Get out the defibrillators, it’s time to resurrect an old column! Yes, for those who have forgotten, this is the return of “Survivor Retrospectives”. A more analytical and less humorous look at past seasons of “Survivor”, this is my more loosely-scheduled column for the long off-season. Here I proved my unfiltered view on seasons past, and give a recommendation as to how good it is/whether or not it’s worth watching. As such, I’ll mention here that as this is an unfiltered, in-depth look at seasons past, this blog will contain spoilers. Those who have not seen the season, or who simply want my recommendation of how watchable the season is, would do well to scroll to the bottom of the page, where I will have a spoiler-free “Abstract” section. With that said, let us begin our examination.
Our subject this week is “Survivor China”. Following on the heels of the flop that was “Survivor Fiji”, many speculated, and CBS all but confirmed, that this meant “Survivor” was on its last legs, and while season 16 had already been produced, that would be the show’s swan song. The fact that we are currently going into season 29 proves that this was not, in fact, the case, and China is given the credit for this turn-around. Very often, China is referred to as “The season that saved ‘Survivor’”. This might seem odd these days, as China is very rarely talked about by fans, and when it is brought up, the consensus is that the season is just “Pretty Ok”. I tend to agree, but for very different reasons than most people give. How, then, did this season “save ‘Survivor’” if it’s not that well-remembered? Hopefully, the analysis will demonstrate, so let’s jump on in!
CAST
When people DO rarely discuss the strengths of China, the cast is the first thing they bring up, and I cannot deny that there were some gems among them. Far and away, one of the best characters is James Clement, the Louisiana gravedigger, who could be described as another Rupert Boneham (“Survivor Pearl Islands”) but with a bit more of an edge. James was pretty physically strong, and had a certain morality about him, but unlike Rupert, that morality was not a hindrance, and as James showed up again and again on the show, that morality gradually diminished. Still, James was a hard worker, got in some good lines and metaphors, courtesy of his “Southern Good-Old-Boy” upbringing, and was just a lot of fun to watch. James is also remembered for his exit, but we’ll discuss that in the “Twist” section. As to my take, well, it doesn’t differ much from that of the general audience. James was my favorite of the season, and while my opinion of him has changed over time (due to his actions on the later “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”), at the time the show aired, he was pretty awesome, and I still enjoy watching him on this particular season.
The other audience favorite I have less time for. Courtney Yates, the deathly skinny New Yorker who came in second overall, won the hearts of fans and producers alike by being snarky and making it incredibly far when it was clear she had no skills whatsoever. She even managed to win a challenge, which people never stop pointing out. I would like to point out that the challenge she won favored people who were pretty much weightless, so of COURSE she won, but to be fair, every challenge favors somebody, so good for her. No, I’ll try not to be too harsh on her, but I have little time for Courtney. Her sense of humor did not mesh well with my own, and since I didn’t find her snarky comments funny, they came off to me at least as mean spirited, which did not endear me to Courtney. Further, while I’m hardly of the school of thought that says one has to be hard worker to win “Survivor”, the extent to which Courtney complained and was useless overall just rubbed me the wrong way, and I lost any and all patience with her. I DON’T like Courtney, in short, and I think she ought to be forgotten.
So, those are the fan favorites, but let’s talk about some producer favorites. Amanda Kimmel, the Montana nature guide, was at the time quite popular, given that she came back twice, and also for a while held the record for longest time spent on the show, having made the final Tribal Council twice. She was also made famous for being TERRIBLE at said final Tribal Councils, but hey, nobody’s perfect. For a while it struck me as a bit odd that Amanda was brought back so much. True, I liked her well enough at the time, but she’s very bland. A decent strategist, good in challenges, not much of a character to speak of. However, it then occurred to me that it was rare to see a woman dominate this show in every way that Amanda did. We’ve had strong women, physically, mentally, and socially, but rarely all three at once. In a show in which men tend to dominate all categories, it’s good to see a woman triple-threat, and while Amanda is not the most interesting character out there, and while I personally don’t want to see her back, due to overexposure in previous seasons, I still like her.
