury HATED her, and wanted her to lose. In a shock to the audience, but not, for some reason, the players, we don’t have a final two, despite the numbers being right for one. I guess the show didn’t want to copy “Survivor Cagayan” too much. Instead, our final three challenge lets a player eliminate a juror of their choosing. They get immediately sequestered, and get no vote at Final Tribal Council. This twist gets a lot of hate, but on paper, I actually like it. It can be a good safety net, and requires some knowledge of both self and others to use properly. It’s never come back, probably because of its use this season, but I think it could actually have some potential. At the very least, it would cut down on the massive juries we’re having to deal with nowadays. That said, its use here does reek of both desperation and cruelty. It’s become obvious at this point that production wants Aubry to win, and it feels like they put in this twist just to ensure that she made finals. On top of that, Michele wins the advantage and uses it against Neal. A wise choice, given that Neal was a solid Aubry vote, and gave Michele a very vindictive speech upon leaving, but it felt cruel to Neal. I mean, the guy got to cast one vote the entire season, made the merge, and doesn’t even get to hang around that long? That feels wrong.

Not so much a “twist”, but it is worth noting that this season brought back closing speeches by our finalists, probably in an attempt to help them side with Aubry. It doesn’t work, as our real twist comes in the form of Michele winning 5-2. Why? Well, join me in the next section, as we’ll discuss it.

For now, though, let us summarize the overall twists of the season. Kaoh Rong is a rarity in the 30’s in and of that there’s very few twists from production, but a bunch implemented by the players. This, I think, is to the season’s advantage. It helps the season stand out, while still maintaining unpredictability, and feels very “real” to the audience, for want of a better term. Granted, pretty much every production twist at best had no impact, but with cast twists this good, less is more. Most every episode had something exciting in it, and good triumphed in the end, and so we get what is probably the strongest overall category of the season.

Score: 9 out of 10.

OVERALL

On the aesthetic side of things, the show really shot itself in the foot by leaning too heavily into the traditional architecture of Cambodia during the previous season. This one felt much more generic by comparison, and just looking at it, you couldn’t tell it from one of many other seasons. It’s easy to forget that it IS in Cambodia at times. I’ll give credit that we got nice popping colors (the buff designs are some of my all-time favorites), but the season just doesn’t seem to have a cohesive theme, and when it does try, it’s reused from another, better season.

But of course, we’re all here to talk about the big flaw in the season. Forgive me for repeating myself from the last blog, but Kaoh Rong is another season where the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts. Most every element in Kaoh Rong is at least ok, and the gameplay this season is some of the best we’ve ever had. There was a great story here, so why didn’t it equate to a great season? The answer, my friends, is in the edit.

As I said, there’s a great story to be told for this season, but it’s not the one the editors were interested in telling us. Rather than the story of Michele Fitzgerald, Social Queen, they wanted to emphasize Aubry Bracco, Robbed Goddess. As an Aubry fan, I’m not COMPLAINING, per se, about her being presented positively, but doing so when she doesn’t win sets the season up for failure. Look at it this way: Kaoh Rong had a very likable final four. Possibly the most likable final four the show has ever had. There was pretty much no outcome viewers would not find satisfying. Yet you managed to find one! I’m not sure that was possible! While it would be unfair to say Michele was INVISIBLE, Aubry was clearly the dominating force of the season. Again, not a dealbreaker on a good season, but you need to show why that dominating force lost. What was their fatal flaw that kept them from winning in the end? Weird though it is to say, the show needed to take a cue from “Survivor All-Stars”. On that season, we had another dominating force in Boston Rob who ended up losing. People can argue about whether or not Rob should have won, but even the most ardent Boston Rob fans can still see the flaws in his game that led to his loss. Even if you don’t agree with the outcome, you still understand why it happened.

This is not the case with Kaoh Rong. Aubry’s flaws, if shown at all, were very much downplayed, to the point where they weren’t talked about much beyond the episode they appeared in. Rather than a brilliant, but flawed, strategist, Aubry got presented as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Even her enemies were shown as liking her, with Scot and Jason complimenting her game at Tribal Council in what turned out to be Scot’s boot. From what we, the audience, saw, Aubry had most of the jury (save Julia and Debbie) wrapped around her finger, guaranteed to win pretty much no matter who she was up against. Michele? She played well, certainly, and was known to be liked, but the common consensus at the time was that Michele’s win was predicated on Aubry being voted out. Cydney and Tai had both had social gaffes, to the point where Michele was commonly seen as more likable than them, but Aubry? Again, apart from Julia and Debbie, we were never shown any dislike of Aubry by the jury, or even why the rest of the jury’s liking of Michele was greater than their liking of Aubry. Put simply, the editors tried to make their own story out of the season, instead of the actual story of the season, and it left us feeling wanting.

Case in point, what should have been a well-received season led to one of the biggest blowups in the fan community since the outcome of “Survivor Samoa”. If “Survivor” were still a cultural touchstone, there would have been rioting in the streets. The Aubry fans argued loudly for her win, leading Michele fans to fire back in anger. There was hatred and nastiness on both sides. It was a rough time to be a fan.

