Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cambodia” Episode 8: First We Kill All The Lawyers

Let me take you back, at the beginning of this blog, to another time. A time specifically one year ago. A simpler time. A time when “entertainment” meant slack-jawed yokels mispronounced foreign words for your amusement. A time when the audience was blindsided along with the cast. A time when we had to wait several episodes to get a competent strategist to root for. Yes, it’s the oh so “Meh, it was ok, I guess”-ed season known as “Survivor San Juan del Sur”. History repeats itself here, in almost exactly the same episode, but for once I’m not going to rage and storm about it like I did then. Does this show incredible bias and favoritism on my part? Yes. But I’m on the internet, so what do you expect?

Before we hop into our TARDIS and begin our voyage through history in the present day, it’s time for another edition of…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Two in a row! Truly, we are setting a great trend for this part of the season! Through all of my “Kass is Gone” tears, I completely forgot to talk about the individual immunity idol this season, which is a real shame, because it is premium-grade, heavy-metal AWESOME! While it could be argued that it’s similar to a few other individual immunity idols (the one from “Survivor Nicaragua” springs to mind), this one manages to be unique in a good way. We’ve never really seen red as a primary color in an individual immunity idol, and it plays really well with the gold bits to give it a distinctive look that feels “idol-ish” if that makes any sense. Bottom line, you BELIEVE that this idol really grants someone immunity, and that kick-ass look makes it a nice addition to the season.

Entering the episode proper, now, I’ll admit I was worried about the probable Kass-bashing that was going to happen, presumably courtesy of Tasha and maybe Savage. While I’m sure it still happened, we are fortunately spared that unpleasantness, and instead go to Savage and Jeremy congratulating each other on an alliance well-brought-together, which admittedly they’ve earned. I’m unhappy with the outcome, of course, but to get a majority in this large a tribe, and in fact a plurality? They deserve much praise. In particular, I’d say Savage deserves props for bringing everything together, as he seems to be the binding agent for the alliance. Take careful note of this praise, Savage, you’re going to be getting very little of it tonight.

The two then discuss who they want to get out next, and agree that the “three girls”, being Ciera, Abi-Maria, and Kelley need to go next, presumably in that order. I’d normally be against voting out unthreatening swing votes at this phase of the game, but for this pair, I’d say it actually makes a lot of sense. I’ll be talking about this in a bit more detail later, but for people who could be considered physical threats like Savage or Jeremy, a “Bro-Down” is actually a pretty good move. Plus, since those women are on the bottom, they’re likely going to stir up trouble.

Sure enough, the women (or at least Ciera) are at the center of oncoming trouble, though they may not be the cause. No, after lying dormant for an episode, Stephen’s Protestant Reformation against St. Joe continues, as he talks to Ciera about the possibility of voting Joe out. And, like for Jeremy and Savage, what Stephen is saying makes sense for him. He’s weaseled his way into the Bro-Down somewhat, but he’s still probably low man on the totem pole there, particularly given Savage’s earlier crusade against him. True, I’d argue it’s a bit early, since betraying an alliance now means more people on the jury who hate your guts, but Stephen’s correct in that, if he wants to win this time around, he needs to correct his mistakes last time around of not being seen as enough of a mover and shaker and going to the end with an alpha male. Since I’m rooting for Stephen at this point (even if the edit indicates that he has no chance at all of winning this time around), I gladly accept this turn of events.

Today’s reward challenge involves two teams of six rowing out in a criss-cross pattern to pick up colored crates, which they must then bring to shore and stack so that no color repeats on any side to win a trip to a cafe. While the puzzle hails from “Survivor Samoa” originally, the crate-pulling and criss-cross rowing comes courtesy of “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. Naturally, since Ciera was on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”, and her tribe lost that challenge, we chalk this up as a second chance for… KELLY! It’s just so logical, right? I mean, how ELSE are we going to get her any screen-time? In all seriousness, while the call-back to her being beaten by Gervase on “Survivor Borneo” was hilarious, I personally feel like it was a little bit forced. It’s common knowledge by now that Kelly wasn’t at all interested in giving the producers good sound-bytes, or really playing anything resembling an interesting game, and so she’s been getting the shaft. I also understand that, as the player from arguably the most popular season of “Survivor” ever, you’d want to play her up as much as possible. But when you just sort of haphazardly shove her in there, it just feels forced. Mostly because it is. The only similarity the challenges have is that they involve rowing. A better connection than some, but kind of flimsy, in my opinion.

