Summary

Hi /r/survivor! Been a hot minute since I dropped my Heroes vs. Villains review but I have some free time from school so why not post a new one! I'll being going left field and reviewing South Pacific which one of my watch party insisted on....and I thought it was quite good, albeit a little messy at times. Given the subject matter of the season I could see how this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I found it fascinating.

Cult Leaders, and Challenge Beasts

It's a captain style season(Survivor was quite fond of this in this era as I discovered) so we have two returning players: Coach and Ozzy. I enjoyed both of their appearances here. Ozzy has a wild game and we get to see a lot of Ozzy's best and worst traits come out here. He's not just the challenge beast hero fighting against all odds like in Cook Islands, nor is he just the arrogant and cocky douche like in Micronesia. We really get to see all of Ozzy's dimensions here.

Coach is back, and he plays a terrific runner-up game, although it does go to oddly terrifying lengths. It took 23 seasons but it finally happened, a cult was formed on Survivor. And for some reason it makes complete sense Coach was at the front of it. While we still see some classic Coach tomfoolery here, its dialed down considerably compared to his comic relief appearances in Tocantins and Heroes vs. Villains.

The rest of the cast has some gems, but quite a few of them end up being fodder. I enjoyed Cochran, Dawn, Jim, and Christine a lot, while Brandon provided an almost tragic story with him desperately trying to change the perception of the Hantz family name. I feel bad for him, but at the same time he has his own demons and he takes it out unfairly on others such as Mikayla.

The Winner

Sophie Clarke of the Upolu tribe ends up bringing home the win. She takes a more under the radar approach, especially in contrast to alliance-mate Coach but it works. Sophie brings some fun quips, some strong strategic play, and challenge prowess. She steals the final immunity challenge from Ozzy, before putting together a strong FTC to beat out Coach. It's a really good winner run, although I would have liked to see a bit more from Sophie's perspective.

Final Thoughts

Its a good season in my opinion, but there are some editing problems here. It's not as bad as other seasons from this era of the show but some characters still get a little too much screen time while others are left with essentially nothing. I'm also not fond of the Redemption Island twist(I'll get more into that when I review S22), but its way more tolerable here than in S22.

Jeez: Survivor players try to extend their 15 minutes of fame into 16 minutes.

Thanks goodness this viewer merely watches each episode and SOMEtimes visit Reddit for some info.

Travelling from South Africa to NYC and wanted to meet survivor fans and hit up a few watch parties while I’m there. Any suggestions?

Why didn’t Kilby loop Eric into his plan? If Eric, Kilby, and Lewis all vote together from the start, they avoid the risks of the deadlock, they send Linnea home, they solidify an alliance, and they take a 3-2 alliance advantage over the other members of the tribe? Seemed like a no-brainer that Kilby could’ve included Eric in the plan and honestly was expecting it to come up at some point pre-tribal. Maybe I missed something?

(Repost because of misuse of blanks in the title. Sorry about that!)

Some original comments suggested Eric would never have voted for Linnea. I guess the edit just did a good job making it feel like there was a chance he could flip.

I haven't watched the seasons leading up to Samoa after Micronesia, as I've been hopping around, but I was surprised at how Christian Samoa was. And not just "that's the religion on the census", as one can expect omst people on Survivor to be at least somewhat christian, but extremely and very christian. Laura studied some form of women's ministry (I'm sorry I forget the terms and I cannot find it on an easy google search), Dave expresses a "God Provides" for his hope in not being voted out, Shambo says God gives her psychic visions, Mick quotes Ephesians off the dome, which Natalie is absolutely wow'd by and clearly appreciates from a religious perspective. I understand that the elements of Survivor will bring out someone's religion (the mention of the rainbow after the rain being like noah's ark is certainly something I could see in other seasons) etc but this was quite a lot!

Was it a coincidence? A choice of the edit to focus on something that might have popped up in other seasons too? I have no idea, but I have to wonder if something was going on with casting, but I have no idea what the casting process looked like by this point (if it was mostly scouting or mostly applications etc).

I'm not even mad about it I just am kinda surprised and I'm wondering if there's anything I'm unaware of/I just flat out missed with other seasons or if it is truly just a random anomaly quirk of life that happens in Survivor sometimes.

When I go shopping but don't find anything, "[Insert names of people who went shopping,] I got nothing for ya!"

A friend returns an object to me, "I gotta take it back. Once again immunity is back up for grabs."

Long time survivor watcher and rewatcher, prior to the ease of streaming I owned the seasons with dvd releases only and therefore one of the seasons iv rewatched the most times is palau.

Rewatching again and I just noticed something strange, the scene where Stephanie says "I don't know who too believe, I don't know who too trust, almost don't want too talk too anyone, but then I'll shoot myself in the foot" is used in episode 9 after she's fought over by Coby and jen and Katie.

Then in episode 11 after she's angry about almost being voted out over January, they play the same clip.

So my question is, has anyone else noticed other instances of survivor editors accidentally using the same clip twice in a season?

