Trigger Warnings: Discussions and Video Footage of Sexual Harassment

(Spoilers for Season 39 of Survivor)

39 Days.

16 People.

One Survivor.

With that simple premise and amazing intro, one of the most popular and long lasting shows on television today premiered.

What could possibly be said about Survivor that hasn’t been said already? First airing in 2000, the show is over twenty years old and is still attracting millions of viewers each season. Survivor remains the US reality competition of reality competitions, having a passionate fan base and an active community that it still enjoys today. But running for over two decades means the show has encountered its fair share of controversies, with each season promising new squabbles between fans, cast, and crew. As a reality competition and social experiment, this can also lead to deeply unpleasant moments. One of which led to one of the most controversial seasons the show has ever aired.

What is Survivor?

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only a handful of castaways remain, the contestants who have made it to the merge but were voted off form a jury that chooses which remaining contestant will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for. The winning contestant must be able to form a solid alliance, be respected by their peers, and search for any in-game advantages they can find to avoid being voted off early or lose to the other remaining castaways.

With this emphasis on social game play, and all the drama that comes with it, Survivor is known to not shy away from controversial contestants and issues. Production definitely encourages it, but that’s also part of what makes the show engaging to watch as fans choose contestants to root for and against. However, this can also make some episodes and even whole seasons hard to watch. And sometimes, the drama that unfolds is deeply unpleasant to everyone involved.

A Good but Problematic Start

Following the lackluster reception to the previous season, Island of the Idols aired in September 2019 and sought to recapture audiences with a unique twist and a more dynamic group of castaways. The season featured the return of two previous and beloved (or hated, depending on your point of view) Survivor contestants that would act as mentors for the twenty new competitors, offering challenges to gain advantages in game. With this unique twist, and a cast full of strong personalities and interesting characters, the season started off rather well. Even today, many fans would say the early episodes of the game could have made for a great season had it not been for the controversies and resulting weak second half.

Unfortunately, the issues the season would be embroiled in for the rest of its run began in the very first episode.

Dan Spilo was one of twenty new contestants for the season, and by the end of the premiere stirred a lot of controversy with his inappropriate touching of other contestants, most importantly Kellee. Though the two did talk by the end of the episode and seemed to squash the issue, Dan would continue to touch her and the other women on his tribe inappropriately even after repeatedly being told to stop.

Still, despite some gross moments, fans were still hoping that the season would continue off its strong start once the tribes merged.

One of the Most Uncomfortable Episodes in Recent Reality Television.

Episode 8 aired as a mid season double length special, and would oversee the elimination of two contestants from the game after the merger. At this point, Dan’s behavior was starting to become extremely uncomfortable and a serious problem for both Kellee, the other contestants, and the people watching at home. His behavior had been documented on camera throughout the season, and it was shown that production even asked Kellee during a private confessional early into the season if she would like the producers to be involved. Show producers even talked to the castaways as a group and one on one about inappropriate behavior, though it seems several contestants were and unaware of the controversy. Despite all this, Dan still remained in the game.

Kellee at this point was a serious target for elimination, having burned bridges with her other tribe mates following a controversial move to give away an immunity idol (an in-game item that can negate all votes cast against a player) to . Once the tribes merged, Kellee began to bond with previously opposing tribe member Missy over Dan’s behavior. Though initially targeting Missy, Kellee opened up to the other female tribe members about the possibility, and later her insistence, to eliminate Dan at the next tribal council- frustrated with his continued harassment.

Unfortunately, Missy and Kellee’s other former tribe members saw her as untrustworthy, and used her decision to target Dan as a pretense to unite and vote her out. Missy and fellow contestant Elizabeth exaggerated their discomfort with Dan’s actions to buy Kellee’s trust, and the following tribal council would lead to one of the most unpleasant and controversial moments in Survivor history.

An Unsettling Result

The results of the tribal council can be found , but the result should be clear by now if you’ve been reading.

Despite having two immunity idols in her pocket (essentially full protection at two tribal councils), Kellee played neither of them in her belief that Dan would be voted off. Instead, she was blindsided and eliminated, becoming the second juror for the season.

by fans or the media to say the least.

This would only be the first half of the dour double feature, with the next tribal council almost focusing exclusively on the fallout of the previous vote. The full council, broken in , is not a fun watch. Even host Jeff Probst assuring Dan, and likely the audience, that he won’t let the incident go, did little to alleviate the sour aftertaste of the episode. Seeing Kellee being unable to speak up on the jury bench while Dan spoke was already uncomfortable. But watching fan favorites Janet (who ended her alliance with Dan after listening to Kellee and wanted to protect her fellow tribe members) and Jamal (who sided with Kellee to eliminate Dan), both facing elimination and criticism by the remaining cast after failing to vote Dan off, only worsened fan reception towards the cast and production. Jamal would be eliminated by the majority alliance for being seen as a physical and strategic threat, but not before a that provided the fans with something hopeful to take away from the events of the episode.

Dan himself would not leave the season until towards the end of the season at the final six. Not by a vote at tribal council, or even by medical evacuation, but due to . Dan would not join the jury or be allowed at the reunion show taped after every season, being the first contestant to be officially ejected from the game in Survivor’s twenty year history.

A Disappointing and Frustrating Season

Fans would compile ‘highlights’ of Dan’s behavior that you can find , detailing the extent of Dan’s harassment throughout the season and a summary of the clips and allegations discussed here. Survivor has had numerous controversies in the past regarding sexual assault and harassment, some which probably deserve their own write up someday. But Island of the Idols was perceived by many to be an agonizing and unenjoyable watch following the mid season merge. Even ignoring the debacle, the second half of the season was simply seen as a letdown compared to the great first half by many, criticized for an increasingly unlikable cast and a ‘boring’ winner (who, ironically, never even visited the two mentors nor was given any advantages throughout the game). The outcome of Kellee’s elimination cast a large shadow over the season and the perception of many of the remaining contestants. Today, fans typically place Island of the Idols firmly towards the bottom of the forty seasons that have aired as of this post’s writing. Even the kindest suggestions come with warnings attached regarding the events that took place.

A Confusing Ending and Final Thoughts

Since the season aired, numerous contestants and the production crew have for their actions during the season. Oddly enough, Dan seems to have with a lot of the cast and even after the season was recorded. There are even (though direct sources are hard to find) of the cast planning to defend Dan had he not been barred at the reunion, if not for his actions than at least from production. Kellee, on the other hand, seems to have largely distanced herself from the Survivor community and her fellow castaways after a with Jeff Probst discussing what she went through during the show.

There’s not much fans can do other than speculate about what happened on the island versus what production chose to show. Survivor is reality television, and we’re only given a small window into the forty or so days these competitors spend on the island. What does seem to be a common theme, looking at the rumors, discussion, and interactions between fans and cast is that production failed to take the accusations seriously and with the care it needed. Regardless of Dan’s true character, Kellee was clearly uncomfortable with his behavior on the island and those in charge were unable to properly address the issue at hand before it exploded into a massive controversy. Some fans even argue that the producers wanted to use this controversy initially to promote the season, only stepping in when they realized the extent of Dan’s actions and couldn’t ignore it any longer.

Executives have promised to take instances of harassment on the show more seriously following the airing of Island of the Idols, detailing new guidelines to prevent future cases and protect cast and crew. For now, fans can only do their best to make their own judgement calls and do their best to hold the show accountable when possible.

Trigger Warnings: Transphobia, Mentions of Sexual Harassment, Public Outing

Spoilers for multiple seasons of Survivor, but especially Season 32: Millennials vs. Gen X, Season 34: Game Changers, and Season 39: Island of Idols

EDIT: Added Context to Varner’s thoughts at tribal council

39 Days

20 People

As mentioned in my previous , the show truly captured lightning in a bottle when it first aired and still enjoys strong ratings and a dedicated following today. Again though, running for over twenty years means that this show has run into its fair share of controversies, whether it be disturbing contestants or ugly moments. But even when Survivor: Game Changers started airing in early 2017, most probably didn’t expect the ugly spectacle that would take place, or its aftermath.

What is Survivor?

Feel free to skip if you’ve read my previous write up or watch the show.

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only a handful of castaways remain, the contestants who have made it to the merge but were voted off form a jury that chooses which remaining contestant will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for.

Game Changers?

When Survivor: Game Changers was originally announced, it was pitched as a season of solely returning players who made an impact on the game or their respective seasons. Ranging from previous winners, to frightening challenge beasts, to dramatic flame outs: the final casting choice was questionable for many fans. Confusion abounded about why some contestants, especially those who didn’t have a strong performance before, returned.

One controversial pick was Zeke Smith, who competed just recently on Millennials v.s. Gen X. A strategic player who was voted out half way through the game, Zeke was not the most , especially not for a season of ‘game changers’. Despite being hyped as a strong contestant by host and executive producer Jeff Probst before his first season, he failed to live up to that reputation. A handful of great scenes like his conversation with fellow did little to win over detractors of his polarizing .

It’s also important to note for later that it was discovered that Zeke had transitioned prior to his appearance on the show. While he was open about being gay, fans looked into his history and uncovered where he had talked about his transition while at Harvard. Regardless of the controversies and debate about whether this was appropriate to dig through, the show would continue without comment on Zeke’s identity and fans largely moved on.

There was also , another openly gay contestant who first appeared all the way back in Season 2 and came back once before. Though eliminated early during his previous seasons, Varner was charming and fun to watch, and fans were hoping that he could make it farther in the game than before.

A Contestant’s Struggles

By episode 6, the season had been through its fair share of dramatic moments, controversial vote offs, and numerous twists. Game Changers didn’t have the strongest start, and the remaining castaways weren’t exactly the most popular, but the show continued on steadily towards the mid season.

At this point, Varner found himself facing elimination before he could make the merge for the third time. After a tribe swap (where members of different tribes are forced to switch places) left him isolated with Zeke and his opposing alliance, he was clearly scrambling to stay in the game. When his tribe lost another challenge and was forced to go to tribal council, the lone castaway promised in a few private confessionals beforehand that he would put out all the stops to avoid elimination. With half the episode still remaining, much longer than what was usually given for councils, it certainly seemed like this would be more than just a simple vote.

How to Ensure Your Removal From the Game

Survivor is not a show that avoids controversy, and the game can become ugly at times. I say this because, surprisingly, CBS and the show’s producers tried to make the best of the situation they were presented with before airing. GLAAD, a non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting fair coverage of LGBT individuals in media, saying production collaborated with them and Zeke for months to edit the events that transpired. This isn’t to defend production entirely (we’ll get to that), but there was, at least, an attempt to support Zeke.

So, after trying to convince his tribe members not to vote for him and highlighting that there was ‘deception’ going on in the game, Varner would, with Probst's prompting, show an example of this deception by asking Zeke why he didn’t tell anyone he was transgender.

Most would agree that was a terrible strategy.

These are parts , , , and of the full tribal council, and make up a tense and unpleasant viewing that even production probably wasn’t ready for. Zeke never told anyone he had transitioned during either season- Varner simply made an educated guess based on Zeke’s chest scars from surgery and public rumors that were proven correct. He hadn’t even seen Zeke’s original season, but according to Varner he questioned why Zeke was a “game changer”, assumed Zeke was out outside of the game, and therefore believed that keeping that secret showed the “ability to deceive”.

Either way, the fallout was ugly. While having the rest of the tribe, and Probst himself, spring up to call out Varner before subsequently booting him without a formal vote was a relief to many fans (Survivor historically has a poor track record dealing with these scenes), there are just as many uncomfortable moments sprinkled throughout. Zeke’s attempts to brave through his outing and create a positive message is certainly courageous, but it was just after Varner’s continued insistence that Zeke was deceptive for not telling people. Zeke having to comfort Varner as the disgraced contestant left in tears and constant apologies didn’t help matters.

The Immediate Aftermath

The Hollywood Reporter would that same day with Zeke discussing his perspective about the episode, and he would tweet to while it aired. Survivor would also with Varner the day after the vote where he tried to explain his rationale, and he would apologize again in a for his actions. Varner would eventually following the outcry, but managed to get hired again before the reunion.

For the fans and media, it was a field day of controversy and debate as many were uncertain how to feel. Though , most were and how production handled the situation the day after, with some about what the tribe’s defense of Zeke and his speech meant to them. As for Varner, fans condemned his actions, but were ultimately willing to accept his apology and move on. Many he received and called out the hypocrisy from those who when he first competed on the show. Varner certainly wasn’t blameless, and his reputation had cratered lower than it ever had before, but it seemed his apologies were genuine and most, including Zeke, were willing to forgive.

Obviously, the show wasn’t immune to critique either. Write ups from argued that while the edit was admirable, production failed to address the events of the episode with the gravity and harshness it needed. The portrayal of the tribal council as inspirational or a teaching moment rather than, well, someone being outed on television for being ‘deceptive’ about his private identity was heavily criticized.

In the end, the show and fan base would eventually move on. Though unlikely to come back again, the harassment Varner received would fade and Zeke continued playing, being eliminated about halfway through the season. It seemed that the drama had finally wrapped up, and the audience hoped that the worst was over.

Then the reunion happened.

A Controversial Reunion

Like every season previously, Survivor would host a reunion after the finale aired. Zeke and Varner settled what happened between them, and the former following the season- speaking about LGBT representation and hoping his publicity could inspire other trans people. Varner would apologize again, reveal his new job, and titled Surviving Shame, discussing what he went through after outing Zeke.

weren’t with last announcement.

Entertainment Tonight would upload a the day the reunion aired attempting to explain his perspective, highlighting the anguish and guilt he felt as well as accepting all the blame and harassment thrown at him. But all the goodwill he, and Survivor production, acquired with his promises to do better following Zeke’s outing was damaged following his plugins. A retweet he posted that same day, where he seemingly supported the notion that he taking ‘advantage’ of the press coverage, only worsened his ruined reputation. The reunion sparked ire for Varner, casting his apologies in a more negative light.

So with all this drama, and the negative reception to his appearance, Varner naturally refused to let it go.

On Doubling Down

In early 2018 Varner would publicly call out how , and that he forgave Zeke for , even though the only major proof he had transitioned came from that old, deeply buried Harvard paper linked previously.
He would later post his conclusive thoughts in his hometown paper, , where he revealed his contempt for how the show portrayed him. In particular, he highlighted how the episode was not fair to the LGBT community because of how he, a gay man, was edited and that there were several removed scenes that added context.

[Jeff Varner]: “By dismissing one member of the LGBT community to lift up another — even if they did a bad thing or made a mistake — how inclusive is that?” he asked. “There are two LGBT people in this situation, and we both matter.”

...

“I didn’t just randomly turn to Zeke and say, ‘Why don’t you tell everybody you’re transgender?’ There was a statement he made that prompted that. That statement was cut out,” Varner said. “I was talking about being in alliances and deceiving people, and he’s like, ‘I’m not deceiving anybody.’ That’s what made me turn around and ask him the question.”

...

“Jeff Probst said in the show, ‘Varner, I’ve known you 17 years, and you don’t have a hateful bone in your body,’ ” Varner said. “Why did they cut that out?”

Survivor is reality television, and to say that the producers don’t unfairly edit contestants or push them to their limit is not a controversial claim. Many contestants, fans, and media all have discussed the show’s issues in pursuing drama at the expense of the physical and mental health of the cast, in particular the biases against minorities and LGBT castaways. But fair or not, Varner came off overly defensive to fans about his portrayal and actions, slowly losing support each time he brought up the incident.

Then he defended Dan Spilo.

For those who haven’t read the write up I linked previously, Dan was a contestant on Survivor Season 39: Island of the Idols in 2019, and had been accused and shown to be sexually harassing his fellow castaways multiple times throughout the season. This behavior was so problematic that production eventually had to boot him out of the game just before the finale, and barred him from the reunion show which would be pre taped to avoid any controversy. You can find a ‘highlight’ reel of his worst moments on camera .Throughout this debacle, rumors and interviews suggested that most of the castaways supported Dan against the producers while his primary victim, Kellee, was largely isolated from the other contestants. Though not publicly confirmed, his friendship with many of the others after the game and production not booting Dan earlier threw the show and cast into controversy yet again.

Varner, possibly seeing a reflection in Dan of what he went through, would unload on social media about how were at fault, and would write up an extensive blog post in . In short, he stated that production had gaslighted viewers by downplaying the women exaggerating their distress to Kellee for some #MeToo headlines and ruined Dan’s life undeservedly, overplaying the accusations against him.

We’ve seen the potential ruin of another man’s life. And we’ve missed the opportunity for true and real healing, something we all know we need. Hopefully one day, after what I’ve seen as the pure gaslighting of gender identity and now #metoo, Survivor will wake up and realize a sexy TV show and another Emmy is not worth the cost of a human being’s life.

Needless to say, people weren’t pleased with his . Again, the core argument that CBS was more interested in stirring up drama than truly supporting their contestants isn’t a controversial take. But Varner’s references to his own controversy, and portrayal of Dan as almost completely innocent, rubbed most the wrong way. He seemed to think that the production crew and Zeke had back stabbed him, and defending Dan so strongly (regardless of how poorly the show handled the situation) was a step too far for many of his remaining supporters.

Aftermath

Jeff Varner seems to be enjoying a successful career in real estate if his Facebook is any indication, though his time as a Survivor contestant is over. It’s clear with his resentment towards the show that he won’t be coming back again, and most are happy to leave it that way.

Zeke himself is not only finished with the game, but seems to regret participating at all. Though initially appearing content to speak publicly, he soon became open about how his outing damaged his mental health. By 2020, Zeke would warn other trans men, and anyone interested in competing, to stay entirely. A few months later, he would with other LGBT+ players to discuss the alienation they felt on Survivor. In particular, he would discuss Kelle’s lack of aftercare following Dan’s harassment and the privilege he had choosing his on screen portrayal and receiving support from producers after the show.

I both played the game and was treated afterwards with an abundance of white-male privilege.... I think that because the show was unequivocally made through a white male lens.... I mean, [CBS] is not a network that, I think, can have a critical look at at stories outside of what they think is going to make a Midwestern mom comfortable

...