When it comes to analyzing winners, and particularly final Tribal Council performances, Todd Herzog, the ultimate winner of the season, usually comes near the top of the list. Todd was the strategic leader of the dominating Fei Long Tribe, and yeah, he was a good strategist, but with enough bite to his confessionals to make him better than your average winner. Certainly I would never deny his strategic prowess, and whatever else I’ve thought about him, I have to give him credit for playing a masterful game, particularly with the final Tribal Council, where he managed to flatter those he’d betrayed into voting for him. Todd was also a superfan, which always made me very happy. While I liked Todd ok during the season, he wasn’t one of my favorites. Partly this was the editing’s fault: his win was just too obvious. However, like with Courtney, Todd’s attitude towards his fellow players, particularly how condescending he could be at times, turned me off a bit. Not as much as Courtney, as Todd saved his snark for one-on-one interviews, which I respect more than talking to people’s faces, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. Todd was not bad, by any stretch, just not one of my favorites.
If you want to talk about people who DIDN’T know their game from the get-go, the person you’d think of this season would be Peih-Gee Law. Peih-Gee had a terrible social game from the start, and her strategic game did little better. Still, to give credit where credit is due, Peih-Gee learned, and slowly developed a tight alliance, and ultimately became a power broker herself. I respect this a lot more in later years, and I’m sorry to say I did not appreciate Peih-Gee enough in her time. Still, I grew from finding her annoying at the outset to liking her a fair amount by the end, so I give her a pass. Not the best character, but still pretty damn good.
Now to talk about the people who were famous at the time, but have since been overshadowed. The biggest of these is Jean-Robert Bellande, one of the “celebrities” of the season (the other being Ashley Massaro, the professional wrestler, who is not remembered at all), who took on the guise of “villain”. Jean-Robert’s elaborate plan was to come off as a lazy jerk early in the season, then slowly ease off the laziness and jerkiness over time, so as to come off as “most improved” at Final Tribal. Even in my young, pre-strategy days, I could see the obvious flaw in this plan: first impressions last, and you could still be voted off very early. Thankfully Jean-Robert stuck around for a while, and showed some hidden depths later (speaking Mandarin, which actually came in handy a few times), and he was something of a loveable asshole in my book. Much promoted was Michael “Frosti” Zernow, at the time the youngest contestant ever, and parkour master. Frosti was something of the Zhan Hu Tribe’s answer to James, and it was pretty cool to see him go, but he had little personality, and it’s easy to see how he was phased out amongst all these other contestants.
Even a couple of the early boots managed to get in on the enjoyable action. Steve “Chicken” Morris still gets mentioned occasionally, if only for an over-the-top cry of “DAYUM!” upon being blindsided at the first vote, and crazy leader Dave Cruser was always good for a laugh. Not the most memorable, but certainly good additions to the season.
Overall, I still like this cast ok. Not as much as others, but then, I never quite liked the cast as much as others to begin with. What’s caused the dropoff in popularity of this cast? Why, despite being what most people consider the best aspect of this season, are they so rarely talked about? Well, the answer to that is twofold: time. We’d just come off “Survivor Fiji”. Virtually ANY cast would have seemed better than that snoozefest of a cast, so it’s understandable that the hype would die out after a while. Plus, now we’ve had other seasons with bigger characters and better strategists, that have kind of phased out China as a season. The big one, in my opinion, is just how much unpleasantness came out of the woodwork. I don’t know what it is, but China has a disproportionate number of scandals tied to it. James’ performance on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” was considered hateful and earned him a lot of detractors. Denise Martin, the fourth-place finisher who was sort of the “sympathy story” of the show, was well-liked and remembered until she lost the fan-favorite vote of the season. Then, she complained at the reunion show that she lost her job because of “Survivor”, causing producer Mark Burnett to award her another prize, only for it to come out that Denise had lied, and that the job change was actually a promotion. Denise did give the money to charity, but the damage was done, and her reputation ruined. Even dear Todd was not immune, having recently gone to rehab for alcoholism resulting from attendance at “Survivor” after-parties. Not the best images to project for your case.
