I’m back, after a week’s hiatus! I needed it, because let me tell you, this next season is a doozy. The other seasons have been standard, to the point of appearing formulaic, but this was the first season to turn everything on its head. It may seem like a bad fanfiction at the outset, but no, it’s really happening. Favorite castaways are returning to play once again. This, my friends, is “Survivor All-Stars”.
However, since it’s been a few weeks, I’d like to remind everyone that this review does contain spoilers. If you wish to avoid spoilers about the season, scroll quily down to the bottom of the page, and read the section entitled “Abstract”, where I give my general opinion on the watchability of the season. Now, as I haven’t said for a while, on to the review!
CAST
Given that this is the “All-Stars” season, you’d think that the producers would pull the “Best of the Best” from all the season, and come up with a hit cast. You’d be right, for the most part. One thing I will give the producers is that they did get a nice variety of castaways for the season. You had your overall nice, honorable castaways in people like Rudy Boesch (“Survivor Borneo”), Colby Donaldson (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), and Rupert Boneham (“Survivor Pearl Islands”). You had your hard-core schemers in people like Jerri Manthey (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), Lex Van Den Berghe (“Survivor Africa”), and “Boston Rob” Mariano (“Survivor Marquesas”). Then you had your people who were sort of a mix, such as Alicia Calaway (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), Tina Wesson (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), and Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien. Nearly all of these people provided memorable moments, making nearly all of them good choices. You could argue that some of the early boots, like Tina, didn’t get a chance to be memorable, but as I’ll discuss in the “Overall” section, this season was more about honoring the past than glorifying the present, so it was still good to see. If, however, you were asked to pick the people who defined the season, the only name that can be reasonably put forth is Boston Rob. Compared to his last performance, which I would describe as only slightly above average, Boston Rob dominated, both physically and mentally, and ran the game from start to finish, woe betide anyone who dare to stop him. He got annoying to me after a while, but the ay he played the game was impressive, and he wasn’t the worst character I’ve ever seen. Even if he was, the other cast members help balance things out. Jenna Lewis should also be noted as coming into her own here, making it much father than her first appearance, and showing some pretty decent strategy.
So, overall, it sounds like I’d have nothing to complain about, and yet I do. In fact, I have not one, but several things to complain about with regard to the cast. One I’ll discuss in the “Twist” section, as it has very much to do with the very idea of an “All-Star” season. For now, however, I’ll go through them one at a time.
First off, the variety of the cast. Now I said earlier that the producers got a good, vaired cast this season, and I stand by that for the most part. Even when it came to distributing who was on what tribe, they did ok, except that the Chapera tribe was made up mostly of schemers, or mixed schemers, so there were few people to root for. No, the real distribution problem has to do with how many people from each season were invited back. I’ll mention here that this season had 18 castaways for the first time in the show’s history, so with seven seasons, every season should have had 2 people, with a couple of seasons getting 3 or 4, depending on how well-liked the season was. What happened was that between “Survivor Borneo” and “Survivor The Australian Outback”, nine of the 18 slots were filled. That just doesn’t sit right with me. I know the seasons were well liked, but it doesn’t seem fair to have two seasons alone make up half the cast. The 4 from “Survivor Borneo” I could maybe understand, but “Survivor The Australian Outback” getting 5? No, no, no!
The second problem this season was screen time. Up until this point, CBS had done a fair job of giving all castaways equal screen time, or at least what they deserved given their time in the game. This season, however, gave us the first instance of someone hogging all the screen time. I refer, of course, to Boston Rob, and while I admit he was the one doing most everything this season, it kind of detracted from the rest of the cast.