Like I had conversations with Jeff before I left Fiji about how things were going to go down. And, you know, Kellee got none of that. Kellee didn’t get the mental health care, and Kellee didn’t get the access. Kellee didn’t get the support from external organizations. I think the reason why I got that is because Jeff could see himself in me. And with Kellee, I spoke out for Kellee. I was critical of how the show handled Kellee situation. And I’ve not heard a peep from anybody [from the show] since.

Neither of these are from Zeke, but they represent his frustrations with the show and his commitment to staying away from the spotlight. During a , he at least seemed to come to terms with what happened. But the trauma from that event still lingered over him, and he again expressed his wish for more aftercare for castaways after returning to reality.

First boot to winner, everyone comes home with a degree of trauma that no one around you can understand. That trauma is magnified when the show begins to air. You go from just another person to a semi-celebrity. You're being talked about on podcasts, you're getting followers, you're on TV, you might even get recognized on the street! And as exciting as it begins, the comments can get mean, the edit dismissive, and before you know it, the ride is over and all that being special is pulled away. It really does a number on people mentally — both the game and the airing experience.

Conclusion

Both Varner and Zeke seem to have found success after the show despite the fallout. In many ways, their critiques of production are actually pretty similar, even if they come from different directions. Whatever their grievances may be, both will probably never come back, and Varner has become a pariah among the fan base for his actions and statements nowadays. The Dan incident certainly destroyed most good will he had remaining. Fans seem content with Zeke leaving Survivor behind, and he seems to be enjoying new projects as a writer and public speaker.

Between all this is probably a crucial message about reality television and how it can take its toll on people. Many contestants on Survivor have spoken about the whiplash returning to reality was for them. Surviving on an island for over a month without contact from the outside world, no matter how manufactured or safe, would take its toll on anyone. Couple that with a ruthless social competition and constant physical challenges, and Zeke’s calls for greater emotional care is clearly something castaways need. Regardless, Survivor is still running to this day, and will begin airing its forty-first season soon. Even with its shorter length, only 26 days instead of the usual 39, Probst and production promise to make the more than ever on the island to compensate. So take that for all the good and bad it entails.

What is Beauty and the Geek?

Beauty and the Geek was an American reality television series that premiered on The WB (which became the CW) on June 1, 2005 and lasted until 2008 for 5 seasons. It was advertised as "The Ultimate Social Experiment" and was produced by Ashton Kutcher (yes that Ashton Kutcher), Jason Goldberg and J.D. Roth. Brian McFayden hosted the first season while Mike Richards (Alex Trebek’s controversial replacement on Jeopardy) hosted the rest of the seasons. In case you're wondering, yes the show's title is a parody of Beauty and the Beast.

The show follows groups of "Beauties" (people — almost always women — who rely on their attractiveness and outgoing personalities but typically lack intellect) and "Geeks" (people — almost always men — who rely on their intellect, but typically lack social ability) who must pair up to compete in challenges to avoid elimination. Throughout the show, each contestant was given a tagline. Examples include “Harvard Graduate” and "Virgin" for the geeks; "UFC Ring Girl" and "Former Hooters Waitress" for the beauties. The final pair remaining is declared as being "More than just a Beauty and a Geek" and wins the grand prize of $250,000. In today’s terms, this show's premise was kinda like what if you took a bunch of (male) Redditors and teamed them up with (female) Instagram models.

While the show originated in the USA, there are versions of this show in many different countries around the world, such as Australia, Chile, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. However, I will only be focusing on the US version of this show. Specifically US Season 3 (US S3) as that’s where the drama featured in this write up happened.

One major question that is often asked by the audience is “Are the beauties really that dumb?”. Well with constant cameras recording everyone 24/7, the producers can pick & choose what they air to portray anyone to look smarter/stupider and even assign a certain persona. But in general, the show is not scripted and the contestants really said those things you’d hear. This is important to note because much of this write up will essentially be a summary of US S3 based largely on what is seen and heard in the final cut of the show.

How does the show work?

In most seasons, the geek and the beauties would introduce themselves to each other and pick their partner based on their introductions. Exact format of the introduction varies from season to season. Some seasons had both the beauties and geeks take turns to introduce themselves to the others while other seasons had only the geeks introduce themselves. As for the number of teams, it varies season by season though the average number of teams is rounded to 8.

During the competition, the contestants live in a mansion with each beauty and their partner geek sleeping in the same room. Most of the time, they slept on the same bed each night too. According to US S3 contestant Nate Dern (remember his name), contestants to their phones, the internet or even a newspaper throughout their time on the show. So contestants would go insane and/or form unlikely connections. Dern also described it as kinda like what he’d imagine being in prison must be like.

In each episode, the ‘beauty’ and the ‘geek’ of each team would each compete challenges that are outside their respective comfort zones. The ‘beauties' would compete in challenges of intellect while the ‘geeks’ would compete in challenges involving social ability. The winner of each challenge would get their team immunity and would have the power to send another pair to the elimination room. In total, there were usually two challenges per episode, one for the “beauty” and one for the “geek”.

In total, two pairs would each get nominated for elimination each episode. Elimination is a run-off between two pairs, is decided in eight questions, 2 for each person. The beauties have to answer questions on typical geek topics, and the geeks have to answer questions on dating and fashion and whichever team gets the least amount of questions right gets eliminated. If a tie occurs, a “closest-to” question gets asked and the team that gets it closest to the right answer stays. Yes, there have been teams who clearly placed 2nd in a challenge but ended up getting eliminated the same episode. Therefore, getting 2nd place in a challenge is as good as getting last place.

How the finale was done and the winner was determined varied season by season. Season 1 & 2’s winners were each determined by a quiz; Seasons 3 & 4’s winners were each determined by a vote; Season 5’s winner was determined by a scavenger hunt of eliminated cast members. Season 1-4 had two teams participate in the finale while Season 5 had 3 teams participate. However, Season 5’s finale had two tasks and the team who did worst in the first task was eliminated, thus leaving only two teams to compete in the final task to determine the season’s winner.

However, US Season 5 (the last US season btw) had a widely panned format change which put the “Beauties” against the “Geeks” in separate teams for the first three episodes. In Episode 4 of that season, the remaining “Beauties” and “Geeks” partnered up with each other and the geek who didn’t get a partner was then promptly eliminated. The show then pretty much followed the same format as the previous seasons for the rest of the season. But that is a whole other drama that I will have to save for a future write-up.

US Season 3

The main drama I will be focusing on occurred in US Season 3, which premiered on January 3, 2007. Like all other seasons of BATG (aside from the first), Mike Richards was the host of that season. Now S3 was one of the more panned seasons of the US version for reasons I will be going into in this write-up. In this season, 8 geeks and 8 beauties were paired up to form a team.

Note: There will be lots of spoilers ahead and none will be covered up. Also I will not be covering everything that happened that season. If you want to watch the episodes yourself, all episodes of US S3 are on . The episode numbering in this writeup will be based on it was listed on , not what you see on the official YouTube channel. Also, let me know of crucial details I may have glossed over.

How the pairing worked that season was that the beauties and the geeks were first placed in separate rooms. Both groups passed each other along the way to their assigned rooms. This would be the only time the contestants would see their eventual partners before picking them. One by one each group would take turns sending someone into the other room. But when that person entered the other room, the contestants stationed in that room would have to look away from them. Thus, contestants would have to pick their partners solely on what they said, not how they looked. The teams were then formed as followed:

1. Niels & Jennylee

2. Sanjay & Tori

3. Nate & Cecille (aka CeCe)

4. Drew & Erin

5. Piao & Sheree

6. Mario & Nadia

7. Matt & Andrea

8. Scooter & Megan

The first episode was split into 2 parts, which the official channel called “Episode 1 & 2”. Ep 1.1 saw no elimination but a team could have opted to leave the show for a cash prize of $20,000, which no one did. The team who won the first challenge was Nate & Cecille, who are going to be the main focus of this write-up. Nate & Cecille started Ep 1.2 already having immunity because they had won the challenge in Ep 1.1. However, they could compete for the opportunity to send a constant to the elimination room. Spoiler: Nate ended up also easily winning his geek challenge in Ep 1.2 (perform a Stand-up Comedy routine at The Laugh Factory), thus granting his team the power to send a team to the elimination room as well. Sanjay & Tori were eliminated in that episode.

Beauty and the Clique

Few episodes into season 3, a clique consisting of the “blondes" (Cecille, Jennylee, Erin, Megan and sometimes Nadia) started to form with their main rivals being the “brunettes" (Andrea and Sheree). While Tori has black hair, she did not factor much into the brunettes’ clique due to the fact that she was eliminated before the cliques really started to form. Tori also had relatively little interaction with Andrea and Sheree. The main mastermind of the blonde clique was later revealed to be Cecille.

Mario & Nadia ended up winning both challenges in Episode 2, thus they had the power to send two teams to the elimination room instead of one. This power troubled Nadia because on one hand she wants to make friends with the rest of blondes. But on the other hand, she didn't quite fit in with them. Meanwhile, Mario expressed disapproval with the blonde clique (which he called “the gaggle of girls”) and so did Niels. Niels also noted in the confessionals that the geeks all got along with each other and there were no signs of any cliques among them, which is something he said the beauties could learn from.

Piao & Sheree and Matt & Andrea were sent to the elimination room that episode, due in part to the pressure on Nadia from the rest of the blondes. Piao & Sheree ended up losing the quiz, thus they got eliminated. However, this would not be the last time we’d hear of Sheree as she would play a decisive role later on. In the following episode, Matt & Andrea were eliminated, having lost to Nate & Cecille in the elimination quiz. Both teams were sent to the room by Niels & Jennylee, who had won the sole challenge of the episode.

The Brunettes are all out, now what?

The elimination of Matt & Andrea meant that the brunettes were all out of the game by episode 4. However, that meant that the members of the blondes would have to start turning on each other (or their geeks). A new rivalry with Cecille and Neils, mostly because it was the latter’s idea to send the former’s team to the elimination room in the previous episode. In contrast, Cecille and Neils’ partners (Nate and Jennylee respectively) started to form a romantic bond.

As revenge for their nomination, Nate & Cecille to the elimination room the following episode, where they won the elimination quiz (at the expense of Drew & Erin). Due to not winning a challenge, Niels & Jennylee were also sent to the elimination room the following 2 episodes, winning the first quiz (at the expense of Mario & Nadia) before falling to Nate & Cecille in the second one. Shortly after host Richards announced Niels & Jennylee elimination, Cecille , "You can take the blonde to the ranch, but you can't take the bikini off the blonde." The comments irked Jennylee. Nate then hugged Jennylee and told her “don’t worry about [Cecille]”.

As the show went on, it became clear that Cecille was not well liked by the other contestants. As far as I could tell, this sentiment was also shared by most viewers of the show. Common criticisms of Cecille include her manipulative nature, refusal to change and the mean things she said about others. In episode 6, Scooter that he would be upset if Cece wins because it would be a validation of things she had been saying the whole time. Even Cecille’s partner Nate expressed his disapproval of Cecille’s behavior.

The Finale (aka “Time to kiss butt”)

With Niels & Jennylee now finally eliminated, that leaves us with two teams left to compete for the $250,000 prize in the season finale: Nate & Cecille and Scooter & Megan. The winner of the season was not determined by a set of challenges or a quiz but rather a vote from the eliminated contestants to determine who changed the most. The (for those who can’t tell, she looked noticeably upset about this) when this was first announced by host Mike Richards says it all. Especially in contrast to Nate, Scooter and Megan, who all reacted positively to this news.

The jury of eliminated contestants all gathered at the mansion and it was up to the final two teams themselves to convince the jury to vote for them. Mario noted that “While Nate was nice, he was unfortunate to have Cece as a partner…it’s a possibility that not waiting for her to win will override my want for Nate to win”. The first person Cece tried to convince to vote for her was Andrea, who clearly didn't have nice things to say about her. Other contestants who criticized Cece were Neils and Sanjay. In a conversation with Megan, Cece expressed her refusal to “kiss ass to anybody” while insulting some of the eliminated contestants. Before they went to bed, Nate told Cecille that she doesn’t need to “kiss ass” but instead just “needs to be humble tomorrow”.

The next day, it suddenly dawned on Nate that Cecille didn’t change and that his team didn’t deserve to win. He also stated that Cecille needs to take responsibility for her actions. Nate then went on to tell Drew, Mario, Piao, Erin, Sheree, Nadia, Niels and Sanjay not to vote for his team as winning would not incentivize Cecille to change. Meanwhile, Cecille was not talking to Megan and seemed to have a rift with her. Mike Richards called the final 2 teams up to the elimination room and went on to tell them that 7 votes were required to win the whole season.

Eventually the jury voted and the votes were as followed (in order of when they were cast for each team):

With 7 votes compared to Nate & Cecille’s 2 votes, Scooter & Megan easily won the jury vote of the eliminated contestants. This made Scooter & Megan the winner of Season 3, thus earning the $250,000 prize. In case you can’t tell, Sheree (and to a lesser extent Andrea) casted the deciding vote. Many contestants (including Sheree) voted for Scooter & Megan because they did not like Cecille. As for why Jennylee and Matt each voted for Nate & Cecille, Jennylee did it for Nate while Matt believes Cecille did go out of her way to help him change.

Aftermath

Based on what was seen in the epilogue episode and in interviews, it didn’t look like losing the $250,000 prize really taught Cecille much, at least in the short term. According to Nate, Cecille was, in fact, “a little upset” at him and avoided a wrap party held for Season 3’s cast in Las Vegas. Nate noted that Cece likely felt targeted by her former castmates and thus probably got the wrong message from what Nate was trying to teach her. As for the campaigning against his team, Nate stated that although he really did it because he thought Cecille didn’t deserve to win, he also didn’t think his team was going to win anyways.

In an , Nate stated that “[the producers] definitely chose to represent Cecille in one way, but I don’t think Cecille made it difficult for them to do that”. Though he added that Cece did have a good side to her that wasn’t shown in the final cut. Megan Hauserman, the winning beauty of US Season 3, has gone on record in to state that Cecille got a bad edit and that she did have a good side to her. Meanwhile, Megan’s partner Scooter’s opinion about this matter is similar to Nate’s, though he did also acknowledge the bad editing.

After the show’s filming ended, Nate and Jennylee couldn’t talk to each other for six months, This broke off any romantic connection that was formed on the show. Apparently, Jennylee ended up dating Frankie Muniz (aka Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle) after the show ended. In a , Nate claimed that his relationship with Jennylee was a bit exaggerated by the editing and formed mostly due to special circumstances. However, they would appear on the together as recruiters for that season’s cast and remain as good friends for a few more years after the show.

What happened to select contestants after the show?

• Alan "Scooter" Zackheim: According to his Linkedin, Scooter went back to Montana and attended The University of Montana School of Law, where he got a Juris Doctor (JD) Degree. Afaik, he now works as a lawyer (or something law related) there.

• Megan Hauserman: Megan would go on to do a few more reality shows such as “Rock of Love” and “I Love Money”. She even got her own show called in 2009 where seventeen wealthy single men competed for her love. However, the show would get canceled mid season after only 3 episodes because , whom he had only met after the show finished filming.

• Nate Dern: Nate went on to become staff writer for "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" and is also a senior writer for Funny or Die (he even acted in some of their as well). Additionally, he has also worked with John Oliver, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Nate winning the stand-up comedy challenge was definitely foreshadowing. Aside from writing, he was also an actor on Gossip Girl and Boardwalk Empire and featured in an . Also he is (or at least was) on Reddit, and even did an about his time as an intern for "The Daily Show". So if you happen to stumble upon this post Nate, I’d like to say that I respect you a lot for giving up such a huge prize based on principles. Also, feel free to add some details or let me know of some errors in the replies as I largely based this write-up on what made the final cut.

• Cecille Gahr: Cecille on 2 episodes of “Megan Wants a Millionaire'', the ill-fated reality show starring fellow contestant Megan Hauserman. Based on what was seen there, she did reconcile her friendship with Megan as Megan described Cecille as her “best friend”. Other than that, not much is known about her.

• Niels Hoven: Neils founded , which is a software development (?) company that allows “gifted kids” to learn more in less time.

• Mario Muscar: Mario got married to a long-time friend shortly after the show ended and worked as a journalist while doing some improv on the side with his wife.

• Andrea Ciliberti: Andrea got accused by YouTuber and reality star Winter Blanco of being a “crazy evil landlord” in a posted by Blanco in 2020.

Spoilers for Survivor Season 7: Pearl Islands and other seasons.

39 Days

16 People

That’s right Survivor fans, I’m covering a season most people love this time. Considered to be one of the best seasons ever made, Pearl Islands would be Survivor’s seventh outing on the small screen and would introduce some of the most famous (and infamous) contestants in Survivor history. Taking its theming of pirates and thievery, the show truly did everything it possibly could with its setting and story, highlighting the absurdity and propelled by its amazing cast. The season would also introduce one of Survivor’s greatest “villains”, whose legacy would be defined with one of the greatest lies ever told on the show and reality television.

What Is Survivor?

Skip if you’ve read any of my last entries or watch the show.

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only a handful of castaways remain, the contestants who have made it to the merge but were voted off form a jury that chooses which remaining contestant will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for. The people you either worked with, against, or even personally eliminated will likely be responsible for deciding if you or the person sitting next to you will win a million dollars. You need to somehow ensure that when the time comes, they at the very least can accept rewarding you.

A Pirate’s Life

would build off the growing success of the show’s earlier seasons, trying out all new twists and changes to the formula, many of whom would pay off in spades. It got off on a strong footing with its premiere, where the castaways were and forced to before taking a boat to a nearby deserted island. The strong first episode would precede a season full of great moments and fun castaways, many of whom would make their return in future seasons. Fun challenges, interesting social dynamics and day to day camp life, : this season has it all for most Survivor fans and remains a classic to this day. But beneath all the dramatic backstabs and unique challenges, it should be stressed that the cast truly carried the day. While there are plenty of stories, producer shenanigans, and cast members to discuss, I'll be focusing on the main source of this write up and what many consider to be one of Survivor’s greatest villains: .