In the end, that is the tragedy and the failure of Kaoh Rong. It was never going to be perfect. No season is. But it could easily have been one of the greats. Instead, by trying to make the season that pleased themselves, production made a season that pleased no one else. The good elements do still shine through, but the damage is done by this point.

Score: 30 out of 40.

ABSTRACT

“Survivor Kaoh Rong” is definitely a necessary season if you’re planning to view future seasons. It has a lot of impact, both in returnees and twists, down the road. “Survivor Kaoh Rong” feels like a very back-to-basics season, with most of the best elements springing forth from the cast themselves, rather than production. That said, when production DOES stick its hand in the show, it always makes it worse, or at best has no impact. This season is definitely worth a watch, but be prepared to be disappointed by what could have been.

-Matt

“Survivor” Retrospectives: Cambodia

Well, that break went on far longer than intended. But no matter! With no new season on the horizon, I’d say it’s a fine time to resurrect an old series. A look back at the past, if you will. Yes, it’s time once again for the return on “‘Survivor’ Retrospectives”!

Given that it’s been so long, I’d say a refresher on the concept is in order. In this series, I go back through all the major elements of a season (the casts, the challenges, the twists, etc.), both recapping them objectively, as well as giving my subjective opinion on each. Each category is then given a score out of 10 for how well it holds up on its own. The exception is the “Overall” category, in which the marks from the previous categories are combined with the mark from the “Overall” category (which considers both the themes and aesthetics of the season, as well as how all the elements of the season came together), leading to a score out of 40. Naturally, this means there will be SPOILERS for the season. I will be writing as though everyone reading knows the outcome of the season, as well as the major players and events of the season. Thus, if you have not watched the season in question, as indicated by the title, read on beyond this paragraph only if you are prepared for said spoilers. However, if you wish to know my general, spoiler-free opinion on the season, scroll down to the bottom of the page. There, I have a section labeled “Abstract”, which will give you just that.

With those warnings out of the way, let us considered the case of Cambodia. The season that really felt like it began the 30’s, for good and for ill. Does it become the standard-bearer for the sins of later seasons, or does it have merit on its own? Read on and find out!

CAST

As the subtitle “Second Chances” would imply, Cambodia is an all-returnee season. This makes judging the cast a lot harder. Usually, when looking at a cast, I look at the big names to come out of a season. The flaw with a returnee season, unlike an all-newbie season, is that people can be big names both going into and coming out of a season, yet not have done much on the season as a whole. Consider the case of Rupert on “Survivor All-Stars”. The guy was a big name coming into the season, and still a big name coming out of the season, but did he really do anything during “Survivor All-Stars” to earn it? Not so much. Really, all he did was avoid tarnishing his legacy. As such, in this section, I’m only going to be discussing members of the cast who actively maintained or improved their overall perception amongst the fandom.

With that in mind, no one had a higher rise this season that Kelley Wentworth. Originally of “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, Kelley was that one person who gets on a returnee season that you think “Huh?” For reasons I’ll get into in the twist section, Kelley didn’t have that obstacle, but as a fifth boot who was nearly invisible during her first run on the show, she had arguably the lowest floor in terms of perception. Even so, Kelley can be said to have dominated the fandom in this season. She showed herself to be a sound strategic player, and a scrappy fighter, as she was rarely in the majority on the season. She also gave off a number of good sound-bytes, making her one of the rare people named “Kelly” who is not, as I once said, “as bland as beige wallpaper”. Perhaps it’s the odd spelling that does it? In any case, I can’t go into too much detail about why Kelley is so beloved without delving into the twists of the season, though her snark in confessionals definitely helped. For now, suffice to say that Kelley proved why she was considered a threat her first time around, and became a beloved fan darling for all the right reasons.

If you’re looking for someone who was popular before coming on the season, but increased it during the season, look no further than Joe “Joey Amazing” Anglim. Hailing from “Survivor Worlds Apart”, the season immediately before Cambodia, Joe was seen as something of the nice, good-looking challenge threat with not much else to note about him. Basically a newer version of Ozzy from “Survivor Cook Islands”. Cambodia did little to change that, but it did take the comparisons to a whole new level. Joe was pretty good in challenges? Now he’s immune for a month before you even have the chance to vote him off. Joe seemed comfortable in the outdoors? Now he’s so handy that he’s being referred to as “MacGyver”. He had a determination and competitive drive? Now he’s collapsing out of exhaustion during a challenge. You get the idea. This is a tried-and-true character archetype that people eat up, and Joe was no exception. I can definitely see why, and I’d argue he did more to earn it this season than on “Survivor Worlds Apart”, with just how over the top it was. That said, I do think the love for Joe is a bit overdone. There’s nothing wrong with him, of course. He’s a perfectly inoffensive guy, and quite likable, even on screen. When I first started watching the show, Joe is the sort of guy I would have gravitated toward, rooted for, and been heartbroken by his inevitable defeat. But as I’ve grown as a fan, I’ve fallen out of love with this sort of character. Again, not that there’s anything wrong with them, but they just don’t have a lot of depth to them. They’re good at survival, and that’s about it. Perhaps, then, the bet way to describe Joe is that he’s one-dimensional, but a likable one-dimensional.

