So far, we’ve had seasons that have been universally loved, and seasons that divide people. This leaves only one reaction unaccounted for. That ends today. Let’s dive into controversy with “Survivor Thailand”!
First, though, let me welcome you back to “Survivor Retrospectives”, and remind you once again that this blog will contain spoilers. Those wishing to know whether to watch the season, without having it spoiled, should scroll to the bottom of the page, where I have an “Abstract” section that will answer this question in a quick, non-spoiler-ish way. Now then, onto “Survivor”!
CAST
For most people, this is what dooms “Survivor Thailand”, and I can’t deny that they have a point. Most of the cast is not memorable, and those who are are usually the ones people disliked with great intensity. Probably the only one who’s remembered and LIKED is Shii Ann Huang, the first Asian contestant. Even then, she’s mainly remembered for being disliked by her tribe in general for her differences (eating Chicken Neck? How VULGAR!), and for making a hilarious assumption about the merge (which will be discussed in the “Twist” section). Otherwise, Shii Ann was a decent enough strategist, who really shone in “All-Stars”, but beyond that didn’t have much going for her in and of herself. The other big name from this season is winner and “Ice Man” Brian Heidik. Brian was arguably the first “strategist” to win the game since Richard Hatch (“Survivor Borneo”), and played the game the most like a sociopath of any contestant since. He played his tribe all the way to the end, and did have an impressive strategic game. The trouble is, Brian is really scum. He’s mean spirited, unlikeable, and to top it off, a USED CAR SALESMAN! THE HORROR! No, Brian was a fairly scummy and unrelatable winner, not to mention being something of a chauvinist. Add this to his former porn actress wife, and extravagant lifestyle, and Brian was fairly well disliked immediatly after his winning (though his opponant, Clay Jordan, wasn’t exactly likeable either). Things didn’t improve when Brian was accused of shooting a neighbor’s puppy with a crossbow years later. The other two remembered from this season are Ted Roger’s Jr. and Ghandia Johnson, though not for very good reasons. Both were involved in what became known as the “Grindgate incident”, a throughly unpleasent affair in which Ghandia accused Ted of grinding against her late one evening, resulting in a huge tribe debate, and, arguably, Ghandia’s ouster. When THIS is the highlight of your season, you’re in trouble. Ghandia later admitted that she played up the incident as a strategic move, but the damage was done, making both of them come off the worse. This is a shame, because I think both had the potential to be good, likeable characters, Ted in particular. He was smart, but not mean-spirited, and could come out with a funny line every once in a while. Sadly, this is all people remember them for. Probably the only cast member of Thailand who gets any play anymore is Robb Zbacnik, and not just for his unusual name. Robb was easily distinguishable from the rest of the cast, as a heavilly tattooed and pierced skater punk, at the time the youngest contestant ever (only to be outdone next season by Jenna Morasca), whose luxury item was, fittingly enough, a skateboard. Aside from this, Robb first gained fame in episode 3, for his “Backwards Hick” rant against Clay following a reward challenge (which I will discuss in the “Challenges” section). Now, this might make him seem unlikeable, but he managed to redeem himself later on. In episode 6, when the Sook Jai tribe was forced to vote someone in their core 6 off, Robb explained how his time on the island had changed him, and took the fall for the tribe. Unlike a lot of other people, this change in Robb was actually genuine (as evidenced by his less grungy appearance at the reunion show), and endeared him to a lot of people, even earning him a spot on the cover of the DVD set of the season.
Sadly, this is where the memorable people end for Thailand. The rest of the cast was unmemorable, unlikeable, or both. So it’s not so much that Thailand didn’t have likeable people. Much of the Sook Jai tribe, including fatherly Jake Billingsly and NYC Cop Ken Stafford, but they just weren’t memorable at all. One contestant that I’m surprised isn’t remembered, though, is Navy Swimming instructor and all-around tough gal Helen Glover. She was fairly strategically smart, but was still tough, going on a 4 mile round trip swim to get water when the tribe boat floated away. She was a different kind of woman, tough but smart, I often thought to myself “Why don’t other people like her? I like her!” Well, after watching the season a couple times, I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem with Helen is that she’s just too serious. Sure, she was good, but she never lightened up. She barely smiled, and was nothing but business, and people didn’t like that. They wanted strategists and tough women, sure, but they wanted ones with a human side to them, ones who they could relate to. Helen, for all her glory, was not that. Still, I like her, and think she at least deserves respect.
In the end, I think the problem with Thailand can be best summed up by looking at the cover of the DVD set. Most DVD sets have pictures of people who were either well-liked, had a big impact on the game, or both. So, generally, you only get people who made the merge. A person has to be really good, or the season reallydesperate, for a pre-merge boot to make the cover. Thailand’s cover has 3 people who never made the merge on it. The contestants who made the merge were just too boring/unlikeable. Still, it had one or two gems who cannot be discounted.
