“Survivor” What-Ifs?: Kaoh Rong

Once again, if CBS will not fill the void in our fandom when this goes up by officially announcing the cast of the new season, then it falls to me to fill the void with needless speculation about “What Might Have Been”.  And oh, what a treat we have today.  “Survivor Kaoh Rong” is a personal favorite season of mine, largely due to giving us Aubry Bracco, my all-time favorite player at the time of this writing.  I acknowledge that the season has some flaws, mainly in the editing department, and this keeps if out of the “Great” category of seasons, but I still love it.  Definite room for improvement, though, so let’s see if one tiny change is enough.  

Before discussing said change, though, the usual reminder that there are SPOILERS ahead.  It’s difficult to talk about changing a season without comparing it to how the season actually went down in reality, so I can’t guarantee that this and future seasons won’t be spoiled in this blog.  Past seasons may also be mentioned as well.  Hence, read at your own risk.  

THE IMPACT

Like with Africa, which we talked about earlier this off-season, Kaoh Rong is something of a Holy Grail for “What-If?” scenarios.  Between the medical evacuations and the number of lucky coincidences that happen, there’s just a trove to go through.  Most of these center around Aubry in particular, since while you may say what you want about her in hindsight, she is presented as the main character of this season, so of course most story beats will seem to center around her.  In particular, it’s common for the Michele fans/Aubry detractors to point out that she was saved by luck (had Neal not been medevaced, she almost certainly goes at the merge), while the Aubry fans/Michele detractors will counter that Aubry was also screwed by luck (if Joe doesn’t eat a ton of meat at the final five, Michele almost certainly goes then, leading to an inevitable Aubry victory).  The point I’m making here is twofold: Luck is a factor in “Survivor”, for good or for ill, and these scenarios have been gone over to death by the fanbase, are both equally true, and thus not interesting enough to talk about in this blog on their own.  

Now that I’ve hopefully dodged THAT bullet, and also hopefully avoided reigniting a dead debate that was very cruel and unnecessary, we can talk about the actual change we’re going to make.  Rather than change the outcome of luck, we’re going to change someone else’s mind.  That someone is, of course, Aubry, and that time is going to be at the Final 6.  In our timeline, Tai pushed for ejecting Michele here, something Aubry could have gone along with.  She had Joe’s vote on lock, and Jason, the intended target of Michele and Cydney, would doubtless have gone along with the plan if only to save his own skin.  In our timeline, of course, Aubry sides with Michele and Cydney, citing Cydney as someone she’s tight with, and Jason goes home here.  

That said, what if Aubry decided to take more of an interest in Tai’s plan?  What if Aubry became concerned about the tight twosome that Michele and Cydney form?  We know from post-show interviews that the two were tight from the swapped Chan Loh (and thank you, by the way, show, for COMPLETELY leaving out that particular storyline, only adding to the confusion your ending brought).  It’s not impossible that Aubry becomes concerned about this, and decides to go along with Tai’s plan.  The immediate outcome, of course, is that Michele goes while Jason stays, but what about how the rest of the season (all two remaining episodes of it at least) plays out?  

THE FALLOUT

Aubry choosing to keep Jason is, of course, a controversial move.  I suspect Aubry justifies it to the cameras by emphasizing the Cydney/Michele bond, and also stating that Jason is not good at puzzles, or looks that good to the jury.  Even so, I’m sure this is seen by the fanbase as a possible game-ruining move at the time, and Jason probably brags to confessional about how he just saved himself, even though it was really Tai and Aubry’s doing.  Apart from this, though, our penultimate episode doesn’t change much.  Joe probably still wins reward, and while he may take Tai rather than Cydney with him (and even that’s not guaranteed), this does not change him eating too much meat on reward, and getting evacuated as a result.  Really, all that we can guarantee changes is that Aubry looks an even bigger fool going into the finale, noting in confessional that not voting out Jason may have been her biggest mistake, now that he’s guaranteed a spot in the final four.  

Now, there is one possible change that could shape how things go, which is the aforementioned who Joe chooses to take on reward.  Nothing really changes if he takes Cydney, and she and Aubry patch things up on reward.  If Joe is still in the mindset of “No trust with Cydney” from the last vote, though, I could see him taking Tai.  If so, this raises the possibility that Cydney, burned from the last vote, makes amends with Jason.  In the Aubry/Michele debate in our timeline, Cydney often gets left by the wayside, despite being an excellent strategist and key player in the dominant alliance.  True, she wasn’t beating either of our two heroines, given how many bridges she burned, but still, she deserves respect.  I could see her trying to worm her way back in with Jason, especially if she believed that Aubry had fully turned against her, and not just wanted to break up her bond with Michele.  Whether it would work is another matter.  Jason strikes me as the type to hold a grudge, and I’m not sure he’d be open to anything Cydney had to say.  True, you could argue he has few options, but I could see him believing he could just immunity his way to the end from here.  

All this to say that while I acknowledge another possibility is available, I suspect Cydney tries to work her way back in with Aubry, having little choice otherwise.  Fortunately for her, Jason is still considered the bigger target, and is in for a round of bad luck.  I don’t see him winning the final four immunity, given how tricky that puzzle was, meaning Tai is the most likely winner.  Sadly, we do miss out on Michele’s kicking of the puzzle, so that’s one downgrade.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Jason, without immunity, goes at final four.  Given that he’s the villain of the season, even in this timeline, there is much rejoicing from the audience.  

Of course, this leads us to the challenge at the final three.  It’s certainly possible that, unless Cydney wins, Aubry goes to the end, so I could see the season following “Survivor Cagayan” even more closely, and going for a final two here.  On the other hand, I don’t think production wants to risk even that, so we probably still have our “Juror Removal” twist and a final three there.  Fittingly, this final three is one “Brain”, one “Brawn”, and one “Beauty”, a fun bit of symmetry.  

Given how close Aubry came in that challenge, coupled with it not playing to Sydney’s strengths, I’d say Aubry is probably the winner of the challenge.  It would be easy to say she just votes Scot off the jury, since that’s what she wanted in our timeline, but in this timeline, I think she goes for Julia.  Also a person guaranteed not to vote for her, but more so than Scot in this timeline.  Scot doesn’t like anybody on this final three.  He doesn’t want to vote for any of them.  Yet, since Aubry burned him the least directly out of those left, I could see her thinking she has a shot at his vote.  And if she doesn’t, well, Julia was never going to vote for her either, so it all evens out anyway.  

Perhaps controversial these days, but I’m inclined to say that Aubry wins in this final three regardless of who she gets rid of.  She has three votes guaranteed on this jury (Neal, Nick, and Joe), and while she definitely has two votes guaranteed against her (Michele and Debbie), I think she has a chance at at least Jason’s vote.  After all, if he and Cydney didn’t mend their relationship, then we know from our timeline that Jason was rooting against Cydney, and Tai directly betrayed him on the Scot boot.  Jason may not care for Aubry, but she’s the least objectionable out of the three.  Add onto that Michele’s excellent Final Tribal performance not being there, and Aubry’s average Final Tribal performance looks a lot better.  It may only be 4-3 (depending on who our final jury member is, and how persuadable they actually are), but Aubry comes out on top here.  

THE LEGACY

Before we get into how this impacts the view of the season as a whole, let’s talk about future seasons, since really, this changes little.  While Jason and Cydney are both bigger, more respected characters, there’s not really a good chance for them to come back.  “Survivor Game Changers” is the only full returnee season since then, and I don’t see them nixing any of the Kaoh Rong players we got in our timeline.  And I don’t see them having more than four from a single season, so that is shot.  Aubry’s win doesn’t preclude her coming back, either, since winners were ok that season.  

That said, her win DOES torpedo her chances, and I’d say Aubry is maybe even first out of this season in this timeline.  One of the reasons I will defend Aubry’s game on Game Changers is that, while she never had any real power, the fact that she even MADE IT that far is impressive.  Game Changers, like “Survivor All-Stars” before it, had an anti-winner bias.  Less because “They already got money”, and more because “They’re the biggest threats.”  This justification led to Aubry being lumped in this group in our timeline, with no less than the Queen herself, Sandra Diaz-Twine, wanting her gone.  After all, the prevailing wisdom at the time was “Aubry should have won.”  Partly by good swap luck, and partly by her own guile, Aubry making it as far as she did, power or no, was nothing short of a miracle, and her game that season deserves respect.  But with an actual win under her belt?  Aubry has no chance of making it far this season.  

Of course, this does preclude her from coming back for Edge of Extinction, so she’ll need a replacement.  This would seem the place to include Cydney, but it’s only in the last year or two that Cydney has said she’s willing to return.  She’s doubtless asked, but I think she declines, for the understandable reason of her body deteriorating from the show not being good for her bodybuilding career.  My next thought for who to put in Aubry’s spot was someone cast after her to match her archetype.  Hannah Shapiro of “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X” and Gabby Pascuzzi of “Survivor David vs. Goliath” would probably be the top candidates in that regard.  However, I ended up deciding that neither would go, as the former has stated she won’t play again, while the latter, having just come from the same filming cycle, would be unfamiliar to the fans that season.  She would basically get the same reaction from the players as Amanda on “Survivor Micronesia”, and I don’t think production wants that again.  

No, I think Aubry’s open spot here gives Chrissy Hoffbeck (“Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”) her second shot.  While not the “nerd” archetype that Aubry has, Chrissy still gets the “offbeat choice” niche, while still being a favorite who is known to the fans.  Does this change the season drastically?  Eh, probably not.  While Chrissy might make it farther than Aubry does in our timeline, if only by virtue of actually playing an idol if she finds it, the anti-returnee sentiment on this season was too strong, and we still probably get our unsatisfying Chris win here.  The one upside is that there is no “Drive Aubry away from the fanbase by personally attacking her for a bad game decision”, meaning we have a more active online Aubry in this timeline, for which I, for one, am eternally grateful.  Seriously, fanbase, shame on you for how you acted toward her.  Agree or disagree with her, what you did is not ok.  

While Aubry’s win precludes her from appearing on Edge of Extinction, it puts her in the running for Winners at War.  Given that she’s a relatively recent, popular winner at this point, I don’t see her not coming back.  We don’t even have to speculate about who she replaces, since she just takes the spot Michele had in our timeline.  Does Aubry mimic Michele’s placement this season?  Probably not.  While I am an Aubry fan, I will admit that Michele’s game, while not as fun to watch, is overall smarter in terms of making a deep run.  Both play fantastic games that can be winning ones, but run their seasons a hundred times randomized, and Michele’s strategy wins out more often than Aubry’s.  Aubry probably goes either after the swap, depending on if she gets a bad draw, or early-ish in the merge if not.  Probably around where Adam goes in our timeline is her ceiling, just due to her threat level.  

But what of Kaoh Rong as a whole?  Well, for what I believe is the first time in the history of these blogs, we actually have a timeline change that RETROACTIVELY changes a season, or at least how it’s presented.  Specifically, Aubry’s decision at final six will FORCE the edit to highlight the Cydney/Michele bond a lot more to justify Aubry’s action, which is criticized at the time but in hindsight is seen as a brilliant move.  This paints the pair in a different light.  For want of a better term, a villainous light.  Don’t misunderstand, the pair aren’t the villains of the season; Scot and Jason claimed that title pretty definitively when they started sabotaging the camp.  But the pair are presented in a similar way to Ami on “Survivor Vanuatu”.  Not bad as people, but shrewd players who are an obstacle to our underdog hero.  Thereby de-facto antagonists, if not necessarily villainous.  This is why Cydney gets elevated to a higher status in the fandom, though conversely, Michele kind of becomes a footnote.  

Of course an Aubry win makes Kaoh Rong work much better as a season, and elevates it to at least near-greatness.  I hesitate to give it full greatness, partly taking into account my pro-Aubry bias, and partly because I could see her win being seen as “predictable”, which is often a mark against a season.  The main problem with the season in our timeline is that everything in the narrative tells us that Aubry SHOULD win against anyone.  I know edgic set up Michele as the winner fairly early, but as someone who was firmly watching at the time, I can tell you the assumption was that Michele won because Aubry got eliminated before the finals.  Thus, it still felt wrong when Aubry made finals but lost anyway.  There’s a conflict between what we think SHOULD happen narratively, and what ACTUALLY happens.  An Aubry win avoids that conflict, and at least for me, makes a much better season as a whole.  

Ok, so maybe this was an excuse to give my favorite player a win.  I admit to more bias in this blog than perhaps any other.  Still, I hope the scenario has been at least semi-plausible and fun for everyone, though!  Let me know what scenarios you’d like covered in the future!  I’ll happily give credit to anyone who gives me an idea I use.  Just post it in the comments section of this blog, or wherever you happened to find this blog.  Guidelines for submissions are 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 appropriate 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 immunity 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 in that same episode, meaning the flip most likely 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 guidelines, there are also what I call “Flexible Guidelines”.  As the name would imply, these can be bent with a compelling arguments, but they are 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.

6. Try Not To Repeat Seasons: This is by far the most flexible of the flexible guidelines, particularly as many seasons have multiple inflection points with a fascinating change to dissect.  However, to prevent a lot of repetition, I try and prioritize scenarios from a season I haven’t done a “What-If?” on yet, over ones that I’ve already covered one scenario on.  You can feel free to submit scenarios for seasons I’ve already looked at, but bear in mind that I’m unlikely to cover them until I’m out of ideas for “What-Ifs?” on seasons I haven’t done yet.  For reference, at the time of this writing, I have done scenarios from the following seasons: Africa, Marquesas, Pearl Islands, All-Stars, Palau, Guatemala, Exile Island, Micronesia, Gabon, Samoa, Heroes vs. Villains, Redemption Island, One World, Philippines, Blood vs. Water, Kaoh Rong, Game Changers, Island of the Idols.

As always, our suggestions and feedback are much appreciated.  Take care out there, everyone!

-Matt

“Survivor” Top 5 and Bottom 5: Occupations

Well, I promised y’all some more pre-season content, and I’m swiftly running out of time to do so!  The writing bug has bit, so let’s scratch the itch, and keep up my self-imposed obligations at the same time.  This of you who are long-time readers can probably guess what’s coming, but for those who only hopped on as of the last couple seasons, allow me to explain:

Back when I started the blog, sometimes recapping the episode just wasn’t enough.  I had more that I wanted to talk about, hence the creation of this feature: TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5!  Yes, the all-caps are mandatory when it’s not in the title.  Basically, at the end of a given blog, I would take some topic relevant to the episode, and list off my personal Top 5 and Bottom 5 things in that category.  Usually something relevant to the episode, or to the discussion currently going on in the “Survivor” community at the time.  There wasn’t a set schedule for this, as I personally couldn’t predict when something I felt like talking about would come up, but I tried to do it at least once a season.  If you’re wondering why you don’t remember the one for “Survivor 41”… Well, that’s because I didn’t do one.  

Top 5 and Bottom 5 had become less and less frequent as the seasons progressed, for a variety of reasons.  Partly this was just due to running low on topics I hadn’t yet covered (and after doing this blog for 10 years now, I think I’m entitled to that issue), but that was not the only factor.  The fact was that the more I blogged, the more tiring it became to write such long posts immediately after an episode, and adding in such a list added a good 1/2 hour onto the time.  Time when I could be sleeping.  Add onto that my often feeling like I rushed to get the list together to get to sleep sooner, and thereby not doing a job I was satisfied with, and you see that this particular feature was giving me issues.  Thus, I quietly seemed to shelve the idea, but I felt bad about it  It’s as much a staple of the blog as some random contestant bursting into my house to correct me on something, and thus I was loathe to give it up entirely.  As such, I sat around waiting for inspiration.  

And inspiration came, both in the form of a new topic I wanted to cover, and a new idea for how to do it.  After all, there’s no rule saying I can ONLY do blogs after episodes during the on-season.  And if what I need is time, why not give it to myself?  

So, we arrive at the solution, which you see here.  TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5 will both continue to be a part of this blog, and no longer be a regular blog.  I’ll still do them when inspiration strikes, but rather than tack them onto the end of an already overly-long blog, I’ll do them as stand-alone features between episodes.  That way, I can take my time, and not feel like I’m missing out on sleep!  Everyone wins!

Now, since I’m sure some of you are not familiar with the format I use, let me briefly explained: I will list, in ascending order my favorite and least favorite for a given topic.  In this case, we’re talking about the various occupations “Survivor” contestants have had.  For reference, I’m talking exclusively about US “Survivor”, not because international seasons are bad, but just because I haven’t watched them, and so can’t really comment on the occupations listed in the chyrons there.  I’ll also include one “Honorable Mention” for each category, for something that I don’t think fits on the list proper, but I still want to talk about.  

Well, this introduction has gone on for a page.  Let us waste no more time, and get to the listing!

TOP 5

5. Former Federal Agent?: Right off the bat, we see that distinctiveness alone can earn an occupation a spot on this list.  Generally, the more specific, the better.  Here, the specificity of the former, coupled with the simultaneously specific and generic title of “Federal Agent” certainly make the occupation stick in the mind.  And, if that didn’t work, Phillip Sheppard would bring it up in every confessional that wasn’t about Great-Grandpa Jessum.  So, it sticks out for sure, but what makes it fun?  Well, friends, the answer is in the editing.  If you are blessedly free of the experience of watching “Survivor Redemption Island”, then the thing to know here is that the titular Phillip was portrayed as, well, not all there.  Talking about his tattoos giving him power, communing with the aforementioned Great-Grandpa Jessum, and flaunting his hot pink undies at multiple opportunities, Phillip was, fairly or unfairly, not portrayed in the best light.  This, in turn, made us question everything about the man, including what could be considered a relatively above-board occupation.  The editors, playing off this speculation, decided to have some fun, and added a question mark to the occupation, the first time they had fun with the chyrons (though by no means the last).  That is the legendary part that lands this occupation on the “Top 5” list, though I’ll admit it is barred from being higher due to it being a joke put in by the editing team, rather than just the occupation itself.  

4. Exotic Animal Veterinarian: Once again, specificity matters.  “Veterinarian” is a fairly generic, if harmless, job.  “Exotic Animal Veterinarian” is much more evocative in the mind, especially since your average “Survivor” local is crawling with said “Exotic Animals”.  Yes, Omar’s occupation from the upcoming “Survivor 42” inspired this list, and I’m happy to have him on here.  That said, I do have to gripe that most of the official sources just list his occupation as “Veterinarian”, which, as I said, much less interesting.  I have heard him called “Exotic Animal Veterinarian” in podcasts and non-CBS sources, so I’m willing to still say it qualifies, but I hope his chyron is the full, specific title when the season actually airs.  Such a title must not be confined to word of mouth alone!

3. Coconut Vendor: Wait, this is a job?  Really?  I mean, I guess it makes sense.  One can understand what a “Vendor” is, and if one sells exclusively coconuts, one could be considered a “Coconut Vendor”.  Still, the title alone makes you take a second glance, and that’s a lot of what this list is about.  Apart from just being an odd turn of phrase, the like of which is unlikely to be seen again on this show, it makes you wonder just what Vince’s business model is.  Like, is there really that much of a market for coconuts?  When you look into the details, it’s a bit more mundane.  Vince basically gathers coconuts that he sells as a cool, refreshing drink on beaches.  Sort of like those ice cream vendors, but with coconuts.  I can see how it works, but it still turns my head, as I said.  Coupled with the coupling of Vince and “nuts”, two ideas that, as the season demonstrated, stick together, and you’ve got an occupation that’s not only amusing, but appropriate to the subject as well.  

2. Magician’s Assistant: Yes, you will still be force-fed my love for “Survivor Guatemala”, even in the on-season!  While not as unusual an occupation as some we’ve seen on this list, in that the layman has probably actually HEARD of this occupation, it’s still one you don’t see every day, and so again, will likely turn a few heads.  And while the occupation itself is not one that really applies to the game of “Survivor”, think of the metaphors one could use in relation to this one!  Pulling off a blindside compared to pulling a rabbit out of a hat!  Being caught between two alliances is like being sawed in half!  Pretty much any reference to a magic wand being used in conjunction with the game!  And we get NONE of them, because Morgan was gone too early to do much of anything.  It’s this wasted potential that keeps this occupation from the top spot overall, but for how this occupation stands out from the many generic occupations we see on this show, it more than earns a high spot on this list.  

1. Mechanical Bull Operator: While we do not have the potential for metaphors here that we’ve had with some of the previous occupations, when I think “Odd Occupations” this is the one that comes to me.  Once again, it’s an occupation the like of which we’ve not seen before, and will likely not see again.  Visually, it stands alone for being SO long that they actually had to size down the font to get it to fit visually in the chyron.  But then, for me, there’s just the oddity of the occupation itself.  I mean, this is a job?  Granted, you have to assume that SOMEONE has to operate a mechanical bull where a mechanical bull is present, but the job title implies that this is the ONLY duty entrusted to John Kenny.  As one usually comes across mechanical bulls in bars, one would assume that it’s bar staff operating them, but as kind of a side thing, with their overall job title being “Bartender”.  I just envision John talking with someone about his career kind of like this: “What do you do?”  “I operate the mechanical bull.”  “Oh, you mean you bartend?”  “No, just the bull.  Nothing else.”  Like, is that what’s he’s referred to in his contract?  Does he just sit at the controls from opening to closing, giving patrons what they perceive as a chance at glory?  It just raises so many questions, and I have an inordinate amount of fun speculating about them.  How could such a job NOT top this list?