Jon P. Dalton set out to become a reality star on Survivor and purposely play the villain, constantly scheming and verbally berating his tribe members during private confessionals. That may be explained by his previous work in professional wrestling, often attracted to the wrestling “heel” (general term for a villainous character), taking joy in his job as a match commentator, and working with legends likely familiar to any wrestling fans such as Roddy Piper. “Jonny Fairplay”, as he dubbed himself, had already before the show, but once his tribe landed on the island he put his antics into overdrive. Betraying alliance members as soon as they lacked purpose, up playing the gender divide while making snarky remarks about the women whenever he could, portraying himself as a master mind and in control at all times with an unrivaled ego were all just the tip of his infamous persona. Fairplay’s after trying to eliminate him at Tribal Council is probably one of his most infamous moments, but there is certainly more than a handful fans can pick from.

[Rupert]: Jon! Who the hell voted for me!?

[Fairplay]: I did!

[Rupert]: What the f*** was that s*** tonight!?

[Fairplay]: I was doing it for Drake, dude! *Walking away* I wouldn’t-

[Rupert] *Grabs Jon by the neck and spins him around* Damnit, look at me!

While that was probably the most physical confrontation the schemer had, Fairplay was prone to getting into verbal fights with almost everyone. Most notable was his rivalry with fellow contestant and fellow Survivor icon Sandra Diaz-Twine, with their dispute lasting and creating one of Pearl Island’s most central storylines.

If Fairplay wanted to grab attention, he was certainly doing so. In a period of the show’s history where most players were reluctant to be perceived as not “nice” by the millions of viewers turning in weekly, Jon had chosen to embrace his role with complete glee and no sign of guilt, parading himself around as the smartest and best castaway whenever he could. The survivor had positioned himself as the season’s “villain” by the time the tribes merged, managing to save himself at multiple tribal councils and maintaining solid influence over the others through his cold blooded strategy and deceitful planning. He was a massive character on screen and someone audiences either . Even now, that still seems to be a . Whatever side you were on, most agreed it wasn’t clear if he could make it to the end, or even if he could win at all. His arrogance may have deterred the jury from rewarding someone so unashamed of his ego, but it was also possible Fairplay’s strong strategic gameplay and social strategizing compared to the others still made him one of the strongest candidates remaining. Again, while its important to have a strong game that can be respected, the jury can also decide you're simply too much of a jerk (in PG terms) to be given a million dollars, and it wasn't certain to the others or the viewers which side they would take. Either way, his constant conniving was still a threat that needed to be dealt with by the other castaways if they wanted to guarantee their spot at the final two.

My Life Was A Tragedy

So, it's Episode 11 and the finale is just in sight. We’re at the final seven, and only two remaining contestants will be able to speak to the jury to decide who will be the Sole Survivor. Tensions were definitely soaring as the end was near, with a potential women’s alliance forming that scared Jon and his sole remaining (and also only other male) ally. Winning the rewards and immunity challenges were more important than ever now, both to keep your morale up and to ensure your safety for each and every tribal council. Luckily for Jon, it just so happened the next challenge was the Loved Ones Visit.

The Family/Loved One Visit is a Survivor staple, giving the remaining contestants the chance to reconnect with their loved ones after a month stranded on an island with people you most likely can’t stand. The contestants stepped forward one by one to say hi to their loved ones. From a husband, to a fiance, to a former sweetheart (turned best friend?) It was a heartwarming affair and encouraged the remaining castaways to do well enough in the hopes of spending just a little more time with a familiar face. If you want (and I heavily recommend it), I encourage you to watch the family visit in full. Don’t worry though, I’ll link the highlights of these spliced videos when needed.

So after everyone else gets the chance to meet with their loved ones, Fairplay finally gets the chance to meet with his best friend Dan, or Thunder D as he dubbed himself. After embracing, Fairplay would ask his friend one of the most .

[Jon]: Oh dude! How’s Grandma?

[Thunder D]: ...She died, dude.

In tears, Fairplay hugged his friend again as the rest of the castaways watched in disbelief. As they parted, Fairplay sat down while some of the others reached in support. Probst asked him what happened, but all Fairplay could say was that she “wasn’t around”, . Except Sandra. Whether she didn’t believe him or just didn’t care after spending weeks on an island with him, I choose to keep the truth a mystery to myself personally. Either way, this was certainly unprecedented. The previous visits were largely all smiles and hugs, and to hear a bombshell dropped on television was certainly a shock.

After receiving that bit of distressing news, the challenge finally started. The loved ones would be sent out on planks above the water and the contestants would need to match the same answer as their loved ones in regard to specific questions about themselves ie: “What’s your favorite food?” “What’s your biggest fear?” etc; Those who got a question right could choose any loved one they wanted to take one step back. If your loved one took too many steps back, they must jump off the plank and the contestant would be eliminated from the reward. The winner would get to spend twenty four hours with their loved one, sharing the camp experience with them and otherwise gaining valuable morale for the days ahead. With such high stakes, the contest took off as multiple people answered the first question (“What is your nickname?”) correctly. Both Sandra and Fairplay got it right, and Sandra got to choose who would walk the plank first. If you’ve been paying attention, I don’t think .

[Probst]: Sandra. First move?

[Sandra]: Fairplay’s buddy.

…

[Probst]: Jonny Fairplay?

[Fairplay]: I mean, I have a million questions I’d like to know about my grandmother but obviously some people don’t give a s***. So-

[Sandra]: It’s not about you all the time!

[Fairplay]: Right.

[Lilian]: His grandmother just died!

[Fairplay]: Sandra’s husband is my choice.

Again, the whole challenge needs to be watched, but there are so many little moments throughout that make the entire affair only more bizarre with every rewatch. Lillian and Fairplay immediately gang up to take Sandra’s husband out in revenge. One contestant’s boyfriend manages to get nearly every question about his significant other wrong. Fairplay awkwardly assures his ally’s mother that their son is a good person. All the while no one is targeting Thunder D either out of strategy or sympathy. It's simply a great moment of television, and one of many scenes I personally point to that got me into Survivor. Where else can you get :

[Fairplay]: *Remorsefully* I got to go with T’s man. Billy.

[Billy]: Hey! My condolences, man.

[Fairplay]: Thanks.

[Billy]: *Turns around and does a cannonball into the ocean*

But Now I Realize, It’s A Comedy

In the end, Fairplay easily won thanks to the sympathies of nearly everyone there minus Sandra, and maybe Probst as well. Despite all the agony he put the rest of the tribe through, his grandma’s death was such a shock most were willing to let him win rather easily. Fairplay and Thunder D took off, enjoying a day in private at the camp while everyone else was sent to a deserted beach with no resources for the night. Still, everyone was willing to spend a day in hardship if it meant their fellow castaway could find some closure. Then, the production team immediately panned to the duo .

[Thunder D]: That was a brilliant performance, sir!

[Fairplay]: Like that! *reaches out to high five* Thank you!

Fairplay had finally gained an ounce of sympathy after so long being a completely unrepentant villain, and it was all an act. He and Thunder D agreed to lie about his grandmother before going on Survivor should he make it to the end, using the story to gain the sympathy of his other castaways. To quote the man himself, “My grandma is sitting at home watching Jerry Springer right now.” It made sense in context. This was a game for a million dollars, and while no one had lied on their family visit before, doing so would be a great move to garner support and make yourself more likable to the jury. It worked after all, seeing as Faiplay was now currently enjoying a day with Thunder D by themselves, not having to deal with his tribemates. Still, if Fairplay wasn’t a villain before, he certainly was now. The castaway immediately made himself a pariah in the public eye for breaking an unspoken rule no one in Survivor history had done before: lying during the family visit, and about an immense tragedy, for their own gain.

Everyone who watched Survivor at this time either loved him or thought he was the scum of the Earth. . , not only about Fairplay lying but also about how nearly everyone there somehow bought his rather poor acting. Some actually began afterwards, amazed with his lie and complete joy in continuing to talk about his poor “dead” grandma throughout the episode with his fellow castaways. Whatever would become of Fairplay in the game, many agreed it at least made for , with Pearl Islands seeing over twenty million viewers weekly and continuing Survivor’s undisputed success.

That wasn't even the end of it. Using his (not really) dead granny became a psychological tool, a totem to swear upon in lieu of the Bible, a sympathy prop to hold up atTribal Council. Forget milking the cow, the man was serving up burgers and shakes. Disgusting. Putrid. Good TV. And if Jon wins the $1 million, brilliant strategizing as well. "Survivor" executive producer and should be high-fiving right about now.

If Fairplay wanted to make his mark on television, he certainly did. Most fans would probably agree that Survivor has become a lot more accepting of cut throat tactics, and lying about your background and occupation is a pretty common move, with many a sob story at family visits nowadays being treated with suspicion on the off chance someone was replicating Fairplay’s dramatic lie. While Jonny didn’t single handedly change Survivor overnight, there are many players before and after him that would become reality TV legends during this period, he definitely helped evolve the game and helped popularize such simple but effective tactics. Even today, “She died, dude” has become a hallmark among Survivor fans of one of the greatest moments in reality television. , , no matter what happens to Survivor in the future, it is assured that this moment will live long past the show.

Downfall

Every great villain needs a great downfall, and Fairplay certainly did fall in the season finale. He managed to weasel his way into the final three, avoiding elimination numerous times as the other contestants constantly fell for his lies, not even figuring out his story at the loved ones visit was a sham. Still, sooner or later all sympathy ran out in the face of his continued scheming and despicable cockiness. After backstabbing or losing his remaining allies and becoming a complete pariah at camp, Fairplay needed to win this last immunity challenge if he wanted to avoid getting voted out. He, Sandra, and Lillian would have to balance on a small raft, with whoever lasted longest winning immunity and single handedly choosing who would be eliminated and become the last juror. Miraculously, Lillian, that same woman in a girl scout uniform who helped Fairplay win numerous rewards including the family visit and was constantly mocked behind her back in return for being “weak” and quickly driven to tears, would manage to defeat Fairplay once and for all. I linked to the site earlier, but the Funny 115 (dedicated to cataloguing hilarious moments in Survivor history) truly does a great summary . It’s a great read, and I don’t believe production could have created a better ending for this season if they tried.

...Jon Dalton was such a good player, and such an evil little piss ant, that he basically made a mockery out of the game for 37 days in the Pearl Islands. He treated people like crap, he made outrageous lies and character assassinations that nobody else would have ever dreamed up, and he mocked and mimicked his fellow tribesmates without the slightest bit of remorse. He was the most evil player the show had ever seen, he was the most devious player the show had ever seen, heck he even killed a fictitious grandmother just to get himself that much closer to a million dollars! Jon did everything he could to win this game. He broke every rule he could possibly think of, and then he got his ass kicked on national TV by this woman, who was previously best-known for the fact that she wore white cotton panties with a boy scout uniform.

Fairplay would by Lillian and Sandra that night, the scout feeling betrayed and vengeful due to his constant blindsides and arrogance while Sandra probably felt the happiest she ever was on that island. To this day, it remains one of the with the irony of Fairplay being completely destroyed by what he believed was one of the weakest castaways, who he spent the entire game manipulating, a perfect end to his journey.

Aftermath And Disputes With Production

Sandra would go on to against Lillian in a 6-1 vote, respected for her greater social standing and more aggressive game play throughout the season. She would go on to compete several more times in Survivor, and is even set to take part in Australian Survivor’s new season next year. To this day, she remains a for her outspoken personality and overall excellent run. The queen truly does stay queen.

Jonny Fairplay is often considered by many to be one of the greatest villains in Survivor history. Though whether he would have won if he made it to the end is disputed, he certainly came close, and his antics have rarely been matched since. With the season finale receiving over , Fairplay would bask in the limelight and even create some long lasting friendships afterwards with a cast that hated his guts on the island. Of course, this didn’t garner any support among production and especially Jeff Probst. While Probst loved what he brought to the table for ratings, he hated working with Fairplay. When the with Probst’s brother during an after party show a few years later, Probst was ready to write him off completely.

“Personally, however, he’s an absolute jacka** whose actions at the Vanuatu finale after-party pissed me off so much that he’s banned from any event that I’m at from now on. I’m done with Jonny Fairplay,” said Probst at the time.

Despite this bad blood, CBS was excited to bring one of Survivor’s biggest villains back eventually, and would overrule Probst completely. Fairplay was set to return in Season 16, but a dispute (aka tackling) with Danny Bonaduce at the 2007 Fox Reality Awards (after the crowd booed him and Bonaduce appeared unexpectedly on stage), led to a month before he was set to compete. Still in pain after the operation and refused medication while on Survivor despite another contestant receiving nicotine patches for withdrawal that same season, after his tribe lost the first immunity challenge. Though the edit would instead tell a different story about him wanting to be with his girlfriend, likely to reduce production backlash, it still left many unfulfilled after waiting so long to see him again. It’s a shame his second chance amounted to so little, and with Probst now serving as executive producer he’ll . Still, judging from a recent interview. No matter how short a comeback, he never regretted a single moment and would be glad to play again.

[EW]: How do you feel about the edit you got on the show?

[Fairplay]: Perfect! It was me. As I mentioned, no one prior to me wanted to be a bad guy. When I explained to production that I wanted to be the "heel," they were elated and gave me every opportunity to run with my notorious ways. It was like getting a permission slip to do evil. My heroes growing up were Roddy Piper and Ric Flair. I got to bring all of their villainy to the world of reality TV.

Since then, Fairplay has worked as a realtor, gotten (possibly ironic), , , and still finds time to host a podcast discussing the show called . He and Sandra even made up, becoming friends and when she came back for a future season. Fairplay will likely never play again, but his legacy on the show has certainly been set.

This is my first Hobby Drama post . I am back with some more modern hobby drama! Usually, I write historical stuff, but wanted to change it up a bit :) Oh and prepare for lots and lots of carpentry puns!

Wood you look at that: Reality TV in the UK

When you think of reality tv, the words “trashy”, “exploitative”, “rigged”, usually come to mind. However, in the UK, another word comes to mind…

“Cozy”.

What do I mean by this?

Shows like the Great British Bake Off (GBBO), Antiques Roadshow, Sort Your Life Out With Stacey Solomon, Great Pottery Throwdown, etc. Shows that have a calm, relaxed, atmosphere, with a genial host, where the contestants are (for the most part) kind and cordial towards one another. However, as wholesome as these shows appear on the surface, they have their fair share of controversies. Especially the GBBO, which has a on Wikipedia about its numerous controversies. Everything from issues with product placement, to contestant favouritism, to unfair elimination, production woes, leak of a winner, and even accusations of “racism” aimed at its “Nationally themed weeks” (a post for another time).

All of these issues pale in comparison to the controversy I am going to cover today. Also, unlike the show I am going to discuss, the GBBO has survived every controversy that plagued it. After 13 seasons, it is still running strong.

Chop Chop Chop: What is the Chop?

Announced in , The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker, was a show unsurprisingly about carpentry. It was originally planned to air on the Sky History channel. Sky is a British broadcaster.

Here is the full description:

Hosted by comedian Lee Mack, TV Presenter Rick Edwards and Master Carpenter William Hardie, The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker sees 10 of the country’s finest carpenters gather in Epping Forest to whittle, carve and chop their way to the final, to see who will be crowned Britain’s Top Woodworker and the chance to stage their own personal exhibition at the prestigious William Morris Gallery in London.

Master Carpenter William Hardie oversees the construction of a grand and spectacular cabin in the woods, adding a new room every week, each on a different historical theme, including Nelson’s cabin on HMS Victory, a Victorian pub, a Gothic bedroom, a Georgian hunting lodge, and a 1960s’ Mad Men-inspired lounge.

It followed a standard reality show format. Every week, someone wood be eliminated until a clear winner emerged. Viewers had a lot to look forewood to. Hopefully the show would be able to carve out its own niche. Okay, enough would puns. I know you’re all on-board.

Like most British reality tv shows, The Chop had a comfortable atmosphere, with friendly presenters that would engage in ribbing with one another and the contestants. Here are some early trailers for the show: and . The show was filmed .

Mack, 52, said: “It’s quite ironic that everything was filmed pre-lockdown and pre-Covid and yet most of the contestants spend most of the time with a mask on, because it’s woodwork.

“So people will watch it and go: ‘Well they’re obeying the rules but Rick and Will aren’t’, but actually it was filmed a long time ago – this time last year.”

So, the winner was set in wood, long before the first episode aired. If you want to know more about the contestants, .

The focus of this writeup will be a guy named Darren:

Name: Darren

Age: 40

From: Bristol

Occupation: Carpenter/Joiner

Background: Darren has been working in woodwork since he left school, he loves the variety that each day brings. Darren has two children and loves building them wooden items. His favourites were special beds and wardrobes he made for his children which included LED lights.

Meet Darren: Aka “The Woodsman”, Aka “the-Bloke-With-All-The-Tattoos”.

Early on, out of all the contestants, Darren was :

It remains to be seen which of the contestants, seven men and three women, will become the viewers’ favourite, although Darren, a furniture maker from Bristol, is an early frontrunner.

Nicknamed ‘The Woodman’, his entire face is covered in tattoos and he’s not averse to making controversial statements.

‘He’s quite a character,’ says Lee. ‘We met him again at a photo shoot recently and he’d had more tattoos etched on top of his other tattoos, which I thought showed an incredible level of commitment to the cause.’

His tattoos became a key part of his marketing for the show. This was reflected in his , as well as in .

Darren is probably one of the show’s most striking characters, due to the fact he is very heavily tattooed – even on his head and face.

He started having his head and face tattooed around 10 years ago.

“I had other tattoos already,” he said.

“But about 10 years ago I saw someone with facial tattoos and started to work with my tattooist on my look.