Score: 3 out of 10
CHALLENGES
Thailand went a different direction with its challenges, and I think it works to the season’s advantage. Previous seasons, as I’ve mentioned, have had puzzles, but they’ve often been fairly simple affairs that draw attention more to the physical aspects of challenges. With Thailand, the producers decided to switch things up, making challenges more mental than physical, ramping the difficulty of the puzzles up to 11. Moreover, nearly every challenge was a puzzle, changing things up from previous seasons. This is not to say, of course, that the physical element was neglected completely, there were still several highly physical challenges, notably have a tribe (blindfolded) carry around a giant palantine, and having the tribe lug a 250 pound dummy for challenges. Also, one challenge in particular, called “Pilfering Pirates” has to be discussed here, as it is probably the most remembered challenge of the season. It seemed a simple, yet exciting challenge at the outset: Tribes would cross simple bamboo balance beams to reach boats filled with packages on the other side. Each tribe member would then steal a basket and bring it back to their boat. First to 10 wins. The hiccup was that there was a point in the middle of the course where the two tribes crossed. In the event that two members of the opposing tribe met with one foot apiece on the attack zone on this crosspoint, they could attempt to push each other off, with the first one in the water being out. And oh, what a hiccup it was. Sook Jai played fast and loose with the attack zone, oftenstarting the attack before their own foot was technically touching the attack zone, not to mention being particularly violent with their attacks. Robb was particularly fercious, grabbing Clay by the neck and throwing him in the water, leading to the “Backwards Hick” rant later. In fact, Sook Jai played so fast and loose that Probst had to eject several people from the challenge. And for the record, Probst, NO, Ben Browning (“Survivor Samoa”) was not the first person ejected from a challenge, you ejected most of the Sook Jai tribe in Thailand. The fact that ejection also gave one tribe’s packages to the other tribe led to Chuay Gahn’s first victory, and one of the more memorable moments of the season. However, in Sook Jai’s defense, I will say that the attack zone was very small, and you practically had to be right on top of the other person to attack. Moreover, attacks weren’t forced and not refereed as well as in a later iteration of this challenge, which I will discuss when its season comes up.
Still, the emphasis was on the puzzles throughout the season, and the location of the season leant itself well to creative challenge designs. Really, the season only has two drawbacks. The first is, while I like the emphasis on puzzles, the season may have gone a little too far. If I haven’t made it clear, I really enjoy this change, but I also enjoy the physical challenges, and they just went too far towards the puzzles. Balance between the two would come in later seasons, and the puzzle difficulty increase carried over to later seasons, but this season may have just overshot itself. The second drawback is that, while the puzzle were a nice, challenging change, some of them may have been a bit simplistic. For instance, one challenge involved tribes taking away 21 flags in sets of 1, 2, or 3 to get a golden flag. Based off an old Thai game, this was challenging mentally, but just not fun to watch. Still, I aplaud the season for going a different direction, and think it worked well on the whole.
Score: 9 out of 10
TWISTS
The twists of Thailand are the other area where people say the game suffers, but I’ll actually be getting into why in the “Overall” section. This is because, while people complain about the twists, they complain more about the overall effect of the twists rather than judge the twists on an individual level, as I’ll do here. I have to say, on an individual level the twists are actually pretty good for this season. We start off strong on the season with our first twist. The tribes arrive at the first beach divided into men and women, although this was merely a fake-out for the real twist. The two oldest members there, Jan Gentry and Jake, were allowed to pick their tribes, as well as, ultimately, their camp. The picking of the camp, however, was not arbitrary, as one camp (Chuay Gahn) had shelter already provided by a natural cave, but had a difficult-to-reach water source, while the other camp (Sook Jai) had water close by, but had to make their own shelter. Frankly, I found this twist interesting and exciting. We’d see people pick other tribes in later season, but often each person got to pick only one other person, before having their pick pick somebody. Personally, I find this much more interesting, as it puts all the pressure on one person. However, I can see why they don’t do it much, as it marks one person either as a great success or a great failure, depending on the performance of the tribe. As we’ll see in the “Overall” section, Jan’s picks led to one of the major themes of the season, that I think is oft overlooked. Still, with this fairly good twist out of the way, we didn’t get another until episode 3, when the Sook Jai tribe threw a challenge to oust Jed Hildebrand. Now, we’d seen people throw challenges before, in “Survivor Africa” when the new Boran tribe threw away immunity to eject Silas. However, Silas was from Samburu originally, and the challenge was thrown to eliminate someone who’d swited tribes, and to keep the original Boran intact, so it wasn’t a sacrifice overall. This was the first time that a tribe was so fed up th one member that it would hurt itself and give up immunity to get rid of said member. Arguably, this led to the downfall of Sook Jai, and was still pretty interesting, in my mind. This season (and not “Survivor Cook Islands”, contrary to advertisements) was also the first to offer tribe members the opportunity to change tribes. No one took it, although a few people (notably Stephanie Dill) later admitted regreting this. This was probably the one twist of the season that failed outright, not because it was bad in and of itself, but because no one took it, so it kind of fell flat. The next twist also didn’t come for a while, but it was a doozy. On day 19, the traditional merge date, the two tribes were brought together and divided into pairs, with two pairs being sent to examine the camps, ultimately to decide which one to live at, as “Two tribes will now be living on one beach” (remember that, it will be important later). Chuay Gahn was agreed upon, and the two tribes left, happy at the new merge. However, the game was still on, and the tribes were evenly numbered. Someone would have to swing, and misfit Shii Ann was just the one to want to do it, as Chuay Gahn was, overall, more mature and more accepting. However, Shii Ann felt a little guilty, and admit her switch to Ken (who’d previously defended her from the rest of the tribe), shortly before the immunity challenge. Then, at the immunity challenge, came one of the funniest exchanges ever in the show. It started off simple, with Erin Collins making an offhand comment about how nice the merge was.