Now, if Kelley and Joe are the two biggest characters to come out of the season, surely they’re the ones the season focussed on story-wise, right? Wrong! That honor would go to Spencer Bledsoe of “Survivor Cagayan”. Coming into the game, Spencer was the person I expected to do well above all others. He was perceived as an underdog, but a likable one, with a good strategic mind to boot. Add onto that him being “robbed” due to playing with Kass (who’s also on this season, but sadly doesn’t make much impact despite a valiant attempt to change up her game), and he seemed to be in the same position Cochran was in on “Survivor Caramoan”: perfectly set up to go far. And go far he did, making the final three, though not winning due to one mistake at the finish line, wherein he got a mite aggressive when campaigning against Kelley to try and avoid being voted off at the final four. This turned off what few jurors might have voted for him, leading to a perfect victory for our eventual winner, Jeremy. We’ll get to him in the next paragraph. Getting back to Spencer, though, Spencer was set up early on with the arc of needing to be more “emotional”. Understandable, considering he was a primary target of the “gamebot” criticism, but I don’t think the show pulled it off as well as they wanted to. We’re TOLD that Spencer has grown in various ways, such as professing his love for his girlfriend, or opening up with his tribemates, but since a lot of that deals with matters outside the game, it comes across as the producers shoehorning in an arc to try and get the audience to like someone. That said, I do think Spencer has an arc, and a good one at that. It’s just not the one the show pushed. Spencer may not have grown as much emotionally (at least on screen), but his arc in terms of strategy is an interesting contrast to his arc in “Survivor Cagayan”. On his first season, Spencer was plagued with perpetual bad luck. Every plan he put together pretty much fell through, and he never really found his footing. Doing well despite this made everyone praise his potential. While Spencer’s second go-around did continue his bad luck trend early on, particularly with his tribe swaps, Spencer seemed to have a better footing on where he was in the game, and more in control of his destiny. Further, come the merge, Spencer seemed to be the man of the hour. His name was rarely brought up, and he was almost always the swing vote in determining who went home. A picture-perfect strategic game, right? Possibly, but in spite of that, Spencer still lost in the end, with little to no “bad luck” to blame this time around. We may not have seen Spencer’s emotional growth on screen, but we did see him come to terms with the fact that playing well and having good luck can still result in a loss. A fascinating arc. Shame the show didn’t do more with it.

But now, onto Jeremy, the winner of the season. Similar to Spencer, Jeremy is not as big of a character, but big on the strategy Jeremy this season would pioneer what he called his “meat shield” strategy, which meant keeping around people who were perceived as bigger threats than him, to avoid getting booted post-merge. This is why Joe stuck around past his first immunity loss. Jeremy had a bit of charm that had shown through during confessionals, but the bulk of his screentime this season was devoted to strategy. And again, to his credit, that strategy worked. Jeremy was the first man to win an all-returnee season, and arguably played a perfect game (he did receive votes against him at the final six, but they were negated with an idol. Whether or not this disqualifies his “perfect game” status is up for debate, and I’m not sure there’s a wrong answer). It even got rehashed on the later “Winners at War”, though we’re nowhere near there yet. For my part, Jeremy is a fine addition to the season. Extra strategizing is always welcome, though I did tire of hearing of it after a while. Still, Jeremy played well and is a likable enough winner to be welcome on the season. Also worth mentioning here is Jeremy’s right-hand man for much of the season. Stephen Fishbach, originally of “Survivor Tocantins”, was brought back after a six-year hiatus. That said, it’s interesting to look back on Stephen’s first appearance to his second, as they make an odd contrast. On his first season, Stephen was paranoid about being cast as the “wimpy guy” who couldn’t make it in the outdoors, yet was portrayed as competent in all areas of the game, and a strategic force on the season. While his second appearance did keep some of that strategic competence, it was too focussed on the aforementioned Joe, who became a proverbial white whale for Stephen. As such, Stephen came across as paranoid and obsessed, somewhat dampening his strategic prowess, and not helped by his getting what I call “the goober edit”. Had his tribe gone to Tribal Council first, he likely goes home, due to everyone being suspicious of him, and his not being that helpful around camp. Note the scene, with goofy music, of him trying to break a tree branch, and losing. On top of that, Stephen’s general failure at challenges, coupled with the coining of “#severegastrointestinaldistress”, and it’s clear that Stephen was not meant to be taken seriously. Even so, he managed to have his moments of brilliance, and a lot of emotional insight that dwarfed what we were told Spencer had. Not the same Stephen we got the first time around, but still a fun character and occasionally good strategist.