“I have my daughter on the back of my head and my son on my cheek.

“When some people first meet me they are a bit shocked, admittedly.

“But they soon warm to me after a few minutes.

“Some people ask for selfies with me. I’ve never had a negative reaction to my tattoos. They are just me.”

Darren says his appearance on the show, since the trailers have gone out, has prompted people to recognise him.

“I’ve already been stopped by people who have seen the adverts.

“No one went on the show to become famous.

“But hopefully it will come across on the show that I’m a bit of a character.

There was another difference between Darren and the other contestants: he had prior experience with reality tv.

In 2007, Darren (without any tattoos) starred in “Dumped”, a show in which 11 contestants lived in a garbage dump for three weeks, in a shelter they constructed from .

Darren quit after three days. He said he did it because he

Not all the participants were convinced. Darren Lumsden, 27, owns four cars, only recycles because his rubbish would not be taken away otherwise, and throws away his pants and socks at the end of every day. He left the dump on day three. "With me it's a bit like the smoking ban – I'll only be green if I'm forced to be." Lumsden also says rumours that some local authorities only recycle half of what goes into their green bins reduce the incentive.

He also told fellow contestants: .

Well, he certainly achieved something with his next reality tv appearance…

On the chopping block. The controversy

The first episode of The Chop aired on October 15, 2020. Shortly afterwards, some viewers noticed certain...things about Darren’s tattoos. Certain numbers and symbols….

“Darren appears to have these two on his face 88 = HH = Heil Hitler 23/16 = WP = White Supremacy There's also: 18 = AH = Adolf Hitler 1488: a reference to the so-called 14 words, coined by white supremacist terrorist David Lane.”

Darren also had a sig rune on his nose…the SS symbol used by the Nazis.

Sky History was .

After the trailer for the programme was aired, historian Dr Elizabeth Boyle from Maynooth University in Ireland said she had seen "at least five recognised Nazi/white power tattoos".

The Campaign Against Antisemitism group also criticised Sky History, saying it had made "a terrible mistake" by including a contestant "adorned with what appear to be neo-Nazi tattoos without providing serious evidence to show that the tattoos mean something other than how they appear".

"These tattoos will be plainly visible to viewers on the show, including younger viewers, which is unacceptable," it said.

"If Sky History is indeed 'intolerant of racism' as it claims, then it must urgently provide a credible clarification or remove the contestant from the programme."

They were , and initially defended Darren:

"Darren’s tattoos denote significant events in his life and have no political or ideological meaning whatsoever.

"Amongst the various numerical tattoos on his body, 1988 is the year of his father’s death.

“The production team carried out extensive background checks on all the woodworkers taking part in the show, that confirmed Darren has no affiliations or links to racist groups, views or comments.

“Sky History is intolerant of racism and all forms of hatred and any use of symbols or numbers is entirely incidental and not meant to cause harm or offence.”

“While we further investigate the nature, and meaning, of Darren’s tattoos, we have removed the video featuring him from our social media pages, and will not be broadcasting any episodes of The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker until we have concluded that investigation,” the statement said.

The media contacted Darren’s old boss, who had some :

Logically also contacted Jon Hyams, a former employer of Darren’s who runs a company in Bristol building staircases. Jon said that Darren, who worked for him in 2008, was a “good kiddy,” with no ties to the far right that he could remember, though he thought he had “gone off the rails a bit” since then. He also said that Darren was always very keen to become famous and had participated in an earlier reality TV show on Channel 4. Darren was partial to a tall tale or a bit of exaggeration, according to Jon, who said that the comment about his dad’s death should be “taken with a large pinch of salt”.

Jon was right. Darren was a liar.

The aftermath. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does anyone actually care?

It took the Daily Mail (a notorious rag) less than a day to track down Darren’s father and :

The father of Sky History's The Chop contestant Darren Lumsden today declared 'I'm alive' after the channel claimed he was dead to defend his son’s Nazi-style tattoos.

But today his 66-year-old parent revealed he was very much alive - and living in a smart three-storey house in Bristol, not far from his carpenter son.

Trevor told MailOnline: 'I'm here aren't I?' I'm alive and kicking so I'm not dead yet.'

Darren's father has short term memory loss after a serious motorbike crash more than 30 years ago.

He lives in a shared house and has support workers popping in to help every day.

The father added: 'I haven't seen Darren for some years, I didn't know he had tattoos over his face or that he was going to be on TV.

'But if they are saying I'm dead I'd like them to know I'm not.'

Trevor, originally from Stockton-on-Tees had two sons, Darren with his former wife Gail and Wayne from another relationship.

His support worker, who didn't want to be named, said: 'I've never seen either of them and I've been looking after him for 10 years.

'Trevor has short term memory loss after a brain injury in a motorbike accident but he remembers his two sons.

'He's a lovely man and very much alive.'

Sky History today thanked MailOnline for highlighting The Chop contestant Darren Lumsden's apparent lie about the origin of his controversial tattoos.

Woah. It seems Darren is kind of an asshole.

Following this 💣, Sky History quickly and shelved the rest of the episodes. The Chop had been…well, chopped.

Thankfully, for carpentry fans everywhere, it didn’t take long for another to fill the void left by The Chop’s abrupt cancellation. Handmade: Britain's Best Woodworker started airing in 2021. Its third season aired in 2023.

And that’s all I have to say about The Chop.

(I might write about The Great British Bake Off next!)

This loosely falls into the hobby sphere as reality television watching tends to attract a following, particularly if it's a spin-off of a spin-off. VH1 was notorious for their dating reality shows, producing hits such as Rock of Love and Flavor of Love. Contestants on these shows would often be featured on other VH1 reality shows such as I Love Money and Charm School or their own dating spinoff shows. These shows were pretty much a license to print money for the channel as they had built in audiences and were unlikely to do poorly enough to discontinue cloning the format any time soon. Sure, some of the shows didn't do as well as others, such as Daisy of Love, but all that typically happened there was that the show didn't get a second season.

WARNING: Depictions of cruelty and death.

Drama wasn't unheard of for these shows, as there were accusations of the shows bringing in fake contestants to spice up the show () and the contestants themselves would accuse each other of various things, as was par for the course for these types of things. One thing that did become kind of obvious was that VH1 was willing to bring on people who had visible issues. Some of them were fairly obvious, like Brittaney Starr from Rock of Love. She that honestly made a lot of people really sad for her since she clearly needed help if she wasn't a plant to drum up drama. I think what was most sad was a moment where she talked about being a former Olympic hopeful that went into porn and that she "didn't regret" her actions. Anywho, my point here is that clearly VH1 wasn't screening their applicants as well as they should, as it was clear that if these contestants weren't fake then they had some major issues.

Eventually this all led to Megan Wants a Millionaire, a dating competition featuring a former contestant from Rock of Love. The conceit of the show was that she wanted to become a rich wife and marry a millionaire, so the show brought together various wealthy men who would vie for her affections. While it was airing, the show was a good example of how cheesy the shows could get as it outright dealt in excesses. Something to note is that these episodes were all pre-recorded. Also, on a side note, one of the people on the show was almost certainly an actor - Joe the "Trust Fund Baby" has a Twitter feed that doesn't fit any of his personality from the show, which was a bumbling, naive, and effeminate rich kid.

Enter Canadian millionaire Ryan Jenkins. He was dubbed the "Smooth Operator", as all of the contestants were given nicknames of various types. For the first episode the audience attention pretty much focused on the luxuries that Megan enjoyed and the gifts the contestants could buy to earn her affections, as well as the various odd but seemingly harmless quirks that the contestants had. The episode ended with Ryan being picked first, which is seen as a sign of high favor by some fans. He was also picked for a solo date on the third episode, which was also the last because...

His wife was found dead.

On August 18, 2009 the body of model Jasmine Fiore was discovered, after being reported as missing on August 15. It was very, very clearly foul play as she was stuffed into a suitcase and almost all identifying features mutilated or otherwise destroyed to ensure that she couldn't be ID'd. I say almost because she still had her implants in, which have serial numbers on them that were used to confirm it was Fiore. Suspicion quickly turned to her husband, who was revealed to be Ryan. He was pretty much the only suspect at that point in time and would remain so, as he almost immediately went on the run once the body was discovered. I say almost because I don't think it was confirmed that he was on the run until the day after the body was discovered.

Police had questioned him on August 17 and Ryan had claimed that he was going to Canada to fix issues with his immigration. When the body was found the next day, the opinion of pretty much everyone was that he was trying to flee the country and get help from his rich family. What seemed to confirm this was that Ryan had showed up at the VH1 offices trying to get a check from his appearance on another show, I Love Money. More on that later. The police later found a car Ryan was driving at a marina and the engine was still warm, so he seemed to have taken off via water using a boat he owned. This was riveting to a lot of people because not only was he on a reality show but police seemed to be just a few steps behind him.

Reports also seemed to confirm that his family was trying to help him avoid justice, so I suppose this also appealed to people who didn't want someone to use wealth and connections to avoid jail time. Some people compared him to. He'd been accused of multiple sexual assaults and used his wealth and power to flee to another country around 2003 (he was later caught by no other than Dog the Bounty Hunter - something that could warrant a write-up in and of itself), so people didn't want to see a similar scenario but this time involving murder.

Ryan Jenkins was found dead on August 23, 2009. He had hung himself in a motel room in British Columbia that had been rented a day or so earlier by an unknown woman in her twenties that was later revealed to be his half-sister, confirming that his family was helping him flee the authorities to one degree or another. He didn't leave a suicide note, but he did have a will on his computer dated to August 20, when he first checked into the motel. No one really knows what was going through his head, but the popular consensus has generally been that Ryan knew that the police were eventually going to catch up with him and that his family couldn't protect him forever. He knew that without any other suspects, he was also almost certainly going to be arrested and tried for his wife's murder.

Fallout

VH1 quickly removed MWAM from TV, which was met with mixed feelings from fans. They understood, but at the same time this was one of the better shows they had had put out in a while as far as spinoff dating shows went. This in turn caused some controversy as far as the fanbase goes, as there was some horror that people still wanted the show to run, a show that would depict Ryan in a positive light. They also removed the forums, wiping posts moments after they were made.

People thought that one of the reasons VH1 didn't want to air the show was because Ryan won. This was later disproven via one of the contestants, who posted the results of who won. Ryan was in the final three, though. Another popular belief was that Ryan won the season of I Love Money that he was in, which has never been confirmed.

What really impacted VH1 was the revelation that they did an extremely shoddy background check on Ryan. They quickly shifted the blame to the company they hired. The company they hired didn't do Canadian background checks and instead outsourced this to a company that told them that Ryan was clean. Why was this important?

Because he had a record for assaulting a woman in 2007, something that presumably would have kept him from appearing in the show. There was a whole lawsuit about this via the company hired by VH1 against the Canadian company, which the US company won.

VH1's claims didn't really hold water since people pointed out that the channel had brought in contestants with various legal issues that would've shown up with a background check. These were probably some of the first posts that VH1 deleted on their forum, to say the least. There was discussion about reality and game show background checks, where .

VH1 also said that they weren't going to show the season of I Love Money where Ryan appeared.

Aftermath

. Of interest with this is that Megan says that she wanted to pick Ryan as the winner and that they'd been having a phone relationship, but that producers pushed her not to pick him because they saw his personality as fake, essentially saying that they saw huge red flags with him. Also of interest is that apparently this show was the reason he met Fiore, as he was so upset over not being picked that he went to Vegas, where he met and married Fiore.

In the wake of the murder scandal VH1 made the decision to end their contest reality shows in favor of what we now see as regular reality shows like Fantasia for Real. This was partly as a way of pacifying the angry crowd demanding why VH1 didn't do a better job vetting people, but also a way of getting rid of a show format that was definitely on a downward spiral. Many of their shows weren't pulling in the numbers like the earlier ones and the spinoffs were definitely getting less interesting with each incarnation.

While this whole thing did somewhat fade from public consciousness, it tends to get brought up by news outlets when there is an issue with vetting reality show contestants or a reality show star does something violent.

EDIT:

A bit of clarification of timeline:

Filming for this series took place in February 2009 and had entirely wrapped before the first episode had aired. While they were filming Megan was talking to Ryan on the phone and when he wasn't chosen, got upset and took off for Vegas. He met and married Fiore in March 2009, then killed her in August, which is when the TV show started airing.

So:

February 2009: Filming and the phone relationship. The relationship ends when he isn't picked.

March 2009: Ryan goes to Vegan and meets Fiore, who he quickly marries.

August 2009: The show begins airing. Ryan murders Fiore and goes on the run.

I don't mean A-list celebrities, but in the fashion world Jenna Lyons was already someone long before getting onto Bravo.

She's not the usual type of person who would do a show like Real Housewives due to reality TV often having a negative connotation for people with legit careers.

Do you think Jenna's involvement will change the perception and bring in other established names to Bravo in the future?

Spoilers for Survivor Season 38: Edge of Extinction and minor spoilers for other seasons

39 Days

18 People

As I mentioned in my Cook Islands write up, the controversies surrounding certain seasons of Survivor can very easily overshadow the entire show, leaving a bitter aftertaste for fans that taint the season’s legacy. While this usually comes in the form of uncomfortable social encounters and infamous moments, this can also come from the structure of the game itself. Survivor never claimed to be fair or unwilling to stir up drama in the name of higher ratings, but some concepts and ideas should clearly have been left on the cutting room floor considering the backlash that would come. In 2018, Season 38 would suffer this fate with one of the most controversial finales, and hotly contested winners, in the show’s history.

What is Survivor?

Skip if you’ve read any of my or know about Survivor.

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only a handful of castaways remain, the contestants who have made it to the merge but were voted off form a jury that chooses which remaining contestant will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for. The winning contestant must be able to form a solid alliance, be respected by their peers, and search for any in-game advantages they can find to avoid being voted off early or lose to the other finalists.

Reintroducing a Controversial Twist

Following the critically acclaimed David vs Goliath, Edge of Extinction would need to sprint right out of the gate to compete with its older sibling’s strong reception. Unfortunately, red flags were raised almost immediately with the announcement of the central theme of the season. Season 38 would see 14 new contestants and 4 popular returnees from recent seasons compete once again for a chance at winning a million dollars. But what the contestants wouldn’t know until they were voted out at tribal council was that there would be a chance for them to get back into the game.

Inspired by , castaways voted out at tribal council would immediately be given the option to either stay eliminated or be given the opportunity to return if they went to the Edge of Extinction. A small desolate island with almost no resources, castaways must work to gain small rewards and supplies throughout their stay on the island. The contestants would be given the chance to get back in the game through a physical challenge at both the mid-season tribal merge and when six contestants are left. Only one castaway can return at a time, and those who failed to reenter the game at all would be placed on the jury to vote for which of the three finalists will win the million dollars. As explained: this twist pushed the concept of survival to the limit for those willing to win the game.

[Jeff Probst]: “What if you play the game, and you get voted out, but you also have an option? It’s not Redemption Island. It’s not Exile. It’s not the Outcast [twist from Survivor: Pearl Islands]. It’s truly a situation where you’re going somewhere where tribe life as you knew it on the island will seem wonderful, because on Extinction, you will have to work for everything. And with no certainty that you will get back in the game, it comes down to one question: how badly do you want this? How far will you want to push yourself? How curious are you to see what you’re capable of?”

Reviving Bad Experiences

Giving players the ability to get back into the game isn’t new: Survivor experimented with this idea all the way back in . But even if players reentering wasn’t groundbreaking, Edge of Extinction seemed for many to be a middling revival of an older and reviled twist in the show’s history: .

First used in the titular Season 22: Redemption Island, the twist forced eliminated contestants to compete in a series of group and solo duels against each other to get back into the game. Similar to the Edge, contestants would be given minimal supplies and a small campsite, and one player would be able to enter at the mid season merge and when four contestants remained. Though it changed slightly during its few appearances, the twist was ultimately considered by most fans to be poorly executed and ran counter to the concept of the show as a whole. Survivor was created and sold on as a social experiment built on social bonds and gaining the respect of the jury to win. Being able to come back after ‘the tribe has spoken’ destroys that central premise for many fans.

It didn’t help that the first few times this twist was used led to very unimpressive results. Most contestants who made it through Redemption Island were simply voted out again the first chance the other players could boot them. Both Redemption Island’s and Edge’s focus on physical challenges also meant that only the strongest players were capable of entering the game to begin with. Add on the fact that Survivor is a very cramped show, with little time as it is to cram two to three days of footage into forty minutes an episode, and the air time dedicated to eliminated castaways that could go to the game instead left many frustrated.

Even with all these warning signs, Survivor went ahead with the experiment. But whatever production wanted from this twist, it’s difficult to say that the result was anywhere close to what they desired.

The Worst Winner?

, a charming new contestant, started off on the wrong foot with his tribe following numerous disputes. Being perceived as disloyal and a strategic threat, he would be in an almost universal blindside. If this was any other season, he would probably be seen as an erratic but ultimately forgettable contestant. However, Chris chose to go to the Edge in hopes of reentering the game, even as it seemed the show would go on without him with fellow eliminated contestant winning the first reentry challenge and proceeding to dominate the season.

But fortunately for Chris, he the game and join the six remaining contestants at the second and last reentry challenge. Still, with only one episode left and after being largely irrelevant, the idea that he could somehow win was ludicrous to audiences. The entire season had focused on Rick since he re-entered the game, and the lack of screen time given to the rest of the contestants (as the amount of per player proves) should have ensured his victory.

I didn’t mention it before, but an issue that became more obvious as the season went on was the ability for contestants at the Edge to discuss the game and the remaining players. Edge of Extinction may be a barren wasteland unlike Redemption Island, but the fact that there were realistically only two challenges to compete for meant those eliminated had weeks in between to do nothing but discuss and strategize what they would do to win. The most obvious example was when a about a remaining castaway’s hidden immunity idol (which could nullify the votes for any one at a tribal council), but each elimination brought more info. Being able to socialize for weeks with the people who would ultimately be responsible for deciding who would win a million dollars definitely didn’t hurt.