As to the challenge itself, it’s pretty good. A bit basic, and we once again have a team challenge post-merge, but it’s definitely a tough one, has a good balance of physical and mental components, it makes for an ok competition. It helps a lot that the teams are pretty even at this point. The purple team has Kelley, Kelly, Ciera, Kimmi, Joe, and Keith, while the green team has Stephen, Jeremy, Savage, Spencer, Abi-Maria, and Tasha. All have their physical strength and their dead weight, and all have their puzzle-solvers. Plus, this is the sort of challenge where come-from-behind victories are easier, due to the puzzle. It seems like we’ll get that, when green falls behind due to paddling trouble. Then, however, Stephen FINALLY steps up and does a puzzle, calling the shots and sending green team to the mat first. Then you remember that this is “Survivor Cambodia”, where Stephen seemingly cannot do anything right, and so he has the puzzle wrong, meaning purple team wins anyway. Probst plays up Kelly’s supposed “redemption”, and Stephen curses the fact that the main people he wanted to swing to his Protestant Reformation are all off on reward, while he’s stuck at camp.

Also, I quickly wan to bring up here that Probst, in hyperbolically describing the reward, says the winners will “Overdose on caffeine”. Um, Probst? You do know that can kill you, right? Not a good thing to say there, man.

We get our requisite “This reward is so awesome” sound-bytes from Kelley and Kimmi this time around, Kimmi in particular complaining about getting no food rewards from her season. Actually, Kimmi, as I recall, your tribe DID get food rewards. It’s just that said rewards were chickens, and you’re a vegetarian.

The cheery atmosphere doesn’t last long, as talk quickly turns to strategy. Ciera apologizes to everyone there for potentially implying that they weren’t playing at the last Tribal Council, diplomatically stating that she was merely trying to say that they should make a move while they still have the numbers, avoiding her mistake on “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. Of all people to chime in that they agree with her philosophy, it’s St. Joe, which strikes me as very odd. You see, I’m normally in favor of people questioning the status quo, but of all people present, St. Joe has the LEAST reason to question the Bro-Down. For St. Joe, as well as for the other strong alpha-males, a Bro-Down is really their best chance at survival. It’s been established for a while now that alpha males become the targets post-merge, if not sooner. The trouble for the alpha male is that, barring that they’re really charming (see J.T. of “Survivor Tocantins”) or the people around them are idiots (see Tom Westman of “Survivor Palau”), they’re too obvious a target, and there’s no incentive for them to be kept around. With a Bro-Down, however, there is a SLIGHT incentive to be kept around. There’s always going to be a “Top alpha male”, like St. Joe is in this scenario, who’s a target above the rest, but each alpha male beneath him knows that if he’s gotten rid of, the target moves to THEIR back potentially. Thus, a Bro-Down is a form of mutually-assured destruction. Every alpha knows that taking out another alpha only increases the target on their back, and thus they don’t do it. Does it make for boring, predictable tv? Sure. But it’s smart.

But enough with the engaging strategy talk, let’s all watch Keith mispronounce foreign words, and generally be stupid and ignorant! Seriously, this isn’t as bad as some other times I’ve seen him, with Keith simply riding the Tau-Tau used to bring them to the cafe, and calling it a “Toto”, but I don’t see what’s funny about this. Stupid people aren’t funny. They’re just stupid.

We head back on over to Orkun, following a shot of their frankly BEAUTIFUL tribe flag, where Stephen is still upset. Trying to have another breakdown moment like he had two episodes ago, he talks to those remaining about how he partially lost his last game due to not going on a reward, specifically the river rafting reward that J.T., Brendan, and Debbie went on. Stephen does have something of a legitimate point here (after all, this is the reward where Brendan declared “J.T. winning this game is like me winning this game.”), it just comes off as a bit flat to me, particularly compared to Stephen’s other breakdown, which was bigger and much more heartfelt. And of course, Abi-Maria brings her usual charm to this scene by telling Stephen to just “Get over it.”

Not wanting to waste an opportunity, Stephen decides to talk with some people about his Protestant Reformation plan. While most of the people he wanted to bond with are off on reward, there are still a few people at camp Stephen can talk to. He starts off by making his pitch to Spencer. Pretty good choice. Spencer admitted himself last episode that he was something of a free agent this time around, and he seems receptive. Next, Stephen talks to Jeremy about the idea. Ok, a bit riskier, since Jeremy wants to use Joe as a shield, and is just generally close with Joe, but Jeremy seems to be on board, admitting that Joe needs to go at some point. Then Stephen talks to… Tasha? Ok, what’s your deal here, Stephen? The other two were at least semi-logical, but Tasha’s in tight with Joe. Why would you think she’d be at all into your plan?