However, for how average they may have been, however they may have fallen from grace, this cast deserves credit for one thing: longevity. While a few sleepers were present, and so I didn’t talk about them, most had at least ONE defining trait, and the biggest characters lasted the longest. You can get by on fewer characters if they stick around, and that’s just what this cast did. For all that they don’t do it for me as much as others, give them credit for sticking around and still being enjoyable.
SCORE: 8 out of 10
CHALLENGES
Unlike most people, I think this is where China shows its strength. Despite regrettably not setting a precedent for better challenges later on, China gave us a lot of great, epic challenges, contests of physical strength and cunning that had me on the edge of my seat almost every time. The battering ram challenge, the boat brawl challenge, that meteor mallet challenge with that AMAZING (if pointless) bamboo tunnel! Greats all. Not to say that China is without flaws in the challenge department. Things seemed a bit scaled back come the merge, and some challenges were simple to the point of ridiculousness. One previous contestant, I recall, compared the first immunity challenge after the merge unfavorably with a Dr. Seuss book. To be fair, though, if the challenges weren’t epic in scale, they were at least clever. One that deserves mention, in my mind, is the final reward challenge. Contestants used a replica of an ancient Chinese crossbow to shoot arrows at a board, attempting to hit their name. The person whose name is hit the most wins. Simple enough, BUT, everyone was not allowed to use their own arrows. Instead, going behind a curtain, everyone gave arrows to the other four, distributed however they liked. That’s really clever! It reveals the pecking order in a more subtle way than, say, smashing that person’s effigy, and made for a lot of fun.
Yeah, there were a few stinkers, but overall, I simply LOVE the challenges of China.
SCORE: 9 out of 10.
TWISTS
This is another “twist happy” season, so I won’t bother with a clever intro. Probst, in the opening narration, tells us that this is the first American television show “entirely filmed in China.” Good for you, but so what? Frosti being the youngest contestant ever is also classed as a twist, and was kind of a novelty. Best of all, though, was the “nothing but the clothes on your back” twist, which I always enjoy, and I particularly liked this time as it led to several people lugging heavy suitcases up a steep mountain for no reason. Ahh, schadenfreud.
After a welcoming ceremony at a Buddhist Monastery (which religious radio host Leslie Nease refused to participate in), the tribes were divided randomly, and each given a copy of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” to consult in the game. A bit over the top, but a good way to work in some culture. It certainly influenced the game, as it had the tribes “pick a leader”, which I always hate. There’s a “Lead Role” every season, but you do NOT need an overt leader on “Survivor”.
In episode 2, we found out that Exile Island would not be back. Instead, expanding on a twist from “Survivor Pearl Islands”, the winners of each reward challenge got to kidnap someone from the losing tribe. Additionally, that person got a clue to the hidden immunity idol, which they had to GIVE to someone from the other tribe. I actually really like this. It makes the season distinctive, adds a new strategic layer, and got well-explored. Yeah, I’m cool with this.
With the mention of clues to the hidden immunity idol, I suppose I should talk about the twist with the idol itself. There were a few holdovers from “Survivor Fiji”, such as the idol needing to be played after the vote, and it being hidden at the tribe’s camp, but there was one major change that made the idol both a great and terrible twist at the same time. Specifically, the idol was not hidden in plain sight, actually being a square with a Chinese Character on it that was attached to the archway that was the entrance to the tribe’s camp. Or, as Todd Herzog put it “It’s those stupid bats on the freaky thing!” I love the idea of an idol hidden in plain sight, and the clues for finding it were just the right balance of vague and clever. Also, this square being the idol led to a funny moment later in the season, but we’ll talk about that in just a little bit. For the moment, lets discuss the DOWNSIDE to the idol being hidden in plain sight, specifically the “hidden” part of the word. While hiding the idol in plain sight is fun at first, the trouble comes in getting it. You see, if the idol is in plain sight, when it’s gone EVERYONE sees it, thus eliminating the “hidden” aspect of it. Part of what makes the hidden immunity idol fun to watch is the paranoia that results from trying to figure out who has it/if it’s been found. If people can see that it’s been found, they can usually figure out who has it, which makes things less interesting. Still, for what it’s worth, I still enjoyed the twist.