When Chris entered the game (and was given an immunity idol by production to further even the odds), he came in with information about current alliances, Rick’s threat level, and how each contestant was perceived by his fellow castaways who would now make up the final jury. Chris may have only had one episode to make a case for himself, but he would go on to dominate the finale with the information he learned. Knowing about the previously mentioned hidden immunity idol, Chris convinced the , and formed a bond with the powerful but isolated Rick to get , saved by the idol given to him by production. This would culminate in possibly one of the biggest moves in Survivor history. With Rick as the last obstacle in the way, Chris would win the last immunity challenge and then voluntarily give up his hard earned immunity to face Rick in a fire making showdown. The winner would go on to the final three while the loser would be eliminated, becoming the last member of the thirteen member jury.

The results speak for themselves. Chris had played 13 days out of 39 of Survivor, and within one episode booted out all the major threats to become the front runner of the season. Several members of the jury hadn’t even met the other finalists since day 1, and he was primed to be the only contestant to win after being voted out and without playing all 39 days.

This isn’t to knock Chris’ game when he came back from the Edge: few would disagree that his performance in the finale was one of the best in the entire show. He still had to form those social bonds and convince other castaways to get him to the final four, even with the massive target behind his back. With his leadership in taking out the biggest threats, perhaps that’s why he would become the in a blowout 9-4-0 vote.

Yet, looking , something definitely seems off. The bitter aftertaste of his the day after, as fans swarmed threads and to debate Chris and the season as a whole. Edge of Extinction seemed to prove the worst fears fans had true as well. The challenges guaranteed physical threats the biggest chance of returning, the episodes were split trying to cover both the main game and what was happening on the Edge, and the worst case scenario of a voted out contestant winning finally occurred. Worse, Chris had time and resources to socialize with the jury and form a game plan on how to beat the remaining contestants without the stress of the main game.

What is Survivor Nowadays?

Several former Survivor contestants were asked about the Edge of Extinction twist, and while some offered means to retool the twist and liked the opportunity for second chances, many were . The show had always been based around the concept that a player’s torch was their life: once it was snuffed out, that was it. Go through any thread about Season 38 and it's easy to find people lamenting how something which was clearly disliked when first introduced came back and created a winner many feel is undeserving.

The heavy emphasis on , which people suspect was supposed to help explain the latter’s win, also hindered what many consider to be a buried by an atrociously uneven edit. Chris may have won Survivor, but the media, castaways, and fans were all quick to for how the season unraveled.

He never had to make a tough strategic decision. Living on meager supplies and worse living conditions with no chance of comfort reward is tough, and is more “outlast” than anything the show has done before, but Chris has never had to pull off a blindside that made the jury bitter. Unlike Gavin and Julie, he wasn’t responsible for close to a dozen people losing a million dollars.

…

The Edge of Extinction returnee did not outwit anybody, he outplayed people only because of the unfair levels of advantages given to him through Day 35 and outlasted 10 members of the jury but was originally voted out in 16th place on the eighth day out of thirty-nine.

As for the man himself, the ire of the fan base shortly after his win, but seems proud of his journey, no matter how unusual it was. While he remains finished with Survivor, the door is still open in the future.

I feel really at peace with my Survivor experience. I know it’s not the traditional experience that most people get. But it couldn’t have ended better for me. And I grew so much. I think for now I’m going to sit on the sidelines and be a fan, enjoy the game from the sidelines. But, who knows. A few years from now, things might change.

Aftermath

It’s difficult to form an overall opinion between the great cast, questionable editing, and the viewer’s own opinions on what Survivor should be. Edge of Extinction has its own sizable niche in the fandom, as any season does, yet the most recent ranking thread for first watchers places season 38 , criticized for its that came with it. Rob Has A Podcast (RHAP), a popular podcast hosted by former Survivor contestants, in its own rundown with how the twist dominated the season.

When Season 40: Winners at War was announced to be reusing the Edge, . Neither were the apparently, much to Probst’s annoyance. Whether the negativity finally reached the producers or the crew wasn’t happy with the results, Probst would the Edge of Extinction would be put on hold for the next few seasons.

“I think it’s fantastic watching all these twists,” Probst stated. “And when people get so invested that they don’t like it, that tells me, okay, we’re in this together, you don’t like it, I get it. I liked it, but I hear you, we’re not going to do Edge for a while. I’ve heard people. I got it.”

It seems, at least for now, that the Edge will be retired.

Conclusion

If you have read my previous posts, you can start to see that Survivor has been in a rough spot in the past few years. Go back to the first watch thread or browse RHAP’s seasonal ranking series and you’ll see that several of what many consider to be Survivor’s worst seasons come from the last five years. The show has been through dark ages before, and even at its most controversial there are many bright spots, but twists like the Edge have been very negatively received among fans for taking too many liberties with the game’s original concept.

Survivor still remains a runaway success on cable and a cornerstone of CBS All Access, but new seasons promise only further changes to the show. Season 41 will be because of the pandemic and there are signs the show may stick with this format in the future. The fear that Survivor will continue to change dramatically from what people loved about the show, even as Probst promises to curb the that have plagued recent seasons, has caused many to approach the show with extreme caution. Regardless of what direction Survivor will go in now, audiences just have to wait and tune in, as always.

Spoilers for multiple seasons of Survivor, primarily Season 34: Game Changers

39 Days

16 People

Throughout all the posts I have made discussing drama surrounding Survivor in its over twenty years on air, I have yet to talk about one of the game’s biggest icons and fan favorites. Having played four games across ten years, is considered by many to be the best contestant in Survivor history who has never won and beloved by most of the fanbase. This legacy has only been further set in stone with her most recent appearance on the show, where her most infamous elimination has raised greater questions about the overall future of the show.

What Is Survivor?

Feel free to skip if you’ve read any of my previous write ups, I recommend my if you’re interested in a bigger controversy surrounding this season, or watch the show.

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only a handful of castaways remain, the contestants who have made it to the merge but were voted off form a jury that chooses which remaining contestant will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for.

An Actual Game Changer

As I mentioned in my first post, Season 34 of Survivor was already brewing drama before it aired when it revealed its cast of supposed ‘game changers’ that would compete in this new season of all returnee players. However, even if some choices on the cast were disappointing, as a great competitor and fantastic personality.

Being cast as part of the older woman tribe in Panama, which divided castaways by age and gender, she was the first contestant known for “getting off the couch” and not just playing Survivor, but thriving despite the physical challenges and other penalties against her. Cirie was praised for her ability to play her tribe mates and even players opposed to her against each other, developing new strategies, and having a strong social presence that made her a threat to win on any season. her first season and received a new car despite her elimination at the final four. Cirie would compete again in Micronesia, and made it to the final three on her second attempt. Yet, a surprise change in the format from three contestants sitting at the end to two contestants that season ultimately led to her being voted out by the other finalists just before she could face the jury. Despite a weaker performance in her third outing, these defeats turned Cirie into a legend among fans, with arguments that she was robbed of the title of ‘Sole Survivor’ becoming common.

Some fans will dispute the quality of her game for never being able to secure a win, and some of the hype was definitely due to her and fun on as well as her status as the Survivor underdog. Still, most were excited to see an iconic player return. When the season premiered, many were hoping she could finally gain a win on her fourth attempt after ten years on the small screen.

The Lead Up To the Meltdown

As the season went on, Cirie once again played a great game through most of the show, yet clearly struggled as the contestants approached the finale. Despite managing to form solid alliances once again and navigate through a complex web of social feuds throughout the game, she was never able to completely shake the target off her back due to her history. Even with her solid gameplay, Cirie was clearly in the minority and likely to be voted out at any time. With the amount of friends she made who were being eliminated and placed on the jury (the ones who will actually choose who wins a million dollars) and her weak performance in immunity challenges, Cirie needed to somehow secure a group that could take her to the final three to win.

While a few misplays certainly hurt her chances, fans soon began to grow weary of another issue in the game that was starting to creep its head: the twists and advantages.

Since introducing the all the way back in Season 11, which could save a player from being voted out at one tribal council, Survivor has toyed more and more with new ideas to mix up the game. The show has gone from one idol, to multiple idols, to advantages such as stealing someone else’s vote or being able to cast extra votes, to whatever Season 41 is trying to be (hop on the Survivor subreddit and sort by the top posts in the past month if you want to see a bunch of salt). By this point in Game Changers there were multiple idols and advantages collected by players, as well as several other structural changes. This debate among Survivor fans has existed since the first idol was created, but some felt more and more that the most recent seasons () were pushing the additions too far.

This was exacerbated by the controversial circumstances and editing surrounding the vote out at the final seven. Cirie was given an advantage by another contestant who was a threat to win, Sarah, as a sign of trust just before tribal council that would allow someone to steal another castaway’s vote. Cirie planned to immediately use this to blindside and vote out Sarah. But when just before the vote, it turned out the advantage wasn’t transferable. Taking back the advantage, Sarah immediately used it to get rid of Cirie’s closest remaining ally in a series of events that was confusingly edited and difficult to understand the reasoning for. Of course, Cirie was at fault for not reading the advantage clearly beforehand and contributing to her ally being voted out even if it wasn’t fully explained. But the quantity and influence of all these tools, not to mention the amount of air time being given to them, caused both and to express their discontent with how these twists and mismatched editing were hurting the game.

Possibly the best returnee season ever, 2009’s Heroes vs. Villains, featured exactly one twist: a double tribal council on Day 15. That season had plenty of turns, but they were ones of the players’ own making, not the production crew’s. That season had time to breathe, and the result was thrilling. This season has had its pedal bolted to the floor since the first episode, with little time for character building or personal moments.

If only fans knew what was about to happen in the finale.

Hey I Heard You Like Advantages…

With her closest allies gone, Cirie actually still wasn’t being targeted by the remaining players just yet. Whether it was because they felt confident Cirie couldn’t win immunity and would be easy to vote out later, or there being bigger threats in the game, she still had some room to maneuver. While another threat to win, Brad, won immunity once again, there were multiple other candidates up for elimination such as Sarah that the castaways were gunning for. As the six remaining players entered the first of three tribal councils during the finale, it looked like Cirie could at least make it to the final five- possibly even further given a miracle.

But just as Host Jeff Probst was about to read the votes for which one of the six contestants remaining would be eliminated:

One contestant played the two idols he was hiding to save himself and a member of his alliance from the vote.

Sarah played the hidden advantage she held which could give her immunity at this tribal council and this vote only.

This caused the last player to play his immunity idol as well, giving himself immunity.

Brad, who as mentioned before won the immunity challenge, couldn’t be voted for.

to present their idols, audiences realized that Cirie was the only contestant without immunity. Even though none of the six votes cast put her name down, it didn’t matter since the tribe would just have to vote for whoever doesn’t have immunity again- in this case Cirie. For the first time in Survivor history, a contestant was eliminated from the game not because of medical reasons, or inappropriate behavior, or being voted out, or quitting. But simply because they were the only person that could be voted for. The only person who could be voted for that also happened to be the star player of the season and fan favorite. With no reason to revote, Cirie would be eliminated by default for the fourth time.

A lot of people were upset.

Advantageddon

Again, it should be said that Cirie probably wasn’t going to make it to the end anyway. She was too big a threat to simply slide on by and without any close remaining allies, it was likely only a matter of time before she was voted out. Cirie could have taken charge to find an idol herself or convince someone to give her immunity if she really wanted to secure her safety. Still, many fans and the media were upset with how she was eliminated. The Player of the Week poll after the finale saw Cirie just behind the winner, praised for her great game overall despite her legacy and annoyed with what many began calling “advantageddon”. Several and were more direct, criticizing the show and the season overall for the twists taking over Survivor:

That meant every single person was immune except Cirie, and she was eliminated from the game without receiving any votes—a game that’s entirely about voting people out!

Idols and advantages have given us many entertaining and crazy Tribal Councils over the years. This was not one of them. This was a travesty. This was a sign that enough is enough with the idols.

If Survivor wants to change the game, truly, it’s time to actually mix it up and leave idols out entirely. At the very least, there need to be fewer of them. This should never happen again.

Cirie for her part seemed more at , grateful for another opportunity to play and how shocking the night was for her. While later admitting to she couldn’t qualify for Season 40, which featured all winners, she still avidly watches the show and is always willing to come back again.

Speaking of Season 40, many fans were afraid such an event would happen yet again with a , fearing another disaster from Survivor’s countless advantages and idols would take place. Reading threads on the subject then and now, the idea that advantageddon could happen again to another castaway likely could have caused another flame war. Fortunately, that contestant managed to survive and make it to the end, leading to probably the most brutal post to .

Aftermath

Still, none of these events have really been forgotten by fans. and then and now have continued to shower Cirie with support and adoration for playing three amazing games and looked at her default elimination with disdain. Even several Season 40 contestants ) ranked her as the best to never win. Nearly of most days played from a non winner, and about her time on screen, claims of Cirie being robbed once again and the best contestant to never win are more common than ever. Spend enough time on any fandom circle and an onslaught of , , , and you can think of will pop up once in a while talking about how she should have won. While Cirie may never win, all the money she’s earned playing Survivor and continued adoration definitely isn’t hurting.

The advantages themselves are also a frequent complaint. As I stated before, even the most has seen fans frustrated with the amount of twists and idols in the game. Many fans would argue that the last few seasons have seen a drop in decline overall due to the quantity of twists thrown in the game, and annoyance over the quantity of advantages is always a common topic. They can crowd episodes, devolve the semblance of social strategizing that the show relies on to create stories, and otherwise mark a new turn in the game's history that many believe is too different from what Survivor used to be about. While production has seen no signs of slowing down all these ideas, many fans have continued to criticize the show for this new formula.

Yet there have been several other fans who have posted about their enjoyment of the twists and idols, or at least aren’t bothered by it as much as others. Some would even argue these twists are needed to spice up the game and keep things from being too boring. Most of Survivor’s early seasons usually culminated in the tribe with more numbers at the merge simply voting off the other tribe one by one, and tools like immunity idols allow for new dynamics and storylines. At the end of the day, it’s all subjective, and the breaking point of how many new mechanics that should be added to the game vary from person to person. Still, it seems production and Probst are set on continuing to push idols and add new changes to the show regardless of wherever popular consensus lies. Whether this will ultimately pan out is hard to say, though it's been a few years since this became notable and fans are still waging flame wars online. Regardless, fans will have to decide on their own whether to continue watching. If all else fails, .

39 Days

20 People

As I mentioned in other , the winner of Survivor can be a highly contentious topic for many fans simply due to the nature of the game based around the jury. A player can be the most dominant, most likable, or most physical contestant in the show’s history, but if the losers do not want to vote for them, they won’t win the million dollars. While this has become a bit more contentious in recent seasons, Survivor has always had its controversies throughout the show’s history. Nowhere did this debate blow up more than the airing of Season 19: Survivor Samoa, where America was introduced to Survivor’s most infamous contestant:

What Is Survivor?

Skip if you read any of my other threads.

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only a handful of castaways remain, the contestants who have made it to the merge but were voted off form a jury that chooses which remaining contestant will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for. The winning contestant must be able to form a solid alliance, be respected by their peers, and search for any in-game advantages they can find to avoid being voted off early or lose to the other finalists. Above all, the Sole Survivor must in some way connect to the people on the jury, and convince their fellow castaways why they deserve to be sitting at the end and get the million dollars.

Burn It Down

Following a score of generally well received seasons, Samoa would air in late 2009 with twenty contestants competing for a million dollars. Along with classics like the ever coveted hidden immunity idols (protecting players for one vote at tribal council), the season also introduced many smaller twists. Choosing a leader, merging earlier, sending tribe members to visit with the opposing tribe to gain clues towards advantages: it was a series of small twists on the traditional Survivor formula. Yet, most of this wasn’t on people’s minds when the premiere aired. Instead, what many were interested in was a strange character who seemed to be .

>[Russell]: I plan on making it as miserable as possible, making it hell, for everybody. To get what I want.

Just before the premiere aired, Russell had built himself up as a , boasting of his multiple alliances and willingness to screw with his own tribe. When Episode 1 aired, fans immediately understood what he meant. Being given far more confessionals and screen time than many of his contemporaries, Russell hit the ground running with his loud personality and smarmy antics when he got on the island, immediately asserting himself at the top of the . He first formed what he called the “dumbass girl alliance”, connecting with what he thought were the weakest women at camp to form an early team. Then, the first night at camp, he began telling his fellow castaways a about him surviving Hurricane Katrina and losing his dog Rocky. WIth all their goodwill, he then proceeded to and burn a contestant’s socks while they were asleep. To top it all off, after his tribe predictably lost the challenge due to losing almost all their water, he managed to convince his alliance and some of the men to that caught on to this shady decision making.

Let me repeat: this was all in the first episode.

Russell had already solidified himself towards the top of his tribe all while lying and scheming the entire way, believing as long he could control how his tribe felt he could take charge in the game. With a bunch of private confessionals and his childish glee, Russell also attracted a lot of attention from audiences around the world, being immediately painted as the “heel” of the season. Of course, most figured this was just the show cashing in on an extraordinary character when they could. into the game, and it was more than likely the show was simply building him up before his eventual elimination.

>Anyway, my guess–and I have no behind-the-scenes knowledge of this–is that the pre-season attention means he goes home sooner than later, but his tribe is probably keeping him around because he has strength they need...On day one alone, at least two people figured out that he was making alliances with multiple people, and his argument against Marisa was too much about himself. Not smart game play at all.

Divide And Conquer

Despite his tribe losing again the next episode, Russell did not get voted out. He also didn’t get voted out the next loss after that. In fact, it seemed like he was keeping control of his entire tribe. Furthermore, his premiere spotlight was not shrinking.

His tribe would go on to lose six of their ten members before the merge hit, no thanks to Russell’s constant sabotage, and he managed to survive each and every tribal council while directly taking part in almost every elimination. He even spearheaded new tactics, most importantly being his .