It is this chat that does Stephen in, but not due to Tasha spilling the beans, but rather due to the stealth skills of Savage. Savage overhears their conversation, and immediately returns to his anti-Stephen plans, basically calling Stephen a deceptive scumbag, and saying that he has no time for liars in this game. I’m REALLY starting to question whether Savage knew what he was getting into when he applied for “Survivor”. You don’t like liars, Savage? On “Survivor”? Have you ever SEEN the show? I’m really not sure, at this point.

And here’s where we get into why Savage rubs me the wrong way. The man expects people to play the game in a “fair” way, or rather a way that gives him an easy victory, and then gets mad when they act in their own self-interest, which is a PART OF THE GAME I might add. Worse then that, when someone even TALKS about voting apart from him, he goes on an all-out character assassination of that person. You DARE to go against the great Andrew Savage? You, my foe, are the scum of the earth! I sort of have a similar problem with Tasha, since she seems to get mad when people don’t do thing exactly like she wants them to, but Tasha at least keeps the personal attacks to a minimum (that we see on screen). Savage, on the other hand? He insults people for playing the game of “Survivor”, a game he purports to respect. Get a life Savage. And, while you’re at it, get over yourself.

Following the reward, Savage continues his anti-Stephen plans, informing St. Joe of the forming Protestant Reformation. Joe is naturally worried about this, since people are coming after him sooner than expected, but that has to wait as we head to our immunity challenge. Coming courtesy of “Survivor San Juan del Sur” (told you we’d be seeing weird parallels before too long), this challenge has people balancing a ball on a disk that is suspended between two ropes. Last person with a ball left on the disk wins. I wasn’t a fan of it then, and I’m not a fan of it now. It’s another boring ball-and-disk endurance challenge, and not even a tough one. Where other endurance challenges go out of their way to make things uncomfortable, this is just standing there, keeping tension on ropes. Not remotely exciting, and not a good challenge.

To this challenge’s credit, though, it does have some fun moments. Props must be given to Kimmi for a number of spectacular saves she has, before falling out in the second phase. Also, when Savage drops out, he shows himself to be the epitome of maturity by giving the ball the finger. Keith won this challenge when it was last played, and appropriately enough it comes down to a battle between himself and challenge wizard St. Joe. In the end, even Keith cannot overcome the will of the lord, and St. Joe makes himself immune once again. And now I quake in my pants, since the only other target we’re presented with is Stephen, and his going after Kass would be a 1-2 punch for me. Similar to “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, when Josh and Jeremy left one right after the other. Granted, this season has other people I actually like, unlike “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, but it would still hurt.

Back at camp, Joe sets the “Vote out Stephen” plan into full swing, even informing Kelley (who by extension informs Abi-Maria and Ciera) that the plan is to go against Stephen tonight. Naturally, the women just accept this gracefully, since it means they aren’t going tonight. To seal the deal, Savage gathers his minions around him, and discusses with them the possibility of getting Stephen out. It seems, though, that Stephen is not as much of a goober as this season has led us to believe, as both Spencer and Jeremy come to Stephen’s defense, saying that he’s just talking, and that the women are bigger threats right now. To his credit, Savage says that while he doesn’t trust Stephen, he’ll go with the group consensus, which seems to be get rid of one of the women, presumably Ciera. Joe goes back and informs said women, and Kelley starts talking about potentially playing her idol, though I don’t see why. Granted, I’m not privy to everything that goes on out there, but due to how the vote was split last time, I’d say Ciera is more likely to go before you. Still, just to be safe, the three agree to vote together, debating whether to go for Stephen or Savage. This is really a no-brainer. You go for Savage. Stephen doesn’t have nearly as much stock with everyone else, and is much less of a threat overall. Plus, no Savage might send the dominant alliance into chaos. It’s not going to happen, though. Savage hasn’t had NEARLY enough screen time to merit getting voted for, and while there’s been some decent misdirection, it feels like Stephen is still the way to go.