Honorable Mention: Russell Hantz’s Nephew: While this technically counts, as it was used in the chyron where the occupation goes, but I can’t put it on the list proper due to said technicality.  While I would consider “Related to Russell Hantz” as stressful as a full-time job, it technically doesn’t pay anything, mostly because Russell can’t afford it without that million-dollar check.  Brandon did, of course, have a regular job, but in the ultimate tip of the hand from the editors, they made it clear that Brandon was not who you were supposed to care about.  Rather, you were supposed to care about who he was related to, and who the show wanted to invoke to milk more cash out of the franchise.  I should be upset at this blatant motivation, but honestly, it’s just so brazen, it circles back around to being funny, and that counts for something at least.  

BOTTOM 5

5. Housing Case Manager: One difference you’ll notice from the “Top 5” list is that I don’t mention a lot of occupations specific to one individual in the “Bottom 5” list.  Instead, I’ll be going over broad categories of jobs, since to me, the worst jobs are the generic ones, the ones you can’t tie to any person in particular.  This is the exception, which is a real shame, because it comes from “Survivor Vanuatu”, I would argue the best season for fun occupations alone!  Aside from the aforementioned “Mechanical Bull Operator”, Vanuatu also gave us “Sheep Farmer”, “Drill Sergeant”, “Equity Research Assistant”, “Coffee Barista”, “Pre-Law Student”, and TWO variations on “Highway Repair Person”!  Perhaps that’s what makes this one so frustrating.  Don’t get me wrong, Rory’s job definitely stands out, but the wording, to me, is just unclear, as someone who has held the more general title of “Case Manager” in his career.  Is he a general case manager who specializes in housing matters?  Does he work for an organization that specializes in housing?  Is his case management related to home repair, or to the living situation of the people in the home?  My point is that, while I understand in general what Rory probably does, the specifics of it confuse me, and raise too many questions.  John Kenny’s raised a lot of questions as well, but I at least had a general idea of what he did.  With Rory, apart from being  related to social work, I just don’t get it.  It’s still better than being generic, so I would never DREAM of putting it higher on the list than this, but for how much it frustrates me, I had to include it here.  

4. Student: An occupation becoming all the more common, especially if the reports I’m hearing about the show lowering its minimum age to 16 are true.  We have now left the realm of individuality, and find ourselves in the doldrums of forgettableness.  I haven’t done the math personally, but I think it’s a safe bet that THIS is the most common occupation we get on “Survivor”.  So many people in some form of higher eduction end up playing, and this makes for a good catch-all term for them, that I feel like it gets slapped on a lot of players, both good and bad.  There’s nothing WRONG with being a student, but without a prefix like “Pre-Law” attached, it tells us little about that person, and next to nothing about their play style.  Students have gone early; they’ve made it to the end.  But we remember their personality, not their job.  Overall a good thing, but for this particular list, not so much.  

3. Model/Actor: These two are often paired together under the portmanteau “Mactor”, and as my reasoning for disliking both is the same, I decided to pair them together here as well.  While either does tell us a bit more about the person’s ambitions than the more generic “student”, there’s still a wide range under both those job titles, and a similarly wide range of success and failure.  There’s just very little to go on, other than this person is likely hungry for exposure.  And that’s really what sets these occupations above “Student”, the seeming quick grab for fame.  While this motivation is not UNIQUE to these occupations, a lot of the time, people holding these job titles come across as coming, not for adventure or the game, but to get exposure.  This is a generalization, of course, and there are always exceptions, but it feels hollow, especially during the time when I was a fan applying to the show, and felt every spot NOT taken up by a fan was unfairly snatched from me.  I’ve mellowed since then, but there’s still that knee-jerk reaction.  It didn’t help that we saw a rise in such an occupation around the time the show went HEAVY on the recruits, which while not bad in and of itself, got overused and led to several lackluster casts.  Thus, the career and the type of cast became intertwined, and the occupation still has yet to shake off such the whole stigma.  So, for all this vitriol, why is this only number 3?  Join me at number 2.  

2. Lawyer: Say what you will about students and mactors, at least they don’t try to shoehorn in how their occupation has prepared them for “Survivor” all the damn time.  The same cannot be said for our top 2 occupations on this list.  If I have to hear ONE MORE LAWYER talk about how they’re prepared to manage a jury, or manipulate, or argue their case, I will go and take the bar exam myself just to show them up.  Look, some occupations prepare you more for “Survivor” than others, but I think most would agree that the courtroom and the wilderness are two very different areas.  Even the “Arguing in front of a jury” part doesn’t match one for one, partly because you don’t need to convince everyone of your side, partly because there’s less facts and evidence, and more people’s perceptions.  That said, if they keep their occupational relations to a minimum, lawyers can be some of the more fun characters to watch.  My love of Kass McQuillen of “Survivor Cagayan” is evidence of that.  But for those that I love, it’s in SPITE of their occupation, and more so their forced links to it, not because of it.  

1. Professional Poker Player: As one would imagine, this occupation shares a lot of the same issues as the lawyer.  Once again, we have an occupation that LOVES to talk about how well it has prepared the person for “Survivor”, and how great they are at reading people.  The trouble is, no, no it really doesn’t.  Apart from their being a big difference in getting people’s tells when you’re close to them in a climate controlled room, and detecting a spoken lie in the wilderness, poker, at its core, involves a large amount of luck.  Now, “Survivor” has always had an element of luck in it, and if current trends continue, it will certainly match the luck present in poker by “Survivor 45”, but the two just aren’t comparable at the time of this writing.  You’ll note that, for all my disparaging of the lawyers, I DID note that some had had success in the game, and I could even concede one or two ways in which their career might carry over to “Survivor” particularly in the area of needing to persuade people.  But really, the big thing that sets this occupation apart is that, to my knowledge, every single person who has had this listed as their occupation is SO ANNOYING!  Not only is arrogance a common trait among them, but pretty much every single person with this as their occupation is either terrible at the game (see Adelstein, Garrett), “unpleasant” (to put it mildly) as a person (see Bellande, Jean-Robert), or both (see Khait, Anna).  Every single time they talk about how well-prepared they are, and every single time, they’re wrong.  There’s almost no variety in this archetype, and it just needs to end.  Please.  

Honorable Mention: One Immunity Idol: Continuing the trend from the previous list, our honorable mention goes to something that is not TECHNICALLY an occupation, but goes in the same place as one.  And once again, it’s the editors tipping their hand to what really matters to them, though this time, rather than being funny, it’s just sad.  “Survivor” is meant to be a social game, where the people playing it matter the most.  All aspects of them, including their occupation, are at least somewhat relevant information to impart to the audience.  When that gets dumped in favor of “Who has what advantage?”, you’re both showing that you have too many advantages in the show, and getting away from the core of what made your show great in the first place.  It may be a symptom of a larger problem, but that problem is great enough that it lands at least an honorable mention on this list.  

My, this goes on longer when I have the time.  Let me know what you all think of my choices, and I’ll see you back here in just under two weeks for the premiere of “Survivor 42”!

-Matt

Idol Speculation: Updated Season Rankings

Happy New Year, everybody! We can hope for a lot of things in 2020, but one thing is certain: “Survivor” will air its 40th season, leading to a grand total of 20 years on the air so far. For good and for ill, and whatever problems the current incarnation of the show may have, this is no small feat. As such, it should be commemorated, making it the perfect excuse to bring you all my updated season rankings! I’d been wanting to do this for a while, so I’m very happy to present you with my subjective opinion on how each season compares to the others. Some of the answers may surprise you.

Before we begin, however, I should note a slight change from the last time I did these. Before, I divided seasons into overall categories within the rankings, and I intend to do so again. However, I’ve added a fourth category in there as well. Rather than explain to you these categories as they come up, I’m going to explain what each general category means overall, then just present the seasons in that category as we make our way up the list. In ascending order, the categories are as follows:

The Bad-Contrary to what the name might indicate, this name does not mean the seasons as a whole are bad overall. Even if they were, “Survivor” is often in another category compared to most scripted television, so even these seasons can be better than a lot of what comes on. These are just the seasons that don’t work for whatever reason, and that I really have no desire to watch again.

The Ugly-Our new category, this one was made in the wake of “Survivor Island of the Idols”. Sad though it is to say, we now have enough seasons with socially controversial elements to merit their own category. The quality of these seasons varies, and were it not for said controversial element, could end up anywhere on the list. I wouldn’t feel right putting them low on the list just because of these elements, but wouldn’t feel right putting them high because of the presence of these elements. As such, they get their own separate category that keeps them low, but acknowledges that the seasons themselves may or may not have redemptive elements.

The Good-This is pretty much standard “Survivor” fare that people would come to expect. Seasons that are not stand-out on their own, or have some sort of problem keeping them from being truly great, but are still enjoyable, and I wouldn’t mind the occasional rewatch.

The Great-As you would expect, these are the seasons that are fantastic. They elevate the game, are engaging and entertaining, or all of the above. They are legendary, the ones that to me scream “Survivor”, and that I never get tired of rewatching.

Well, with that business out of the way, let us waste no more time, and start talking about how the seasons stack up! There will, of course, be spoilers for these seasons, so tread with caution if you are not up to date on “Survivor” history.

THE BAD

39. “Survivor Edge of Extinction”: Yes, the bottom spot has finally been usurped by a recent season, after “Survivor Fiji” reigned king for so long, seemingly never to be dethroned. But for all my gripes about “Survivor Fiji”, I will at least say this: it served a purpose. There was a reason for us to follow the entire journey. The win of Chris Underwood means that this cannot be said for “Survivor Edge of Extinction”. Now, don’t misunderstand, Chris is by no means a bad winner in and of himself. He seems like a perfectly nice guy, and he did play extremely well following winning his way back into the game. Nor would I say that Chris’ win is illegitimate due to the “Edge of Extinction” twist. We as an audience may not like it, but that alone does not mean it was not a part of the game to be utilized. By all accounts, Chris utilized it well, building bonds with his fellow players there that ultimately earned him the jury vote. No, the problem that Chris’ win creates is that it makes the season retroactively pointless. Pretty much everything we see on screen that led to his win happened IN THE LAST FREAKING EPISODE! Oh, his entire game up until that point HAD an impact on his victory, but since “Edge of Extinction” got maybe 5 minutes out of an episode, and most of that devoted to the scavenger hunt of the day, we never got to see it. That makes “Survivor Edge of Extinction” pointless to watch. If I can get everything I need to know about the season out of the last episode, why should I bother to watch it. Even if you’re generous and say that you need to watch the first three episodes where Chris was in the game, that’s still only about 1/3 of the episodes that actually contribute to the overall story. Look, I get that the producers were in a bit of a spot with “Edge of Extinction”. They couldn’t show us too much of it, for fear that it would give away that someone returning to the game would win, but by not showing us enough, we don’t really follow what Chris did to win. Rather than feeling like a journey to the end, this season felt like it was a waste of time. I could complain about other aspects of this season that really did it no favors. Everything from how Chris had no risk in his game while on “Edge of Extinction” to the emphasis on returnees and Rick Devans at the expense of pretty much everyone else, to even the underwhelming challenges, but really, the pointlessness says it all for me. If 2/3 of your episodes don’t contribute to your story, what’s the point in me watching them?

38. “Survivor Fiji”: Just because this season has had it’s long standing title of “Worst season ever” usurped doesn’t mean my opinion of it has gone up. It’s just that the winner did have to be at risk for most of the game, and did have a journey we got to follow, so by definition it is not the worst. But MAN, does this season have issues. I’m willing to forgive a poor twist idea (such as the Outcasts from “Survivor Pearl Islands”) if it was an obvious idea that had to be tried at least once, but “Haves vs. Have-Nots” was not such a twist. It was a dumb question no one asked, but had an obvious answer: the Haves will kick the butt of the Have-Nots because people who aren’t starving and dehydrated tend to be better competitors than those who are. But that alone is not “Survivor Fiji”’s only problem. The cast, as a whole, is forgettable. With the exception of one or two names, I really can’t remember who was on this season. As you’d imagine, this is not a good thing. Yau-Man is really the only person I would say who stands out from the cast, and he was so obviously marketed as the breakout star of the cast that I just had an adverse reaction to him on principle. But the kicker for me, though, is the manner of eviction for Michelle Yi, which I would argue is the most unfair eviction in “Survivor” History. If you’re going to do a Tribal Council with no strategizing beforehand, fine. Not a huge fan of the idea, but I can understand the principle. But then, don’t immediately throw out the idea by having a line of questioning DESIGNED to make a target clear to everyone. Ugh, Michelle may not be the person I most want to see play again, but I’d argue she’s the most deserving of a second chance. The cherry on top of an already terrible sundae that is this season.

37. “Survivor Redemption Island”: Lots of fans have this as the worst season ever, and frankly, I have a hard time arguing against the idea. While I don’t think much on “Survivor” is sacrosanct, I am of the opinion that the doctrine of “Once the decision is made, the decision is final.” is, and should therefore not be violated. Any season with a theme centered around violating this doctrine is on my bad side automatically. This season is not helped by the fact that the returnees, Boston Rob and Russell, were clearly designed to dominate this season. The twist favored them, and a lot of the cast favored them as well, to the point that, even though the season was not pointless, it felt that way, since the victory of Boston Rob was presented as just that inevitable. It’s a slog to get through, there’s no denying that, but apart from “Redemption Island” itself, there’s no production aspect that makes me want to tear my hear out. Plus, we get to see Russell finally voted out, and be very ungracious about it as well, which is a minor redemptive factor no season on this list has so far.

36. “Survivor One World”: Similar to “Survivor Redemption Island”, the big flaw here is just that one person so dominates the show that there’s no mystery as to who the victor is. Kim Spradlin is my first correct winner guess, though that’s not saying much, considering she was leagues ahead of pretty much everyone else on the season in terms of gameplay. Like Boston Rob, she dominated to the point where there was no enjoyment, since the outcome was virtually a given from the beginning. The fact that it was fresh blood dominating, rather than someone on their fourth try, made it somewhat more impressive, and the lack of “Redemption Island” also helped make the season slightly better. I’ll even say that I like the idea of the “One World” twist, and think it needs another shot. Really, the drawback this time was the reuse of the “gender division” twist, since it created such animosity that the tribes didn’t work together to build one camp. I get that it made it easier to remember who was on what tribe, but that’s what buffs are for. Try it again with mixed-gender tribes, I say. You might get different results. As it stands, “Survivor One World” gave us the rise of a great strategist, but that’s about it. Plus, Colton Cumbie. There’s another mark in the “minus” column.

35. “Survivor Nicaragua”: Unlike the first three entries on this list, there was nothing about “Survivor Nicaragua” that made it have to be this bad. Granted, like “Haves vs. Have Nots” twist, this season dividing the tribes by age had an obvious outcome (the young kick the butt of the old), but was an obvious idea that had to be tried at least once. The cast was not inherently unexciting either. However, unpleasantness quickly crept into the season, with the contestant with a prosthetic leg getting picked on, and a lot of bullying in general. When you have two members of the dominant alliance quit nearly 30 days into the season, though, you’re in trouble. Whatever the behind-the-scenes reasons may be, the fact is that to the audience, it looked like they wimped out, especially when the left on the heels of the major strategists of the season getting eliminated. The event was awful, but the timing was worse. Culminating in frankly an idiot winning out in the end, this season basically just collapsed in on itself, and is really disappointing, given its potential.

34. “Survivor Samoa”: Do you like Russell Hantz? No? Well too bad, because that’s all you’re getting! Innovative though he was to the game (idol hunting without a clue wasn’t a thing before him), the fact is that it’s hard for one character alone to carry a season. Note the failure of seasons like “Survivor One World” and “Survivor Redemption Island”, who also had one character dominate above others. When that character is Russell Hantz, who is, shall we say, controversial, you’ve got an issue with your season. I’m not saying that Russell shouldn’t have been prominent, since he was a major driving force of the season. I’m saying that he shouldn’t have been so to the exclusion of the other players. Can you actually remember anything about any of the other players of the season? Apart from Russell Swan nearly dying, and Shambo being random, I’m guessing not. Some characters will rise to prominence above others, but “Survivor”, at its core, is an ensemble show. When you don’t have that, the season just fails. I will give credit, though, that this season does have something for everyone. If you like Russell, this is the season for you. If, like me, you hate him, the season is nearly impossible to get through, but that comeuppance at the end is oh so sweet.

THE UGLY

33. “Survivor Game Changers”: When I was putting seasons into this new category, I had to decide whether to rank these seasons as seasons, or based on how awful their controversial element was. To a greater or lesser degree, all these seasons are defined by their awful element, but in the end, I felt it would be a disservice not to talk about the season as a whole. And man, even without the whole Varner/Zeke incident, this season did not have legs, and I’m not even talking about the usual complaints. I for one, while not happy with the boot order, did not find it as awful as others did, and I even forgive Advantagegeddon to a certain degree. True, I wish that production put in less idols and advantages, but to be fair, people had chances to play most of them beforehand, and at least one play was based on social manipulation (Aubry had to convince Tai to play an idol for her, after all). Still, production is largely to blame for what makes this season so weak overall. The editing is garbage, making certain characters, including one of the final three, all but invisible, ON A RETURNEE SEASON! THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN ON A RETURNEE SEASON! For production’s second sin, we have the twists. In my opinion, returnee seasons should have the FEWEST twists of any other season, since returning players alone should be a draw. Maybe add ONE new game-shake-up in order to keep them on their toes, but no more than that. Instead, every two or three episodes, something new came in that the players had never dealt with before. What this led to was an unstable season. No status quo could be set up, thus giving the shake-up less impact and making the season hard to follow. And, if our favorites aren’t going to get as much screentime, why should we follow it?

32. “Survivor Worlds Apart”: I almost didn’t put this season in this category, since the controversial element is borderline at best. However, when I think back on this season, what I remember is the bullying of Shirin, and in particular the comments made by Will Sims II. While maybe not to the same scale as some of these other issues, to me, bullying is up there with some of the worst offenses, and so it goes on this list. The season as a whole? Not great. There were big characters, certainly, but most of them were more unpleasant than anything, which is not something we want to watch, as a whole. The strategy was mediocre at best, and the “Collars” twist was forced and added nothing to the show. Mike winning his way to the end via immunity was a nice novelty, but again, not the most compelling television, and unfortunately I think the network was staking a lot of the goodwill towards the season on people liking him. Mike wasn’t the worst, but he had his cocky moments, and so never really fully fit the “hero” archetype. There wasn’t really any one big problem with “Survivor Worlds Apart”, but the general unpleasantness with nothing to distract from it just drags down the season as a whole.

31. “Survivor Thailand”: “Survivor Thailand” is a bit of an oddity for me. I love the aesthetic, and I love just how thoroughly winner Brian Heidik dominated the game. It has that “classic era” feel that just makes me want to love it. But the fact is that “Grindgate” is the main thing that comes to mind when one thinks of this season, and the politics over how it was resolved were controversial at the time. In the modern day? Downright insulting. Our first straight Pagonging since “Survivor Borneo” didn’t help things either. The cast overall was pretty cool, but a lot of the more interesting players went before the jury phase, and again, the outcome was so obvious that it made the season more of a slog than a journey. A slow trek through the slime few would want to take again.

30. “Survivor All-Stars”: Perhaps a controversial opinion, but I think people are a bit hard on this season. As someone who had only seen “Survivor Borneo”, “Survivor The Australian Outback”, and “Survivor Pearl Islands” before this season aired, this season got me pumped to find out about the players I had never seen before, and it was refreshing to see my favorites back again. I think a lot of people’s problem is that they try and judge this season as if it were any other season of “Survivor”. I try to judge it as a tribute to the previous seven seasons, and it fits a lot better. The producers throw a lot of things at the players, but no so much that it overwhelms seeing them again, and a lot of the design tributes and challenge tributes work very well. That said, this season has fallen the farthest of any season since my previous rankings, and it’s all due to how uncomfortable this season can be. Apart from people taking things EXTREMELY personally, there’s the fact that the Richard/Sue incident at the immunity challenge before Richard’s elimination has REALLY not aged well, and is a highlight of how producers mishandled such situations even back then. A fun tribute, but little else going for it.

29. “Survivor Island of the Idols”: For me, this is the season hurt the most by its controversy. This season was never going to be a top-tier season, just due to how disjointed the post-merge game was, but it had a lot going for it. The cast as a whole was well-developed and likable, with a good mix of characters and strategists. The pre-merge was incredibly exciting, with nary a boring episode in the lot. Even the “Island of the Idols” twist wasn’t too bad, and occasionally even brought some much-needed levity to the episodes. I applaud the producers for not over-using the idea. That said, the producers must now be lambasted by their overall poor handling of the Kellee/Dan situation. True, they got better by the time of the reunion, but the fact remains that, when we think back on this season, we’ll think back on the controversy, which is just not fun to think about. I hope this cast comes back for better seasons, since they do deserve it. As it stands, I cannot rank the season higher than this.