For such a simple concept, most people simply didn’t take advantage of the fact that there was an idol to be found on the island. Usually, people only ever searched if they got a clue first, but Russell logically realized there was nothing stopping the contestants from searching for it whenever they could. He quickly began exploring whenever he could, and this simple idea would pay dividends going forward. Nowhere was this more important than when the merge finally hit. With Foa Foa outnumbered 8-4, Russell would use these protections to eventually , soon leading to their collapse as the seemingly dominant Galu began turning on each other. All together he would find 3 idols across the entire season, and his enormous success would immediately spearhead the active searching for idols and advantages later on.

It’s not like people could turn a blind eye to him at home either. As this , Russell completely blew out the others in screen time. He would go on to have over 100 confessionals by the end of the season, with the next closest castaway on his tribe having less than a third of that time on screen. Russell was playing the game, constantly belittling and manipulating the “dumb women” into supporting him as they went through the merge and would successfully . What seemed like an obvious early boot was becoming the star player of the season.

>And those of you who hate Russell — and lord knows you have your reasons what with his silly hat, grandstanding, and wicked words about women — you had to kinda love it as well. Why? For two reasons. (1) He’s playing the game! He found two idols with no clues. Now, don’t get me wrong, producers make it so easy to find these damn things, you could practically stumble into them...But still, he was the only one smart enough to look. The one thing true hardcore Survivor fans want are contestants who would kill to be there and will scrape, fight, and claw to stay in the game. Well, in Samoa, that contestant is Russell. If you respect nothing else about him, respect the effort. (2) He’s now the underdog. Everyone loves the underdog. As the biggest target of a tribe that was down four members, every week he sticks around is flat-out incredible.

Snakes And Rats

Amid Russell’s gloating and dominance, we saw very little of the other contestants in comparison. Galu barely got any spotlight due to their dominance pre merge, almost never having to go to tribal council and see the brewing divisions until they would blow up. Foa Foa didn’t fare much better, yet as Russell’s grip on his tribe strengthened, audiences would see little glimpses of a very important contestant: .

A pharmaceutical representative, Natalie didn’t seem to be a contestant suited to Survivor at first glance. Many wrote her off as just another attractive casting choice meant to be eliminated sooner rather than later. While her , they weren’t helping her case. Still, there did seem to be some hidden depth to her first impressions.

>Building relationships was a refrain she hit on a lot during the interview, and at one point, she said, “I genuinely care about people, I do,” noting that while some people say they are not on Survivor to make friends, “I do want to make new friends. I love that. … I do hope to make friends. This is something that we’re going to share.” Natalie was definitely one of the most personable contestants, immediately asking me where I was from, and engaging me in conversation at various points rather than just answering questions.

It would take Natalie four episodes to finally get a confessional, absurdly long for any contestant, and would ultimately be just as buried by the edit as many others this season. But, she would soon reveal an .

>[Natalie]: I definitely think people underestimate me, and I want them to think that it’s really smart for them to take me to the end because they can beat me..I know I can beat Russell at the very end, because I can say a lot of people in the tribe have been rubbed by him in the wrong way.

Was this a smart choice? The edit didn’t seem to give her much screen time afterwards, and it was hard to see just how important the bonds she made were when Russell was dominating the show. It didn’t help that she seemed to just be voting for every target the season’s best player told her to vote for, yet she was still in the game. She would even the first Galu vote off at the merge by bonding with some of the women, which arguably saved the Foa Foa four to begin with. And of course who could .

Whatever the case may be, Russell was certainly convinced she stood no chance at the end. Even when she was brought up as a potential target by the remaining Galu later on, Russell would actively turn the tables against the crumbling tribe yet again to save what he believed was the in front of the jury. Regardless of how effective her strategy really was, Natalie would make it to the end of the game.

The King Slayer

Russell may have been a villain, completely happy to destroy both his enemies and allies to win, but he was certainly popular. As a character and as a contestant, he was one of the strongest competitors the show had seen recently, and the gleeful and self absorbed villain of the season.

>Russell has won me over. He may still not be a very nice person, but as a fan of the game of 'Survivor' you can't help but appreciate him and how he is playing the game. I find myself rooting for him in each episode now. He has singled-handedly turned the game around. Turning his tribe from an outnumbered underdog to a tribe in control of the game. He has turned a season that was a little boring and uneventful for the first few weeks into one of the shows best.

It was clear none of the others stood a chance. From both an edit and gameplay standpoint, few of his remaining competitors at the final five had much time to shine or show off any strategic prowess on screen that would make the audience root for them. Even when the last remaining Galu member managed to win immunity at the final five, Russell simply powered through a final immunity win the day later and as the final member of the jury. Russell’s remaining competitors, Mick (who did little as tribe leader and wasn’t well liked by anyone), and Natalie, simply didn’t seem to offer much of a reason why they deserved to win. As audiences watched the jury questioning unravel, it looked like a shut case. Even as he was lambasted and criticized by every juror as the awful and infuriating person he was, Russell kept smiling all the while as he waited to be awarded with the million dollars.

Here is a , but a common theme amongst all the jurors is Russell’s lack of sociability and Natalie’s own bonds. Russell was a backstabber, schemer, and constantly belittled those around him while taking all the credit: on some level, that was essentially what Survivor is about. But whether through petty disagreements or fundamental disgust, many couldn’t imagine giving Russell a million dollars.

Nowhere was this more important than the , where Erik (one of many blindsided by Russell) rhetorically asks why he deserves a million dollars for essentially “getting to the right place, by doing the wrong thing”.

>[Erik]: [To Natalie] But maybe, just maybe, in an environment filled with arrogance [gestures to Russell], delusional entitlement [gestures to Mick], maybe the person who thinks she is the least deserving is probably the most. You got my vote, I hope you get four more. Congratulations.

Once everyone said their piece, it was time to vote for the 19th Sole Survivor. You probably already figured it out by now, but needless to say most :

>[Jeff Probst]: The winner of Survivor Samoa: Natalie

As Natalie ran to her family crying tears of joy, and Russell remained on stage in stunned silence, people at home couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Natalie had 15 confessionals throughout the entire game, lower than even of the season, took four episodes to even get a single confessional, and seemed to contribute almost nothing strategy wise compared to the over exposed and dominant Russell. Yet, she won in a blowout 7-2-0 vote, and the season’s mastermind would have to settle for second place.

Cue the outcry.

Cries Of The Nation

The Survivor Edit and Logic board, dedicated to discovering the winner of each season through the edit, . Certainly some expected the possibility, but even contestants like Mick were far more present. And Natalie, 15 confession Natalie winning, was not exactly the most popular choice.

>WOW !!! But what a terrible edit for a winner.
>
>Yeah, edgic is pretty much a laughingstock by this point. Sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities.
>
>Gonna come right out and say what needs to be said. Anyone even hinting in the last couple of weeks that Natalie had a shot of winning was NOT, and I repeat NOT using Edgic to make that claim. They were using spoilers, rumors, and whatnot.

It wasn’t just the hardcore fans that were up in flames though, even Russell couldn’t believe what happened as he bargained with Natalie for the title of .

>During the reunion, Russell offered Natalie an extra payout: $10,000. "All I want is the title of sole survivor. I will pay you $10,000 for the title, if Jeff says 'you are the sole survivor,' and I get it written in paper," he said. Natalie kept her million and her title, even after Russell upped his offer to $100,000. "I would have taken that money," Jeff Probst said.

Newspapers wrote about the possibility of Russell being “robbed”, defeated not by strategic game but . Even Host Jeff Probst, who was in love with Russell’s character, believed .

>I do not think that Natalie played a better game, but rather was the right person in the right position who made one very good strategic move and that was to stay out of Russell’s way, and as a result she ended up with the money. But to be fair — a very good counter argument is that Natalie used her strengths, avoided her weaknesses and by taking this active approach to the game, she put herself in position to win the money and it paid off. It’s a counter argument, but not one that I’m that fond of supporting.

That’s not to say she didn’t have supporters however. The fact is, Survivor is ultimately about making sure the people on the jury, who you spent over a month on a deserted island with, will give you a million dollars at the end. Can they just be bitter? Sure. But at the end of the day, this is intended to be a social experiment, and the pinnacle of that experiment is who gets chosen to be the Sole Survivor. It’s a perspective many fans and : that regardless of how dominantly Russell played, all the moves in the world mean nothing if you can’t convince people to support you. Even then, it’s not like a couple episodes of television can truly capture the intricate bonds and rivalries that occur over 39 days anyway.

>Bitter juries don’t start out bitter — somebody makes them that way. Natalie knew at the very beginning that she could beat Russell in a jury vote. On day nine she said, “I know I could beat Russell in the very end. A lot of other in the tribe have been rubbed the wrong way by him. So I’m just trying to … build good relationships.” That was before they had met the Galu tribe, before there even was a jury. Natalie knew that Russell’s bullying, aggressive game play would alienate the jurors; if she rode his coattails to the end, she knew she could beat him there.
>
>…
>
>But a highly-edited hour of TV doesn’t come close to what it means to live for 39 days in the wilderness. Even Probst, after 20 seasons, has never lived at camp, gotten drenched in two-day rain, or forged those intimate bonds. The fact that Natalie, Mick and Jaison all were counting on sitting next to Russell at the finals speaks pretty loudly: Russell was seriously alienating in a way that doesn’t come across on television.

Indeed, some of the criticism was definitely aimed at the show. Russell clearly had way too much screen time, and while he was certainly a great character, the season rises or falls depending on how much you can stomach of him. As , a site that catalogs hilarious and important moments across Survivor, summarized, Samoa is the story of how Russell lost rather than how Natalie won. While definitely innovative, it has split many fans, and Russel’s defeat is still a seriously contentious topic for many.

Either way, Russell had cemented himself as a reality super star not seen since the early days of Survivor, and his journey would continue far past this season.

Know His Name

To say Russell was a hit name around this time on reality television is likely to undersell his impact. Survivor had not seen a contestant skyrocket to this level of popularity since the days of old, and he would stay in the limelight as the results of the season were heavily disputed.

He would go on to win the at the reunion, and be nominated at the for the best villain on television alongside Jane Lynch from Glee and Ian Somenhalder from The Vampire Diaries. He proved to be so popular and beloved by production he would immediately be invited back to compete in Season 20: Heroes Vs Villains where he proceeded to play the exact same game as before with the exact same outcome. To be fair, he only had a few weeks in between both seasons to rest from the game, but Russell would still inevitably face the same fate as before: a dominant and completely off putting castaway that made it to the end but couldn’t secure a million dollars. There’s far more complications than that, but it’s a story for another time.

All together, Russell has competed across three seasons of Survivor, as well as one season of Australian Survivor, yet still has not won. Whether that’s the fault of diminishing returns, a flaw in the game, or his hubris, he has remained outspoken about his loss .

>Last night, when they put their hands up… they showed the world that they were bitter. They were probably the most bitter jury ever. I was able to control them because they were that weak and that was good but me putting them on the jury, that weak, was bad for me…
>
>I had a good clue that I didn’t win but when I heard it, it sank into me. I said, “Wow, I really didn’t win this thing.” It showed… if you watch me… I’m not an actor. I’m not there for the money. I’m really into this game. I wanted the title of Sole Survivor. It sunk into me and it broke my heart. It was weird.

Natalie, for her part, seemed mostly unbothered by the dispute. Whether she deserved the money or not, seven people out of nine chose her as the recipient of the million dollars and the 19th Sole Survivor. What else ?

>Why is it less admirable the way I played? It’s not. I definitely don’t think it hurt me, let me put it that way. Here’s the thing: you’re getting crucified and killed and you’re physically and mentally and emotionally at your worst. Words do hurt and this game does affect your psyche. At the end of the day, it’s nice to have someone to be kind to you.

Aftermath

Russell has essentially been all but blacklisted since his time following Survivor. While the show brought him a ginormous fandom and launched him to new heights, including an ongoing podcast, he has continued to criticize and heckle both the show and Jeff Probst. After his second loss, he argued , and the jury system needed to be checked by either the audience or others. Since then, in their internet feuds, and his constant antagonism has likely removed most serious consideration of a fifth outing. There are many other controversies surrounding Russell, like , and I haven’t even mentioned the Hantz family and all their controversies on and off screen. But again, a story for another time.

Either way, about Russell’s are fun, and he still has plenty of fans. He is also or which admittedly is a low bar, but honestly pretty impressive for a Survivor contestant.

after her victory from the public eye. She was never the most popular player, especially after her win, and it was probably best to leave the spotlight as soon as she did. That’s not to say she hasn’t , and time has made people far kinder towards her win on and . It may be surprising to know she never received a vote against her or voted incorrectly despite visiting a tribal council 14 times (all without immunity or an idol no less). But again, mileage may vary depending on how you view the game and both contestants. It’s certainly still a contentious debate.

What is clear, after all this, is that Russell was seriously overexposed to possibly a fault. While most wouldn’t call Samoa an awful season, new heights on tier lists. Again, this season was more about how to not win Survivor, and personal enjoyment can die very easily depending if you like Russell or not. Natalie is still a contentious winner to this day, and with so little screen time in comparison it’s not hard to see why there was so much outcry. Maybe better editing could have helped explain and improve this season, or maybe the jury was truly just bitter and blind, but all we have is what the producers want to give us. I won’t hesitate to highlight the other , ranging from the glorification of Russell’s persona to Natalie and other women being overshadowed by the men around them on screen. But again- it’s all perspective.

Either way, she won the crown, and Russell remains one of the most infamous characters, and perhaps the most robbed contestant, in reality television.

Full Spoilers for Survivor Season 13: Cook Islands

Trigger Warning: Discussion of and references to racism

39 Days

20 People

Survivor has been airing for over twenty years and forty seasons as of this post’s upload (soon to be forty one). In that time, the show has gone through glory ages and downward slopes while airing some of the most spectacular iconic moments in reality television. But, like almost any long running show, it has encountered numerous controversies throughout its history, some of which would define entire seasons.

What is Survivor?

Skip if you’ve read my or know about Survivor.

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only a handful of castaways remain, the contestants who have made it to the merge but were voted off form a jury that chooses which remaining contestant will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for. The winning contestant must be able to form a solid alliance, be respected by their peers, and search for any in-game advantages they can find to avoid being voted off early or lose to the other remaining castaways.

Revitalizing the Formula

I have to repeat: Survivor was and still remains a ratings juggernaut on television and, in its heyday, was easily one of if not the most popular shows on air in the early 2000s. But even with its consistent success, the show would begin to shed viewers as time went on. Though viewership was well over ten million an episode, it was clear that the game would need to evolve to stop its continuing decline. So that’s exactly what production did.

Following the end of what many informally refer to as the “Classic Period’ of Survivor, from Season 1: Borneo to the extremely controversial Season 8: All Stars, the show would begin introducing new twists and ideas into the game to see what would stick. Iconic concepts like the Immunity Idol (which could prevent a player from being voted off at tribal council) and Exile Island (where a player could be ‘exiled’ to a harsh landscape by themselves for a day but could find advantages) were introduced during this time. There was an equal emphasis on shaking up tribal divisions: age, gender, three tribes, four tribes, and whatever else you can think all were thrown in as each season delivered new changes to the standard formula. Ratings were still declining, but production was doing their best to revitalize the franchise to its previous heights.

So by 2006, fans were waiting for what new twists were planned for the upcoming Season 13. And CBS would make it clear they were going to deliver on that promise of a bold new direction for the show with its first unveiling.

A Not So Welcome Twist

CBS would announce Survivor’s thirteenth season, Cook Islands, in August 2006. Host Jeff Probst and CBS producers did their usual promos and interviews, attempting to drum up excitement once again. But all the fanfare and advertising in the world couldn’t cover up the immediate controversy.

Cook Islands would bring twenty new contestants to the small screen. And those contests would be into four tribes: Caucasian, Hispanic, African-American, and Asian.

The reception was what you would expect.

Probst, in defense of the racial division, stated that this would be an attempt to further delve into the show’s original vision as a social experiment, and would promote diversity in Survivor and reality television. Survivor applicants at this point were, according to him, overwhelmingly white, and this could be a chance to bring new representation to the small screen. He further outlined production’s reasoning during an where he acknowledged the controversy but argued it would be a new, fresh twist that built on the show’s foundations and would lead to new developments.

“I think at first glance, when you just hear the idea, it could sound like a stunt. Especially with the way reality has gone, it wouldn't be unusual. But that's not what we're doing here. The idea for this actually came from the criticism that 'Survivor' was not ethnically diverse enough," he said. "Because, for whatever reason, we've always had a low number of minority applicants apply to the show. So we set out and said, 'Let's turn this criticism into creative for the show. I think it fits in perfectly with what 'Survivor' does — it is a social experiment.”

Regardless of the intentions, the backlash was swift and all encompassing. Some articles criticized itself, believing that the concept was presented in an incredibly poor light. Others like MadTV saw the and poked fun at the concept. Of course, the idea this was just another ratings ploy, despite the insistence by executives and Probst against it, only further drove the season into controversy. It certainly brought Survivor at least as television stars, radio hosts, civil rights groups, previous Survivor contestants, and fans were all quick to wage flame wars online.

Conan O'Brien, tongue firmly in cheek, told CNN Thursday, "I think that's appropriate in this day and age, with all the tension and violence and conflict, is to have a reality show where people duke it out over race and religious belief. Where are they having it this year? The Gaza Strip?"

This wasn’t to say this was universally reviled by the media or fans. Many spoke in defense of the decision- arguing that this could provide a space for ample social commentary and boost representation on a show as big as Survivor. Some , believing people were not willing to look at discussions of race in society and in entertainment. Not helping in these matters was a host of advertisers that had dropped the show around this time. Though companies like G.M., Coca-Cola, and Home Depot because of the new twist, the timing certainly didn’t help.

Whether this backlash was fair or not, the show would press onward with the twist. Cook Islands would premiere in September 2006, and initial reception was...somewhat disappointing.