A predictable vote doesn’t mean a boring Tribal Council, though! Getting rid of all pretense this time around, Kelley and Ciera throw out who the top four are (Savage, Jeremy, Tasha, and either Stephen or Joe), and rightly point out that that solid four leaves five other people on the bottom, who therefore have a reason to vote one of them out. Not to say that there aren’t good counters to this. Joe has a line about perception being reality on “Survivor”, which is apt, and Stephen points out that the frequency of tribe swaps this season, coupled with relationships from other seasons, means that the dynamics are different. All that said, though, their point is still valid. Regardless of how crazy the bonds are this season, there’s still going to be a top three or four or whatever number you choose. That needs to be broken for anyone else to win. Add to this a lot of eye-rolling, snarking, and a flipping of the bird from Kass (hopefully a tribute to her actions on “Survivor Cagayan” and not actually a mean-spirited gesture), and you’ve got a pretty great Tribal Council. Doesn’t quite match the enjoyment of the Jeff Varner Tribal Council, but it’s up there.

So we got to vote, and Kelley plays her idol. Well, that was somewhat unexpected. While it was brought up this episode, it wasn’t something that was emphasized, like idols usually are. I get it, though. You want to hide an idol play to make it all the more surprising for the audience, and the inevitable Stephen boot implied that such a thing might happen. Also, it’s good that Kelley did that because, well, everyone voted for her. Not Abi-Maria or Ciera, of course, but everyone else.

Now we get the departure of… SAVAGE? Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic, but much like the Jeremy boot on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, it feels a bit out of left field. Savage’s name came up once, and most of the episode was the Stephen-Joe-Three Women show. Unlike Jeremy’s boot, however, I’m more ok with the Savage boot being kept in the dark for the audience for a few reasons. First off, while Jeremy’s boot was due to organizing an alliance we didn’t see, Savage’s boot was due to an idol play. This means foreshadowing has to be limited somewhat, to keep the idol play a secret, and also that we didn’t miss out on vital strategy conversations. The other reason is that, where Jeremy was the one bastion of strategy left of “Survivor San Juan del Sur” when he was evicted, here there are other people to like, and Savage was a pretty poor player.

In case you can’t tell, I’m not sorry at all to see Savage go. He pretty well deserved it, in my mind. Apart form my problems with his philosophy towards playing the game, he really wasn’t playing it well for me. For your second chance, you have to be willing to change up SOMETHING about your game to make sure you can win. Savage really didn’t. You look at “Survivor Pearl Islands” and he played pretty much exactly the same game, only there he was an underdog and so more sympathetic. Plus, maybe this eviction will take his ego down a few notches and show him that being the overt leader is NOT a good way to win “Survivor”, nor that he in any way “deserves” it.

And how does Savage go out? The classiest way possible, of course! He gives everyone the finger. Not since Jonny Fairplay (“Survivor Pearl Islands”) have we had so many middle fingers shown in an episode.

Definitely an exciting last third, but sad to say this breaks the streak of good episodes. Not that this one was awful, but at best, I can only call it “ok”. the trouble is that when you pack all the best stuff into the last third of the episode, the first two thirds just feels wasted, devoted more to Keith being his usual “charming” self and similar matters rather than anything of substance.

Exciting finish, but the beginning needs work. Perhaps next week can do better.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

“Survivor” Retrospectives: Tocantins

Tocantins continues the fine “’Survivor’ Retrospectives” tradition of covering two seasons back-to-back with opposite stories. Not like “Survivor Vanuatu” and “Survivor Palau” though, and certainly not to the extreme of those two seasons. Quite the contrary, I actually have very little negative to say about either Tocantins or “Survivor Gabon”. No, the opposite stories come from my own take on the seasons over the years. As I mentioned last week, “Survivor Gabon” was one of my favorites at the time of airing, but has lost some of its appeal as time has passed. Conversely, while I never hated Tocantins by any stretch of the imagination, I always sort of lumped it into the “pretty ok” category along with “Survivor China”. However, five years on, I find that I may have underappreciated Tocantins in its heyday, and perhaps the good elements it had hold more water than I gave credit for, and the bad elements don’t matter as much as they did in the moment. Admittedly, this intro is fairly detailed, and probably means you already know my opinion, but for those interested, let’s take a deeper look into what makes this season good, and why I thought it average at the time of its airing.
Beforehand, though, I should once again like to remind my readers that this review will contain spoilers for the Tocantins season of “Survivor”. Those who don’t feel that my intro is enough, but also don’t want to be spoiled on the season, can scroll to the bottom of the page, where I’ve added an “Abstract” section. This will give my general thoughts on the strengths of the season without spoilers for the events therein, and is a good overview on how watchable the season is. Now then, with that bit of business out of the way, lets get to the in-depth analysis.