THE GOOD

28. “Survivor San Juan del Sur”: “Survivor San Juan del Sur” is a weird one for me. It’s just kind of there. Not bad enough for me to dislike it, but not good enough to produce strong feelings for me. Every good point is counterbalanced by a bad point. We reused the “Blood vs. Water” twist, but also got the return of “Exile Island”. We had a decently exciting pre-merge, but then one of the worst merges ever with an anticlimactic quit. We lost our two big strategists right after the merge, and got the equivalent of wonder bread to lead us through most of the post-merge, but ended with an above-average winner. I do think it is the rise of Jon “Wonder Bread” Misch that prevents this season being higher for me, and I still feel that Jeremy’s eviction was unfair from a viewer standpoint, with not enough foreshadowing to feel earned. That said, would I call this a bad season? Not really. There’s nothing to hate about it, but I just can’t find myself able to muster any other reaction than “Eh, it was ok.” I will say I like that on a season where the women were numerically disadvantaged due to a last-minute medical pull, it was three women in the end regardless, but other than that, this season fails to stand out. In a sense, it’s damned by faint praise, but it’s not bad either.

27. “Survivor South Pacific”: On paper, this one should be around the “Survivor Redemption Island” area of this list. It has many of the same hallmarks: Returnees dominating the game, and the return of “Redemption Island”. However, what saves this season for me is the cast. Yes, there’s a lot of blind loyalty to the returnees, but these people are better at thinking for themselves, to the point where the returnees actually don’t win in the end. Plus, they’re just damn entertaining. For good and for ill, they stand out more as characters and strategists that seasons further down on the list, and that just makes for a more fun watch as a whole. Mind you, the problems I mentioned above are still problems, but this season gets a reaction from me, which is more than I can say for “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, thus putting it here on the list.

26. “Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”: This is another season that’s difficult to talk about. Like “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, I can’t say much of it stands out, but unlike that season or “Survivor South Pacific”, I can’t say there’s anything I can particularly complain about this season. Yeah, the theme is a little forced, but that’s hardly something I can complain about, and while I don’t like Final Four Firemaking, I’m not going to blame this season just because something I don’t like was introduced in it. I know a lot of people complain about Ben’s win, and while I personally would have like the see Chrissy get a bit more respect, I’m of the opinion that the blame largely lies with the rest of the cast who, from what we saw, knew about Ben’s idol hunting but did nothing to stop him. And even if you don’t like him as a winner, Ben is at least a nice guy to have get the money. This season came and went, without leaving much of an impact, and was pretty much just another standard “Survivor” season.

25. “Survivor Marquesas”: If this were a list of the most historically important seasons, “Survivor Marquesas” would be near the top. I mean, the first totem-pole shake-up? How cool is that? And yes, “Survivor Marquesas” has a lot of interesting things happen in it. If only it happened to engaging characters. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, “Survivor Marquesas” has some great characters. Kathy is deservedly one of the all-time greats, and I maintain that it is a crime that Sean Rector hasn’t yet returned to the show. But the fact is, the vast majority of the interesting players were voted out pre-jury. Big things happened, but did not happen to players we much cared about. On top of that, while I haven’t been commenting on it much, visual aesthetic goes a long way for me in terms of making a season memorable. Most early seasons do well, but “Survivor Marquesas” is the exception. It’s just another South Pacific Island chain that doesn’t really distinguish itself from all the other seasons set on other South Pacific Island chains. Again, nothing bad about it per se, but it’s more of a plot-driven season than a character-driven season, and is all the less interesting for it.

24. “Survivor Exile Island”: While the theme of this season was also not the strongest, the atmosphere was. People tend to forget, since the twist became commonplace quickly, but Exile Island was really intimidating when it first came up, and no one knew what it was. That atmosphere prevails throughout the season, and serves to help it stand out in one’s memory. While the pre-merge is nothing to write home about, the post-merge gives us a fantastic story line, with Casaya’s repeated attempts to oust Terry Deitz. There was no real “villain” here, since there were legitimate reasons to root for either Terry or the Casayas. This kept the show engaging up until the end, and while not all of the cast was a big hit, it gave us some long-time memorable characters, including the aforementioned Terry, plus the likes of Cirie and Shane. It’s by no means legendary, but definitely has a lot to recommend it.

23. “Survivor Cook Islands”: Dividing the tribes by race was, shall we say, an ill-conceived idea, but one that was obvious enough that I won’t count it against this season. As a consequence of having the largest cast at the time (“Survivor Palau” also had 20 players to start with, but eliminated 3 in the first episode, which this season did not), a lot of players fell by the wayside, which is why the season is no higher. But this season, more than any other, exemplified the underdog story, with the Aitu Four managing to beat the odds and make it to the finals together. Seeing Godfather Yul’s masterful gameplay was a joy to watch, and I have little time for people saying his win was due to the then-overpowered Hidden Immunity Idol. Yes, it was a help to him, but Yul was able to use it as an effective threat, which not just anyone can do. The occasional Cao Boi, Flicka, and Ozzy help provide some moments of levity to the season, and an engaging underdog story make this season definitely one worth another watch.

22. “Survivor Ghost Island”: People tend to underrate this season, in my mind. I think the problem is that a lot of people quickly grew tired with the “Ghost Island” twist, though of better ways to do it, and were upset that these weren’t what the show went with. Fair enough, but if you stop thinking about what it could have been, and just look at what is, the twist isn’t that bad. The show was fairly conservative with adding in idols and advantages, and did keep things suitably ominous. As to the show as a whole? I won’t deny that the post-merge really brought this season down, since it was incredibly obvious that no one was going to stop the Domenick/Wendell pairing. That said, we had one of the more-exciting pre-merges, and while it was clear that either Domenick or Wendell would win, it wasn’t clear which of them would win, keeping at least some mystery up until the end. Maybe if you weren’t a big fan of either Domenick or Wendell it got grating, but as someone who really liked Wendell’s gameplay, it was a fun enough watch, even if I did wish for some better competition. The merge as a whole may not have been that great, especially since a lot of the bigger characters went out early, and some of the late game players were practically invisible, but the first tied final vote in “Survivor” history made for a solid and enjoyable finale for me. Not a perfect season by any stretch, but there are a lot more good points here than people give credit for.

21. “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”: Conversely, this is a season I think gets overrated in a lot of people’s rankings. Don’t get me wrong: the cast overall is solid, and it has decent mystery as to the winner throughout. What really does this in for me is the theme. “Survivor” as a whole was really stretching for themes at this point, and this one in particular irked me. Both generations seemed to get high and mighty about their supposed superiority, and pretty much all the cast tried to force it into at least one confessional they had, which just irritates me. Add onto that the prominence of “dude-bros” a character type I’m not particularly fond of, and some low-key bullying in places, particularly of David, and this is not a season I’m likely to be super-fond of. That said, I cannot deny that this season has good points. Characters are more hits and misses overall, there’s some good strategy to be found, and most important, there’s no obvious winner. Hints are there, but up until the Final Tribal Council, you have no idea what the outcome will be, which goes for to keeping one engaged with the season, which is a major victory that keeps the season this high.

20. “Survivor The Australian Outback”: Aesthetic is the big thing that saves this season. There’s a number of good characters, some decent strategy for the early days, and a generally likable cast as a whole (Jerri Manthey at the time notwithstanding). But my God, from a modern standpoint, this season is predictable. There’s basically no shakeups, and everything just goes on in what is effectively a Pagonging from there on out. Not exactly compelling tv. So, why do I have this season this high? Frankly, it’s memorable. The cast is a big part of that, but above all else, those locales and those challenges stick in your mind. It may not be the best season of “Survivor”, but it sticks in your mind, which to me counts for a lot, and in this case elevates a lot of the more mediocre elements this season can bring.

19. “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”: This may be the most controversial call yet on this list. “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” is a lot of people’s favorite season of all time, and there’s clearly a reason why. This season has arguably the most exciting pre-merge the show has ever had, with underdog stories, idol plays, blindsides, and crazy moves all around. But it’s time for me to codify something I’ve been hinting at with some of my other judgments so far: Not every part of a season is created equal. While I’ll obviously take a season with good elements over bad, the fact is that an exciting post-merge is much more important than an exciting pre-merge. I can get through a boring pre-merge if I know I’ve got exciting things coming down the road, but a season that peaks early makes it hard to go on afterward. And for all the greatness that is the “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” pre-merge, the post-merge, to me, is AWFUL! Oh, the merge itself is exciting, with the culmination of J.T.’s failure, but afterwards it just becomes the “Russell Hantz” show again, which after having a season full of that, I’m not ready to watch again. This is the only season where I’ve given up in the middle of a rewatch. The post-merge is just so frustrating, with Russell in such an easy position to be taken down, yet it doesn’t happen, that I couldn’t keep it up, and quit around Amanda’s boot. That said, this season is redeemed slightly by Sandra getting the last laugh, and again, that pre-merge is prime quality. Sadly for this season, for me, the quality is not where it needs to be. Plus, I felt it could have done more as a tribute season. Reused challenges and acknowledging players making it 100+ days is nice, but I could have done with them going more all-out in terms of call-backs.

18. “Survivor Caramoan”: Adding onto the blasphemy, I’ve now put a lot of people’s least-favorite season above a lot of people’s favorite season, and again my “Post-merge matters more” perspective comes into play here. I won’t deny, the pre-merge of “Survivor Caramoan” is garbage. Asshole characters like Shamar, and annoying characters like Phillip “Special Agent?” Shephard dominate, and unlike the previous “Fans vs. Favorites”, things don’t seem as evenly matched between the tribes. Plus, the less said about Brandon Hantz, the better. But that post-merge, man! A lot of the fat gets trimmed, and we get some fantastic strategizing, culminating in a great bookend to the story-arc of John Cochran. Plus, the invention of live Tribal Councils courtesy of Malcom Freberg. Yes, the reunion show was a mess, and Dawn deserved more respect, but it doesn’t take away from the engagement and excitement that is the machinations of the merged tribe. Controversial, but if you can get though the first part of the season, it really has some legs.

17. “Survivor Blood vs. Water”: This season brought us an innovative concept that worked out really well. This is probably the best season in terms of putting up first time players against returnees, in and of that the new players seemed to be of the same caliber of play as the returnees, and if Ciera had just timed things a bit better, or the rock draw had gone differently, might have won. There’s not as much mystery as on some seasons, but the outcome is not set in stone either, so the season has decent engagement overall. Some good moves, a lot of good characters, so why isn’t this season higher? Well, there’s two things about this season that stop me from putting it any higher. Apart from the rock draw, there’s not really a moment that stands out from this season, and the moves and boot order tend to blend together. I do like moments from this season, but just can’t recall them as easily as I could an iconic season. The big problem, however, is “Redemption Island”. Yes, it is better in this incarnation than in previous ones, due to how it played on the family dynamics, and how far people would go for their loved one. But the fact remains that “Redemption Island” as a twist takes up too much time, and violates the “Once the decision is made, the decision is final” doctrine. It’s the difference between eating a manure sandwich, and eating a manure sandwich with cheese. The latter is better, certainly, but still not good. I cannot, in good conscience, put a season with “Redemption Island” as a mainstay twist any higher than this.

16. “Survivor China”: “Survivor China” is a season that keeps going up every time I do these rankings. I appreciate the season a lot more on rewatch than I did the first time, seeing all the little jokes and side moments I missed. The location is good and distinctive as well, with a solid theme, though I will say the challenges took a massive dip in quality post-merge, which is a slight mark against it. There’s also a lot of dramatic moments, from Jamie playing a fake idol to James getting voted out with two idols, to Todd’s fantastic Final Tribal Council performance. Many would say this deserves to be in the “Great” category, and I did debate putting this and the next season in that category. So what keeps it out? Again, this season has two flaws that for me hold it back. My main objection is Todd. He’s a great winner, with again one of if not the best Final Tribal Council performance ever, but he was really broadcast as the winner from the get-go. Even as someone relatively new to “Survivor” at the time, I could tell Todd was being set up to win, and wasn’t surprised when he did. This lack of mystery makes the later episodes in particular hard to get through at times. My second objection is, I’ll admit, subjective, but I REALLY don’t care for Courtney. I know a lot of people find her funny, but she really doesn’t do it for me. I think my thing is that insult comedy is fine, but you have to insult yourself as much, if not more so, than other people. Apart from maybe one or two cracks about her weight, Courtney just seems to go after the flaws of others, which does not win me over. What, you think you don’t stink sometimes? I did actually debate putting this season in the “Ugly” category, since even if I don’t like Courtney, she did not deserve the treatment she got from Jean-Robert, but given that it was limited to nighttime cuddling, I think it’s borderline enough to stay our of that category, but only just.

15. “Survivor Kaoh Rong”: Yes, even the season that gave us my all-time favorite player can’t break into the “Great” category. Even so, there’s a lot to love about this season. A lot of big characters, a good guy/bad guy dynamic that keeps people invested, and one of the most even Final Threes, in my opinion, we’ve ever had in terms of how they played the game. While I don’t care for them reusing a season theme, this one at least made sense, and wasn’t as forced as others. This season works particularly well in light of the trends of modern “Survivor”. Apart from being one of the lasts seasons to not be overloaded with twists, the big moment of this season, Aubry convincing Tai not to save Scot, comes from pure social manipulation, which is both fascinating and refreshing to see in this day and age. From Debbie to Aubry to Tai, there’s a lot to love about this season. Some might say it’s low for all the medevacs, and that’s a mark against it, but that’s not the main thing keeping it out of the “Great” category. No, this season could very easily have been one of the greats, but the editors screwed the pooch on this one. Based on the season we saw, Aubry should have won over Michele. Now, before you go on with your angry comments, I am NOT saying Michele didn’t deserve her win. Michele played a fantastic game, and certainly the one the jury needed to see. She earned her win, plain and simple, and I say that as an Aubry fan over here. The problem is that the show never justified WHY Michele deserved to win above Aubry. Post game interviews tell us that Aubry made social gaffes, and Michele was tight with everyone, but the show didn’t highlight that. It instead highlighted Aubry’s triumphs, and minimized her few mistakes that she did make. I get that Michele’s game may not have been exciting enough to show on its own, but show us Aubry’s spots. Show us her flaws in greater detail. Leave out the “There’s as much brawn in her as there is in me.” type confessionals, and put in ones where people talk about how they don’t like Aubry. The jury made the right decision for them, and to the internet community, I point out that it is possible for BOTH Aubry and Michele to have played good game, and saying one played well does not mean the other played poorly. But the editors didn’t let us see that, and so the season, while still good overall, has an unsatisfying end.

THE GREAT

14. “Survivor Gabon”: If it weren’t for the new category, and “Survivor All-Stars” needing to go in it, this season would probably have fallen the furthest in my season rankings since the start. While I have a soft spot for this season, I can see the flaws on rewatch. This season is an INCREDIBLY slow start, with people making stupid decisions and not much going on. Most of the big characters are kept around for the merge, though, and it’s around that time that things start to pick up. Really, I’d say the double-Tribal Council is where things get good. Ace made a decent early villain, but he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. His elimination, however, gave rise to one of my favorite storylines in the show’s history: The Rise and Fall of Ken Hoang. True, “Survivor Gabon” may not have had the greatest strategy in the history of forever, but I hate it when people say the show had no strategy whatsoever this season. Look at Ken. Look at his manipulations. He went from a position of no power to RUNNING the game, and even managed to be likable on a season where no one liked anyone else. Yes, he got cocky and did himself in, which made the finale as a whole lackluster, but he admits this flaw and has learned from it. I still say it’s a crime he’s never been brought back. I can see people being turned off by how hateful the season can seem, but personally, I saw the arguments as more coming from people who were misanthropic rather than hateful, which makes a big difference to me. Add into that a distinctive location, and you’ve got a season that needs more love. Don’t get me wrong, the front half is a slog, but that back half is well worth it.

13. “Survivor Philippines”: This and next season fall into a small subcategory I call “Technical Perfection”, wherein a season has no flaws, it just doesn’t excite me. “Survivor Philippines” does nothing wrong. Abi-Maria sticks around a bit longer than I’d like, but it crosses the line into funny at some point. Penner isn’t as funny as his previous appearances, but also plays probably his best strategic game. Russell Swan and the Matsing tribe have a great early story-arc, though this means the season kind of peaks too early. On the whole, I really have nothing bad to say about the season, and it does nothing wrong, but it doesn’t stick in my mind. Like “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, it just kind of blends together for me. Technical perfection means I have to put it in this category, but lack of memorability means I put it no higher than this.

12. “Survivor David vs. Goliath”: I get why people generally like this one better than I do. It was going to be a good season based on cast alone, with a lot of memorable new characters that were fun to watch as well as decent strategy, but when it’s sandwiched between “Survivor Ghost Island” and “Survivor Edge of Extinction” two seasons that have been generally poorly received, makes it look even better. Perhaps because I liked “Survivor Ghost Island” more than others, I’ve never been as bullish on this season, though the positives are still quite positive. People like Gabby, Christian, and Lyrsa are some all-time great characters I look forward to seeing back, and even some of the quieter players like Carl have their good moments. Similar to “Survivor Philippines”, though, a lot of the season and its boot order blend together for me. Plus, I just don’t like the theme. It feels forced, and gives an edge to the “Davids” in the end, since they become the underdogs. Still, apart from a forced theme this season does what it needs to do, and does it well. While I say it all blends together, there are one or two stand out moments, such as the idol nullifier play, that spring to mind when I think of this season, so I put it higher than “Survivor Philippines”, but that’s the only reason.

11. “Survivor Palau”: “Survivor Palau” is an oddity on this list, in that I put it high up despite rewatch value being very low. Seeing Ulong get decimated the first time is fun, but seeing it afterward is not. It just becomes a slog, and then seeing Tom dominate is a similar deal. Once again, though, theme saves it. Such dominance feels appropriate for a season themed around WWII, and this season goes all-out in the aesthetic. The challenges are fantastic, some of the choices made (particularly in the first immunity challenge) fascinating, and this season has a lot of oddball moments that stand out. Those are probably this season’s two greatest strengths: It’s fun to watch, and it stands out. That alone earns it a spot in this category.

10. “Survivor Borneo”: Ranking this season is always tough. It stands out and is memorable and enjoyable, but for very different reasons than most other seasons. Only Richard Hatch was really playing what we’d call a recognizable game today, and it can get old, particularly in the pre-merge, with how naive these people seem compared to the game we know today. It shows how we got here, but doesn’t do as much on its own to recommend it. That said, the impactful moments of the season, like Jenna not getting a video from home, and especially Gretchen’s boot, still have a major impact even in this jaded day and age. I have no nostalgia blinders for this season, having gotten into the show later, so I’m not as high on this season as some, but as a microcosm of early “Survivor”, as well as a fascinating case study, this season definitely deserves a spot amongst the greats.

9. “Survivor The Amazon”: This was another season that nearly ended up in the “Ugly” category. Man, those sexual politics have not aged well. Nothing close to a sex-crime or anything, but the men do not come off looking good here, and really, the season only avoids my wrath for this because the women get the better of the men in the end. Leaving that aside, “Survivor The Amazon” is a fun season, plain and simple. Rob Cesternino is, of course, our main source of comedy, and his “Casey Kasem” voting confessional is matched in humor only by Wendell’s anti-Chris Noble rant on “Survivor Ghost Island”. That said, most others on this season are no slouch either, providing some good moments of levity that help to make this season both fun and distinct. There’s even some good character arcs, with Matthew’s evolution in particular being a fun watch for me. There’s a lot of good strategists here as well, and I’m still amazed that Deena in particular has never come back. With all that said, this season does land this low because a lot of the gender humor is uncomfortable in this day and age, and the guys really do look like jackasses, but if you can look past that, this season is one of the funniest the show has ever had, and all the funnier for it.

8. “Survivor Tocantins”: This season brings us another fun underdog story, and one of the most lopsided victories ever. Seeing the Jalapao three work the cracks in the old Timbira was just a joy to go through, and seeing just how dominant J.T. would be, to the point of people STILL IN THE GAME saying they would rather he win than themselves, was a fascinating journey. Even J.T.’s subsequent abysmal performances can’t diminish his accomplishments here. Many people point to the humor of this season, but it doesn’t do it for me. Coach I found more annoying than funny, and similar to Courtney, Tyson just doesn’t do it for me, though in this case it’s more the over-reliance on sex humor than an unwillingness to make fun of himself that I dislike about Tyson. That said, a distinct location and a fun and engaging story help elevate this season, and with no controversial elements, it’s fair for the season to land this high.

7. “Survivor Vanuatu”: This season was unappreciated in its time, and I can definitely understand why. While there were subtle hints as to where it was going, it was tough to follow on first watch, and didn’t stand out as much as previous seasons. Opposite to “Survivor Palau”, however, this season THRIVES on being rewatched. Seeing all the little moments that led to Chris’ surprise victory over the women’s alliance makes this season a fascinating detective story, and the sheer ludicrousness of the guy who lost the first challenge winning the game is the stuff of legends. We also got some great new female characters and strategists, with Ami in particular a standout. Maybe the location was a bit generic, but the volcanos were a nice touch, and they added a few elements you wouldn’t find on other seasons. Between the spiritual stone and the pig they got at tree mail, they did their level best to make this not just another island season. With probably the best detective story the show’s ever had, this season deserves a rewatch, if you haven’t in a while.