An Immediate Reversal

As promised, the first episode would see the castaways split into their associated tribes of five and compete as normal to avoid facing tribal council and subsequent elimination.

Then it ended after two episodes as the tribes were shuffled into two new ones.

This wasn’t unprecedented. The previous season, Survivor: Panama, would also divide the twenty contestants into four tribes based on age and gender, yet that only lasted one episode before the tribes merged into two. Balancing twenty contestants is difficult, splitting attention across four different camps at the same time even more so. But it was still an abrupt shift to see the four tribes merge into two so quickly. The season further stumbled with a mixed bag of contestants that people either loved or were merely indifferent too. Several castaways here would go on to become legends and fantastic characters in the game, but far more were quickly forgotten and eliminated without much fanfare. It's impossible to make an objective statement about the quality of the contestants, but tend to agree that the quality of the cast varies heavily.

While still popular as ever, the attempt at revitalizing the show clearly wasn’t working at this point. Survivor would continue with the season premiere and wouldn’t recover. Whether it was the backlash against the division, or just a continued decline: the show would continue to gradually shed viewers each passing week.

But even if it seemed that the brunt of the season’s concept was over, this wouldn't be the only controversy that Survivor would court during the show. As the tribes approached the merge, there would be a major change in the season’s direction that many say will make or break Cook Islands for those interested in watching.

Bad Optics and Polarizing Events

The remaining eighteen contestants would continue fighting as they neared the mid-season merger, eventually reaching six players on each tribe. At this point, with both even in numbers, Probst would bring all the players together before the next immunity challenge and give them an important proposition. If anyone wanted to revolt from their tribe and join the other, this would be their one and only chance until the tribes merged completely later in the game. While not a new twist, this would be the first time that contestants would actually take up the offer and create one of the most iconic storylines in Survivor.

finished counting down, two of the remaining Caucasian contestants would mutiny to join their allies on the opposing Rarotonga tribe. This significantly changed the power dynamics with the now eight person Rarotonga, including all four Caucasian contestants still remaining, against the four person Aitutaki, composed solely of People of Color. Needless to say the optics were pretty controversial, and the potential of an all White castaway finale created heavy concerns among production. It was lucky then, that the retained some of the strongest contestants and managed to become a successful underdog team, with all their members reaching the final four.

As I stated before, Survivor is fundamentally a social experiment that excels off a great cast of contestants. Nowhere is that more important than here- with the Aitu Four’s of the game becoming the central story of the season. Cook Islands, like some of the most polarizing seasons in Survivor, hinges on whether the viewer can buy into the alliance’s comeback and eventual victory. That’s not to say the road getting there was without controversy either.

WIthout a doubt the most infamous twist this season introduced, after the tribal divisions anyway, was the message in a bottle. An episode after the mutiny, with the Rarotonga tribe down to seven members after losing immunity, Probst announced that the losers of the next immunity challenge will that they must open when they go to tribal council. Rarotonga lost once more, and after eliminating another contestant (down to six if you’re keeping count), they opened the bottle and were instructed to . This meant the tribe would drop down to five members before the merger against the powerful Aitu Four, and the accusations of producers rigging the odds were swift. To this day the severe punishment remains a source for a about production rigging the twist in favor of the Aitu Four to prevent the Caucasian contestants from shutting out the tribe.

Regardless of the controversies, the season would finally end with what many consider to be an extremely strong finale, though even that didn’t stop the .

The Impact and Growing Reception

Cook Islands is difficult to call a successful experiment- with not even the formation of the Aitu Four halfway fully reviving the season’s presumed original intentions. Survivor would never attempt to divide the again (though there are rumors that the following season may have attempted considered to do the same). Twists like the bottle elimination and tribal mutiny would rarely reappear, significantly altered to make the twist somewhat fairer and less game-changing. would rank the season solidly in the middle all the way back in 2010, lamenting how quickly the original setup ended despite some good characters. Survivor Historians, a podcast that goes through each season of the show one by one, would by a ‘trusted source’ involved with production that detailed the issues the crew faced had throughout the season, including their of the potentially unstoppable Rarotonga tribe coalesce at the munity.

That’s not to say the season was forgotten completely: Cook Islands would further develop the coveted immunity idol and set the modern precedent of three finalists competing for the jury’s votes rather than the original two person contest. Even if most of the concepts this season introduced were changed or dropped, a quarter of the cast would return for future seasons, many of them playing at least two or more times and becoming well known players. And while the season’s initial theming largely faded into the background, would discuss how important the season, and the spotlight on race, was for them and the television landscape even now.

However audiences originally perceived the twist and the season as a whole, Cook Islands has seen significantly more positive, if not glowing, reception in recent years. The most recent placed it just in the upper half of the series for first watchers, and (RHAP), a popular Survivor podcast hosted by previous contestants, agreed with that general placement in its own Seasonal ranking series. While not universally acclaimed, it seems the reception to Cook Islands has generally grown over time.

Aftermath

As I mentioned in my previous posts, fair representation of POC, women, and LGBT contestants is an issue that has only become more prominent in Survivor as CBS adapts to the world around it. The show certainly has its biases towards specific types of contestants and characters, and many castaways have shared their grievances about the edit and how they were perceived. Several have explained the isolation they felt on the show and the pressure they felt to represent their background, and those discrepancies stem all the way to the very first season. RHAP would have a panel with many Black Survivor alums in 2020 where they would air their grievances with the show and their on screen portrayal. Romana Amaro, one of two casted Black contestants during Survivor’s very first season, and damaging her edit was when she first saw it.

"I became the lazy person, which is the furthest thing from the truth," says Amaro. "That really upset me and it took me a long time to get over it. ... To realize, we signed our life away. They can do whatever they want to do."

Survivor is still facing criticisms about its handling of cast editing and social issues, and whether they should or shouldn’t tackle such big topics on screen like Cook Islands attempted to do is difficult to answer. CBS has recently to casting shows where at least 50% of the contestants will be POC, and the cast of Survivor 41 will be the first season to air under that quota. Whether this is good or bad is up to personal opinion, but fans are hopeful, as always, that producers will do better when choosing to tackle these subjects.

Hey everyone! Before I start, I just want to say that 1) hope you guys like this breakdown and 2) I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors. English is my second language and I just had a fight with my boyfriend so I wrote this all out to burn off some of this energy. I should also note that I had to leave some stuff out just for brevity sake since this is already long, but if you’re like “where’s all the Oliver Twixt drama? What about Lisa calling Laura a bad mom?” I just didn’t think that part of this was necessary for this post, but I could always do a part two if you guys want. Anyways enjoy!

What is America’s Next Top Model?

Though I’m sure many of you are familiar with the show itself or at least the concept, the breakdown is essentially this. In 2003, Tyra Banks' show aired, which consisted of contestants ranging from 9 to 16 models compete for a modelling contract, a spread in some type of magazine (ranging from Seventeen Magazine to Vogue), and a position as a spokesperson for a beauty or fashion company, such as CoverGirl. Rather than seasons, the show was broken down into “cycles” and the episode structure was fairly basic; there is usually some kind of mini challenge, then a main challenge (shooting a commercial, a music video, etc), and finally a photography challenge (headshots, posing dangling 20 feet in the air, doing… blackface… for some reason). Contestants go home week by week by a judging panel, including Tyra Banks herself, noted fashion photographer Nigel Barker, fan favourite and runway legend, Miss J, as well as a guest judge and a retired model that usually rotates every few seasons. All of this accumulates in one final showdown between two contestants that usually ends in a runway show and a final photograph challenge.

Cycle 17, the most highly anticipated shitstorm

By 2011, America’s Next Top Model had been losing steam. Viewers were low and production seemed desperate. So, what does a reality show do when they’re all out of options? They make an All Stars season. Fans were ecstatic, and judging by old forum posts I painstakingly went through, fans were excited to see who would be on the show, speculating on challenges, and wondering what new, fresh ideas would make it to the show... well it didn’t exactly turn out that way. Don’t get me wrong, the cast was fantastic. All the girls they brought back were talented and charismatic, but the cycle was just... odd. Challenges include “dress up like Snooki and ride a motorcycle”, “eat a hot dog in a way that represents your brand”, and the now infamous “Pot Ledom” where the girls had to write their own music and do a music video while Tyra would interject clips of her gyrating. If you want to see what I mean, is a music video model Allison Harvard did in dedication to losing her father and grappling with grief while Tyra and this other guy just kind of cut in clips of them dancing. A lot of fans were pissed about this as it just kind of showed how egotistical Tyra was, not even allowing for her models to have the spotlight without her inching her way into frame, à la Amy Poehler in Mean Girls (I can’t find the clip, but you know the scene I’m talking about? When Regina is taking prom pics and her mom scoots into the background and poses? Great movie. Anyways...).

You wanna be on top? The finale verdict heard around the gossip blogs

Our top 3 this cycle was Allison Harvard, Lisa D’Amato, and Angelea Preston. A general breakdown of the models go as follows:

• : Absolutely the fan favourite. To this day, Allison is voted as a personal favourite by most fans. With her big blonde hair and huge eyes, she was compared from anything to an alien to a porcelain doll. If you were on 4chan in 2009 or tumblr in 2011, you might know her as Her morbid interests such as blood (trust me, we’ll get back to that) made her interesting to fans but was polarizing to the judging panel. Guest judge and musician, Game, referred to her as the “weirdest most beautiful” person he’s ever met, while guest judge and model Tyson Beckford felt uncomfortable around her, calling her weird and strange looking (not in a good way).

• : Lisa was really well known for her spunky and out-there attitude. Her ability to just jump into any challenge really made her a treat to watch during Cycle 17 and she was able to hit the mark on so many different challenges. Her personality made her hard to watch at times, including the now infamous time on her original cycle where she peed in a diaper in front of Steve-O who called her out on being unprofessional. She also tended to stick her nose in other contestants' business which, though lead to some great reality tv drama, just left the viewers feeling exhausted after a while. For example, one of her fellow models, Bianca, had asked another fellow contestant, Shannon, if she would have enough time to call home before they had to do a photoshoot. Shannon immediately started crying and Lisa started yelling in Bre’s face that she was “scaring” Shannon. I should note that many viewers believe that Lisa was just supporting the angry black woman stereotype since Bianca is black and Shannon is white, and Bianca was literally just asking if she would have enough time to phone home. Idk, you can see the fight and let me know what you think!

• : Similar to Lisa, Angelea was a bit controversial. She had a fantastic personality, super entertaining and could be vulnerable at times, but was also hostile and had a hard time taking critique. Tyra really pushed to market her as the girl who came from the “hood” who became a top model. During cycle 17’s airtime, fans were kind of torn with her, but the consensus was that she was just fine. Not great enough to win, but fans weren’t upset that she made it far.

But then... the disqualification happened.

During the finale of cycle 17, the judges let the audience know that Angelea was disqualified for reasons that, at the time, were unknown. Fans immediately began speculating and believed it was because Angelea had made a Facebook post with something that insinuated she had won. A viewer had commented on her page: if you win I’ll cry and Angelea had replied before the episode aired: Then you better grab your tissues. In the end, Lisa was crowned as the winner of All Stars and Allison made second place and fans were not happy. Going back to a livejournal post from 2011, fans were commenting things like:

• This is an outrage! Alison should have won.

• I like Allisons personality much more than Lisa’s! Why would they let such a harsh, very worn out soul like Lisa take this win? A model is supposed to be a role model, & Lisa is NO Role Model, AT ALL!!

• My husband and I are boycotting the show. America’s Next Model crashed and burned last night. Allison was the clear winner. She should have won both cycles she participated in.

• Allison was the hands down winner. She’s a braniac cupie doll, what beats that?

• I HATE LISAAAA SHE SHOULD NEVER HAVE WON she ugly stupid and I’m sooooooo mad never watching antm again!!!!!!!

So that’s it? Angelea was disqualified for leaking things about the show and the judges decided Lisa won. Sure, fans were disappointed, but this is reality tv and I’m sure there was nothing nefarious behind the scenes... right?

Angelea Preston

Shortly after her original time on the show during cycle 14, Angelea returned to her hometown of Buffalo, New York to try and readjust to life after being on a television series viewed by millions of people. As Angelea and many former contestants tell, the modelling industry is a harsh world for contestants on America’s Next Top Model. Angelea would tell Bustle in an interview that agents wouldn’t want her since she was on the show. It was seen as an embarrassment to the modelling world and the inner circle wanted nothing to do with it. I highly, highly suggest you read her interview to get the full scope of what happened to Angelea after her original show run but I will attempt to break it down here. Essentially, Angelea met a man who recognized her from cycle 14. He complimented her, flashed his money, and Angelea was taken by his charm and the wealth he was offering to her. This man, however, was not a modelling agent, but instead a pimp. I would like to take a sidenote to describe my own mother’s experience in the modelling industry and you wouldn’t believe how common this is. My mom told me she went to a shoot once and there were men just like this guy waiting outside for these young girls to groom. Often these girls are immigrants or, like in my mom’s and Angelea’s case, girls from low-income areas. Soon, Angelea’s pimp who she refers to as T took her over state lines, away from her life and family in New York. Arya Roshanian writes her in her Bustle article:

Preston alleges that T assaulted her on multiple occasions. She describes them as out-of-body experiences, and a contributing factor to why she didn’t leave. She didn’t know how to advocate for herself against someone who wielded so much power, and part of her felt like she deserved it, she says.

While Angelea was stuck in this horrific situation, her friends and family desperately tried to reach her. Fellow cycle 14 contestant and winner, Krista White, actually reached out to the ANTM staff in the hopes that one of them could do something to help, even if it was just a production staff member who was close to Angelea. She called and emailed everyone, including Tyra Banks and the shows creator, Ken Mok, but none of them reached out. Keep in mind this was after her original time on the show, back in 2009. When Angelea was able to escape and return to a normal life, that is when ANTM reached out for the All Stars season. In short, Angelea did in fact win cycle 17, only for it to be ripped away. She was told this is due to her time “escorting” and that it reflected badly on the brand. Angelea told Bustle that network attorney, Andy Wong, said: “You know, Angelea, you have no one to blame but yourself. You did this to yourself.” Angelea went on to say, “It was already traumatic going through the sex-work stuff, and now to add insult to injury, they were punishing me for the rest of my life, I was gutted.”

There is still one question left in my mind: if production already knew she was trafficked, and did nothing, why now? Why bring her on the show just to disqualify her? In the end, it is believed that a fellow contestant on cycle 17 went to production and told them without the consent of Angelea. This somehow spread to their advertisers who put pressure on the show to disqualify her. There are many people rumoured to have been the one to go to production, but the only one who people are sure to have been ruled out (besides the girls who went home earlier in the season) was Allison due to her and Angelea’s friendship on the show that persists today. In an interview with Mr. Jay, ANTM’s creative director and sometimes judge, Allison stated that she was the first call Angelea made after her disqualification. In that same interview, Mr. Jay revealed that after Angelea’s disqualification, the judging pannel had zero say in who would win. Essentially, judges were told by production that they already picked the winner and to just read off the name. So, for whatever reason, production decided to give Lisa the crown over Allison. Fans also believe that it was in fact Lisa who told staff about Angelea’s past due to her coldness towards her and how, when asked about it, Lisa simply replied: “every girl knows what they can and cannot do before joining ANTM. They can't have been prostitutes, escorts, felons, etc. They all know the brands do not want to be associated with that stuff because it would cause problems and lawsuits if it becomes public knowledge.” Lisa also said that it was actually Angelea who told production staff and that every time they would travel somewhere for the show, Angelea would make remarks like “I got an AIDS test here” and that most of her confessionals were about her experience being trafficked.

Creepy Chan = Leader in a Satanic Blood Cult?

After this Bustle article came out, Lisa made instagram post. Lisa said that Allison had failed her psychiatric evaluation, that she paints with her own blood, that she had a cult following (which I believe Lisa meant it to actually mean a real cult, not like just crazy fans, but an actual cult), and that she sent hate towards Lisa. She also tagged this post as #BLM and #BreonnaTaylor which is just disgusting imo. Allison was quick to comment both on ig and reddit, with her reddit account saying that yes, Allison’s fans did send Lisa hate, but Allison had said multiple times to leave her alone and that she won fair and square. Allison said on ig that she did not fail her psychiatric evaluation and that this post was “damaging and cruel” (full comment can be read Lisa fired back at a fan for criticizing her post and where she continued to insinuate that Allison had failed her psych exam and that she is a Satanist, cementing Lisa’s belief that Allison runs a Satanic cult. I should also point out that Allison has been open with her past experience with mental illness and anorexia and to weaponize her mental health issues is just horrible. There is absolutely no shame in experiencing mental illness or eating disorders and there is absolutely nothing “satanic” about it.

Lisa then made a four part TikTok series where she continued to call Allison evil, you can view that but to be completely honest, it is hard to understand exactly what she’s trying to get at so I will attempt to break it down here.

• Lisa says that when the girls first got to the house, everyone immediately flocked to Allison. Lisa thought that was odd and viewed her as just another girl but it seemed like everyone else was obsessed with her.

• Flash forward after the show is done and Lisa and Allison are in New Orleans together. Allison meets one of Lisa’s friends who tells Lisa that Allison gives off weird vibes and tells Lisa to stay away.

• Later on, her and Allison go to a museum (I’m unsure what museum it is but since the location and what Lisa goes on to say, I believe it was the Museum of Death in New Orleans). Lisa says that Allison sees “a dead woman” (unsure if it’s crime scene photos or something else at the museum) and Allison remarks that she’s beautiful which disturbs Lisa.

• Note: Description of the painting is hidden under the spoiler for those who are uncomfortable. After that, Lisa finds Allison’s tumblr page where she had painted an image depicting babies being chopped up on a conveyor belt and Lisa says that she feels like she wants to vomit. I can’t find this painting she’s referring to but I guess one she painted is close?