CAST
As I’ve said about many a season before, the cast of Tocantins is a polarizing one. However, I usually mean that in the sense that people either love it or hate it. In this case, however, I mean that the cast itself contained a lot of people who were and are much beloved, and a lot of people who were and are much disliked. For your guide to who’s who, let’s start off with by far the most famous player to come out of the season, James “J.T.” Thomas Jr. The ultimate winner of the show, J.T. was beloved both for his good-old southern boy charm (as he himself said, “It’s something in the accent.”), and for his actually exceptional gameplay. J.T. holds the distinction to ever play a “perfect” game of “Survivor”, which is usually defined as receiving no votes against you before the Final Tribal Council, and sweeping all of the votes at the Final Tribal Council. This is definitely an impressive feat, and while a lot of the people at the time decried J.T. for seeming to have little mental game, leaving it to his alliance-mates, the fact is that, while not necessarily his STRONGEST asset, J.T. did play a great mental game, and an exceptional social game. To have won over the entire jury, and make no mistake, his opponent was no goat, J.T. HAD to have been planning this, and this planning shows in certain moves of his, such as going against his alliance and refusing to vote off Benjamin “Coach” Wade. Don’t tell me that didn’t influence Coach’s decision to vote for J.T. in the end. To be fair, J.T. has lost some fan adoration for a particular action of his on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, but even to this day, he has a pretty decent fan following, his name is still occasionally brought up in “Great ‘Survivor’ Players” conversations, and people still seem to like him. While J.T. wasn’t my absolute favorite on the season (we’ll get to him shortly), I certainly liked him a lot then, and I still like him quite a lot now. His gameplay was good, he got off a lot of nice one-liners, and there was some sort of charm to him that infected even me. I’m glad he was on this season, and I’d be happy to see him again!
Still, whatever J.T. said to the contrary, he could not have gotten to the end on his own. That’s where his main alliance-mate, Stephen Fishbach, comes into play. In a sort of buddy comedy move, Stephen and J.T. became the closest alliance in Tocantins, despite their seeming to have little in common. As mentioned, J.T. portrayed himself as the good-old Southerner, very athletic and socially confident. Stephen, in contrast, was almost your stereotypical East-Coaster. A longtime resident of New York City, Stephen was lanky, awkward, and by his own admission, not very good in challenge. Stephen was a hard worker, to be sure, but he just didn’t quite have the same natural ability as J.T. when it came to survival. To make sure the irony was incredibly thick, Stephen was quoted in the first episode of saying words to the effect that the Southerner (nobody knew each other’s names yet) and himself would probably have little in common, and that he was accordingly afraid. Not to say that Stephen was entirely defined by his relationship to J.T., of course, just that it played the biggest role in the season. On his own, Stephen was still a great character. A little lanky and awkward, but very determined and quite the good schemer. Put it this way: he managed to obtain an idol despite not having been to Exile Island, but instead by making a close relationship with the person who HAD been to Exile Island. That takes some doing. On top of this, Stephen made a good “Fish out of Water” (pun totally intended) story, due to his being very brainy but lacking in outdoor skills. This gave him almost an underdog quality, and it was a joy to watch his machinations keep him in the game longer and longer. And to guild the lily, Stephen could be counted upon for both insightful and funny confessionals. In case it wasn’t clear, Stephen is my favorite castaway from Tocantins. I identified a lot with his brainy aspects, and he made a lot of the same moves I made. While in some ways he was overshadowed by J.T., Stephen still made a great impact on the fandom, and when talking about the smartest “Survivor”-players ever, he’s usually way up there. It helps that he has a regular role on “Rob Has A Podcast”, reality tv podcasts done by Rob Cesternino of “Survivor The Amazon”, which keep him in the public consciousness somewhat. Personally, I’m very disappointed that Stephen has not been brought back for a season yet, and hope that, in future, Stephen will get the second chance he so richly deserves As a final note, I’ll say that at the time of the airing of Tocantins, Stephen was the second closest I’d ever come to rooting for the winner, and even as of the time of this writing, he’s still the third closest. Given how the people I like USUALLY fare, that’s pretty impressive.
Tamara “Taj” Johnson-George makes up the third member of the three-person alliance J.T. and Stephen were the key members of. While regrettably not as well-remembered as J.T. and Stephen are today, Taj was much talked about at the time, and I would argue is criminally underrated. Like Stephen, Taj was not very comfortable in the outdoors, and perhaps even beat out Stephen in this regard. Larger than the average contestant, and not in a good way, Taj was also used to a fairly nice lifestyle, having been a famous singer with the “Sisters with Voices” group, and married to pro-football player Eddie George. Needless to say, most people had her pegged as an early boot, but Taj became a pleasant surprise to most with very impressive strategic chops. Sent to Exile Island very early on, Taj managed to make a cross tribal alliance with Timbira member Brendan Synnott (who, while a perfectly fine person, did not leave much impact, and as