6. “Survivor Africa”: If you’re looking for a distinctive season, this one is for you. You see even one screenshot, you know this is “Survivor Africa”. I hear a lot of people say this wasn’t as good as the first two seasons before it, but I wholeheartedly disagree. It kept the heart of the early seasons, with people moralizing a bit more, while still having some good strategic shakeups. We had our first thrown challenge (in with some of the best challenges the show has ever seen), our first tribe swap, and our first winner we could like. Seriously, if you’re not at least a casual fan of Ethan, you have no soul. Lex’s paranoia and gut make for a fun storyline, and getting to see the countryside on rewards like the goat reward or the AIDS supplies reward make this a season unlike any other. Good combats evil, good triumphs. What don’t people like about this season again.

5. “Survivor Guatemala”: I’ll admit, this is the season where my nostalgia blinders come on. This is the season that got me into “Survivor”, and I think it still holds up. Great location, great underdog story with Danni (so glad to see her back on the upcoming season), memorable characters in the likes of Judd, Gary, and Rafe, and even a fun bit of lore with the “car curse” getting acknowledged by the show in-universe. Yes, it’s not my number one season, since we do lose a lot of good people in the pre-merge, but what we’ve got is still solid throughout. People say this season ruined Stephenie, but I think it was more “Survivor Palau” that gave us an unrealistically heroic depiction of her. Yes, she was the hero that survived all of Ulong, but it’s not as though she didn’t TRY and be devious with her tribe. They were just so incompetent that she couldn’t be. For instance, when it was down to her, Bobby Jon, and Ibrehim, when Bobby Jon waffled on whether he would keep her or not, she tried to blindside him with Ibrehim. The only reason we have the Stephenie/Bobby Jon pairing people love so much these days is because Ibrehim was non-committal as well. Stephenie has always been somewhat villainous, she just didn’t get a chance to show it. Disappointing perhaps for the people who put her up on a pedestal, but in my opinion, a good story for a good season. It needs more love.

4. “Survivor Cagayan”: When watching a season of “Survivor”, you generally want the show to have both good characters and good strategists. This season brought both, often in the same people, and that’s what makes it so great. For good or for ill, everyone came to play, and whether they played well or not, they played hard. This made for an impactful week-to-week story, and with players being willing to shake things up, not the most predictable one either. Most people sing the praises of this season, so there’s little need for me to do so as well. Only the presence of the super idol, and Tony’s game getting more credit than it deserves (I’m not convinced there was a method to his madness; I think his strategy was more “throw it at the wall and see what sticks”, which just happened to work this time) keep it from being higher, but it remains a top-tier season nonetheless.

3. “Survivor Pearl Islands”: Another classic. If you want a season with a memorable theme, look no further than this. “Survivor Pearl Islands” kept up the aesthetic with the set dressings and challenges, but actually incorporated the theme into the game as well. There was a treasure hunt, the looting of a town, and the robbing of another tribe’s camp. Mind you, there was also the Outcast twist. I don’t mind it as much as some, as it was an obvious idea that had to be tried, but it does bring down the season slightly. But that cast! With the possible exceptions of “Survivor Borneo” and “Survivor The Australian Outback”, this may be the most iconic cast we’ve ever had. Sandra. Jonny Fairplay. Savage. Freaking RUPERT! All from here, and all bring big personality to make for both a fun and memorable season.

2. “Survivor Cambodia”: For a season this late in the timeline to make it nearly to the number one spot, it has to be good. In a smart move by producers, we effectively picked the cast this season, meaning we had a buy-in that other returnee seasons may not have had. But that wouldn’t have been enough if the cast gave us nothing, but they did. The name of the game here is strategy. I’ll admit, it’s not as character-driven as other seasons, but it makes up for that by giving us some of the most in-depth strategy talk the show ever had. While “voting blocks” could get old for how much they used the term, the fact remains that alliances shifted week to week helped keep the show exciting and engaging through to the end. Throw in great returning challenges and a more distinctive new location than before, and you’ve got the makings of a legendary season. So, why not number one? Well, good as the season is, I would say the pre-merge stories are more engaging than the post-merge stories, largely due to the pre-merge having smaller tribes, making things easier to follow. The post-merge is still good, but it’s an overall downward trajectory, as opposed to our number one season, which had an upward trajectory.

1. “Survivor Micronesia”: What can I say, this season is legendary? People like to mock how lopsided the show was in favor of the returnees, but I’d say a big strength of this season was how good the fans could be. True, there were some idiots, but a lot of the fans actually went toe-to-toe with the favorites, and could have won if not for luck. Amanda doesn’t find the idol at Final 5, and Natalie or Alexis probably wins the season. But, of course, the big draw of this season is the shocking moments. I’m not going to say the Black Widow Brigade was the best alliance ever, but damn if they didn’t pull off some improbable moves. Erik giving up immunity alone probably lands it a spot on this list, but 16 seasons on a show that formerly had 16 castaways, with a trivia competition based on the show near the end, with returning players, some of the most iconic of the past 9 seasons? This is the stuff of legend, culminating in the first ever unisex final episode. Every rewatch just gets better and better, and that, to me, makes it a season deserving of a number one spot.

Well, there you have it. As I say, this is a subjective list, so feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below! Otherwise, I’ll see you next month for “Survivor Winners at War”!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Edge of Extinction” Episode 11: The Wild Devans in its Natural Habitat

On tonight’s episode of “Survivor”, we will be forgoing the game to bring you more educational content. Our subject for this evening: Rick Devans. Formerly a species on the edge of extinction, a difficult breeding program has allowed it to be reintroduced into the environment. Despite many threats from predators, it now thrives, using its unique talents to save itself from destruction.

Skipping out on the “Previously On…” segment once again, we jump straight to damage control. Specifically, damage control on Rick, since he’s about the only person left out of the loop after the previous vote. You can tell that Rick is ANGRY in the confessionals, but his anger is directed specifically at Ron, who has now lied to Rick twice. Naturally, this makes Ron the BEST possible choice to calm down Rick. To be fair, Rick actually does a spectacular job of hiding his anger outside of confessional, and Ron does have one advantage in winning back Rick. Specifically, he has the expired advantage menu, which he gives to Rick as a sign of trust. Presumably he cut off the expiration date so that Rick can’t tell that it’s a fake from just looking at it, but the suspiciousness of the scenario alone, coupled with Rick needing to state what advantage he uses pre Tribal Council (or at least, so I assumed at the time), should clue Rick in instantly. Rick, however, seems to overall fall for it, calling it his bargaining chip. That said, Rick doesn’t immediately fully trust Ron or the advantage, however, so point for him in that respect.

Moving right along, we get our loved one’s challenge, but more importantly we get an ACTUAL INDIVIDUAL CHALLENGE POST-MERGE! STARS BE PRAISED, WE MAY ACTUALLY SEE SOME TOUGH CHOICES BEING MADE, AND AN EXCITING CHALLENGE THAT CAN ONLY BE DONE IN THIS PHASE OF THE GAME! Since the challenge is clearly the most important part here, let me briefly address how it works. One member of a player/loved one pair will run to the water, collecting it in a bucket. They will then toss that water at another bucket, held by their loved one, who dump it into yet another bucket, trying to weigh it down enough to raise a flag, the first one to do so winning a picnic lunch at camp, because you know, this challenge didn’t piss people off enough if they don’t win. You just had to rub it in their faces afterward as well. As Probst correctly mentions, this specific challenge hails from “Survivor Heroes vs Villains”. You may remember it as that one challenge where Colby (“Survivor The Australian Outback”) went apeshit on his brother, despite Colby himself not exactly being a challenge god that season. That moment will be hard to top, but I will say that I overall like this version of the challenge better, due to one simple change: The players now do the running instead of the loved ones. While I do like that this challenge hinges less on strength and more on throwing technique, it’s better to have the players we’ve spent time bonding with (or at least SHOULD have been bonding with were it not for pointless, time-wasting twists) doing the more active part of the challenge. Keeps us more invested.

The majority of our loved ones here are nothing more than your mildly touching reunion, but there are a few worth commenting on. First off, we have Ron’s husband, Lloyd. Ron, my man, you have done well for yourself. I’m straight, but that is a damn handsome man! Second of all, this is the first time I believe Ron’s sexuality has actually been brought up on the show. Don’t misunderstand me here: Long gone are the days when “The Gay Guy” was used as a marketing technique for the show, but not bringing it up at all until it becomes relevant (as opposed to someone like Aurora, whose sexuality WAS brought up before now, if not emphasized) shows a maturity that makes me still like the show, even to this day. It’s also nice to see that non-straight sexualities are being more and more normalized in mainstream media, especially since it’s come to my attention that BOTH kisses between Ami, Scout, and their partners were censored from “Survivor Vanuatu”. Particularly hypocritical when you consider they showed Rupert and Laura Boneham trying to eat each other on the previous season. Second is Victoria’s father, Troyzan (“Survivor One World”). Wow, really? Four returnees just wasn’t enough? Seriously, give that guy longer hair, and he’s Troyzan, no questions asked. But of course, the real show stopper here is Gavin, where we’re reminded yet again that he left his wife TWO FREAKING DAYS after marriage to go play “Survivor”. If there isn’t a medal for what this woman’s going through, there should be. Few things take precedence over “Survivor” in my book, but a new marriage is definitely one of them. Predictable, since this story was well-publicized pre-season, but still emotionally impactful nonetheless.

Oh, and I was also pleased to see so many married couples on this time, since “Survivor” especially in recent seasons, loves to cast singles in the hope of a showmance. This is hardly the most married players we’ve had left in the game at this point. I believe “Survivor Thailand” still holds that honor, with 6 out of 7 players being married, but still, this season is no slouch in that department.

Ron wins, and is of course faced with the choice of who to take with him on reward, and by extension, who to leave pissed off back at camp. Ron chooses to take Julie and Gavin with him on reward, which I can’t fault, despite what we’ll see later. Ron is in the power position, but unlike some other seasons, it’s pretty clear who he’s with and who he’s not with. His core foursome is himself, Julie, Gavin, and Victoria, with Rick as a side thing, but he doesn’t want to make that too obvious. Lauren and Aurora. Not needed, and given that display Gavin pulled, I think Ron has a pretty well built-in excuse for why he chose Gavin over someone else. I don’t even buy it when Victoria talks about how this was a mistake for Ron. She says the words but her heart’s just not in it. Clearly she’s ok, and is just playing it up for the show.

We get sweet moments between Gavin, Julie, and their loved ones at the picnic, but the one that takes the cake here is Ron. He does what all us fans would do in his position: Brag to the loved one about all the awesome stuff we’ve done in the game so far. Ron of course rhapsodizes about his strategic accomplishments, and how he’s been able to play both sides, and have everyone wrapped around his fingers, and good lord, the hubris is so thick you could cut it with a knife here! Why, Ron even talks about how taking Gavin was pure strategy, and no emotion. Just when you thought we might actually have a nuanced character here!

Finishing up, we return to camp, where Devans is conspicuous by his absence, being out looking for an idol instead. Intent on flushing such a possible idol, those at the camp, and Aurora in particular, set to looking through Rick’s bag. A sudden return and call-out by Rick puts their plan on hold, but Rick is not one to let this lie. He continues to comment about how awkward the whole situation is, hoping the shame and awkwardness will sway the camp against Aurora. This was a solid plan… 35 seasons ago. The trouble for Rick is that searching through someone else’s bag has lost what little stigma it once had, and now is just “You were dumb enough to leave something important in your bag, so shame on you.”. Thus, Aurora has every right to feel fine with having done so. Rick projects awkwardness onto her simply because awkwardness is Rick’s natural state of being.

Still, there is some good to be said for Rick here. After putting a bug in Ron’s ear about Aurora’s behavior, which is about as consequential as you’d expect, he decides to lean into the narrative written for him, and be brazen in his search for an idol. He eventually finds a clue, telling him the idol is hidden in the rafters of the shelter. I will give credit that at least THIS idol takes more than just getting people out of camp to get. Something like the idol Kelley Wentworth found (the second one) on “Survivor Cambodia” was easily grabbed in 30 seconds, and only needed patience for the opportune moment. Here, you have to climb a tree for the idol thus taking up more time and effort than some other idols. Rick initially wants to go full Mike Holloway (“Survivor Worlds Apart”), and just go for it out in the open, but his better instincts take over, and he waits for the cover of darkness. Surprisingly, no one bothers to check on the loud sounds of Rick Devans climbing a tree in the dead of night, and thus he gets away with it. Good for him.

Actually, for all my snark, Rick really is playing the “Mike Holloway” game at this point. Everyone’s out to get him, no one’s making it a secret, and so he’s just being blatantly funny and crazy because why not at that point?

Naturally, with two great challenges in a row, counting the immunity challenge from last episode, our fun exponentially increases with the greatest challenge yet! A spectacular contest, to be immortalized in the annals of “Survivor” History as… Yeah, it’s yet another bland endurance challenge. Specifically, it’s the one about supporting yourself in a box from “Survivor Fiji”. We don’t even get any mystery that the challenge will matter, with Rick being the first one out. Gavin ultimately wins, but it matters little in the grand scheme of things. No one will talk to Rick prior to Tribal Council, with Ron and Julie only making what could be best described as a token effort at doing so. As such, it is pretty much guaranteed that Rick is safe tonight. Thus, we need alternate plans. Ron and Julie discuss actually going for Aurora, but again, not buying it. Too little enthusiasm, and too predictable a plotline. However, it seems Victoria was indeed a bit more pissed that she initially let on. With both her and Lauren correctly predicting that Rick might play an idol, they decide they don’t want anyone else dictating who goes home. They decide on Ron, which by and large makes sense, since Ron’s the power player, and arguably the frontrunner to win at this point, outside of Rick. Less good is their idea to float this to Gavin. Apart from feeling indebted to Ron after the reward challenge, Gavin is not sure getting Ron out at this juncture is a good idea. And for him, it isn’t. Gavin is clearly a member of the majority at this point, and one with some influence, but not so much as to be the main target when insurrection comes. Almost the ideal position: To be seen as helping with moves, while not taking blame for the fallout. A sweet deal, to be sure, and one not to be given up lightly.

Aurora, therefore, tries to sweeten the pot. Wanting her extra vote to be used, as this is the last night it can be used, she gives it to Gavin, since, as he’s immune, he could use it on the revote as well. Ok, that logic I get, but Aurora, you act like you’ll get credit for this. You won’t. Gavin will. Yes, it’s good to avoid being voted out with an unused advantage, but how is this in ANY WAY helping your game. At least it does a good job making things more exciting as we head off to Tribal Council, good gameplay or not.

It is quickly topped, however, by Rick leading us into Tribal Council with a fake news headline about his impending fate. I would give you a blow-by-blow of what he says, but I’m too busy being pissed that this could have been the lead-in to EVERY Tribal Council, and we haven’t got it yet. For shame, CBS!

Without a doubt, this is one of the most blunt Tribal Councils I’ve seen in quite some time. Everyone makes no secret of Rick going, and while it looses some of the intrigue as a result, it does make up for it in sheer gumption. You can’t help but watch fascinated as everyone makes it clear who they intend to vote for. Unsurprisingly, this causes Rick to play first the expired advantage menu. Not one to let an opportunity like this lie, Rick calls out Ron and Julie on this, thus making them look bad, and giving Rick options for his future. How does he stick around? Well, despite my thought that playing a fake advantage might prevent playing real ones at the same Tribal Council, to prevent the flushing of fake advantages, Rick is allowed to play his actual immunity idol. Even THEN, though, Rick cannot be on the proper side of the vote. His vote for Aurora pales in comparison to the three votes Ron gets (one from Lauren, two from Gavin, using Aurora’s advantage), thus sealing his fate. He takes it with good grace, but I’ve got mixed feelings on Ron leaving. I never connected with him much as a character before this episode, and with all that hubris, he did kind of deserve it. That said, Ron was a major driver of strategy this season, and I feel the caliber may go down as a result of his exit.

That said, the caliber of the season continues to go up. Despite the poor misdirection, this episode did a fantastic job of showing us the ins and outs of this group of contestants, the loved ones brought needed emotion, and overall we got some really good gameplay from pretty much all of our parties. Say, you know what was missing in this episode? Why the Edge of Extinction of course! When we stop spending our time with the people who already lost, we can actually LIKE and BOND WITH this group of players! Who would have guessed?

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor David vs. Goliath” Episode 3: It Builds Character

Tonight, “Survivor” takes on a guest producer. Rare, I know, but it happens. You can usually tell because the episode takes on a distinctive theme. In this case, that theme is “Suffering builds character”, which you may recall was the creed of Calvin’s dad from “Calvin and Hobbes”. Yep, that’s our guest producer, ladies and gentleman. Bring on the rain!

First, though, we have to bring on the pain, as we see how the three from the David tribe on the wrong side of the vote weather things. All are quiet, but Davie probably takes it the best, pulling Christian aside and asking what happened. Christian claims that he and Nick were brought in last minute, hence why Davie was left out. This seems to satisfy Davie, although his hidden immunity idol probably helps with that. Carl is also quiet, but doesn’t really talk to anybody. Instead, he gets emotional about it, stating that Jessica was like a daughter to him. “Emotion” in this case takes the form of a quavering in his voice and a few tears, which might not seem like much, but for a tough guy from Texas, that’s basically curling up into a ball and sobbing. Still, he rallies, and certainly doesn’t do anything to hurt his game.

Before we get to our last outsider, let us check in with the Mason-Dixon alliance. They wisely wait until they’re out of eyesight and earshot before celebrating, and then plotting their next move. As we saw with Christian earlier, they decide to throw Gabby under the bus as a ringleader, which I have to laugh at a little bit. Not that Gabby is blameless in this vote-off, but of the five who voted for Jessica, I’d say she had the LEAST agency in that vote-off. True, she did bring in Christian and Nick, but they were the ones who decided to pull the trigger, and it was Lyrsa and Elizabeth who targeted Jessica in the first place. Still, putting the blame on Gabby is a good move, at least in the short-term. It’s clear that the Mason-Dixon alliance is trying to be the swing vote between the two sides, so making as few enemies as possible can’t be a bad thing for that. That being said, it also means you need to eliminate Gabby before Final Tribal Council, lest she be given credit for moves she didn’t really make. Look at the Final Tribal Council of “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X” for your evidence. Ultimately, it was Hannah who convinced Ken to vote off David, but who got the credit for it? Adam. Why? Because he was the one seeming to be making moves against David, so everyone thought he must be behind it. Narrative is important here, people.

Still, the best-laid plans are worthless without good execution, but evidently Mason-Dixon have that covered. We check in with Bi and see that, after initially blaming Davie for no apparent reason, she switches to Gabby. Bi then goes full Abi-Maria (“Survivor Philippines”) and effectively declares Gabby dead to her. More on that in a bit.

We check in with Goliath next, where Johnny Mundo is still trying to convince us that he is not his wrestling persona, and failing miserably due to mentioning his nicknames every five sentences. I kid, I kid. Johnny Mundo actually does a pretty good job here of showing what a good reader he is of the people around him, before using this to give us the same “Natalie is on the outs” confessional we’ve heard a few dozen times over the course of this season already. Instead, let us focus on something different: hermit crabs. Yes, of all things, I want to draw attention to a brief scene of a hermit crab race we see the Goliath tribe running during their down time. As this blog is primarily focussed on strategy, I normally wouldn’t mention something like this. However, it is very worth mentioning from an entertainment perspective. You see, this season has definitely been good so far, but from a strategy perspective, it’s not been that great. Not awful, by any means, but nothing special either. Normally this would bring a season down, but decent strategy can be offset by an influx of charm and character, which is what we get here. Watching the show, it’s easy to forget that these are real people living out their day-to-day, 24 hour lives, needing to meet their every need, including entertainment. It’s just so charming and, for want of a better term, real, that it just endears me to the season. More, please!

For all my snark, there is a method to Johnny Mundo giving us what at this point is the standard Natalie confessional. Johnny Mundo, you see, is one of those who agrees that Natalie might be a good person to have at the end, due to her rubbing people the wrong way. Fair enough, but how do you plan to get her there? The answer is foreshadowed in the next scene, as we see a new bond at Goliath. Mike and Jeremy are bonding over a shared love of the game, enough so that Jeremy shares his backstory: he and his dad didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but Jeremy feels his dad would be proud of where he’s at in life. Sadly, Jeremy’s dad has Alzheimer’s, and is thus not really in a position to notice these things. It’s a sad story, and we’re thankfully spared the “this makes Jeremy a Final Tribal threat” confessional, so we can just take it at surface value.