Every major alliance needs a rival, and the head against Jeremy would be Ciera Eastin of “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. While Ciera is usually referred to as “The Woman who Voted out her Mom”, this to me is really where Ciera came into her own. She showed some good strategic chops, but now had the chance to flex them. She led the counter-alliance, referred to as the “Witch’s Coven” by Jeremy’s alliance, and actually hung on for a few votes through a combination of cunning and hidden immunity idols. Her defeat was inevitable, just due to her numbers disadvantage, but she did her best to shake up the game, making the post-merge all the more exciting. That said, she did coin the phrase “Big Moves”, which would come back to bite the show down the line, but we won’t hold that against her. That’s the show’s fault, not her’s. For what she was, Ciera was a good spoiler: Not going to win, but keeps the game from becoming so smooth that it’s boring.

Now we move on to the characters who were big at the time, but are now kind of lost to history. Really, though, there’s only one name in Cambodia that qualifies, and that name is Jeff Varner. Being from the earliest days of the show (though Kelly Wiglesworth of “Survivor Borneo” was also cast), Varner was built up big time. He had a big game personality, lots of preparation, one of the more aggressive campaigns to get on the show, and a vendetta against peanut butter to help make him memorable. Once on the show, he controlled the earliest votes, only to mess up a twist that shouldn’t really have screwed him, but ended up doing so anyway. He made a mess of his standing in a swapped tribe (the exact circumstances will be gone over in the “Twist” section), and had an early exit as a result. Varner certainly made the pre-merge exciting, and put him back on the radar for modern season. So, why was someone so influential to the early game forgotten? “Survivor Game Changers”. Yeah, wait a few seasons, but Varner will basically be writing himself out of “Survivor” history. For the moment, though, he’s a short but enjoyable part of the season, keeping up the unpredictability that will make this season so good overall.

That covers everyone that gets remembered today, but I feel like it does a disservice to the cast. Yes, there were few standouts, but most everybody brought something to the table. Usually it’s what we expected, and thus their legacy was maintained. Abi-Maria Gomes (“Survivor Philippines”) created conflict despite swearing not to do so. Keith Nale (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”) brought back the humor, and I would argue did it better, now that it wasn’t the only entertainment game in town. Andrew Savage (“Survivor Pearl Islands”) finally proved that no, he’s not good at “Survivor”, but can at least make the jury. Really, even if they weren’t the most memorable, everyone brought something to the cast. Or, I should say, almost everyone. Who in their right mind thought that Monica Padilla (“Survivor Samoa”) would be a good addition to the cast? She brought NOTHING! She appeared in the background a bit, was a focus in her boot episode, then NOTHING! Just a waste of a space that could have been filled with the more interesting T-Bird (“Survivor Africa”). The only argument I ever heard for bringing her back, apart from her looks, was that “She put the fear of God into Russell Hantz on her first season, ruining his game.” To be fair, she did do that. What I don’t agree with is that this makes her some sort of strategic mastermind. Bear in mind, RUPERT of all people also managed to put the fear of God into Russell Hantz on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”. Heck, Rupert did it BETTER, as his interaction with Russell actually saved him for a couple of votes. Monica? Voted out the same day. Why was she impressive again?

My score for this section may seem a bit weird, and that’s because this case is inexorably tied with a twist of the season. I’ll get to it shortly, but for now, be satisfied with the idea that the show did something with this cast that gave us, the fans, more buy-in than with previous casts, even if the majority just maintained their respective legacies this season.

Score: 9 out of 10

CHALLENGES

Every challenge in Cambodia is a repeat of an old challenge. Every. Single. One. But, since this is a returnee season, that’s to be expected. They even make a big deal out of it, with Probst noting which players left had done each challenge before, and their overall performance in said challenge. Now, this got a bit old by the end, and I would argue it led to self-defeating scenarios in some challenges (people putting themselves in a position they weren’t the best at to “redeem themselves”), but overall it was a fun touch that didn’t take up too much time overall. And as for the challenges they chose to redo? For the most part, good ones; big and memorable. They didn’t show favoritism for modern “Survivor” either, as they pulled from seasons like “Survivor Borneo” and “Survivor Africa”, which we hadn’t seen in a while. Not every challenge was a hit, of course. They used “Simmotion” from “Survivor Tocantins” for the final immunity challenge, which I maintain is among the weaker final immunity challenges due to the lack of epicness. Still, apart from one or two missteps, the challenges this season were a solid addition to the overall product, and even at their worst, tend to just be a neutral component.

Score: 9 out of 10.