such will not be talked about much in this blog), and even wormed her way into the good graces of her tribe, mostly through her never-give-up attitude and her warm, bubbly personality. Although down in numbers come the merge, Taj, along with J.T. and Stephen, managed to make a majority out of a minority. While J.T. and Stephen tend to get the credit for turning around the fortunes of the Jalapao tribe come the merge, Taj played her part as well, and by the end was respected as a nice person and a good strategist. Her popularity has died out, mostly due to being overshadowed by J.T. and Stephen, which is unfortunate. Similar to Lisa Whelchel of “Survivor Philippines” Taj was an out-of-place woman expected to be gone early, but had surprising strategic chops, and lasted quite a long time. While she could be a bit over-the-top for my tastes at times, I still enjoyed her story a lot, and wouldn’t mind seeing her come back either.
But, having gone over the good of the “Survivor Tocantins” cast, we must now discuss the bad of the “Survivor Tocantins” cast. Far and away, the big name in all this was the aforementioned “Coach”. The self-proclaimed “Dragonslayer” and leader of the Timbira tribe, Coach was the one promoted the most for this season. He was crazy. He had outlandish stories. He wanted to restore “honor” to the game. It was this last part that really turned me off to Coach. No one, and I mean no one, plays the game “honorably”. Some may play it COMPARATIVELY honorably, but Coach doesn’t even fall into THAT category. He lied and betrayed almost as much as everyone else on the show, professed to wanting to keep the strong, but then voted out Brendan, just became all-around very hypocritical, and hypocrisy really bugs me on this show. What was worse, he seemed to have no self-knowledge, and didn’t realize just how these stories and grandiose statements were making him sound. The reaction of his fellow cast members pretty much mirrors what other people thought of him. Some, like Tyson Apostol, found him highly entertaining and a good guy, while others life Erinn Lobdell and Taj couldn’t stand him and his bragging. Erinn herself put it best, simply by saying “Who IS this jackass?” The audience pretty much fell into the same two camps, and it’s pretty obvious that I put in more with the Erinn and Taj camp. Admittedly, I may be being a bit hard on Coach, as he did get much less annoying in his later appearances, but at the time, particularly because he was the most hyped contestant of the season, I was ready to see him gone.
Following the patter seen with J.T., Stephen, and Taj, where all the well-liked people aligned, all the people I like less seemed to align. In this case, Coach’s ally Tyson was also a character I didn’t particularly care for. Unlike Coach, however, I seem to be alone on this, as audiences loved Tyson. He was fairly good looking, and had a very snarky sense of humor. Honestly, I think it was the humor that made me not very fond of Tyson. His brand of snark often involved making very derogatory comments towards his fellow contestants. Now that’s all well and good, it can be funny, except that with Tyson, I got the feeling he really meant them, hyperbole and all. On top of that, I never really saw him make fun of himself, which to me is the mark of a good comedian, and would have served as a nice balance to his snark towards others. As it stood at the time, I saw him as a very mean-spirited narcissist, with not a lot of strategic game. People talk up Tyson’s strategic mind, but taking this season on it’s own, Tyson really didn’t do anything. He was out fairly quickly at the merge, most of the blindsides on his tribe were orchestrated by Coach, and while he did win a few immunities, which is always a nice touch, I just don’t get what made Tyson so special. What I did see, I didn’t like, so I, for one, am not a fan of Tyson.
That really sums up the cast of Tocantins who made a lasting impact, but there are a few who were popular at the time who bear mentioning. One, Sierra Reed, was often the target of Tyson’s humor, and was considered one of the more “outdoors-challenged” people to make it far. A lot followed Tyson’s lead with the snark, but some had sympathy for her. I tended to be neutral on Sierra. I liked her ok, but she wasn’t one of my favorites, and I wasn’t sorry she left. She was fairly nice, though. Overcoming similar odds was Sandy Burgin, a tough older lady whom many thought left too soon. I was one of those people. Sandy was a lot of fun, and as we don’t get enough tough older ladies on the show, I enjoyed her tenure. Also fun to watch was Sydney Wheeler, who is often called one of the better looking women to have appeared on the show. While I do agree, and she was one of my first “Survivor” crushes (though only lightly, as our ages were still a bit far apart to be feasible), I’m not one of those people who watches “Survivor” to look at young women in swimsuits. Thankfully, Sydney had more going for her than that. One of the more socially apt women, she tried to play a Parvati Shallow-esque (“Survivor Cook Islands”) game, and flirt her way to the top. While it didn’t work, it was fun to watch, and I enjoyed Sydney.
All that said, however, Tocantins must be acknowledged to having a lot of flops, and a lot of flops who made it deep on top of that. Most egregious is the aforementioned Erinn, who made final three despite being fairly boring, the occasional one-liner notwithstanding. Debra “Debbie” Beebee, Brendan, Joe Dowdle, and others not mentioned, seemed like perfectly nice people, but just left no impact on the game, and as such people make up a large portion of the cast, and those who were memorable being a fairly even split between good and bad characters, my score might seem high. All I can say is that more will be revealed in the “Overall” section.