Johnny Mundo may not want people to think of him as a wrestler, but if the other tribe is bringing it up as a topic of conversation, then I’d say it’s a lost cause. While playing in the sand, thus fulfilling the prophecy from last episode, Gabby and Christian debate the logistics of Slamtown, which is another funny and charming scene. If nothing else, you can say this episode does of good job of building up its characters and getting us to bond with them. Sadly, we must get the low, repeat point of the episode, out of the way instead, as Bi, Nick, and Davie all sit out on the raft during a fishing expedition. Bi again expresses a desire to see Gabby go, which Nick fervently agrees to. Since we’ve seen this all before, let’s take a moment to seriously debate where the Mason-Dixon alliance should go. As with any good debate, there’s positives to both sides. Getting out Bi strengthens the majority you currently have, and ruffles no new feathers. Getting out Gabby keeps the tribe stronger overall, and keeps your status as swing votes more secure. As to which side they should go with, well, it depends. For Nick, there’s no answer but to vote out Gabby. To someone with few allies, playing a swing vote is probably the best move, and getting out Gabby strengthens that. Christian, on the other hand? While Nick is being played up as his ride-or-die currently, he still has an alliance with Gabby as well. Having more allies is always better than having fewer, but this in turns gives Nick more incentive to get Gabby out, thus leaving Christian with him as his main option. It’s an intriguing turn: What happens when two member of an alliance have diametrically opposing interests? No answer is yet given, so we’ll have to wait for a swap to decide.

Back at Goliath, since we need a viable alternative to Natalie going home this episode, we put Jeremy up to bat. Oh, don’t worry, this isn’t the show manufacturing drama out of nowhere. Rest assured, Jeremy will be making plenty of mistakes this time around. First comes the time when he takes a leaf out of the playbook of Garrett Adelstein (“Survivor Cagayan”). In case you’ve forgotten who he is, Garrett is the guy who decided it was a bright idea to FORCE his tribe not to strategize, leading to his eviction as the second player of the season. All this, WHILE HOLDING A HIDDEN IMMUNITY IDOL! Yeah, to say that this is not a good place to draw from is an understatement. To give Jeremy his due, his reason for making this bone-headed move is solid. He sees people pairing off and talking, but not to him. Given that he’s a physical threat on a tribe that can afford to lose a physical player or two and still be good, that’s reason enough to be concerned. I have no quarrel with Jeremy wanting to do something about this. What I do have a problem with is that, rather than take the initiative and pull people over himself, Jeremy instead pulls the tribe together and effectively tells them to knock it off. As Natalie has demonstrated, bossing adults around does not generally go over well. Such is the case here, especially when Jeremy proves himself a hypocrite, and starts talking with individuals anyway, trying to throw Dan under the bus for his idol. Excellent job there, player. Excellent!

Man, these challenges just get worse and worse, don’t they? Now we’re just upsizing individual challenges, with a total of four players (in groups of one and three) completing a ropes course, and then two pulling a sled of puzzle pieces for two to solve. While upsizing a challenge is better than downsizing, it still doesn’t change the fact that this feels like three individual challenges Frankensteined into one. The puzzle is at least complex, being a four-piece pyramid, probably most remembered as being solved by Wendell on “Survivor Ghost Island”, but actually making its first appearance on “Survivor One World”. Yeah, I prefer to remember Wendell too.

Probst taunts the contestants by making sure the reward portion of the challenge (pillows, blankets, and chairs) is thoroughly soaked via showing it off, and we get to set things up. While the challenge itself may be lackluster, the one thing going for it is decent misdirection. True, we’ve heard more specific targets from the David tribe, so they likely lose, but both tribes have a least a shot at losing. However, that good will goes out the window when we see the Goliath tribe strategizing, and Natalie forcing herself onto the puzzle portion. Granted, if you’re going to use Natalie in a challenge, this is where you use her, but the fact that we see only them strategizing guarantees they lose. And while this did not ultimately play a factor (this challenge was pretty neck and neck throughout, and won on the puzzle, expertly solved by Christian and Gabby), I feel like the David tribe may have had an advantage here. Part of the ropes portion of the challenge involved three players untangling from each other. Naturally, the ropes were all made different colors, but even on my HDTV, the colors for the David tribe seemed more distinct than the colors for the Goliath tribe, making them easier to untangle. Not tarnishing David’s victory, though. They earned this, though at what cost?

Bi ran the first leg of this challenge, the solo ropes course, and Probst made a point of describing her as “hobbling back to the mat” afterward. Couple that with repeated cuts to Bi saying her knee was injured, and you’ve got a recipe for medevac. Thankfully, this is just a well-executed fake-out from the producers, as while medical does look at Bi’s knee, both they and she say she’ll be fine, and bandage her knee up.

Following that fake-out, time to see who the Goliath tribe tries to fake us into going rather than Natalie. To no one’s surprise, it’s Jeremy, due to the whole “big threat” thing he mentioned earlier. Surprisingly, rather than Natalie, Angelina is the one pushing for this. She’s really gung-ho about the whole thing, which tells me that she’s got a case of “big-move-itis”. You see, while it is true that the Goliath tribe could lose someone as strong as Jeremy and still be ok challenge-wise (they have no way of knowing a swap is next episode), that doesn’t make it a good idea. I’d tell you why, but I don’t have to: Natalia does it for me. She rightly points out that Natalie feels more on the outs the Jeremy, and is thus more likely to flip. Angelina argues that Jeremy is more of a charmer, and thus could better flip, but I disagree. Yes, Jeremy is charming, but he’s charming in an obvious way. He seems like the type who would fit in well on the Goliath tribe. Conversely, Natalie seems like the odd one out who you would logically expect to flip. Plus, remember that Natalie’s big issue is being to bossy. If she so badly wants to be in charge, where better to find followers than on a tribe supposedly full of followers? Not saying that the David tribe are all followers, but that seems to be what Natalie believes, and I think the David tribe is smart enough to play into that to gain an edge.

Jeremy’s biggest obstacle to staying, though, is Jeremy. In his third boneheaded move of the evening, he had encouraged Natalie to do what she needed to save herself, but also said it was an uphill battle. A bit tactless, but not bad in and of itself. However, when Natalie tries to talk strategy, and asks Jeremy not to be there, Jeremy turns it into an argument that makes everyone involved, but especially himself, look bad. I understand that if you think someone might be talking about you, you shouldn’t let them, but when you make a big deal out of it, you hit a point of diminishing returns on how much trouble you’re saving yourself. Jeremy goes WAY past that point here. Smart thing to do would be to put up a mild protest, then pretend to acquiesce, and listen in from the bushes somewhere. Instead, this argument drags on to commercial break, though I have to give the editors credit for cutting to commercial right when Natalie talks about cutting things off.

Then we come to Tribal Council. To jump ahead to my thoughts a bit, I think this is one situation where we were duped. This was made out to be a “Live” Tribal Council, where the decision was up in the air, and what happened at Tribal decided the outcome. For reasons I’ll get into shortly, I believe everyone knew the decision, and was playing up the discussion for the cameras. That said, if you were to tell me that Natalie was saved by her performance at Tribal Council alone, I would believe it. Seriously, this is some top-tier performing here! Gone is bossy, seemingly uncaring Natalie. Instead she’s calm, logical, and is open to criticism, even putting up what she says she will and taking Dan’s point about “The delivery of the message, not just the content” to heart. Compared to what we see Jeremy do (oh, we’ll get to him in a moment), she comes off as the much more logical choice to keep, despite what I said earlier in the blog. Seriously, I am agape. This is top-level play right here, and it came out of one on the people I would least expect from what we’ve seen so far.

Jeremy’s performance is why I say I think everyone knew the outcome of this Tribal Council beforehand. Natalie should have been the obvious target. It should have been easy. When someone is that annoying, you just gently remind people of what’s happened, and let that person self-destruct to prove your point. What Jeremy does here, going on a full-on, unprovoked attack on Natalie and her game is the work of someone trying desperately to save themselves. Jeremy is enough of a fan that I’m sure he knows this, and thus is only doing this because he knows it is his only chance. Unsurprisingly, it does not work. On a tribe looking for order, whatever the first nine days may have shown, tonight Jeremy showed chaos, and Natalie order. If Jeremy can take some solace he has two rare achievements to his name: He is both a male inductee and a pre-merge inductee into the Order of Sue Hawkabies, each a rare achievement.

I’ve got mixed feelings about Jeremy leaving. He definitely earned it this episode, but I think he was a more interesting and varied character than Natalie. The story about his dad really got to me, and while Natalie is a bigger character from an entertainment perspective, Jeremy had more facets to him, and I would have like to see those develop. To Natalie’s credit, though, she has a lot of class when voting for Jeremy. Complimenting his skin? Love it.

While not top-tier material yet, this season is doing a good job so far. True, a lot of the mystery was gone tonight, but it makes up for it in the characters. Not only is this season doing a good job developing a variety of people, but it does a good job making us care about them; no easy feat. I think it comes back to what I was saying about the hermit crab race earlier: We see them as people, which develops them as characters, which makes this season greater.

Of course, Natalie’s Tribal Council performance also goes a long way there, and as you can probably guess, that means it’s once again time for…

TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5!

As you’d expect, we’ll be talking about Tribal Council performances. Excluding Final Tribal Council performances (those get their own list someday), what feats of arguing and theatre are the most memorable and most effective? Conversely, which ones backfire the most? Success and failure is no guarantee for either list, though they help. With those very minimal ground rules out of the way, let’s get started with:

TOP 5

5. Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”): Much though I hate to give him any credit, it takes a lot to hide an idol ace up your sleeve, and if there’s one thing Russell IS good at (or at least was in his first two appearances), it was finding and utilizing idols correctly. Not perfectly, you understand, but good in an above-average way. His crowning achievement was the second post-merge vote of “Survivor Samoa”, where he kept it so perfectly hidden that he attracted votes to himself. Plus, we got his iconic “I ain’t finished playing just yet.” quote here, and to a lesser extent, “Keep hope alive”. Not as flashy as Parvati’s similar move on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, yet all the more iconic for it.

4. Malcolm Freberg (“Survivor Caramoan”): Yeah, you all knew this was coming. The guy who basically created a “Live” Tribal Council by making sure he and his allies were immune had to make the list for the chaos he caused alone. Malcolm loses some points because in the long-term, his move wasn’t successful, but even so, it did change the course of that vote, and was flashy enough to get a song made out of it, so it definitely earns a spot on this list.

3. Natalie Cole (“Survivor David vs. Goliath”): Seriously, if you want an example of keeping cool under pressure, this is it. Natalie dominated this Tribal Council by showing just WHY she could be a better tribunate than her competition, but without going over the top. True, this list has favored the flashy, but the finesse of this performance is just too good not to award.

2. Vytas Baskauskas (“Survivor Blood vs. Water”): Someone down in numbers on a swap tribe needs to have a damn good performance in order to make it through to the merge, and Vytas does just that with his “And we will be strong” performance. Natalie had finesse, but even so, she had to capitalize on an existing argument. Vytas used a natural breakdown of Laura Boneham to his expert advantage, thus being kept around until the merge. And all while appearing calm and collected, never once getting sucked into the argument. Well played, good sir.

1. Gary Hogeboom (“Survivor Guatemala”): What’s better than a performance that blindsides the players? A performance that blindsides the audience. Granted, this is partly due to editing, but Gary pulled off the blindside idol play in a textbook perfect manner here. Even if we had seen him find the idol, nothing in his demeanor would suggest he would play it. I mean, we’d probably FIGURE he would play it, since he would go home otherwise, but still, keeping a secret that big that under wraps? Masterful. Plus, “Survivor Guatemala” deserves more respect, and this is one area where it definitely earns it.

Honorable Mention: Stacy Kimball (“Survivor Fiji”): This is an odd one, as it’s a move I’ve yet to acknowledge, and really need to. Stacy was the first person to truly pioneer the idea of “Place votes on the person not likely to have an idol played on them”, which resulted in Edgardo’s exit, and is a move still used to this day. Stacy and the rest of her alliance do a great job of hiding the target here, hence the shocked looks on the faces of the Four Horsemen. Unfortunately, this one had camp strategizing as a big factor, and no theatrics at Tribal Council. True, that was kind of the point, but it still technically bars the move from the list proper, hence only being an honorable mention.

BOTTOM 5

5. Jennifer Lanzetti (“Survivor Kaoh Rong”): Ah, Jennifer and her iconic bird pose. She wasn’t the first to stand up at Tribal Council, but she was the first to do it at a Tribal Council other than the final one. Not sure that it alone was what doomed her, but it didn’t help. Jennifer’s big failing here was really just in being too open about her plans and scheming. Easy enough to do, but no matter what, she just kept digging herself deeper and deeper, flip-flopping on stories and giving into pure, emotional protests, which led to a rightful exit. Still not as much of a mess as we’ll be seeing, though.

4. Ami Cusack (“Survivor Micronesia”): Similar to Jennifer, though dialed up to eleven. Ami also had an emotional breakdown at an insurmountable wall that exposed her scheming. Ami’s breakdown was bigger, which makes it in a way more entertaining, but also sadder, especially since we knew Ami better as a strategist than we did Jennifer. That said, because this breakdown seemed bigger, Ami gets the higher spot on this list. However understandable, it was a shame to see a great strategist sink to this level of argument.

3. John Cochran (“Survivor South Pacific”): This one is more anecdotal than evidence based, but even given what we saw in the episode, Cochran really did himself no favors at this Tribal Council. Like Jeremy, he kept talking and protesting where he really didn’t seem to need to. Unlike Jeremy, Cochran ACTUALLY didn’t need to, and if Dalton Ross is to be believed, nearly cost himself the game right there from overscheming. Thankfully he didn’t, but such a near miss definitely earns a spot on this list.

2. Gervase Peterson (“Survivor Blood vs. Water”): Cochran’s move nearly cost him the game, but you could argue Gervase here did more direct damage. When someone at Tribal Council is playing for your ally, you DON’T want to antagonize them and encourage them to just go for it. That’s what Gervase did here, and it led to the first rock draw in 23 seasons. Not a good look, and definitely not a good Tribal Council performance.

1. Jeff Varner (“Survivor Game Changers”): You all knew this was coming. I know Varner was desperate, but this was a depraved, desperate move that had (thankfully only) the potential to ruin someone’s life, all for a game he wasn’t likely to win anyway. Varner felt like scum afterward, and well he should, given the lengths he went to. But even taking out the moral perspective here for a moment, it was bad game wise. If people weren’t planning to vote for you before, they sure are now! Look at the tongue-lashing he got from his tribe. Well-deserved, I say. If Probst has you voted out verbally, you know you’ve royally screwed up your game with a single performance.

Honorable Mention: Hali Ford (“Survivor Game Changers”): It didn’t really impact things one way or the other, but Hali’s “I didn’t consent” bit gets such a chuckle out of me that I had to include it somewhere. Given that it didn’t help, but also didn’t make much difference in the outcome of things, this seemed the best spot for it.

Well, despite some of my criticisms, we’re three for three on good episodes so far this season. We’ll see if that holds, though, as I feel the swap is a bit too early this time around.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Kaoh Rong” Episode 2: Fire Begins at Conception

You may recall that on last season, “Survivor Cambodia”, Stephen Fishbach kept commenting on how the “voting blocs” of that season were a new and unprecedented thing, indicative of that season. I’ve made it clear that, while this is an elevated form of gameplay very rarely seen, it’s not unique to that season, nor do I believe it marks an overall shift in gameplay. I bring this up because, for comparison, I’d like to bring up an incident that I believe HAS represented a shift in gameplay. Think back for a minute to “Survivor Blood vs. Water” episode 4, or as it may be better remembered, “The Timely and Much-Desired Exit of Brad Culpepper”. This is where Caleb, having heard that Brad wanted to keep the other tribe happy by voting off people whose loved ones were no longer there, realized he was an eventual target and campaigned, at Tribal Council, for Brad’s ouster. Now, talking strategy at Tribal Council is nothing new, nor was pleading for your life, but the crazy thing was, it worked. Up until that point, barring exceptions like Malcolm Freberg’s “Three Idol” play on “Survivor Caramoan”, strategy was done exclusively before Tribal Council. You had your plan in place going in, and you don’t deviate from it. Oh sure, there were exceptions to this rule. I’ve mentioned one of them just now. But by and large, conventional wisdom said that such pleas fall on deaf ears. That Caleb was able to work that situation out, I believe, has shaken things up. Not to say that people don’t go into Tribal Council with plans in place or anything, but it seems to me that since then, there’s been much more of a willingness to shake up plans at Tribal Council, immunity idol or no. Personally, I’m a big fan of this development. From a fan standpoint, it helps with unpredictability, which is definitely a plus, and since it’s really a new and more complex form of strategy, I see very little downside to this.

But at this rate, my introduction’s going to be longer than the blog itself, better hop right in. Our post-Tribal Council talk from last episode is less bashing of Darnell and more bashing of Alecia. True, she may have survived her first Tribal Council, but it was a very near-miss thing, which Jason makes no secret about. Despite presumably having learned her name, Jason still refers to Alecia as “Blondie”, which is sounding more and more derogatory each time I hear it. It’s pretty much the same complaints you heard last time: she’s weak, she does nothing around camp, blah blah blah. Not that Alecia helps her case a lot. To Tang has flint now, but can’t seem to get fire started even so. Jennifer seems to be the main contributor in this department, but Alecia is trying to help, looking for the “embryo” of the fire, which is only slightly less funny than John Palyok going on about “Hot Amber!” on “Survivor Vanuatu”.

In a somewhat unusual move, we actually get two camp scenes before our lack of an intro. Rather than build on, well, the alliance building at Gondol, we need more time devoted to Tai’s idol-hunting exploits. Not the worst plot line they could have followed, and given who goes to Tribal Council this episode, I can’t fault the show too much, but idol hunting exploits can get repetitive.

Fortunately, Tai is just pure fun. While the other five members of Gondol go for a swim, Tai stays on the beach, wondering if he should look for the idol or not. Learning from his mistake last episode, he’s worried about taking too long and being caught. However, in this situation, the clear choice is to go for the idol. The upside to Tai NOT looking for the idol would be that he had a chance to bond with his tribe, but seeing as he’s left on the beach all alone, I’d say that ship has sailed.

Getting good vibes from the place (or maybe just liking the feel of the trees), Tai returns to his old idol hunting grounds, trying out different trees this time around. I will resist making a “barking up the wrong tree” joke here, in particular because Tai actually barks up the RIGHT tree. He notices a semi-inconspicuous clue hidden in a knot of a tree, which tells him the idol is buried at the base of said tree. Tai gets to digging, only to discover that the note is a freaking LIAR! Well, at least it tells half-truths. The idol IS there, but locked in a small box. To open that box requires a key. Luckily, said key is nearby. Unfortunately, “nearby” in this case means “atop a 50-foot black palm tree”, and will require building a long pole to knock it off. This, in a sense, hearkens back to the old days when finding an idol was something like a scavenger hunt, leading you from clue to clue. I’m happy to see it back, though the building of the pole thing bothers me slightly. I think the issue I have is that, while the scavenger hunt could be a hard thing to hide, it was hideable. 50-foot poles are harder to hide.

Tai, however, takes what we might call the Ozzy Option (“Survivor Cook Islands”), and tries to just climb the tree. Sadly for him, being one with nature and respecting all living things does not grant you super tree-climbing powers, and so he’s forced to halt his idol-hunting efforts for the moment. Still, he does reference Ozzy, so the scene DID have the effect of making me like him more.

In order to keep parity, we head over to Chan Loh, which wastes no time in getting our promised “Debbie is crazy” scenes out of the way. Peter’s “Crazy Cat Lady” comment? Check. Debbie’s “We have the biggest frontal lobes!” cheer? Check. Oh, but we get added craziness, what with Debbie claiming to be an expert on everything yet continually showing no aptitude towards it. Yep, we’re definitely in full-on Coach (“Survivor Tocantins”) territory now. But, not content with mixing in just ONE older, crazier “Survivor” player, Debbie also has to drink the water without boiling it, insisting it’s safe. Ah yes, following the performances of Rudy Boesch and Sue Hawk on “Survivor All-Stars”. Truly, Debbie draws only from the finest of players. There’s not much more that can be said about Debbie’s craziness, so I will turn my focus to the first real shot of the water source we get. HOLY CRAP! That is a HUGE freaking water source! I know it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, but that water source is just so large and out-there that I think the image of it is permanently lodged in my brain.

Oh, but out of the cloud of nuttiness that is Debbie, a silver lining emerges. It actually produces some strategy talk. The way it was built up, it seemed like this would be a set-up for a “Debbie annoys everyone, she needs to go.” storyline. Certainly that seems to be how Liz is thinking. Peter, however, has a different take, noting that Debbie’s craziness likely means that she’s unintelligent/easily lead, and a good person to keep around. Not bad logic from Peter. After all, that’s pretty much what I’d be thinking were I out there. However, I look at her more as “Easy to beat in the end.” rather than “Mentally weak.” Crazy she might be, but that doesn’t mean she’s dumb. After all, Cao Boi Bui (“Survivor Cook Islands”) was one of the craziest contestants ever, yet he still independently came up with a vote splitting strategy to flush the idol.