TWISTS

Cambodia holds the distinction of being one of few seasons whose twists actually began in the previous season. As the title “Second Chances” indicates, the season was made up of people who had only played once before, and never won. What split it apart from returnee seasons before and after, however, was that the producers did not entirely pick the contestants. After narrowing the field to 32 potential returnees (16 men and 16 women), those watching the show were allowed to go online and vote in 10 men and 10 women to get their second chance. The results were revealed live at the end of “Survivor Worlds Apart”, also known as “The Best Thing About ‘Survivor Worlds Apart’”. Aside from the requirement that you select 10 people to return no matter what had some logistical issues (a player who gets people to vote specifically for them does not receive sole benefit of convincing people to vote for them), I’d say this is still a major hit of a twist, and the reason why the cast as a whole is stronger than it looks on paper. With pretty much any returnee season, there’s always going to be controversy in the casting choices. “Why did you ever put this person on?”; that sort of thing. You’ll also have players who don’t bring as much as they during their first go-around, and thus lose a big part of their legacy and memorability as a result. The same is true for this season, but even those early boots, you were still happy they were on and much less likely to question the choices. Why? Because, if you were a fan YOU PICKED THEM! You had a say in who got on, which created a buy-in to the cast no season has had before or since. Even if someone failed to live up to expectations, you viewed them charitably because they were, in a sense, your cast. You had ownership like you never had before, thus effectively snuffing out most criticism of the casting decisions before it even had a chance to develop. This is why Kelley doesn’t come off as a weird choice for the season, particularly given her aggressive social media campaign to return. Now, there is an asterisk to this aspect of the season, but as it deals with how the season can be seen overall, I’ll be saving it for the “Overall” section. Suffice to say that by giving the fans more say on this season than on any other, the show started itself off on the right foot.

Continuing this trend, Cambodia’s first twist was a blend of old and new. After being divided into the Bayon and Ta Keo tribes, all players did the “scramble for supplies” start, a tribute to “Survivor Borneo”. However, a new hiccup came in the form of a race to a second boat, which the tribe must do together, with the reward of extra rice hanging in the balance. While not the most exciting aspect of the season, it was a good look to start the season out on: Paying homage to the past while simultaneously not just repeating everything that had been done before. Another old twist with a new spin was the hidden immunity idols. There were two new quirks to them, one good and one bad, or at least underused. Hidden immunity idols would now not look the same, just with different coloring based on tribe camps. They were new different shapes. The theory was that this made it harder to tell a fake idol from a real one. In actuality, it was pointless. While the idols no longer looked exactly the same, they still looked production-made, and very clearly not something made by one of the players. I don’t know, I was expecting them to go all-out in making the idols different. Maybe Ta Keo is your traditional idol, but then Bayon’s is a tin can with a hole in it. Harder to identify, and makes for potential hilarity when you try and convince someone it really IS an idol, and not just trash. That said, the twist itself wasn’t BAD, just kind of pointless. More impactful, however, was the hiding of idols at challenges. A clue was hidden at camp that, if found, told you where in the challenge to look for the idol. You could grab it, but had to risk being seen by your teammates. A dynamic new twist that adds drama to an already drama-filled component of the show? Sign me up! Watching someone go for one of these idols is like watching a really good spy movie, or at worst, an average spy movie. Admittedly, this twist works better during the tribal phase rather than the individual phase, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Kelley was the first recipient of this twist, getting the Ta Keo idol at the first immunity challenge. This plus her usage helps explain why she became such a big character of this and future seasons. Not that she had much of a chance to strategize with her idol at first, since Ta Keo had to go directly from the immunity challenge to Tribal Council, with no talking. Bad flashbacks to the Michelle Yi boot on “Survivor Fiji” come up, and I must admit this was an ill-conceived twist. Thankfully it didn’t hurt anything, but it didn’t help either.

Tribal Council itself was good in terms of a twist outcome, though. Roughly speaking, Ta Keo was divided between “Old School” players and “New School” players, vying for control with Varner and Peih-Gee (“Survivor China”) in the middle. I say “roughly” because although most early players fell into “Old School”, and later players into “New School, there were exceptions. Vytas, despite being firmly from the later seasons of the show, fell into the “Old School” alliance due to his connection with Terry Deitz (“Survivor Exile Island”), who was an old school player who played with Aras, Vytas’ brother. In a blindside, Vytas himself was voted out first, and Jeff and Peih-Gee sided with the new-schoolers to vote him out. This could have made for boring tv, if it was just “New School” steamrolling “Old School”, but thankfully, this was not to be. Varner, along with everyone except Spencer and the as-yet unmentioned Shirin Oskooi from “Survivor Worlds Apart” flipped to vote out Shirin. While the second could hardly count as a “blindside”, it did show that alliances were not going to be as firm this season, helping lead to a constantly-shifting season, leading to some great moments down the road.

Episode 3 brings us our tribe swap, though not in the way expected. Instead of dividing into two new tribes, with nine members each, the show decided to create a new third tribe, Angkor, with all three tribes getting six members each. A twist that worked out well in the end, I would argue, but that badly needed the tweaks it got in later seasons. It’s good for keeping people on their toes, and helps subdivide the cast to prevent Pagongings, but MAN did the Angkor tribe get screwed in this deal. Later subdivisions like this would see the third tribe get some advantage, or at least some supplies to start them over. Angkor? Squat. Naturally, going up against two tribes that didn’t need to expend extra energy building their shelters, and already had supplies set up, Angkor was going to lose. A lot. And they did. A fun twist, but not the fairest, and in need to some tweaking.