Score: 9 out of 10.

CHALLENGES
They’re not often talked about, but a lot of the challenges from Tocantins became staples of the series, and are counted amongst the greats. The rolling of giant crates, and using said crates to build a set of stairs comes from Tocantins, as does the now overused Water-Basketball challenge. It’s rare that a season not only reuses very few challenges, but also sets the standard and creates the ideas that form the basis of later challenges, so Tocantins must be commended for that. While unable to do quite as much as “Survivor Gabon” in terms of scale, Tocantins was still very impressive, and more importantly, managed to keep that scale in later challenges after the merge, something that very few seasons get right. On top of that, Tocantins did a great job balancing its challenges. Nothing felt too repetitive, nothing felt like it had been done before in the same season, every challenge seemed fairly designed. However, for all these good points, Tocantins did have a few “odd duck” challenges that just felt very un-“Survivor”. For example, there was an immunity challenge that involved memorizing math symbols. Alright, memorizing numbers is one thing, but ARITHMATIC signs? That just doesn’t seem to fit to me. On top of this, it was GLARINGLY obvious when the season reused challenges, and while the original ones tended to be pretty good, it’s also worth noting that a lot of them have faded from consciousness over the years. For these reasons, I can’t score the season as high on challenges as I’d like to, but let it be said that when the season nailed the challenges, it REALLY nailed them, and that cannot be taken away from it.

Score: 7 out of 10.