Heading back to Gondol, it seems that, a mere two seasons after my mini-essay on homosexuality and “Survivor”, we have the beginnings of a bona-fide bromance on “Survivor”. Despite Tai having a boyfriend, he flirts with Caleb, even getting to the point of trying to kiss him to get some food off of his lip. The impression isn’t helped by the fact that the two have arguments that you’d expect an old married couple to have. Tai’s “Love of all living things.” comes into play again when Caleb wants to kill a monster of a hornet, but Tai doesn’t want him to. Of course, in reality, it’s not realistically leading to a real romance between the two. Caleb has no interest in getting into anything with Tai that way, and as he himself says “We don’t have people like Tai where I live.” To his credit, though, the guy takes it all in very good stride. This could very easily have turned into another “Brandon and Frank” (“Survivor Africa”) situation, where the two people from different worldviews just can’t see eye to eye, and we laugh at how funny it is. Here, we have two people who do have different worldviews, but instead work with each other, teach each other, and even get along in a sweet way. That’s really nice to see, particularly from Caleb’s end. Rather than conflict, we have growth, and it makes for a nice change.

Oh, and the impetus for all this? Tai saying that he wants to bond socially with his tribe, since getting the idol is out for now. Yeah, it looks sweet and all, but this is still a REALLY strange way of bonding with one’s tribe. For all intents and purposes, I’d say it works, but it’s unorthodox to say the least.

Turning to the social outcasts at Chan Loh, we see Debbie complaining to Joe about the lack of discipline at the camp, which Joe agrees with. Wow, she’s REALLY pulling hard from the Rudy playbook this time! Unfortunately for Debbie, though, she seems to have missed the one good part of the Rudy playbook. Specifically, that quote I always come back to, “I’ve gotta fit in. Me. Not them.” Rather than go this route, Debbie and Joe simply complain that camp isn’t run the way they want, and further isolate themselves as a result.

Speaking of which, now it’s JOE’S turn to complain about everything. Somehow, Chan Loh has managed to get their wood wet, their matches wet, and lost a bunch of their kerosene in the three days they’ve had their fire-making kit. I know there’s a limit to what you can do about the keeping stuff dry situation out there, but the kerosene thing? That’s just pathetic. Neal, for his part, is quick to blame Joe for this, saying that Joe poured about a third of it on the fire that first day, and then let it evaporate. Since Joe never provides an explanation for how to do things better, and merely complains, I’m forced to accept that no, Joe, you really DON’T know how to do things. You want to complain about how things are run? Fine. But then you need to either put up or shut at at things being done better. Joe, so far, has done none of that, and his complaining only serves to ostracize him further from the tribe. Given that Peter wants to keep Debbie around, I’d say that makes Joe target A-1 for elimination from Chan Loh.

Joe also seems to have joined Debbie in drinking the Kool-Aid. And by Kool-Aid, I mean unboiled water. Liz is pretty squeamish about it, which sets Joe off on a confessional rant about how worthless Liz’s “book smarts” are out on “Survivor”. Again, I would have no problem with this IF JOE ACTUALLY DEMONSTRATED GOOD SURVIVAL SKILLS! But no, he just complains about how everyone else is doing it wrong. Plus, again, I’m on Liz’s side for this one. Water out there has a lot of really bad stuff in it. Best to boil it before drinking.

Dehydrated, Liz goes into the water to take a moment to herself, and… WHOA! When did Liz and Aubry do a body swap? We don’t hear a peep from Aubry this episode, but Liz breaks down about the water situation. A reasonable thing to break down about, I’ll grant you, but Liz came across as stronger than that. Hope she’ll be ok. She does seem to pull herself together by the end of it all.

Speaking of the elements, we cut back to To Tang, who are quickly becoming out go-to people for confessionals about elemental harshness. Once again, Jason is our narrator, talking about how bad the sunburn is, and how he needs to rest. Oh come on, Jason, it can’t be that bad… OH MY GOD! Emergency! Emergency! We have reached John Cochran levels of sunburn! Repeat! John Cochran levels!

Yeah, Jason’s shoulder’s look pretty bad, but I shouldn’t single him out too much. After all, the rest of To tang doesn’t seem to be doing much work either. Oh, except for Alecia, but that’s because she needs to prove herself. She goes off to make fire and… wait, they STILL don’t have their fire started! Ok, there’s been some talk about whether or not To Tang was going to be a “train wreck tribe” for the season, and I was inclined to disagree. Now, however, I’m a convert. I know that if you haven’t practiced, starting fire with flint isn’t the easiest thing, but I’d expect pure random chance to give you SOMETHING by now! And that’s not the worst of it! Alecia works on the fire for FIVE HOURS before she gets anything! And even then, it’s only with Jason helping at the last minute that the fire gets started at all. That’s pretty pathetic, guys.

Out of this patheticness comes some good stuff, though. First off, Alecia. I wasn’t her biggest fan after her first episode, and I’m still not very big on her now, but I must give credit to her determination and her unwillingness to accept her fate. In harsh conditions like these, it can take a lot to keep that going, especially when you’re so obviously on the bottom. Second, it further shows Jennifer’s emotional side, as she has a newfound respect for Alecia for doing that for the tribe. Doesn’t make Jennifer the best “Survivor” player ever, but it’s nice to see. Third, and most important, it makes To Tang seem like one big happy family, and indicates that Alecia may NOT actually be on the bottom.

That newfound teamwork should really help To Tang since it’s CHALLENGE TIME! Like with the first immunity challenge, this one borrows from some previous challenges, but not in full concept, and after 32 seasons of this show, I’d imagine coming up with purely original elements is a bit difficult. The challenge this most borrows from is the first reward challenge of “Survivor Africa”, where the tribes transported long poles through a course, later assembling those poles to get to the top of a structure. This means that not only are we seeing a challenge element that, while reused, is rarely used today, but also that we’re borrowing from a season known for great challenges, and it’s hard to fault that. The gist of this challenge is that the tribes must carry a long log through a series of obstacles to get in in a finish space. Once there, they must untie a ball and rope on the log to get said ball to a slingshot, where the ball must be launched to knock over two targets. First two teams to knock over both targets win immunity and various amounts of fishing gear. This one is a really big challenge, and relatively unique as well. It’s a bit simpler than last episode’s challenge, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s grueling and epic-looking, and that counts for a lot.

One major disadvantage this challenge DOES have, though, is predictability. Last episode did a FANTASTIC job of giving us strategy from all sides, meaning anyone could lose. This time, the only real strategy development came from Chan Loh, pretty much guaranteeing that they’re going to Tribal Council this time.

At first, the challenge seems convinced that this is the case as well. Between Chan Loh being slightly behind Gondol and To Tang from the outset, and Debbie further cementing her “crazy” status by cheering like a madman from the sidelines awkwardly. Gondol manages to keep their lead, but a fumble by To Tang puts Chan Loh back in it at the untying portion of the challenge. It’s a very close race, but after Gondol takes first place, some sharp shooting by Peter sends To Tang back to Tribal Council again. Ok, points for unpredictability, show, but we got the LEAST from To Tang strategy wise this episode. Perhaps you’re setting stuff up for later, and I’m certainly not saying that what we got pre-challenge was BAD, but it feels like none of it mattered, and now you have to cram in all that strategizing after the challenge.

Yeah, I know that there may simply not have been much strategizing to show at To Tang, but these editors are clever. I’m sure they could come up with something.

As we leave the challenge, Jason complains about how they’re set to be the worst tribe in “Survivor” History. Ah, that old and tried hyperbole. Don’t worry Jason, you’ve still got two episodes to go before you hit Matsing levels.

Back at To Tang camp we get, what else, more complaining about Alecia from Jason and Scot. Ok, I’ve reached my boiling point on this. Again, I’m no fan of Alecia’s but these guys just keep making the same points over and over again, and some of them don’t even make sense! I mean “Alecia doesn’t pull her weight around camp?” She made the fire!

(The door to Matt’s house breaks down)

MATT: What the… wait why am I surprised by this any more? It’ll be Jason this time won’t it?

(Enter Jason)

JASON: Well, technically, I made the fire, you know. So yeah, she’s not pulling her weight.

MATT: Overall, yes, Alecia could be doing more. But YOU did not make the fire. You showed up in the last five minutes to lend a hand. Effectively, you kill-stole a fire.

JASON: That’s my bounty-hunter skills, man!

MATT: Look, bounty-hunter skills or not, you’re just plain being rude. We get it. You’ve got an alliance. Alecia’s not a part of it. Stop driving that point into the ground.

JASON: What else is there to talk about?

MATT: Oh, I don’t know, ANYTHING else?

JASON: Ok, well then, let’s hear some more about my sunburn.

(Matt exits in a hurry).

Well, after that interruption, we get confirmation of what I said all along: that To Tang would be the no-nonsense tribe. Sure, they got an alliance together, but there’s a LOT of pressure from each other to stick with it, and very little tolerance for lying. Alecia provides the best evidence for that. When asked by Jennifer “What’s the best thing to do on ‘Survivor’?”, Alecia’s initial answer is “Be honest.” Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I doubt someone so shadily hiding whether or not they have the idol (as we saw last episode) would say that honesty is best on “Survivor”. Unlike Debbie and Joe, Alecia is adapting to her situation. Scheming won’t work on To Tang, so she’s changing up her perception.

Scheming, however, may be the order of the day. Further being ruled by her emotions, Jennifer is not happy about voting Alecia off. Like me, she’s both impressed at her determination, and fed up with the guys attitude towards her. With Darnell gone, the women have a majority, and conspire to vote off Jason. Actually, not a bad plan for any of them. At the moment, it’s pretty clear that Scot and Jason have all the power on this team. Those two are most likely sticking together. True, they’re easily the two strongest people left on the team, but the strength part of challenges really hasn’t been their problem, and now’s pretty much the last chance until a swap for anyone else to seize power. Yeah, you might lose some more, but again, tribe swap. Anything can happen.

Despite stumbling onto a good strategy, Jennifer starts to have third thoughts after talking with Scot. While she wasn’t happy with either of the boy’s attitudes towards Alecia, she was more angry at Jason (hence his being the target), and thinks that perhaps risking offending Scot isn’t such a good idea. She floats this to Cydney, who at this point is just fed up with all the flip-flopping.

Well, for the short time-frame given, we’ve got some good misdirection heading into Tribal Council. And oh boy, what a Tribal Council it is!

Probst wastes no time in jumping on the strategy of voting, noting that Alecia, as the other vote-getter from last time, is the obvious choice. On the other hand, he floats the possibility of a women’s alliance straight to Jennifer, further lending credence to the idea that Probst has some knowledge of what happens at camp. Now, Jennifer could play this off with a coy half-truth, hinting at what she wants to do without drawing suspicion anymore. For the sake of drama, she doesn’t. Instead, she admits that she’s up in the air, not sure of how she wants to vote. Since she told Jason and Scot that she was firmly in the “Vote for Alecia” camp, this causes some FANTASTIC fireworks! Suddenly, nobody knows where they stand, and they start to scramble. To her credit, Jennifer does try and talk her way out of it, mainly by lying through her teeth. She claims that the women’s alliance was all Alecia’s idea, despite this not being the case, as it’s the only way to get the cloud of suspicion off of her. Alecia, though, also capitalizes on this opportunity, denying Jennifer’s lies and trying to cast aspersions of disloyalty. Jennifer counters with a plea for strength in the tribe, saying she’s always stood behind that value. The tribe, however, remains unconvinced. Scot in particular says she needs to make him trust her again. Jennifer somehow accomplishes this by standing up on her seat. Not sure what good that does, but it looks cool. Also, since we don’t have enough classic “Survivor” comparisons, the mistrust and pleading from Jennifer reminds me of the situation Ami was in for her boot episode on “Survivor Micronesia”.

The votes are in, and in another parallel to the aforementioned Ami situation, Jennifer’s pleas fall on deaf ears. She managed to convince Scot, but as he himself admits, he’s not known for being smart. She goes home, and while I did find her likable and will miss her, I think that was the right decision. She was just too volatile for this tribe, and wasn’t particularly necessary. Still, when she wasn’t being overly emotional, she had some game, and I’ve definitely got a soft spot for her. Credit also to To Tang as a whole: While they do value honesty and sticking to the plan (further evidence why Jennifer needed to be voted off: she didn’t follow that), they are, at least willing to change it up at Tribal Council. Not only is that a smart way to play, but it makes for a more interesting game.

This episode was still really good, but mostly for the back half. Not that the stuff we got pre-challenge was bad, but since we spent the least substantive time with the tribe going to Tribal Council, it felt a bit pointless, especially when last episode did such a good job of balancing good screentime for every tribe. Still, what an exciting back half, man! Say what you will about To Tang, they do make for a fun Tribal Council. Since I suspect they’ll be going to a lot more of them in future, look forward to more excitement next week!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs

“Survivor” Retrospectives: Micronesia

Ok folks, I know we’ve had some hard times. We’ve slogged through the horror that is “Survivor Fiji”. We lasted through the average likeability of “Survivor China”. Yes, either the season or the blog about it was bad, but this makes it all worth it. This is Micronesia, and this is where things really get good.
Before we delve into why, however, I would just like to once again put out there that this review of the season will contain spoilers. Those who do not wish to have the events of the season spoiled for them may scroll to the bottom of the page and find the “Abstract” section. There, I will have a brief broader and spoiler-free look at the season, which will tell people at a glance how watchable this season is. Now that that bit of business is taken care of, let us begin!

CAST
As with many seasons, this is Micronesia’s main selling point. Nearly all of the returnees made their mark, as would be expected. Old favorites like Yau-Man Chan, James Clement, Cirie Fields, and Oscar “Ozzy” Lusth remained popular, and those favorites who weren’t as popular gained new life. Notably, eventual winner Parvati Shallow, who sort of filled the “Amber Brkich” (“Survivor The Australian Outback”) slot, was not well-remembered, though not outright disliked. After this season, she gained her reputation as a master-strategist, and looking back, she does kind of deserve it. While her main skill is simply playing the flirt card a lot, the woman can pull together a good alliance, even across tribes, as this season showed. Even Jonny Fairplay, back from “Survivor Pearl Islands”, made a mark despite leaving first. He chose to get voted out at the first Tribal Council, claiming that he missed his wife and impending baby too much, though the general consensus (with which I agree), is that Fairplay was simply trolling the production, and that he did. Still, for what it’s worth, it was nice to see him get voted out so soon, and his jabs at Probst actually were somewhat funny. In retrospect, Amanda Kimmel was actually somewhat bland as well, but again, at the time she was a great action girl, and she hadn’t worn out her welcome by this point. Eliza Orlins, back from “Survivor Vanuatu”, made much more of an impact this time around for her great jury expressions, and Jonathan Penner’s return from “Survivor Cook Islands” gave everyone a new appreciation for his wit and strategy, even if his game did crash and burn. Really, the only favorite who could be considered a “flop” for the season might be Eliza’s ally from “Survivor Vanuatu”, Ami Cusack, and that’s because she wasn’t a driving force this time around. I’ve always personally had a soft spot for Ami (my dog is named after her), and so I give her a pass, and call this a great group of returnees.
Not to say that the new players were slacking, by any means. No, the new players are almost as well-remembered as the returnees, just not always in as positive a way. The three biggest characters given by the new players were Kathy Sleckman, Chet Welch, and Erik Reichenbach, none of whom are particularly remembered for positive traits. Kathy is often dubbed one of the more clueless contestants ever, and is most remembered for a tearful, if justified (they’d just had a day-long rainstorm) quit, Chet is remembered for being pathetic at all things challenge-related, and Erik is remembered for an event that will be covered in the twist section. Also remembered (though less so than these three) for equally negative reasons is Joel Anderson. A hulk of a man, Joel the firefighter had a distinctive voice, and a very derisive attitude towards his fellow contestants that made him come off as mean. He’s particularly remembered for an incident where during a challenge in which he was chained to Chet, he unapologetically dragged Chet THROUGH several obstacles, and upon losing, was unsympathetic towards Chet’s pain. Still, due to his voice he got in a few good one-liners (“The tribe picked Chet. Over me.” is a personal favorite), and I think he had a softer side that didn’t really come out, so I think I look more positively on Joel than others do.
All this is not to say, of course, that all new players are remembered negatively. Indeed, a lot of them are now thought of as some of the greatest strategists on the show. Alexis Jones was a favorite at the time, and is still considered an all-around good player and nice woman. Tracy Hughes-Wolfe, despite not doing too well in the standings, made the most of a bad situation and was still considered to be pretty damn good at strategy. And, while I at least didn’t appreciate her at the time, Natalie Bolton made several major contributions to the winning alliance, lasted the longest of the new players, and definitely needs more respect.
Sadly, the new players weren’t quite the home-run that the returnees were. Michael “Mikey B” Bortone didn’t have much of an impact, Mary Sartain was almost non-existent, and while Jason Siska was a perfectly nice guy, he’s really only remembered for being in over his head, and for playing what has to be the most pathetic fake hidden immunity idol in the history of the show (literally just a stick with a face on it).
So yeah, this cast might have been slightly skewed towards the returnees, but even then, the new players still had a pretty big impact, and nearly all managed to shine through in adversity. This cast is a lot of what I love about this season.

Score: 9 out of 10.

CHALLENGES
Ironically, the challenges are probably the worst aspect of this season. Not to say they’re bad by any stretch, they’re actually quite good. The problem is that the other categories are just so good that this one pales in comparison. I’ll mention here that the season returned to Palau, but this time the theme was more about the native culture than World War two, and it showed. I remember a lot of fish and stones when I think of the challenges this season, but they found good ways to use them. Likewise, the challenges themselves were not epic in scale, but still pretty big, very clever, very tough, and just felt right for the season. The few issues come mainly after the merge. Once again, the scale seemed to drop somewhat right after the merge. It picked up again at the final 7 or so, but there were a few episodes where the challenges just weren’t memorable for me. On top of this, there was the issue of some reused challenges. Granted, innovative challenges dominate the season, and the reused ones felt appropriate, but it’s still a downgrade. With that said, I still enjoy nearly every challenge from this season, and while it’s the weakest category, that’s out of very strong categories.

Score: 8 out of 10.

TWISTS
The season’s other strong point, as I’ll discuss in the “Overall” section. Standing on its own, though, the twists hold up surprisingly well. The overarching theme of the season was “Fans vs. Favorites”. Given that this season was divisible by 8, it was time for another “All-Stars” season by the unofficial schedule. However, in a brilliant move, CBS decided to only cast 10 returnees, and instead pick 10 “superfans” to play on this season, thereby changing up the game from what we expected, and also reaping the viewership bump of an “All-Stars” season with the originality of a new cast season. Quite a good twist, and one that would come up a lot even after fans and favorites were not on opposing tribes. Exile Island also came back, but this time with the twist that two people had to be sent each time, the winning tribe picking both. I quite like this, as it honored the past but still changed things up, and after only 3 straight seasons of it, Exile Island was starting to seem a staple of the show.
After finding out (in the middle of a torrential downpour) who they would be playing against, Probst sent everyone on a cross-ocean swim to find outriggers. Probst also said that there was an immunity idol for each tribe, good only for their first Tribal Council, hidden on that other island. Cleverly, the idol was actually attached to the outrigger, but in such a way that it was not obvious on approach. This was a great idea that led to a hilarious scramble, culminating in Yau-Man bashing Fairplay’s head into the outrigger accidentally in an attempt to get the idol. Yau-Man suddenly jumps up in my estimation.
Fairplay’s sabotage makes for something of a twist, and we’re introduced to the next in the second episode, in the form of our first blindside. Rather than vote out Chet, the fans (particularly Joel) decided to take out a threatening alliance started by Mikey B., by targeting his closest ally, Mary. This would set up how unpredictable this season would be.
Not to say that the favorites didn’t have their share of the treachery. Following Fairplay’s exit, there were two main groups of four: Jonathan, Ami, Eliza, and Yau-Man against the couple’s alliance of James, Parvati, Amanda, and Ozzy, leaving Cirie caught in the middle. After gaining a promise of final three with Parvati and Amanda, Cirie split from Jonathan’s group (which made Jonathan quite angry), and voted out Yau-Man, out of fear that Yau-Man would easily find the idol. In hindsight I can appreciate the strategy (even if I don’t agree with it), but at the time I was upset, due to not liking Cirie and liking Jonathan. Still, it kept me on my toes, and gave us the one good Cirie line ever: The term “Ozzlets” for children of Ozzy.
Ozzy found the immunity idol in episode four, and subsequently made the fake Idol Jason would play later (or more accurately, have Eliza play later), and like I said, it was pretty pathetic. A stick with a smiley face. HOW did Jason think this was an idol? Still, it was hilarious for it.
Episode 5 brought us a tribe swap, and it led to Joel’s surprising ouster, once again, keeping us guessing for the season. Episode 6 gave us the first of three non-conventional exits with Jonathan Penner’s knee getting too badly infected to continue. James would go the same way post-merge (though admittedly, there the infection was in his finger), and Kathy would quit shortly after Jonathan left, due simply to fatigue. While I’m normally not a fan of such exits, the sheer number hit such an improbability point that they became interesting, and helped to make the season unique.
Slowly the fans on the new Malakal tribe were taken off, but just before the merge we got thetwist of Ami being voted off, due to Erik’s relationship with Ozzy, and him throwing Ami under the bus. Again, always good to be unsure of how things will go down, and it made the favorites seem less dominant than before.
Post-merge, Eliza played the fake idol, but in so doing outed Ozzy as having the real idol. This led to what is, perhaps the greatest series of Tribal Councils in the history of the show. First, Ozzy is blindsided with the idol. Then, Jason got the idol, and was also blindsided. At this point, it was very clear that there was a woman’s alliance going on. James left at this point, but then Erik won immunity, forcing the women to eat each other. However, in yet ANOTHER twist, Amanda found the idol, actually PLAYED it, and got Alexis sent home.
Then, the crown jewel. The thing that Erik is so remembered for. After winning immunity at the final five, the women convinced him to give up immunity! It’s so crazy I almost can’t believe I just typed it. It’s completely stupid. What Erik was thinking, I can’t possibly know. Rule 1 of “Survivor”: You DO NOT give up immunity! EVER! Still, the very fact that I rave about it makes it a good twist, and it also led to the first ever successful women’s alliance. Score.
What more can I say? Every twist hit home, and this was one of the most unpredictable seasons ever.