Now, Angkor had a 4-2 majority favoring original Ta Keo, while the other two tribes had a 4-2 majority favoring the original Bayon. Had Angkor lost, and just gotten rid of the minority 2 on their tribe, there would have been boredom to be found. The weakest tribe loses constantly, and Pagongs the minority. Simple and dull. Thankfully, this did not happen, largely due to the presence of Abi-Maria on Angkor making it impossible for the original Ta Keo to stick together. Savage and Tasha were able to exploit Abi-Maria’s divisiveness, and vote out first Peih-Gee (with whom Abi-Maria had argued early in the game), then Jeff Varner (who was weak in challenges). Disappointing boots at the time, particularly as Varner was the driving force behind a lot of the early-game excitement, but again, good at keeping things shook up, and the audience on their toes. Say what you will about this season, but don’t say it had one dominant alliance steamroll over everybody the entire time.

Before we get to our next big shakeup in episode five, we should get to two minor twists that happened in between. In episode 3, Jeremy found the clue to the idol, and got it during the challenge. Fine work for him, though less exciting since we had already seen Kelley do the same thing in episode 1. Episode 4, meanwhile, featured what Probst termed a “Hero Challenge”, which had just one player from each team compete for the entire team. Not the worst idea, but it lost the epic scale that most team challenges give us, and is a stupid thing to go in for from a strategy perspective. In the end, apart from a heart warming scene of Savage handing Angkor one of the few victories (though only for reward), this twist brought little to the game, and I’m not upset about its exclusion from future seasons.

On to episode 5, and Angkor gets an honest-to-goodness challenge victory! And it’s even an immunity challenge! Thanks in large part to Stephen’s “skills” at target shooting, his tribe, Bayon, ends up going to Tribal Council. There, they continue the trend of not letting the bold majority maintain control. Monica goes home, the only original Bayon member to not make the merge. Again, while maybe not the most sound strategic decision, it is good to see that the season remains unpredictable, and solid majorities don’t stay solid for long.

Episode 6, unfortunately, starts off on a sour note. Terry gets a visit from Probst informing him that his son, Danny, has been hospitalized, and Terry needs to leave the game to be with his son. Terry understandably agrees, and gets a tearful goodbye with his fellow Ta Keo players. It doesn’t impact much in terms of the game, since Terry was likely to be voted out should Ta Keo have ever lost, but it was still a depressing and unfortunate way for a decent player to go out. Dude should have had the honor of playing his full game without outside life getting in the way, PLUS having to go through the trauma of being far from home when your child is in serious danger. Certainly memorable, but something all involved would have preferred not to happen. Sort of like Penner’s medivac on “Survivor Micronesia”.

Terry’s exit sets the stage for a reunification back into two tribes. New Bayon is stacked with the challenge beasts, and so Ta Keo goes to Tribal Council. Shockingly, given the opportunity to vote Spencer out, Kass does not do so. Instead, allying with Spencer, Abi-Maria, and Ciera, she conspires to vote out her other original-season player Woo. Once again, the season does a good job with playing with strategic expectations, and keeping us guessing at every Tribal Council. Granted, this does label Kass as “Chaos Kass” once again, and gets her voted out at the next Tribal Council, so possibly not the smartest move Kass could have made. Still, hindsight is 20/20, and it did help keep the season exciting, if nothing else. Plus, Kass does get to make the jury, though I’m not exactly happy as to why. The merge comes in the next episode, with 13 people left. Good for helping ensure fan favorites make the jury, but bad in terms of comprehension. For all that I say Kass’ actions got her the boot, it’s really that she was the easiest person to come to a consensus on. Probably the least interesting strategy we’d seen so far this season, and hard to follow due to the sheer number of players left. Yeah, I get why production merged this early, but it was still a stupid decision.

Speaking of stupid decisions, it’s time to talk about hidden immunity idols. Now that challenges were individual, they couldn’t be hidden at challenges anymore, since it would be too easy to get them with everyone focussed on their own work. Instead, you now found clues that had them hidden in obscure places in or around camp. Not bad, but what we’d seen before, and the difficulty in obtaining the idol varied. Kelley, for instance, would have to crawl under the shelter in order to get her idol, while Jeremy got his second idol just by walking away from camp at night, with little to no risk. The variation in quality just makes the whole thing unfair, and it’s all inherently less interesting to watch than what came before.

Fortunately, the unpredictability that has characterized the season so far continues. After Kass’ boot, Kelley remains on the outs, but uses this and her idol to negate a record-setting (for the time) number of votes, leading to the elimination of Savage. From here up until pretty much the finale, it’s just a series of blindsides, with the groups swinging between “The Witch’s Coven” and other two and threesomes to form what Stephen termed “Voting Blocs”. Again, good for unpredictability, but loses points for overuse of the term “Voting Blocs”. It wasn’t even that original idea. You could argue they were seen as early as “Survivor The Amazon”, or possibly even “Survivor Marquesas”, depending on how liberal you wanted to be. It was a fun watch, but it wasn’t as innovative as the show made it out to be.