TWISTS
Contrary to a lot of past seasons, Tocantins’ twists were few and far between. What WERE there were good, to be sure, but compared to the past couple seasons, this was very light. This in itself was a twist: a return to old-school “Survivor”. Sure there was Exile Island and the hidden immunity idol, but there were only 16 contestants, two tribes, no shakeup, and a merge at 10. Pretty standard fare, but it was nice to see a return to basics after so long.
Not that you’d know this was a return to basics by the leadup. While there were virtually no producer-implemented twists this season, what few producer-implemented twists there were got frontloaded into the season. Exile Island was back, of course, reusing the twist from “Survivor Micronesia” that sent two people of Exile Island each time pre-merge. A slight change up was that whomever was sent from the losing tribe picked someone from the winning tribe, rather than the winning tribe picking both people. Once again as well, the hidden immunity idol was hidden back at the camp, this time in the back of a statue by tree mail. Not the most original of twists, but another way to prevent Exile Island from getting too repetitive. It helped that there was some strategy changeup due to this twist, as this was how Taj and Brendan were able to form their cross-tribal alliance early in the game, and the intrigue of how to keep it up and who to send to Exile Island made for a lot of interesting episodes.
Probably the one twist that flopped was the mutiny. With two people at Exile Island, each had the option of switching tribes, a similar offer to the ones made in “Survivor Thailand” and “Survivor Cook Islands”, but without the time limit. As with “Survivor Thailand”, no one was dumb enough to take it, nothing came of it, and while it wasn’t bad, it was pretty pointless.
Rounding out the producer-implemented twists was the “first impressions” twist. After another salvage operation opening, each tribe was asked to select one member to not make the hike to camp with them. Presuming they were voting someone out, each tribe selected their weakest member. Jalapao selected Sandy for her age, and Timbira selected Sierra due to her sickness. It was then revealed that these people would instead be flown to camp, and have a chance to redeem themselves. While calling it the “first impressions” twist was a bit corny, it was an effective fake out for the contestants, and fun to watch for everyone else. It helped that Sandy and Sierra, once they reached the camps, had a choice to either search for a special hidden immunity idol that was good at the first tribal council, or try to improve their impression by building a shelter. Sandy looked for the idol, while Sierra built a shelter. Neither method was very effective, but both avoided being first out, which was nice to see. Both overcame their impressions well, though to varying degrees of success, as Sandy didn’t last more than one tribal council beyond the first. Still, good to see that preconceptions could be shattered.
After this we entered a dry spell. The trouble is that threesomes on each tribe (J.T., Stephen, and Taj for Jalapao, Coach, Tyson, and Debbie for Timbira) controlled the vote pretty well, meaning that there were almost no blindsides pre-merge. The exception might be Spencer Duhm, at the time the youngest contestant ever, but even he had some inkling of what was happening.
No, nothing much really happened until we got to the merge, where we once again had a twist overload. First, we got another evacuee in Joe, whose knee became too infected for him to continue in the game. It was a nice reminder that the game was real, and while it’s always disappointing to see someone leave without being voted out, Joe made very little impact on the game, so from a viewer’s perspective, not a huge loss. But THEN! First Brendan is blindsided, due to Coach’s delusions of grandeur, then Stephen, J.T., and Taj manage to pull in Erinn and change the course, blindsiding a no longer immune Tyson in place of Sierra. Then, to appease Coach and Debbie, Sierra is voted out anyway. This upset is the highlight of the season, and deservedly so. It helped cement the underdog story of Jalapao, and created excitement where there was none. Best twist of the season.
Sadly, this led to a dry spell of twists. There was a minor producer-implemented one at the reward auction, when Taj, having bought a visit from her husband, sent herself and her husband to Exile Island, and in return getting everyone else’s loved ones out, which was nice, but similar to twists before it.
The finals were also a bit chaotic, as J.T. and Stephen turned on longtime ally Taj as a jury threat, but even then, the obvious final two of Stephen and J.T. came to be. It DID give us an interesting, if landslide, Tribal Council in which Stephen, despite being fairly well-liked, was lambasted compared to the comparatively loyal J.T., particularly after Stephen honestly admitted that he would not have taken J.T. to the finals, and J.T. put up a great show (of pure B.S.) about how put out he was, and how this ruined the friendship. Finally, J.T.’s perfect run was pretty cool to see, and went to a deserving guy.
While I admit most of the twists were good, they were just too infrequent to really give this section a good score. However, I will give it credit that there was barely a stinker amongst the twists.

Score: 5 out of 10.

OVERALL
Theme-wise, Tocantins didn’t have a lot to work with. True, it was better than “Generic South Pacific Island”, but somehow the culture just didn’t feel that distinctive, particularly after “Survivor The Amazon”, which was filmed in the same country. Still, it made up for this with a dramatic and evocative landscape, so I give it a pass.
Looking back, I think I can see why I had a harder time liking Tocantins at first, along with a lot of others. It was a slow start of a season with overall fewer characters. Compared to, for example, “Survivor Gabon”, not a lot happened in the early episode. Granted, once the merge came and things started happening, it was exceptional, but it just seemed like a case of “too little, too late.” Further, for people like me who were more recent fans, and not accustomed to the “twist lite” attitude of early seasons, this one felt lazy. Now that I have more appreciation for “twist lite” seasons, I can respect Tocantins a lot more for what it did. I should add that it was a very well-executed season, where applicable.
I think the big thing that time gives us, though, is perspective, and that also makes this season go up in my estimation. As I said before, at the time Tyson and particularly Coach were the most heavily-promoted aspects of the season. I didn’t like them, and so thought negatively of the season. Five years hence, however, I find that what I remember most is the relationship between J.T. and Stephen, which I really loved, and so I look on the season more fondly. Stretching a bit further, one could argue that camaraderie was the theme of the season, and due to the cast, it fit very well. While each individual aspect of the season may not have performed as well as others, combined, they made for a great season.

SCORE: 31 out of 40.

ABSTRACT
Fans of the more modern, producer-twist-heavy “Survivor” may have a hard time getting into this one, and will certainly be taken aback by the sparseness of it. If you can get past a slow pre-merge, however, you’ll find an engaging and (mostly) likeable cast that’s a nice throwback to the early days of “Survivor”. Given the chance, I’d say watch this one if you can.