My major problem, though, rests with one castaway in particular. I said that nearly everybody cast this season was spot-on and deserved to return. NEARLY everybody. There is one castaway this season, who’s lack of memorability, whose shear blandness makes me want to tear my hair out, and she WON this season. Yes, I must ask, WHY BRING BACK AMBER BRKICH? I’d just finished watching “Survivor The Australian Outback” when I saw the season, and I couldn’t recognize her easilly. She just left me so empty. In a season full of household names, of great, memorable castaways, THIS is the best person you could find? No, I refuse to believe this was intentional. I know Amber was a backup, and was only asked after Colleen Haskell (“Survivor Borneo”), Elizabeth Hasselbeck (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), and Sandra Diaz-Twine (“Survivor Pearl Islands”), all refused to come back, but still, there were so many alternatives! In fact, the following is a list I’ve made of people who, while maybe not the biggest characters on their season, would at least have been better than Amber! Note that, for this list, I’ve imposed a few requirements. The castaway must be a woman, as they’re replacing a woman, and may not have been booted out earlier than seventh, as this is the earliest the other All Stars were booted on thier seasons, specifically a tie between Boston Rob and Shii Ann Huang of “Survivor Thailand” (who, incidentally, also came into her own on this season. Now then, the list:
Gretchen Cordy (“Survivor Borneo”)
Kelly Wiglesworth (“Survivor Borneo”)
Kelly Goldsmith (“Survivor Africa”)
Kim Powers (“Survivor Africa”)
Teresa Cooper (“Survivor Africa”)
Tammy Leitner (“Survivor Marquesas”)
Neleh Dennis (“Survivor Marquesas”)
Helen Glover (“Survivor Thailand”)
Deena Bennett (“Survivor The Amazon”)
Christy Smith (“Survivor The Amazon”)
Heidi Stroebel (“Survivor The Amazon”)
Tijuana Bradley (“Survivor Pearl Islands”)
Christa Hastie (“Survivor Pearl Islands”)
Darrah Johnson (“Survivor Pearl Islands”)
Any one of these people would have been an improvement, but you didn’t pick them CBS. Shame on you.
I wish I could talk about the other major problem with the cast, as it had a large effect on my score, but suffice to say that my low score here will make sense later. Not a bad cast on the whole, I suppose, just one with a couple of major flaws.
Score: 7 out of 10
CHALLENGES
Like the cast of this season, the challenges were the best reused from previous seasons. Unilke the cast, however, the challenges hit 100% of the time. Unlike another season with returning castways, all the challenges were epic, and the coices for which to reuse were good ones. If challenges were changed, or a new element added, it improved the challenge, making it more difficult, and oftentimes combined an element from another season’s challenge to make the whole thing even more difficult. About the only new challenge was the “Build the Best Shelter” challenge, and even that, it could be argued, had elements of the “SOS” challenge from previous seasons. It could be argued that the challenges were unfairly portioned, as some seasons like “Survivor Marquesas” got a lot of reused challenges, whereas “Survivor Pearl Islands” got none. I’d argue, however, that “Survivor Pearl Islands” also had the challenges that had the most distinctive theme, and so would be harder to reproduce in a more generalized context. In any case, I don’t care that much, the challenges were just so exciting and appropriate that I can’t give this season’s challenges anything but a perfect score.
Score: 10 out of 10
TWISTS
There’s a lot of twists to get through this season, so let’s not waste any time with fancy introductions. In the All-Star Season, the first twist you’d naturally see would be the returning castways. For the most part, this was a good idea. It gave fans a chance to fangasm, and upped the gameplay to a new level, making it truly time to prove who was “the best of the best”. Unfortunately, this led to the problem with the cast I alluded to earlier. You see, in earlier seasons, while people did get understandably upset at being voted off or targeted, they got over it eventually, and didn’t make too big of a fuss. They knew they were playing a game, and didn’t take anything personally. They could only do so, though, because the people coming into the game were all strangers, and so it didn’t seem like friendship would enter into the game. The All-Stars, however, did know each other, in some cases for four years. This led to people taking the game personally, with a lot of bloody, unpleaseant arguements, the one between Boston Rob and Lex being a particularly difficult example. And before I get off the subject, yes, Lex, what you did to Ethan Zohn (“Survivor Africa”) is EXACTLY the same as what Boston Rob did to you. While I admit the All-Star idea was overall very engaging, and had to be done at some point, it was still a somewhat unpleasent affair that made the cast as a whole look bad. I should say, going along with the All-Star twist was the aforementioned 18 castaway premier, and the first (and up until the upcoming “Survivor Philippines”, only) instance of 3 tribes in one season. Personally, I liked this. It created new dynamics, and gave the season a feeling of honoring yet surpassing its predecessors.
Another aspect of this season being All-Star was that even less supplies were given to the castaways. Now, in the past seasons, what supplies were given had been steadily decreasing, and as these were veterans, the twist was understandable, and had the potential to be good. Unfortunately, this also meant giving no one fire, and with no one able to make one, most of the first few episodes was the castaways whining with entitlement, which was not fun to watch. Richard Hatch (“Survivor Borneo”) was later revealed to have smuggled waterproof matches up his ass, but as he never used them, his Mogo Mogo tribe whined as well. A twist with potential, but not one that went well overall. If it hadn’t been for a reward, this would have continued. Along with this reward came the realization that a lockbox with rice was at the tribe’s camp, and winning rewards would give clues to keys that would open the lockbox. A good twist. It raised the stakes, and gave an air of seriousness to the season.