Score: 10 out of 10.

OVERALL

This season managed to overcome the problem of “Generic South Pacific Island” and seemed to have a flavor all it’s own. Not one episode was weak, and it helped that each individual element was strong. If the cast was slacking, there was some sort of twist. If neither, there was an impressible challenge to watch. Everything had great synergy, and I just love it to death.

Score: 37 out of 40.

ABSTRACT
While Micronesia is not a season I would recommend starting on as it builds from a lot of previous seasons, it’s still one of the best ever. Every element is strong, and I recommend checking it out, whoever you are.

“Survivor” Retrospectives: Vanuatu

Well, following “Survivor All-Stars”, the show seemed to be on a streak.  “Survivor The Amazon” and “Survivor Pearl Islands” were both very well received, and “Survivor All-Stars”, while not the greatest season ever, was very much a tribute to the past, and so was still pretty well liked.  But going into the 9th season (Vanuatu), the big question was “How do you top returning castaways?”  The short answer is that you can’t, but unfortunately, it is part of what led to Vanuatu being seen as a poor season overall.  However, is it really deserved, or was it just bad timing?  Does the season whose best review calls it “forgettable” really fall at the bottom of the barrel?  Read on and find out.

First, though, a quick reminder that this review does contain spoilers. If you just want an opinion on how watchable the season is, scroll down to the bottom of the page, where I will have an “Abstract” section that will answer this question, while only talking about this season in the broadest of strokes.  But let’s waste no more time, and plunge into the review.

CAST

In my cast preview for “Survivor One World”, I listed off 4 types of seasons, and cited Vanuatu as an example of a strategy-dominated season.  You can read my full description of the implications in my blog, the link for which I have provided (

https://idolspeculation.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/idol-speculation-survivor-one-world-cast-assessment/), but suffice to say that seasons dominated by strategists usually are not received well, and that’s certainly true of this season.  A boring cast is one of the things most often cited as why Vanuatu was a bad season.  Here, though, I have to disagree.  While I do admit that Vanuatu had fewer “characters” than previous seasons, it was also one of the few seasons where nearly everybody was good at playing the game, and almost nobody shirked away from strategy.  The few exceptions (such as Dolly Neely) were quickly disposed of, leaving us with an intriguing, unpredictable game.  Seriously, looking at the season as a whole, without knowing the outcome, would you guess that Chris Daugherty would walk away with the million?  The man lost the first immunity challenge for his tribe, and was the last man standing against a strong, six woman alliance that had systematically picked off his allies!  I wouldn’t have given him any odds to win, and yet he did.  While I won’t go into much detail on the others, you certainly can’t deny that everyone who made the merge, at least, went in for strategic thinking with few qualms.  This, to my mind, made the season very intriguing.

Another major criticism of the season, which goes along with it having fewer characters, is that there were no villains to hate.  You couldn’t root against anybody, couldn’t hunger to see someone gloriously voted off, because, even when being strategic, these people were nice, or else working out of desparation.  Chris might have been good villain material, and he certainly had the one-liners for it, but having a villain win was considered bad P.R.  This led to Ami Cusack (who my dog is named after) being classed as a viallian, which, to a degree, she deserved.  I’m sorry, Eliza Orlins, but Ami snuffing out Travis “Bubba” Sampson’s and Lisa Keiffer’s torches after only the slightest HINT that they might vote you off, counts as villainous.  Does this mean that she’s a bad person?  No, none of the contestants are, they just played strategically.  A lot of people don’t like the moral conflict, being unable to outright hate someone, but I personally find it fascinating.  Pushing the limits of morals, seeing the duality of people’s personalities and actions, for me, that’s a thrill ride, and a big part of what I like about this cast.

While I will admit that this season did not have the biggest characters, I also wouldn’t say that it didn’t have ANY characters, it’s just that they’re not talked aobut very much.  Lea “Sarge” Masters is the prime example, portraying the stereotype of the drill sergeant, barking orders around his tribe, and getting fed up with more lackluster members like Rory Freeman.  Also a character was Twila Tanner, who portrayed the southern, hard working, no nonsense mom to the point where it cost her a million dollars. The problem was that these people were strategists as well as characters, and even then weren’t the most extreme characters ever, they still had some of the characteristics.  Two other people I should note, even though they aren’t “characters” are Chad Crittenden and Julie Berry, the former being the first contestant with a prosthesis (which, in a sense, is all he is remembered for, as he had the approximate personality of white bread), and the latter dating Jeff Probst for a significant period of time.  Both were ok strategists, who weren’t the greatest characters (although Julie’s attempt at nude sunbathing was a valiant effort), but got remembered for things unrelated to the game.

In short, I’ll say that what other’s see as weaknesses in this cast, I see as strengths.  A cast doesn’t need to be polarized characters to be exciting, and it was refreshing to see a majority of strategists at the merge.  It made for interesting psychology, and for my money, made this one of the better casts.

Score: 9 out of 10.

CHALLENGES

The best way I can describe the Vanuatu challenges is “meh”.  This is not to say they’re bad by any stretch of the imagination, oh no!  When they want to be awesome and epic, they take it to the extreme.  For instance, the Final 4 Immunity Challenge, a Vertical Maze, was truly exciting and new, making it one of my favorites (not quite top 5, just due to the number of amazing challenges, but easilly top 10).  The problem is that the inverse is also true: when the challenges aren’t amazing, they’re boring and forgettable.  Seriously, although the challenges aren’t awful or cringe-inducing, everything just seems toned-down and phoned in this season.  I think it was hindered by a few problems. First of all, the location is once again “Generic South Pacific Island”, so it didn’t have a distinctive culture to draw on.  Scratch that, it DID, but aside from a few Tamtams (and a hilarious incident with a pig that I’ll discuss in the “Twist” section), they didn’t do anyting with it, and this was the nation that invented BUNGEE JUMPING!  Seriously, you couldn’t come up with ANY good bungee jumping challenges?  The other big problem, though, is the main twist of the season, which I’ll here reveal is the return of the battle of the sexes.  As I mentioned in my review of “Survivor The Amazon”, when a season is “battle of the sexes”, you have to make the challenges fair for both men and women, which means generally toning down the intensity of the challenges.  This is fine, as long as you make the challenges interesting and clever, as they did in “Survivor The Amazon”.  However, the challenges in Vanuatu are simplistic and held back, which just doesn’t do it for me.  It did give us one staple challenge, which is to line tribe members on a balance beam, and have them navigate around each other, but this was the exent of it.  Again, the challenges aren’t bad, and when they’re good, they’re REALLY good, but for the most part, a weak season challenge-wise.

Score: 5 out of 10.

TWISTS

If people don’t complain about the cast of Vanuatu, the twist is usually their target, and with good reason.  As I mentioned before, the main twist of this season was a redo of “battle of the sexes”, which in and of itself was a good idea.  The problem is that it had been done not even two years ago, so it still seemed fresh in people’s minds, and it seemed like a cheap cop-out on twists.  Now, the show was no stranger to reusing twists (the tribe swap being a prime example), but this was the first time a main twist was completely rehashed, so again, it seemed like a cheap move on the part of CBS.  I would agree that reusing a twist so soon would be a bad idea, except for two reasons.  The first is that it was somewhat forced on the producers, rather than a concious decision to reuse the twist.  The DVD of Vanuatu (which I highly recommend) explains it better, but basically, the season’s opener (one of the best ever, I might add, with the natives attacking the boat, and a very violent welcome ritual) separated the men and the women, as part of the custom of the natives.  The trouble is that when this happens, people talk, and once people talk, you have to put them on the same tribe, to prevent pre-game alliances from forming.  The second reason I don’t mind a redo of the sexes is that the outcome was different.  I don’t mean just the ultimate winner (although that was a change between seasons), but just in how the tribes played things.  For one thing, while tribes did divide along age lines (so there were SOME similarities to the first battle of the sexes), this time the older group came out on top, as opposed to the younger group of “Survivor The Amazon”, which made for some interesting gameplay.  Also, this time, gender loyalties stuck beyond the merge. Bottom line, same twist, different game, makes it ok in my eyes.

Part of the battle of the sexes twist was the opening ritual, in particular one aspect.  The men were offered a chance to climb a tall pole greased with pig fat to retrieve a spiritual stone, rumored to bring good luck.  However, were they to fail, the women would get it.  Lots of superstition sprung up around the stone, so it made for good tv, and I’m glad it was in the game, and the challenge had a lot of potential as well, with lots of men falling flat on their faces in the offing.  The problem is that the man the natives picked to go first was an FBI agent, who scaled the thing on his first try, with almost no effort.  This really depleted the tension and the interest in the twist.

I suppose what could be considered the next “twist” was the “Fat Five” alliance of Chris, Chad, “Bubba”, “Sarge”, and Rory.  Not so much in that the alliance existed, that was old hat, but that it was the first time someone (Chris) failed so miserably in the first immunity challenge, completely costing the men victory, and lived to tell about it.

Our next twist is a first, one not brought on by contestants or by the producers, but by nature itself.  An earthquake shook the island, which was at least interesting to see.  It was followed by natives coming to each camp, asking for a leader.  “Sarge” was chosen for the men, and Scout Cloud Lee for the women.  They were then designated to change up the tribes, with a “One cuts and the other chooses” deal.  This was a fairly unique way to change up the tribes, and one that I rather enjoyed.

Coupled with this twist is another player-supplied one.  Rory, who along with “Bubba” had been exiled to the women’s tribe, at a 5-2 disadvantage, somehow made the merge, “Bubba” having gotten the axe for trying to signal the men’s tribe to throw the challenge.  The thing is, Rory was a throughly disagreeable individual.  Loud, abrasive, and prone to tantrums, virtually everyone wanted Rory off.  Given that he was the man who threatened to invoke the “slash, burn, and salt the earth” policy, this is hardly surprising.  Yet he showed remarkable amounts of cunning and resourcefulness and made it through, much to everyone’s amazement.

One minor twist came a few days after the merge.  At tree mail, rather than a challenge, a pig showed up, leading to hilarity and intrigue.  No one knew what the pig was for, only that he could not be eaten, much to the dismay of “Sarge” and Twila.  It was also funny trying to see Eliza haul in an entire pig by herself.  So, a lot of fun and mystery with this twist.  The one drawback was that it only lasted one episode, and the reveal was simply that it was a gift for a tribe that 4 people would visit for a reward, so a bit lackluster there.

The only other major twist to speak of has already been talked about, namely that Chris managed to survive 6 women who wanted his blood.  This, for me, rocks my socks, and makes up for all the so-so parts of the season.

So looking at the season, one can see why others don’t like it.  They reused a lot of twists, what few there were, and a lot of the twists were lackluster.  While I admit this isn’t the greatest season twist-wise, I think a lot of the twists were underrated, particularly Chris’ feat.  Also, a lot of the twists came from the people, which I liked, so I think this season is respectable on twists.

Score: 8 out of 10.

OVERALL

So I say there’s a lot to like about this season, so why is it so disliked?  A lot of it, I think, has to do with timing.  It came right after a run of really great seasons, not to mention the meta “Survivor All-Stars”, which would be hard to top in epicness without getting returning castaways.  This made an alright season seem less good by comparisson.  Also, the generic location worked against the season, hard though the producers tried to combat it.  This, plus the reused twists, make a lot of people neglect this season.  For my money, though, one thing saves it: the gameplay.  As I said, nearly everyone this season came to play, and it shows with some really great gameplay, not to mention a lot of unpredictability.  Bottom line, that’s enough for me, and I like this season a lot.  It’s not the strongest season ever, but there’s a lot of things to love.

Score: 30 out of 40.

ABSTRACT

Vanuatu is a great season to watch for any fan of good gameplay.  Nerely everyone brings their “A” game, and it shows, making for a delightful, unpredictable season.  While this is not the best season for those who like big characters, or those who love watching challenges, it is still a very good season, and well worth a watch.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor One World” Episode 14: Apo-Kim-Lypse Now!

Why are you wasting your time reading this blog?  It isn’t safe for you now!  Run!  Hide!  Take shelter somewhere!  Just get to a safe space, for the apocalypse is upon us!

Oh, what, you don’t believe me?  You take me for one of those crackpots spouting inanities on the internet?  Well, ok, I am, but in THIS case it’s true!  I have incontrovertible proof!  I picked a winner on “Survivor”.

This just does not happen.  In 24 seasons, I have not been able to pick a winner right from the outset.  Me picking you is a curse.  If I think you’ll do well in the game, if I even LIKE you, you should steel yourself, because you ain’t winning this game.

And yet, Kim won.  Whodathunkit?

Actually, the buildup to it is rather boring, and I can say it’s one of the few finales where nothing really happened.  But before we go into detail on Kim’s path to victory, it’s time for another…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

I suppose only two out of the whole season isn’t bad, but each of these is a two-parter.  First off, I didn’t make light of TarZAN’s exit poetry.  My God, is it awful.  I never thought I’d miss Coach poetry, but it at least used imagery and wasn’t ungodly lame!

Second of all, I failed to mention (although Probst didn’t, he’s stealing my limelight) that this is a “Survivor” first: a unisex final 5.  Pretty impressive feat, especially since all previous “battle of the sexes” seasons before seemed to end with one man and one woman apiece in the finals.  Go Salani!  Now, onto the episode.

Overdramatic Probst narration is the order of the day!  It takes 5 minutes, and boils down to “The boys suck.  The girls rule.”  Would that really have been so hard to say, or can you just not say “suck” on primetime tv anymore?

So then we head back to camp, where… Oh, HI INTRO!  Fashionably late once again, I see!  So fashionably late that you missed the ENTIRE SEASON.  Well, I suppose it’s nice to hear the full intro finally, but it’s just so unmemorable!  Actually, that’s been a flaw of previous seasons.  With seasons 1-20, I could identify a season purely by theme song.  Now, they’re just so generic and unmemorable (not to mention the fact that they NEVER AIR ANYMORE) that there’s no way I could!  Hell, “Survivor Nicaragua” didn’t even GET it’s own original aired even partly.  You go to the trouble of thanking Russ Landau every single reunion show, and you don’t even let him show off his skill?  For shame, CBS.

So we head back to camp where, once again, the girls are celebrating their victory.  Nothing special.  The next morning does produce something interesting, though.  As Sabrina and Kim come back from collecting tree mail, Kim broaches the idea of voting Chelsea off, as Chelsea could potentially beat both of them, whereas someone like Christina is no threat.  This is a good strategy for both of them, Kim in particular, but Sabrina seems to be a little reluctant to go along with it, feeling a sense of loyalty to her alliance.  In private, though, she expresses her real fear: she’s just a step below Chelsea on the likeability scale, as compared to Alicia and Christina.  What happens if Chelsea wins immunity?  Is Sabrina next?  The correct answer is “yes” Sabrina, and you should probably do something about it!  It’s really simple.  All you do is go to Alicia and Christina and say “Hey, Kim’s playing both sides of the fence, and she might take any of us out, plus she’s really likeable.  Let’s eliminate the luck factor and take out Kim!”  Does she do this?  No.  Wave goodbye to Sabrina’s chances of winning, everyone.

Challenge time, mark 1!  I have to admit, “Survivor” has been on a roll these last few episodes, as this immunity challenge is my favorite of the season!  True, it takes elements from various other seasons (notably the maze from “Survivor Gabon” and the wall/combination lock from “Survivor Exile Island”), it just all combines into epicness!  It starts off with tribe members having to untie a board that is holding a gate closed.  From there, they progress to a balance beam maze.  Once across, they must untie bags of puzzle pieces from a trampoline, before solving your standard tile puzzle.  Once solved, this puzzle will give 3 clues as to the numbers that will open a combination lock, which, when opened, grants the winner immunity.  This challenge is both challenging and exciting to watch, as it’s very big, very physical, but has enough mental in it (note the hilarity when Alicia forgot her color bag of pieces) to keep it interesting for all.

A close race, with a lot of back and forth, leaves Kim the winner, so I guess it doesn’t matter that Sabrina didn’t act on her moment of clarity.  Regardless, this leads to boring pre-tribal buildup, where we see, yet again, that Kim is playing both sides of the fence.  How is this a revelation to anyone anymore?

Still, there is one good moment.  Chelsea, realizing that Kim might be having second thoughts, talks to Kim about why she should stay in.  Amazingly, rather than go the ethical route, and say that she’s been loyal the whole time.  Chelsea figures out that the reason Kim might want her gone is out of fear that Chelsea would be popular with the jury than Kim.  This is logical thinking, and Chelsea makes the logical choice given the situation.  She tries to convince Kim that she’s no threat at the jury stage!  And it works!  Ok, I know I’ve ragged on Chelsea a lot this season, but I now officially give her the ok to win the season.  This was a brilliant move on her part, particularly given that it worked.  Sure, we find out later that Chelsea was correct, and that the jury hated her, but at the time, I thought she was a legitimate threat to win.

Tribal time!  And, of course, everyone except Kim goes in thinking they know who’s going.  Probst questions them on this, but frankly it’s just boring pleading.  Aside from getting to see TarZAN on the jury (now with “Hulk Hogan” style moustache), there’s not much to talk about.  Suffice to say that Kim, once again, votes out the wrong person.  I know you had an alliance with Chelsea, and I know the she had you convinced that she couldn’t win, but come on, you really thought ALICIA was the bigger threat?  Alicia is pretty well despised, I’d keep her around until the end, myself.

I particularly enjoy Alicia’s final words, in that they’re just trashing every single contestant left.  I especially like how Alicia claims that everyone ELSE wanted Christina gone, and it was HER that carried her through, when it was Alicia herself who instigated the “Christina should go.” plan, and even verbally abused Christina along with Colton.  Of course, by “enjoy” and “like”, I mean “despise” and “hate”.

Morning of day 38, and Christina has no bones about where she sits in the tribe.  Her ally was voted out, and it seems likely that she’ll go next, which seems odd to me.  Christina, are you really so out of the loop that you don’t realize that EVERYONE wants to go to the finals with you?  You’re a non-entity in that equation!  Regardless, Christina swears to try her hardest in the final challenge, as she comes back from tree mail.

Challenge… wait, this isn’t a challenge!  This is the “Fallen Comrades” tribute!  But I thought they nixed this as of “Survivor Redemption Island” (and for that matter, good that they did it for that season, as it was very mean spirited, if you find it on youtube).  Well, it seems to be back, and I couldn’t be happier!  This tribute gives an air of closing to the whole season, and it makes a much better retrospective than the recap, as we actually get to hear what the others think of their fellow castaways.  This was a fairly standard tribute, but nice overall.  I particularly like the music for this one.  True, it isn’t classic “Fallen Comrades” music, but it’s still enjoyable in its own way.

Challenge Time!  For real this time!  And, go figure, it’s not an endurance challenge, though it is a fairly interesting one.  Using a long pole, tribe members maneuver small pots to the top of a wire maze, where they must ultimately stack all 10 pots to win.  I won’t deny that this challenge is challenging and interesting visually, and it’s hardly the worst of the lot (no Top 5 and Bottom 5 final immunity challenges this time, folks), but it’s just not the same as a good, old-fashioned endurance challenge.

Kim wins again, though Christina gave it a close race.  And that’s ALL that’s going to be close, as Christina gives up at this point, telling Kim that she just wants to enjoy the rest of the day.

Ok, THIS is what’s wrong with “Survivor”, these days.  PEOPLE DON’T TRY!  It’s like they don’t care about their fate in the game!  I mean, sure, Christina, it seems like the writing’s on the wall, but at least TRY.  Miracles do happen!  Even Probst can’t believe that Christina didn’t try anything.

Not this time, however, as Kim cements the “I’m not going to take the easy victory to the finals” strategy, and votes off Christina.

Day 39 we’ll skip over, as nothing happens except that each of the 3 women talk about their personal trials and tribulations, then head off to final tribal council.