That about covers the player-implemented twists up until the finale, but the producer-implemented ones kept coming every couple of episodes. First, players were given the option to step out of an immunity challenge to race for a “secret advantage”. No one knew what it was, and players were given very little time to make the decision. Spencer and Stephen both swam for it, with Stephen ultimately getting the “Steal-A-Vote” advantage, at the time unseen. Powerful, earned in a unique and exciting way, and the potential to flip the game? Yeah, despite what we see in later season, I’d call this one a winner. It even has a funny conclusion, with Stephen stealing Joe’s vote, leading to Joe technically voting for himself, only to himself go home as a result of a split vote. To follow this twist (the vote steal, not the boot of Stephen) up, production offered to build everyone a better shelter (the weather was causing people to basically shut down), if a majority would sit out of an immunity challenge. A decent prisoner’s dilemma, but I would argue not executed well. No real drama came of it, because people had too long to think. This might have worked if we had seen the negotiations, but we didn’t. Most everyone sat out, and Joe won again. Even when he did lose, Jeremy’s aforementioned “meat-shield” strategy kept him safe for a bit. On the whole, while I’m glad the cast was saved from further strife, this was just unnecessary.

And so we come to the finale, a big blowout at first that leads to a predictable conclusion with no surprises. The final six vote came down to a 3-3 split, with both Kelley and Jeremy playing their remaining idols, leading to a 0-0 vote. A revote resulted in a tie again, which would normally mean rocks, but this time would have only one person eligible. As a result, we got to see an actual negotiation for the boot go down, leading to Kimmi’s ejection. A boot so complex, Probst had to chart it out during the reunion show. A little hokey, and I know a lot of people hate on it, but I think it continues the trend of unpredictability that has so far been this season’s greatest strength. Sadly, it’s also the END of that trend, as the rest of the finale goes predictably. While the majority changed at about every Tribal Council, Jeremy didn’t face real opposition until about this point. Fortunately, with Spencer as the omnipresent strategist, and Kelley as the underdog that just won’t die, there was real question about whether Jeremy could win in the end against them. This notion was killed prior to Final Tribal Council, with Kelley eliminated and Spencer being so mean to her before leaving in front of the jury that all chances of his victory were shot. Add onto that Jeremy’s gender reveal of his unborn child at Final Tribal Council, and the vote was unsurprisingly 10-0-0 in favor of Jeremy. A well-deserved victory, but a foreseeable one for at least the last half of the finale.

Despite my complaints, on the whole I would say that this season actually did pretty well in terms of twists. While there were a fair number of misses, they tended to be minor things, or things that only look worse in hindsight. In general, this season had new, innovative twists that largely kept things up in the air, while still being recognizably “Survivor”. In a season that largely focusses on strategy, there’s little more you could ask for.

Score: 9 out of 10.

OVERALL

Aesthetically, Cambodia was and still is a breath of fresh air for the show. Bear in mind that for the previous 12 seasons, the show had been to precisely three countries: Samoa, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. Admittedly, two different areas of the Philippines, but the fact remains that from a visual and cultural standpoint, the show was getting stale. Not a lot new to draw on, making a lot of the seasons blend together in terms of colors and visuals. This would get more pronounced when, shortly after this season, the show made what seems to be a permanent move to Fiji. As such, Cambodia visually feels like the last “Hurrah” of creativity. Stunning vistas, unusual wildlife, and a varied and bright color pallet really help this season stand out on a purely visual level.

That said, Cambodia is a season that suffers pretty badly on rewatch, though not always fairly. Some criticisms simply come from trends started by Cambodia, which I’ll get to later. For now, though, one aspect of Cambodia that I will say doesn’t work overall is engagement. I’m not talking here about keeping interest in the season (we’ll get to that), but to the buy-in of the characters I mentioned earlier. I stand behind the statement that voting in this cast gave those of us voting a lot of buy-in, that let us forgive the weaker aspects the cast may have had. The flaw in this, however, is that it REQUIRES the viewer to be an active participant in the casting process. If you’re someone getting into “Survivor” after this season, or just someone who didn’t vote for whatever reason, the cast seems a LOT weaker. Without that buy-in, a lot of the early boots are forgettable, and even some of the later boots don’t stand out, and you just wonder why they were even shown. This means, in a sense, that this season suffers on rewatch, and as that’s one of my main criteria for overall enjoyment of the season, Cambodia suffers in the rankings for it.

Before we go on, one more word of warning: I can’t talk about Cambodia without talking about the seasons that came after it, as trends there have had a direct effect on the perception of Cambodia as a whole. Thus, I’m going to be breaking my cardinal rule, and talking about the seasons that came after it, to help explain the overall perception of Cambodia. I’m going to talk in very general terms, but I cannot guarantee no spoilers. Therefore, if you have not watched any of the seasons post-Cambodia, I highly encourage you to stop reading here, or else scroll down to the “Abstract” section.