The next twist was a sad one. Jenna Morasca (“Survivor The Amazon”) became the second castaway ever to quit the game, due to her mother being ill with cancer. This turned out to be a good thing, as Jenna’s mother regrettably passed away 8 days later. A good twist, albeit a somber one.
One twist that did do well came in episode 5. In addition to fishing gear (the reward for that episode) the tribes played for the right to dismantle the last place tribe, and absorb their members into two remaining tribes. This was a great way to play. High stakes, major consequences, and it made sense, not to mention being a uniue way to shuffle the tribes. The Saboga tribe ultimately lost, but even their dismantling couldn’t deter them. Their members made it through several tribal councils before being voted off. This same episode brought the next “Twist” as such, when Richard Hatch rubbed his (naked) body over Sue Hawk (“Survivor Borneo”). This only counts as a twist because it later caused Sue to quit the game in a memorable fit of rage, and, much like Jenna’s quit, it was a good, if unpleasant, twist.
Although this season was meant to honor seasons past, it didn’t mean that this season couldn’t start trends itself. This season gave us the first instance of a combined reward/immunity challenge outside of the first immunity challenge, as well as the ability to kidnap a member of the other tribe, thus keeping them from tribal council. Chapera won and chose Kathy, which led to a lot of good strategy talk, so I’m calling this a good twist.
This season also saw another instance of a reward that allows you to steal items from the other tribe. This wasn’t like it’s inception on “Survivor Marquesas”, which was a free-for-all, nor was it a running twist like on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, but it was just a “Pick 3 items for a reward” deal. I though this was a good balance, and liked the reward.
Drawing from “Survivor Thailand”, this season also gave us a fake merge, when in actuality, it was just another tribe swap, the first time it happened twice in one season. This caught most people off guard, and made for some funny moments. Notable, however, was that the tribes exactly flipped, with only Amber getting new tribemates. This twist of the switch served to make it much more memorable and enjoyable, so I can’t say I don’t like it. It also led to one of the few player twists of the season, when Boston Rob asked Lex for a favor to save Amber, in return for his keeping Lex and his alliance longer in the game. It was a bold move, and created much drama when it didn’t work out, including the aforementioned argument with Lex.
Post merge was a move back to an old camp, which was slightly new. Beforehand, tribes had moved to an already settled camp, or else an entirely new one. To return to the old Saboga beach was unprecedented. Also, no merge feast for the new Chaboga Mogo tribe.
From here on out, it was pretty boring, with the old Mogo Mogo getting Pagonged. There was a reward challenge where edveryone got to eat, which would show up in a few later seasons, and the betrayal of Alicia, “Big Tom” Buchanan (“Survivor Africa”), and Rupert, which provided a few more player twists, but for the most part, everything was normal. Then Amber won. What an unpleasent twist.
This wasn’t the end, though. Jerri Manthey walked out in justified frustration at the Reunion show, which was unpleasant, but this wasn’t the end either. After 8 seasons, CBS saw fit to hold a popularity contest of the All-Stars, with the winner getting another million dollars. Naturally, Rupert won, and the twist was decried as unfair, as it relied heavilly on editing. I, however, diagree. It was a nice tribute to the audience, who helped make the show, and as long as it didn’t become a regular thing, I saw no trouble with it. In fact, it was an overall enjoyable tribute to the seasons.
Overall, a lack of player twists, and some general unpleasant twists drag this season down a bit, but overall, the twists were pretty good.
Score: 8 out of 10
OVERALL
The unpleasentness of how personal the cast took this season really cost it some points with me. Also, while most of the cast was good, the ones who dragged it down REALLY dragged it down. But you know what? It doesn’t matter that much. This was not a season, for new, original, dynamic cast members. This really was a different sort of season, existing to memorialize and praise past seasons. This is why the problems with the cast don’t matter that much: it’s worth it just to see them back again. The excitement of that sheer fact overwhelms everything.
Score: 33 out of 40
ABSTRACT
All-Stars is very much a “Survivor” fan’s season. It contained so many refferences, so much nostalgia for the first 7 seasons, it couldn’t be anything but. It does have some unpleasent factors that make it less enjoyable, but any fan of the show must see this season. On the whole, I’d give it a watch, but ONLY after watching the other seasons before it first. I admit, I myself did not follow this, but this was because at the time, only “Survivor Borneo”, “Survivor The Australian Outback”, and “Survivor Pearl Islands” were on DVD, so I had no choice. Now all seasons through 12 are out, so there’s no excuse not to see them.
idolspeculation 