Probst gives the formal introductions, then asks for opening statement.  Before Chelsea even gives her statement, you can see exactly how she played the game.  “Well, gosh, gee Jeff, would it be alright if I stood up, I mean if it’s ok with you…”  Chelsea never really took to the game itself, she let other people make the decisions, and tried not to step on anybody’s toes.  Kim makes the argument of “I played the game, and I’m sorry if that offended any of you”, while Sabrina goes for the personal relationship gambit.  At this point, it’s up in the air, although hearing what Chelsea said, I retract my statement that she COULD win in the finals.

Time for the jury to ask questions.  Jonas is up first, starting with a shtick about how he’d like to be addressed as “Master Jonas”, which is so cheesy that even he couldn’t take it seriously.  It’s a bit of a shame, as I’d have liked to have seen how going along with that would have panned out.  He then proceeds to basically recap everyone’s opening statements before handing the floor over to Christina.  Christina hit’s a little harder, speaking only to Kim and asking who Kim would have voted out if Christina had been taken to the finals.  Kim answers Chelsea, which seems hones.  We move to Jay, who asks a fairly soft question that I honestly can’t remember.  It was just that boring.  Mike comes up next, again addressing Kim, asking if she thought she had perfected the blindside.  Kim gets clever here, as she never directly answers Mike’s question, but merely philosophizes on blindsides.  Mike tells her that she did NOT perfect it, as she let herself take the blame, and now she’d have to see whether the jury forgave her for that or not.  Leif is up next, asking each in turn how it was that his vote off went down.  Each give him a sappy answer, so I’d say his vote is up in the air.  Up next, it’s TarZAN, who’s really just there to kiss up to the women for letting him stay long enough to see his wife.  Moving right along, we get Alicia, who also doesn’t really ask questions, but prefers to spend her time ranting about how good SHE was at the game.  Troyzan then gets his moment in the sun, asking Kim when she decided to end his game, but does not tell us if her answer is correct or not (since he later votes for Sabrina, I’m assuming not).  Finally, Kat gets up, and I’m looking forward to this, as Kat is probably the most bitter juror left, and is bound to give us a enjoyable, hate-filled speech!  We get… her crying, being wishy-washy, and ultimately trusting Kim.  AGAIN.

Votes are cast, Probst does a lame transition, and Kim is declared the winner.  Few surprises there.  The segments of the reunion show (in which Probst goes into the audience far too much.  I guess this season’s castaways were just too boring to merit talking to) go as follows: Segment 1: Why Kim is awesome.  Segment 2: Let’s remind everyone of how much of an ASSHOLE COLTON is (for the record, I disagree with the audience assessment.  Colton IS just like Russell Hantz of “Survivor Samoa”: Both are bigoted, egotistical jerks who think they’re a lot smarter than everyone else.  Russell’s gameplay is maybe slightly better but that’s it.)  Segment 3: Let’s remind everyone of how many crazy people were on this show.  Segment 4: Let’s get to everyone that nobody remembers, give out the Sprint award (which Kim deservedly got), and tease people up for next season.

Hopefully, it’ll be better than this one!  While this isn’t the worst season, and did allow us to showcase the talent of, I’d argue, one of the best all-time “Survivor” players, on the whole it was mean spirited and ill thought out.  The twists had potential, both the one world idea and the “Do-it-yourself challenges”, but both were underutilized, and the season fell flat for it.  All in all, not the worst season ever (that honor still belongs to “Survivor Fiji”), but I won’t be seeking it out anytime soon.

Here’s the part where I judge my pre-game assessment of this season’s cast, starting with…

Nina Acosta- Pretty wrong on this one.  I think I got her personality right, but her physical abilities and time in the game I overestimated.

Jay Byars- Wrong.  Much more conniving than I gave him credit for.

Christina Cha- Sort of a flip-flop from Nina.  I was right about her time in the game and physical abilities, but wrong about her intelligence.  It just wasn’t there where I thought it was.

Monica Culpepper- I’ll go out on a limb and say that, overall, I was right, though she was tougher than I gave her credit for.

Colton Cumbie- Dead right.  Enough said.

Kat Edorsson- Right on personality, wrong on time lasted.  I didn’t think she’d be such an easy vote, that she’d think with her heart.  Which, admittedly, she did, but more in the “I won’t vote off people I like” sense than the “I won’t make alliances” sense.

Michael Jefferson- Completely, utterly right for once.  Golden Boy who got blindsided for his strength.

Leif Manson- Wrong.  Much more game savvy, and much less of a liability than I initially thought.

Chelsea Meissner- Once again, right on personality, wrong on game time.

Kourtney Moon- Right, unfortunately.  The only thing I couldn’t predict was her manner of leaving, which you can’t honestly expect me to predict just from bios.

Jonas Otsuji- Much more game savvy and much less annoying that I thought he’d be, and I’m very happy to be wrong in this case.

Bill Posley- Wrong, but only because I couldn’t predict for Colton’s hatred.

Matt Quinlan- Dead wrong.  Again, I was grasping at straws to find a potential guy winner, but MAN did I overestimate him.

Alicia Rosa- Didn’t predict her abrasiveness, but otherwise I was right.

Troy Robertson- Not as crazy as I thought, but still right overall.

Greg Smith- Wrong.  What was I on, to say that he’d have no impact.

Sabrina Thompson- Wrong, she was much more laid back than I gave her credit for.  I though she’d be out early, but she nearly won it all.  Leaving us with…

Kim Spradlin- Dead right!  I finally picked one, guys.  In fact, I’m so happy that I think this season deserves one last…

TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5

This time, it’s winners, and you can guess which side Kim is on.  Now, I’m going to be judging “best” winners, based on people I think actually earned it.  This does not mean that I’m going to exclude coattail riders from the top 5.  These are just the people I feel knew what they had to do to win, and seized it.  So, we’ll start off with…

Top 5

5. Richard Hatch (“Survivor Borneo”): Ah, the eponymous scumbag.  Well, since he’s the one who INVENTED the alliance on “Survivor”, and is the baseline for other strategic masterminds, I kind of have to include him on this list.  He gets such a low ranking only because I wonder how he’d do nowadays, as the game has evolved so much since he left.  I think “Survivor All-Stars” is a good indication that he might not do so well.  Still, he worked for his win, and it must be acknowledged.

4. Parvati Shallow (“Survivor Micronesia”): In case it isn’t clear, for people appearing on multiple seasons, I’m listing the first season they WON.  Now, I’m not a huge fan of Parvati, but dammit, she WORKED for it, even managing to play Russell Hantz, not to mention being good with immunity idols and escaping the vote several times.  Yeah, she did it with a lot of flirt, but, again, I’m not here to judge the moral nature of strategies, only their effectiveness.

3. Kim Spradlin (“Survivor One World”): I’ve sung her praises so much over the season that I barely need to her.  Kim played her ass off, dominated the entire game, and had everyone eating out of her hand when they blatantly knew that she was playing them.  That takes skill, and earns Kim a spot on this list.

2. Chris Daugherty (“Survivor Vanuatu”): Do I have to spell this one out?  The man earned his way back from the brink several times!  He should have been first out for flubbing a challenge!  He should have fallen to the women’s alliance!  And this is the guy who WON?  Tell me he didn’t earn it, I dare you.

1. Sandra Diaz-Twine (“Survivor Pearl Islands”): I will maintain, probably forever, that Sandra is the greatest “Survivor” player ever.  She’s useless in challenges, she can be very grating, and yet she’s the only repeat contestant with a 2-0 victory ratio.  I think the facts speak for themselves.  Sandra EARNED her two titles.

Honorable Mention: Boston Rob Mariano (“Survivor Redemption Island”): Now you may ask, “Why isn’t he on the list proper?  He played basically the same game as Kim.”  Well, first off, I HOPE he’d be able to play as good a game as Kim after 4 TRIES.  Seriously, it was basically “Survivor We’ll Keep Having Boston Rob On Until He Wins”.  Also, whereas Kim actually had to work for her control of the tribe, I feel Rob was handed it via his celebrity status.  Still, despite all this, he did play a good game that at least deserves a mention.

Bottom 5

5. Aras Baskauskas (“Survivor Exile Island”): Not that Aras didn’t do anything, but even members of his own tribe wanted him gone.  He was good at keeping the peace, but not so much at playing conniver.  Even he admits that he won basically because Terry (also “Survivor Exile Island”) kept winning individual immunity, thus preventing Terry from using the hidden immunity idol and voting Aras out.  Admittedly, he did HELP form the alliance, so he’s hardly the WORST winner out there, but there was still a lot of unintentional victory on Aras’ end.

4. Earl Cole (“Survivor Fiji”): Earl did have a good idea in taking two patsies to the end with him, but, I’m sorry Earl, WHAT DID YOU DO?  Your only accomplishments were being nice and getting sent to Exile Island a number of time.  Yau-Man (also “Survivor Fiji”) was the one driving everything, and Earl just used Yau-Man’s exit to vault himself to victory.

3. Jenna Morasca (“Survivor Amazon”): Bikini model who got by by winning immunity at the right times, and taking a patsy to the end with her.  Again, not that these aren’t legitimate strategies, but I do have somewhat less respect for the “win lots of immunites” strategy.  Too much luck involved, and Jenna, I think, would have been gone if not for this.

2. Jud “Fabio” Birza (“Survivor Nicaragua”): Like Jenna, only whereas Jenna’s playful naiveté I could see being a strategy, I think Fabio just stumbled into it by luck.  Still, he won a few immunities, which is more than I can say for…

1. Amber Brkich (“Survivor All-Stars”): I mean seriously, what did she do?  Jack squat, that’s what!  Don’t tell me that  she and Rob were equal partners, Rob was obviously calling the shots all the way.  I admit, riding coattails is a legitimate strategy, but still, in this case it was hugely risky.  The vote between the two was very close, and it could have easily backfired.  In short, I don’t think it was intentional but emotional, and therefore, Amber is the worst winner of all the seasons.

Honorable Mention: Natalie White (“Survivor Samoa”): The one whom a lot of people decry as the worst winner ever, for the same reasons I just gave about Amber, but I think it was less of a gamble for Natalie.  Russell was obviously being an asshole, and Natalie, I feel, consciously used it to her advantage.  Still, I can’t ignore the will of the people, and have to at least mention Natalie on the “worst” list.

So there you have it.  I hope you enjoyed this blog, and thank you all for sticking with me.  Be on the lookout in a few months when I post my cast assessment on the cast of “Survivor Philippines”!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor One World” Episode 13: Dare to be Stupid

Ah, the penultimate episode!  A time when everything can change!  A time when we find out the weak spots in alliances!  A time when, once again, every castaway has an excellent move placed in front of them, and all uniformly reject it.

Hello, and welcome once again to “Idol Speculation”.  We’re at the penultimate episode, and let me tell you, I can’t wait for the finale, but then again, a lot of that’s because I can’t wait for this season to be over, but there’s still some things to like.  Lets find out what they are…

We come back to Tikiano camp to find that the girls are uniformly trashing Kat.  Ok, I know I’m not one to talk about this, particularly given that I ripped Kat a new one during this blog, but this just seems cruel.  Kick her while she’s down, why don’t you?  Admittedly, Kat can’t hear them, so I suppose it’s all well and good, but it just seems pointless.  I mean, the woman was in your alliance for 33 days, have a little respect, you know.  Why bother trashing someone for no good reason?

Strangely, the one person who still seems to have their head in the game is TarZAN.  He goes on about his whole-game strategy.  He seems to have taken a leaf out of the book of Sandra Diaz-Twine (“Survivor Pearl Islands”) in that he does what it takes to make it to certain game milestones, even if it means voting out people he likes.  For all that I’ve trashed TarZAN, this IS a halfway decent strategy, good for him.  It gets even better when he first goes to Kim and tries to convince her that taking out Chelsea is a good bet for the finals, and what’s more, she seems to buy it.  Afterwards, when Alicia comes up, he manages to do the same thing with her!  Man, this is great stuff!  Where’s this TarZAN been the entire game?

Of course, TarZAN must them ramble on about his shocks again, thus restoring equilibrium.

Next up, we get a twist: a scene involving Christina in which she is NOT uniformly trashed by the entire cast!  Admittedly, it starts out with dream interpretation on the way to tree mail, but it does get better.  Chelsea, realizing that there’s a 3-3 split with herself, Kim, and Sabrina against TarZAN, Alicia, and Christina, tries to sway Christina over to her side.  Christina pays in kind by immediately telling the others about Chelsea’s scheming.  Now, I’m actually going to be nice to this episode, because, as I’ve said, I enjoyed it, but this just doesn’t make sense to me.  Christina, you’ve been trashed by every contestant here, have every reason to distrust every single one of them, and then you go and tell them every scheme you’re privy to.  No wonder you get so trashed by every analyst left!  To be fair, as Christina does (at the time) have an alliance of 3, it might behoove her to stir up trouble to try and get Chelsea out, but somehow I don’t think Christina was thinking like that.  I think she just had immense loyalty to Alicia and Kim.

As a side note, in order to help convince Christina to flip-flop, Chelsea promises to take her on the reward.  Remember that now.

Off to the reward challenge, and I’m rather surprised to find a original challenge this season.  No really, it’s original.  Ok, the puzzle does have some reused elements, but it’s not particularly based on a challenge from any one season.  Basically, castaways run around a post to unscrew a disk (thereby making themselves dizzy) three times.  The disks then become part of a puzzle to unlock a combination lock, the winner being the first person to unlock their lock.  Although it’s not one of the great challenges, I have to admit, I like it.  It’s fun visually, we get some good slapstick from dizzy castaways, and the puzzle is fairly clever.  I particularly like that though you may have the 3 right numbers, they are not placed in the correct order for the combination lock, so there’s a certain element of luck involved.  This gives the potential for come-from-behind victories, which are always exciting.

Chelsea wins, and then is given the ever-difficult “Who you gonna bring?” choice.  Chelsea swears she won’t make the same mistake as Kat in the last episode, and bring the people she likes.  She proves this by… bringing the people she likes, in this case Kim and Sabrina.  Wow, way to NOT reveal alliances, Chelsea.  I look forward to this biting you in the butt later.

So the trio go on reward (dinner and a night on a luxury ship), and revel in excess.  They even get to shower, which we get to see in person, because CBS has now seen fit to stick a cameraman in there.  I know it’s reality tv, and people sign away their souls and their privacy to be on the show, but this just seems excessive.  I mean, “Survivor Vanuatu” had a shower scene, but they didn’t stick a cameraman in there!  It just seems beyond indecent, particularly given how dirty these people must be.  And don’t give me any “It was a HIDDEN camera” statements, that camera MOVED.

Dinnertime, and the three revel in their success, commenting how nice it would be for all them to be in the final 3.  Even Kim admits that she thinks the other women will stay loyal, and that she “feels good” about going to the final with Chelsea and Sabrina.  Here we finally see Kim have a major flaw: Cockiness.  It’s hardly unique to her, and it’s undone many a brilliant “Survivor” game (recall Ken Hoang of “Survivor Gabon”).  Still, it could be fatal, given her options.  Although Kim has played a great game, and certainly deserves to win more than the others, one must still account for jury bitterness.  While having not played particularly strong games, Chelsea and Sabrina are both very likeable, and could beat Kim because of jury bitterness.  This is as opposed to TarZAN, Alicia, and Christina, all of whom Kim could beat no matter HOW you slice things.  And yet Kim goes and sides with Chelsea and Sabrina.  I sense her undoing is nigh.  Now, it’s not a death sentence for Kim’s game.  She’s played well, and Richard Hatch (“Survivor Borneo”) is often referred to as “the cockiest ‘Survivor’ ever.” and he still pulled out a victory.  Still, it’s not necessarily a good sign for Kim.

On the subject of who people can and cannot beat, I will take this time to address the issue of “TarZAN will grab the men’s votes”.  It’s prevalent throughout the episode, but I’ll take the time to discuss it here and avoid it later.  While it is true that jury bitterness could sway things in TarZAN’s favor, just given that he has a “Y” chromosome, I just don’t see it happening, and I think these fears are unfounded.  TarZAN has played the game like a crazy person (note my “Top 5 and Bottom 5” from several episodes ago), and has made several enemies in the game, including the men.  Jumping ahead a little, you’ll note that Mike flipped TarZAN the bird at Tribal Council.  Evidence enough that he’s not particularly well liked.

Our reward ends with the women luxuriously lounging, with Chelsea commenting that this is “..like a honeymoon.”  Well, Chelsea, since neither of you live in North Carolina, that may be possible.

On the less luxurious side of things, however, all is not in golden time.  Alicia and Christina are rightfully pissed at being at the bottom of the pecking order, and actually begin to strategize against Chelsea and (to a degree) Kim.  In particular, Alicia has suddenly turned into a master strategist, coming up with some genuinely good ideas, even going so far as to show knowledge that Kim is being deceptive to everyone.  Somewhere in my bashing of her, she’s actually learned how to play the game, and not in a way based on likes or dislikes.  You’ll note that her other ally is Christina, the woman she was on the WARPATH against for the first half of the season.  Overcoming personal problems for self gain?  THAT’S GOOD STRATEGY!  She’d be an alright winner, if it weren’t for the fact that she was downright mean and unlikable to everyone around her.  Still, her accomplishment has to be acknowledged.  It’s like what I think about Brian Heidik (“Survivor Thailand”).  He’s a despicable person, but you have to respect the gameplay.

However, this respect is undone somewhat when the trio get back from their reward.  For all that I bashed Kim earlier for her cockiness, she does, at least, know how to dig herself out of it to a degree.  Realizing that TarZAN doubtless strategize against her, Kim spins Alicia a tale of how TarZAN was trying to get her (Alicia) out behind her back, so as to make Alicia mistrust TarZAN.  Again, it’s a GOOD MOVE, rather similar to one Julie Berry pulled on Twila Tanner in “Survivor Vanuatu”.  Alicia falls for it completely, telling us in an interview that she think’s she’s being played, and won’t allow it to happen to her.  To emphasize her point, she gesticulates wildly.  So, a woman named Alicia is going on a diatribe while bobbing her head and waving her finger in our faces…  I see no ripoff in this whatsoever!  *cough*”Survivor The Australian Outback”*cough*.

Before we hit challenge time, we get another TarZAN tidbit.  He psychs himself up for the challenge by saying that there’s no way he’ll possibly win, and these “feminine genders” will beat him again.  Way to boost your spirits TarZAN, I’m sure you’ll win with that attitude.  And is it wrong that I can’t get over the fact that “feminine” isn’t a gender?

Anyway, it’s time for… Challenge Time!  And I’m inventing a new “Survivor” Law that I’m calling the “Letdown Law”.  It’s really quite simple: For every episode that has a creative, original reward challenge, we must balance it out by having a boring, rehashed immunity challenge.  In this case, we’re ripping off “Survivor Redemption Island” (and why anyone would want to rip off “Redemption Island” is beyond me) with the “Build the Fish Skeleton” challenge.  I’ll admit this challenge is difficult, and it’s a clever puzzle, but it’s just so boring to watch, and it looks ridiculous!  Thankfully, we do get some drama with just how much the lead flip-flops back and forth, with Alicia pulling our a narrow victory.

After the challenge, TarZAN, realizing that his time is numbered, of course tries to ingratiate himself to the women so that they might be inclined to go along with his plan.  I mean, women LIKE to be called “bitches” to their faces, right?  What do you mean, no?  Just because I got my sex education by reading “Janet Evanovich” novels doesn’t mean anything!

There’s more strategizing, with everyone coming up with good strategies, even being willing, at one point, to force a tie.  Instead (and I’m jumping ahead here because nothing really interesting happens at tribal) they all do the stupid thing and vote TarZAN out.  Why is it stupid.  Well, for Christina and Alicia, it rids them of a potential ally.  For Kim, Chelsea, and Sabrina, it rids them of a beatable castaway.  What’s the upside?  Kat’s belongings don’t get disrespected (as a side not, it confounds me as to why the man would do that, when it gains him absolutely nothing but enmity, but it confounds me even more that things which fit Kat also fit TarZAN).

Tribal, however, does bring up a point that now confuses me: EVERYONE TRUSTS KIM!  Oh, it’s not as though she has them all fooled, both Alicia and Sabrina have ADMITTED that Kim could be lying to them.  So, they go with the plan, knowing FULL WELL that they’re probably being played.  Like I said last time, please just give Kim the check.

It’s strange, I should really hate this episode.  It has all the hallmarks that I hate: reused challenges, failing to act on good gameplay, bad misdirection (I didn’t think for a minute that Chelsea was going home, given TarZAN’s screen time), but I just don’t.  It was exciting, it kept me enthralled, we got some good potential gameplay, and it’s almost over.  Please, God, let it be almost over.

So where do we stand?  Well, barring an INCREDIBLY bitter jury (which, from what I’ve seen of Ponderosa, does not seem like this cast), Kim has this won.  Let’s find out how, this Sunday.

Or possibly later.  Things are winding down here, but I might be busy on Sunday, and will probably have to miss the showing on Sunday.  My computer is having sound problems, so I’ll have to wait even longer than usual to see the episode.  Still, I should have a finale blog up by 5 P.M. eastern time on Monday.

See you when I see you!

-Matt

Title credit to Jean Storrs.