Episode 5 brought us something new, with fishermen arriving at the camps with a note for each tribe instructing them to select two members of the opposite tribe to join them at their new camp. A pretty obvious, but fun, way to shake things up, and it was hilarious to see the Zhan Hu tribe (who were down on numbers) think they were suddenly going to have the advantage. This twist directly led to the next, wherein the Zhan Hu tribe threw a challenge to get rid of former Fei Long leader Aaron Reisberger (one of the few snoozers of the season). For once, the throwing of a challenge was not seen as a bad thing, and I enjoyed watching it happen, particularly as it led to the great next episode. James, the other member of Fei Long sent to Zhan Hu, was kidnapped after the next reward challenge, and told Fei Long of the Zhan Hu plans to throw the challenge and eliminate him. At the same time, Todd had FINALLY found the hidden immunity idol. Correctly surmising that the idol at Zhan Hu must be in the same place, Todd gave James HIS idol, and told James where to find the one at Zhan Hu. James would then help Zhan Hu throw the next challenge, use an idol, and vote out Jamie Dugan, who was perceived as the biggest threat for her social game. Seems like a flawless plan, apart from Todd giving James the Fei Long idol, which was stupid and pointless. However, it was made hilarious by the fact that Zhan Hu had a change of heart while James was away, and so was NOT trying to throw the challenge. The result was an indescribable spectacle that needs to be watched to be believed. Needless to say, despite James trying to sabotage things, Zhan Hu won anyway, leading to the events of the next episode.
While James was out crabbing, Jamie noticed that the squares on the archway that had housed the hidden immunity idol were missing (James had accidentally pulled off the wrong one at first, as denoted by a blank backing), and so went looking. She found the discarded useless square, and after rummaging around James’ bag in the dark, discovered his idols (though only through touch, hence why she didn’t realize the backing thing). This led her to believe she had an idol, which she played at the next Tribal Council, leading to the first instance of a fake idol being played. This, to me, is the highlight of the season, and is my favorite fake idol play, just for being the first.
Part of what makes this season so great is the next twist, which is that despite Fei Long’s numbers advantage and united front, this was not a straight Pagonging. Todd got rid of threats, whoever they were, and this led to a number of good characters sticking around longer. It added to the unpredictability of the season, so it gets a thumbs up in my book.
This was also the first season to have a reward challenge where one person sat out at the merge, and therefore did not get to go on the reward. An interesting note, and fairly unique, but nothing major.
Things were fairly dry from here on out, but were sustained by the unpredictability of the votes. It should be noted that despite only being a 16 castaway season, we were dealt a final 3 once again, which aggravates me. Still, it was the first time that three people got votes at the final Tribal Council. We also got a fake-out that the votes would be read in China, rather than LA, which was mildly entertaining.
Ups and downs abound in this twist section, but most were winners, and this was an unpredictable season, so I still like them well enough.
SCORE: 8 out of 10.
OVERALL
“Survivor” analysists often say that China was terrible as a location, but I have to disagree. Sure, there weren’t a lot of water challenges, and things were often puzzle-heavy, but the location stood out, and we got some great challenges and art direction for it. As to how everything blends together, there’s not much to say. Most of the elements were pretty ok, and they come together, pretty ok. I would have liked a more likeable cast, but for what we got, it’s not bad, and I still enjoy China pretty well overall.
SCORE: 32 out of 40.
ABSTRACT
China is a mixed bag. It pales in comparison to some other seasons, but for what it’s worth, it’s a pretty decent watch. Also, a lot of old contestants from this season come back later, so for the completionist, it’s a must-watch. Even if you’re just a casual viewer, I’d say give China a go. It’s not the greatest season out there, but it’s really entertaining, and odds are it won’t disappoint in the area of unpredictability.
idolspeculation 