PROBST: You said “merge”.
ERIN: Yes.
PROBST: Well, I certainly didn’t say anything to give you that impression, did I?
Imagine, for a moment, Probst sounding as smug as humanly possible when saying that second line. He knew full well that he had tried to give them that (false) impression, and he’d succeeded. It was the first instance of a fake merge, and it was gold. Brillianatly executed, even fooling viewers, and led to the first instance of two tribes being on one beach, but still separate, and led to a lot of hilarity. Sadly, her assumption cost Shii Ann, and her tribe, now knowing she wouldn’t be loyal, voted her off for her treachery. Still, hilarious twist, and one of the few good things this season is remembered for. Next is not so much a twist, but something of note, in that is arguablyhe first “Pagonging” (direct voting off of one tribe, based solely on allegiance) since “Survivor Borneo”. In the strictest sense, this is true, as every other season had some mixing of who was voted out, but in the looser sense (that tribe is the reason behind voting people out at some point after the merge) only “Survivor Marquesas” avoided a Pagonging. Also, this season was the first season to have the merge name be a mishmash of the two previous names, forming the “Chuay Jai” tribe. I’m not a fan of this in general, and dislike this one in particular, mostly because “Chuay Gahn” and “Sook Jai” actually had meanings in Thai, making the merge name a mishmash of two phrases that roughtly translate out to “Helpful Heart”. Not a very epic name. Sadly this is where the twists end. There was a predictable boot order, with a predictable finish. A couple challenges had some twists, such as the first instance of loved ones helping in a challenge, and a challenge where politics came into play, in that two people had to help a third get over a wall, who could then decide who to bring along. However, this was where they ended, and while some of the twists fall flat, the twists were still many, and had enough winners to keep the season going.
Score: 8 out of 10
OVERALL
Stylistically, Thailand had a lot going for it. In terms of the artwork, particularly the immunity idol, “Survivor Thailand” was probably the most distict season up until “Survivor Pearl Islands”, and I think it came off well. The art was incorporated well into most everything, and lent the season a distinctive feel.
One of the major themes of the season that I think is often lost is that of the underdogs. You see, in picking tribes, Jan went for people she thought she’d like, rather than people who’d help her win. This led to her picking mostly middle aged, crafty people, compared to the younger, fitter Sook Jai. At first, this backfired, and Chuay Gahn lost 3 out of the first 4 immunity challenges. It is surprising, then, that Chuay Gahn rallied and came back, losing no one between day 12 and day 36. This also led to a record run of 7 people from one tribe voted off in a row (for those who might say, “Well, ‘Survivor Palau’ had the Ulong tribe, who lost 8 out of 9 people, and lost every single immunity challenge!”, I would remind you that there was a double tribal council that season, meaning that the Ulong tribe lost only 4 people before Koror lost one, thus splitting up the 8 and leaving Thailand with the record).
So at this point, you might think, “Why is this season so hated? Sure the cast wasn’t great, but it had good twists, good challenges, and a compelling underdog story with Chuay Gahn. Why does virtually no one like this season?” Well, there’s two main reasons people don’t like this season. First is the overall effect of the twists I said I would discuss. You see, while the twists in and of themselves were good, you will note that they were nearly all producer implemented twists, much more than in any previous season. This gave the twists an overall feel of the producers not so much trying to change the game, as the producers trying to keep people interested. It didn’t help that “Survivor Marquesas” was not as popular as its predecessors, lending to an overall feeling of decline of the series, emphasized by the need for more twists. This overall effect left a bad taste in people’s mouths, though being a twist-lover, I have somewhat of a hard time understanding it.
What I can understand, however, is the other thing that brings this season down, which is the cast. You’ll notice it’s the lowest rated cast thus far, and that’s because, it really is a rock that sinks the season. This cast is just so unlikeable overall that however good the challenges and twists are, you just can’t enjoy them because you aren’t invested in the people. In particular, this destroys the underdog storyline, as you just don’t care about it if you aren’t invested in the people. I admit, while I think this season does get a hard time, it’s still one of my least favorite, and I have a hard time getting over the cast. It really just ruins the season.
Score: 23 out of 40
ABSTRACT
Thailand is a season I recommend only for the “Survivor” completionist. Although it has several good elements, it has an awful cast that makes the season throughly unenjoyable. If you can get past that element, it’s an ok season, but really, it’s one of the few seasons I have a hard time finding a good reason to rewatch.
idolspeculation 