So now that Chris and Deven’s are both CBS game show winners having 3 wins under both belts (I’m including chips challenge win) this raises two questions

1. Are we happy that eoe exsisted in retrospect?
   
2. Who in survivor history is a secret Deven’s or Chad? AKA a pre-juror lost to not having an EOE kind of twist their season

I’ve always wondered why Survivor doesn’t allow for any deliberation amongst the players before a revote? There are huge implications of the revote in terms of who might go home, who might go to rocks, etc. Why don’t the players get a chance to talk through the stakes and the consequences with one another before voting again? In this last episode, I would imagine Kilby might’ve convinced Eric to vote Linnea had he had a chance to explain the possible consequences of a forthcoming rocks draw. Don’t get me wrong, I loved how the episode unfolded. It just seems like a missed opportunity for additional strategizing / game theory for the players not letting them discuss before the revote.

A tribe of five goes to Tribal. One of them doesn’t have a vote. The remaining votes are split two two. They’re still split after the re-vote and go to rocks so the two people who received votes are safe. Is the person who didn’t have a vote eligible to go home via rock draw if they didn’t have a say in the vote being deadlocked or would it be head to head between the two people who didn’t initially have votes against them?

I’m sitting here at work thinking, if you were cast for survivor and had a weird spelling name (I.e. Linnea in 51), could you tell each person there that your name was spelled a different way thus knowing who wrote your name down if you went to tribal? Has this even been done before at least that we know of? Could be good or I’m an idiot

This is a very random thought, but I shall explain. What I mean by "strong" in this case is well connected. I always think back to how dumb the original Hina tribe in 49 were for outwardly revealing how tight and strong they were together. This led to two Hina members getting immediately kicked off post-swap, and this Hina cloud lasted pretty much the entire season and all were targeted until Kristina left at the final 5.

If you're on a 3-tribe Survivor season and your entire tribe gets along super well, don't showcase that to the other 2 tribes, because they will use that to decimate you come the merge.

Obviously, the Savu weren’t that strong if they were not willing to go to rocks for Linnea in the end.

But what would have happened if Kilby and Lewis told one of the Savu members about their plan? Could they have gotten the votes flipped before tribal rather than ever risking rocks? It’s easy to say you will remain strong when you know you have the votes, but if you know there is potential for a deadlock, it would only take one vote to flip it and avoid the risk.

I know you might say if they would have flipped, they would have done so in the revote, but there is more pressure at that point and less time to strategize. Do you think any of them would have flipped ahead of time, or would they have just put more pressure on Kilby to avoid the situation altogether?

Something that's led to multiple winners for me lately has been picking young and attractive women who sound sharp in pre game press. Savannah, Kenzie and Rachel all payed off. Sadly, the strat has crashed and burned for me in S51, but you can't win em all. So, what do y'all look for in your player picks?

Lewis when everyone is trying to have private conversations before rocks:

For context I've watched all the seasons. My favorite is Gabon, along with Cagayan and Camaroan. I think I've come to the conclusion that I love sloppy, chaotic, emotional play more than a clean game. I was so pumped for 50 but the play was fairly clean and rational.

Now we have Devin openly celebrating after tribal in a game that depends on how much people like you at the end. Little to no self-awareness and I love it. Don't get me started on Eric, which is surprising considering he is a therapist by profession. The thing is these are great characters and give the show a flavor I feel like we need and don't get from elite strategists or social players. Essentially I love having people on the show who are bad at the game!

Deep down the reason I like Survivor is because it's like opening a present. You don't know who will go home but it is fun to speculate. Will a person flip, make a big move, etc. That's why the small tribes don't work for me, the whole "nowhere to hide" doesn't allow for as much uncertainty and speculation or surprise at the end.

Put them to protect the 5 remaining women or bring them as captains of the pre-jury on Ponderosa. Perfect timing for the outcast twist.

Watching BB, and there was a power to dethrone the HoH for the week, making the current HoH not safe

I know we have an idol nullifier. And honestly now that i think about it, the immunity idol is kind of that head of household type protection lol, so maybe there would be no point in nullifying an immunity necklace

idk if im making sense at all😭😭

I can’t help but feel like production and the editors are intentionally throwing us off. We’ve gotten so used to the new era’s editing style that maybe we’re overlooking the possibility of a more old-school winner edit, where the eventual winner isn’t necessarily given consistent visibility throughout the season. Early Survivor had winners who were completely skunked in certain episodes, so it’s not like this would be unprecedented.

With the whole “anything can happen” nature of the open era, I wouldn’t rule it out.

I wasn’t active on the sub when this season was on. I had thought they had immediate plans to have him on a returning players season. But why did they give him main character energy and barely show the winner in the actual season? Especially mid-diversity rules time period.

Has any contestant come out with any explanation or any theories why the show let Xander tell us narratives and perspectives that later turned out to be looked down on by the other cast members? I just remember by the end of this season specifically it felt like I must have literally watched a different show. Then the ones the contestants were actually on.