For better or for worse, Cambodia is seen seen as the start of the 30’s of “Survivor”. Technically “Survivor Worlds Apart” holds that distinction, but in terms of buildup and legendary feel, Cambodia really does feel like the start of something new. Thus, it gets to be the standard-bearer for all that happens in the 30’s. And, to put it mildly, the 30’s are not looked on positively by the fanbase as a whole. An emphasis on strategy over character. Strategic game over social game (at least a perceived one; wait until the retrospectives on “Survivor Ghost Island” and “Survivor Island of the Idols” for my thoughts on that). Twists being thrown out with no rhyme or reason. Time taken away from what the viewers want to focus on what production wants. Overall, a perceived decline in the quality of the show, and as such, Cambodia gets a lot of flak for it. And I cannot deny, Cambodia did start some trends that are a negative part of the show. Cambodia, for instance, coined the term “Big Moves”, which has since been used as justification to shift more emphasis to strategic play rather than social play. This was annoying even on Cambodia, and a trend in the wrong direction. As Probst himself used to say, “Survivor” is a social game. Therefore, that is where the emphasis should be. I’ve also mentioned my annoyance at things like “voting blocs”, and having too many people stay too late in the game. Again, these are problems in later seasons, and I can’t deny that Cambodia both started them and suffered for them. Perhaps most disappointingly, Cambodia started the trend of “invisible” players making the finals. To a greater or lesser extent, “invisible” players, or at least players we didn’t get much depth on, had been a part of “Survivor” since the beginning, usually more so in seasons with more players. However, these players usually left in the pre-merge, or the VERY early merge at the latest. With Cambodia? A third of the players in the finale (Kimmi and Keith), were shown as having no chance to win going in, despite reportedly playing good games that didn’t get shown, thus weakening the mystery of who would win. Sadly, given Cambodia’s overall success, production took the lesson that viewers wouldn’t care if a member in the finale had basically no screentime, and thus we saw it more and more, to the detriment of good gameplay. All these things, it’s fair to blame Cambodia for starting.

I think it’s important, however, to remember that Cambodia was actually quite well-received when it came out. Most reviews I saw were positive, and the few that weren’t were more along the lines of “Not my cup of tea” than “The season that ruined ‘Survivor’”. My guess is that production saw these same reviews, said “We want more seasons like this”, but took the wrong lessons from Cambodia. As I hope I’ve emphasized by now, what makes Cambodia great is the unpredictability brought about as a result of the PLAYERS. Production, however, saw that they’d tried new twists, concluded that this was what the viewers liked (along with, again, “Big Moves” and not needing every player in the finale to have a story), and thus threw more and more of them into the game until it became a bloated scavenger hunt instead of an intricate social game. This is something I cannot argue with viewers hating.

What I CAN argue, however, is that Cambodia is not at fault for the decisions of production. Just because production took the wrong lessons from Cambodia does not make Cambodia, in and of itself, bad. Yes, it probably did lead to the inundation of twists we’re now stuck with, but if you look at the numbers, Cambodia didn’t do that much-in game from a production standpoint. We had the two-tribe to three-tribe shakeup. A bit unfair, but new and exciting. We had the steal-a-vote advantage. Led to some good comedy, and didn’t overstay its welcome. And we had them give the players a new shelter after some social dilemmas. Could have been better, but doesn’t intrude on the game too much. We had idols hidden at challenges. Clever and innovative, without adding any new advantages to the game. Yes, despite evidence to the contrary, Cambodia only had ONE new advantage (two if you count the Angkor idol) into the game. hardly the oversaturation we see today. And remember, these twists were popular for a reason. These twists WORKED. Most of them get hate today, not for their content, but for their overabundance. Cambodia does not have that problem. It should not be tarred with the same brush as later seasons just because of dumb production decisions that may have been influenced by it.

Finally, however, there is one criticism Cambodia has had since its airing that cannot be denied. Love it or hate it, this season is very much a “strategy” season rather than a “character” season. I wouldn’t say the season has NO character (I mean, Keith Nale is on it, and he’s pretty much nothing but a character), but the fact remains, as evidenced by the forced Spencer arc mentioned earlier, that this season favors strategy above all else. Personally, as someone who enjoys talking about and dissecting the strategy, I found it engaging and innovative. However, my preferences are by no means universal, and I cannot deny that if you’re someone who prefers seasons with big characters above all else, you will not find much to enjoy in Cambodia. I still think the hate is overrated (just because something isn’t your cup of tea doesn’t make it “bad” overall), but the lack of universal appeal does make Cambodia a rare case where the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

SCORE: 34 out of 40.

ABSTRACT

Cambodia is very much a love-it-or-hate-it season. The emphasis on the strategic is pronounced, and while there’s not no character, fans who primarily want big characters will not find what they are looking for this season. That said, this season is wroth a watch for any fan of strategy, though as so much of this season is seeped in the lore of previous seasons, I would not recommend watching this season early in your “Survivor” viewing career.

-Matt