• She ends this TikTok series by saying again how Allison’s fans sent her death threats and again continues to support claims that Allison is a leader of a Satanic cult

And... that seems to be where the story ends for now. Lisa has continued to expose ANTM both on TikTok and Instagram but it seems like the other girls, including Allison, just kind of ignore her now. Angelea is now a journalist for NPR and seems to be doing incredible things. I couldn’t be happier for her, she seems to have made a really nice life for her and her family. Allison continues to model and make art (as well as sell NFT’s lmfao), and Lisa is still Lisa.

My thoughts

I truly believe that ANTM was a traumatic event for a lot of these contestants. I mean shit, you put these girls who are barely 18 in a house together and throw them into a kerfuffle of painful challenges and constant degrading of their bodies. I think Lisa does make some good points about how the show mistreats their contestants but took it too far with the QAnon shit. All and all, it’s a window into the world of the early aughts reality television. But why now? My honest opinion is that this all stems from quarantine. Like myself, I’m sure a lot of you spent the early days of quarantine binge watching shows like Jersey Shore and Flavour of Love and I’m sure ANTM was in that cycle of shows for a lot of us. Rewatching it now, we realize just how problematic (and overall cringey) the show was, and I think Lisa took that opportunity to get some more views and engage with an audience again. I don’t think what she says is all lies, I do think she believes in a big part of what she’s saying, but to throw a fan favourite like Allison into the fire would also help ignite some new people to her page. But what do you guys think? Is Allison Harvard actually part of a Satanic cult that wants to take over the world, or was she just an edgy teenager with morbid interests? Thanks for reading!

TW: Video footage containing threats of violence

Big Brother is an interesting show to say the least. based on trapping a bunch of contestants in a house with no access to the outside world, the house guests must compete in challenges for rewards and immunity each week while gradually voting people out of the house. Once two contestants remain, the last 7-9 or so eliminated players form a jury and vote on which contestant will win the $500,000 grand prize.

If any of that sounds similar to you, you’re likely thinking of Big Brother’s sister show on the same network, Survivor. These two shows (along with The Amazing Race) form a trifecta of reality programming on CBS that continue to rake in millions of viewers to this day. But unlike its siblings, Big Brother had an extraordinarily rough beginning. Many fans would agree Season 1, with its bloated 70 episodes, awkward structure, and glacial pace is an easy skip, and the show wouldn’t really get going until Season 2 in 2001. But even this second shot had its growing pains, and nowhere was that more obvious than the first (and maybe the most dramatic) expulsion of a contestant in series history.

Playing With Scissors…Or Knives

As stated before, Big Brother on the surface seems pretty similar to Survivor. But there are dramatic differences that make the show stand out compared to other reality TV shows. For one, seasons are pretty long and (discounting season 1’s massive episode list and shorter spin offs like Celebrity Big Brother) last anywhere from . There are also no tribes, and the “immunity” winner (called Head of Household) must nominate two people that the remaining house guests must choose to evict from. Most importantly, house guests are almost always being recorded, with events being caught live on stream that nearly anyone can access online. And I do mean almost everything. From sharing to using , the house guests are being spied on nearly 24/7. Most (well, some) of the time, players will at least try to be on their best behavior while navigating a game of alliances, backstabbing, and due to this. But there are plenty of instances where guests take things too far. Case in point:

Justin, like plenty of other contestants, was likely cast to start drama and rake in viewers as CBS retooled the show from season 1. Irritable, loud, and quick to threaten others, he certainly served on that front. But Justin was quickly becoming a problem in the house, notably stealing a pillow from another contestant and nearly getting into a fight once confronted by the end of the first week. Again, Big Brother is already pretty strenuous psychologically when you’re expected to live with over a dozen people you don't like, much less when you’re simultaneously trying to win a competition for half a million dollars. And his antics weren’t helping. While no one had come to blows yet, tensions were clearly beginning to mount, and by the end of episode 3 and the pillow incident, it was obvious things were only going to worsen the longer he stayed.

Still, it likely came as a shock to many when, in episode 4’s opening, was expelled from the house. In the following clip show linked above, producers went through numerous instances of the other contestants privately voicing their concerns about Justin and his more egregious actions. He had a very nasty habit of threatening others throughout his limited time on screen, and the producers made sure to highlight every instance throughout the opening minutes. Justin, for his part, seemed to not really take any of it seriously in his private confessionals with the crew despite repeatedly claiming he understood.

[Justin]: Whenever I get called in here, it’s always a matter of me getting thrown off the show. It’s like Justin you know, you can’t beat nobody up. Or Justin, you know, you can’t like sexually force yourself on somebody.

The breaking point, as the producers showed, was when he and another house guest, , got extremely drunk in the kitchen. After kissing and flirting for a while (and pretending to swing at her head), Justin began asking if Krista would be mad if he killed her. Then, though it was cut out of the episode, Justin grabbed a kitchen knife and brought it up to her neck while , as seen in this low quality rip from the now deleted live feeds.

Needless to say, that was the last straw. Justin was immediately removed from the house, and the guests were quickly informed that he would not be coming back. His eviction interview with Julie didn’t exactly help his image either.

[Justin]: Now if there’s anyone who can perceive that as an act of violence, or as a threat, then you’re an idiot. Alright, I don’t know what the hell you’re watching, or what kind of glasses you’re looking through.

[Julie]: Can you see how someone from the outside would be worried about your state of mind as you’re holding a knife to someone’s throat asking ‘Would you be mad if I killed you?’

[Justin]: Again-

[Julie]: Can you see-

[Justin]: I can not. I can not even fathom if someone’s watching me kiss a girl, and I’m speaking in jokingly terms smiling while she’s laughing and put a knife and said would you be mad if I killed you- First of all if she felt threatened, if anyone thought that she felt threatened I was going to do anything, I don’t think she would have said ‘go for it’, laughed, and kissed me.

Response

While not the last ejection, this is probably the most dramatic and impactful exit the show ever had. Especially as more info came out about the situation and production’s decision making. Before entering the house, Justin had apparently been . Though never charged, it was certainly a disturbing pattern that likely should have stopped him from ever setting foot in the game. That CBS admitted they only uncovered one arrest despite two different private investigations just added fuel to the fire. Their poor research and delayed response to Justin’s actions immediately created a mess of controversy, with . In even more dire news, and probably more importantly for the network, wasn’t exactly spectacular either.

Krista, for her part, was more conflicted. During her eviction interview with Julie later on, she initially stated she didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. She simply saw it as flirting and a joke, believing .

Following Krista’s eventual eviction from the house, she spoke in her interview saying “When Julie asked me about this, I had no recollection of what she was talking about because we were basically joking around,” Krista said. “They (the producers) blew that completely out of proportion. Justin is just a fun guy. I really don’t have the memory of the knife. Maybe my eyes were closed at the time, but I never viewed him as a threat. So it wasn’t part of my strategy. I just didn’t remember it.” She continued to say “I really didn’t take it seriously,” she said. “If you know Justin and if you’ve lived with him, then you know completely, he’s off the hook. He’s nuts. He’s funny.”

Whatever the case may be, Krista apparently changed her mind seeing as when news broke of Justin’s previous arrests, as well as not properly treating her psychologically after the show. Again, both her and Justin were intoxicated when the knife incident happened and whatever she stated before, it doesn’t invalidate what she felt later when new info and the footage itself was revealed. With even executive producer Arnold Shapiro not knowing about , it’s clear someone severely screwed up somewhere while casting. Regardless, the results of the lawsuit are still unknown, though Krista seemed to come to terms .

[Krista]: "Me and CBS are fine. If you think about it, my show was Big Brother 2 and I was at (the taping of) Big Brother: All-Stars. Yes, I had to do a little scheming, but that's part of the game," Stegall says with a grin.

Justin, after wisely leaving the spotlight, would get arrested in .

And then he’d get arrested .

Aftermath

It may be a surprise to learn Big Brother is still airing despite all this. Or even that Big Brother 2, despite its faults, is still considered to be a good if not great season to watch. While not perfect, and definitely still going through growing pains, production clearly took numerous steps to improve the from the first outing for the better. Add in an overall entertaining cast barring a certain knife wielding contestant (as well as what many consider to be and in particular the in reality television history), and many would agree this is the season where Big Brother truly found its footing. Since then, the show has gone on to become a smash success, with international versions airing across the world from Australia to Canada to Israel.

While the knife incident didn’t have much of an impact on the future success of the show, Big Brother has implemented plenty of rules since to prevent such a controversy from happening again. Players are rarely given anything more threatening than a butter knife as a utensil, and live feed outages are more common than ever nowadays (which ). Most importantly, alcohol is far more restricted and rationed out much more carefully, decreasing the amount of drunken shenanigans that take place.

Details on Justin and Krista are pretty sparse, though there are plenty of rumors that can be found online which are difficult to verify. in 2015 and some photos of , there’s not too much concrete info about either of the two nowadays. Likely for the better.

And while the moment itself has become either a or sickening mishap depending on who you’re talking to, it definitely hasn’t been forgotten by the fan base. And even if CBS would like to pretend this event (and plenty of others since) never happened, this moment remains one of the biggest controversies in Big Brother history.

EDIT: Fixed some spelling/grammar mistakes

39 Days

19 People

Hey, it's me. The person who keeps talking about reality television shows you didn’t know were still airing. With Survivor 41 (Yes, that is its official name) still airing and causing its own massive buckets of drama with each and every episode, I figured now is a good time to return to the show and discuss another massive change in Survivor's formula that has caused flame wars to this day. Specifically Season 35: Healers vs. Heroes vs. Hustlers

Yeah, Survivor hasn’t been doing well with names recently.

What is Survivor?

Skip if you’ve read any of my Survivor or have watched the show.

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only a handful of castaways remain, the contestants who have made it to the merge but were voted off form a jury that chooses which remaining contestant will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for. The winning contestant must be able to form a solid alliance, be respected by their peers, and search for any in-game advantages they can find to avoid being voted off early or lose to the other finalists.

In Which Survivor Is Running Out of Clever Titles

Survivor HHH, as it is often nicknamed, aired in September 2017 after what many people consider to be an ultimately disappointing outing with Game Changers. Criticized for its mediocre cast, odd twists, and uninteresting endgame, HHH sought to right the ship from that season with a complete cast of new players divided into three tribes based on their occupation. , this season would place emphasis on the titles of different people, examining how their professions and status affected their perception in the game. Probst also hyped a few specific players in particular, most notably for this write up: .

An ex-marine placed on the Heroes tribe, as a likable if perhaps slightly bland “good guy”, though any long time viewer could instantly pinpoint him as a possible production favorite for his story alone. Still, he seemed to be shaping up to be a solid, if not a victorious, contender. As the premiere neared, fans were looking forward to what seemed to be a hopefully great, back to basics, season.

Of course, HHH would not be remembered for any of that.

A Worrying Race

As the season progressed towards the finale, most fans agreed HHH was shaping up to be a solid but not spectacular product. While the second half of the season steadily picked up steam and left audiences with an interesting final cast, filled with memorable clashes in personality and strategy, the rather unimpressive and dull first half soured some on the season. Ben in particular had become rather divisive, positioned as the season’s underdog and mired by his weakening game and chaotic play style as the game progressed. He did have some great moments, especially when reflecting on his , but there were just as many rooting against him as there were for him. With the rest of the remaining castaways turning against Ben due to his impressive early moves and sizable influence in the game, it looked like he was destined to miss out on the chance of winning a million dollars.

Luckily for the ex-marine, he managed to find an immunity idol and play it just when all hope seemed lost. As I explained in previous write ups, an idol in this game can nullify all votes at a tribal council and ensure a castaway’s safety for one more day. Ben was able to block a him and single handedly blindsided the opposing alliance to make it to the final six contestants. While a great move, it only solidified his status as a threat that needed to be voted out before reaching the jury by the remaining contestants. Unless Ben could win the upcoming immunity challenges and find more immunity idols, the former being extremely unlikely considering his lackluster challenge performances, Ben only delayed the inevitable.

A Controversial Last Hurdle

Well Ben may not have been able to win the next challenge, but he was able to find another idol and again. Then he did it one more time at during the finale. In case you’re keeping track, Ben had made it through three tribal councils solely by finding and playing hidden immunity idols. This had never happened before, and Ben had secured himself in the final four without ever winning a challenge or convincing someone to turn against the alliance.

Now to be completely fair, Ben did have to look for and find those idols on his own. The rest of the contestants certainly could have spent more time looking for them as well if they truly wanted to stop Ben. Yet, the found them and how many he found was highly suspect to some fans. Survivor has never been completely fair, most seasoned viewers understand this, but Ben managed to find an idol off screen, and find another one after that in a location he visited extremely often. To say the calls of production “rigging” the show for Ben were popular as the season progressed is an understatement, and the amount of idols being found ( A huge jump from the previous seasons) was becoming ludicrous to long time fans. But if people were getting annoyed with Ben’s stroke of luck during the season so far, it was nothing compared to what was about to happen next.

With Ben making it to the final four, he was one immunity challenge away from making it to the final tribal council where he certainly seemed to be the person most likely to win the jury’s votes. As the final five was the last opportunity to play an idol, and with the opposing alliance firmly against him, Ben needed to win this last challenge to have a shot at victory. It was especially important to win now, considering the day before Probst teased the winner will receive an extra advantage. Unfortunately, he narrowly lost to another divisive finalist Chrissy: an and strategic leader that was a strong contender to win should Ben not reach the end. With her victory, Ben seemed to be firmly locked out of the competition. At least until for winning the last challenge.

To summarize, for winning the challenge Chrissy would choose who to sit with her in front of the jury and force the other two contestants to compete in a fire making challenge for the third and final spot. While fire making was used before to break ties when voting, this would be the first time where such a challenge was required for contestants to progress, at the final tribal council no less. After seemingly being doomed all season, Ben suddenly found one more lifeline that no one from the cast or the audience could have seen coming. While Chrissy tried her best to prepare fellow fan favorite Devon for the upcoming challenge, to anyone reading this write up.

For fans watching the finale at this moment, the show had pulled an almost offensively awful gimmick to save their “favorite” contestant from what would certainly have been his doom. Ben had won a spot in the final three and survived four vote offs based solely on his ability to find idols and a sudden last minute twist that made voting him out impossible. Even other winners who couldn’t make great social bonds at least were able to win challenges and gain immunity in a ‘respectable’ way through challenges, not just by finding a mountain of idols and a last minute twist.

Needless to say, some people were rather livid.

Igniting A Flame War

It was clear especially at the time that this twist was not well received to say the least. Ben would go on to win in a 5-2-1 vote with relative ease despite all the odds, yet all fans could talk about , , and (besides the pretty awful reunion) was this single twist that saved Ben’s game at the cost of the show’s entire structure:

There are two ways of looking at this new twist. One way is to say: Good! Not only is it nice to see a new twist introduced, but I want the best people at the end and this helps make sure that happens. Plus, it’s totally fair because this special help is open to all players. It’s not like at the beginning of the season the producers said, “We like Ben. Let’s give him extra help to make it to the end.”

…

That’s one way. Here’s the other way*: They started doing the final three as a rule modification to make sure better people were sitting at the end. Now they have modified the rules yet again at the final four to once again game the system in the interest of protecting the best players to help them make it to the million dollar jury. What’s next? A final five? Everyone at the merge automatically makes it to the end? Allowing jurors to vote one of themselves into the finals? Yes, it stinks to lose great players right before the final three. But it’s also AMAZING!*

This twist ignited a media firestorm like few other events had done in the show’s history. Fans on the subreddit were so livid they after the finale, arguing that production stepped in so obviously to “fix” the narrative it ruined the season. Even well regarded spoke up on social media about how suspect Ben’s win was. To many detractors, the constant idols and surprise fire making challenge unfairly saved the producer’s favorite and went far beyond any previous ‘interference’, real or not, by the crew. While some fans were more dramatic than others, the criticism was not completely unfair. Probst even said himself it was used to :

This idea came about to solve a problem that has bothered me for years. If someone plays a great game and gets to the final four, it has always bothered me that the other three can simply say, “We can’t beat him, so let’s all just vote him out.” So this year we decided to make a change. If you get to final four, you are guaranteed a shot to earn your way to the end. And if you are the one to win the final four challenge, you are in charge of who you take and who you force to fight for it in a fire-making showdown. And of course, it goes without saying, we got lucky with a huge million dollar showdown between Ben and Devon. It was electric.

Again, not everyone hated the twist and how Ben got to the end. With production stating this was planned from the beginning the accusations of if and to what extent Ben’s win was ‘rigged’ is probably going to be debated for quite some time, but the actual challenge isn’t completely unpopular. Some were more annoyed by the fire making twist being a last minute revelation and were satisfied with new seasons going forward making the twist known at the start, while others loved the idea. Several players in the same season even spoke in defense of Ben, he could to win and deserved his spot at the end. Regardless, the flames clearly still haven't settled.

Smoldering Reception

In spite of polarizing fan reception, fire making has become a staple of modern Survivor to the annoyance of many viewers, having taken place every season since HHH to determine the final three contestants. While no longer keeping the challenge a surprise in future seasons was more “fair” than its first implementation, fans are still having debates about what forced fire making represents for this show’s future and how much advantages and twists are impacting the basic game. To this day, fire making challenges are pretty common in the subreddit amid the occasional arguments.

Ben would go on to compete again in Winners At War, where he would garner even more controversy about his game play and persona to the point he had to for reasons too complicated and separate from this story to get into. The less said about Twitter and Facebook (and Reddit, to be fair), the better. Despite that, he seems to be enjoying his million dollars plus whatever other bonuses provided by the show, and is unlikely to appear again for now.

As for HHH, Season 35 has been received pretty poorly in recent times by veteran fans of the show. Despite what many consider to be a pretty great second half, the less interesting earlier episodes on top of Ben’s win have led to pretty strong critical backlash. The most recent subreddit ranking placed the season , and well known podcasts like were even harsher on HHH’s more sour notes. and still have their fans each, of course, but the season’s legacy is plagued by the controversy surrounding its final twist and the winner’s path to victory.

But hey, that’s Survivor for you.

39 Days

19 People

Following the mixed reception to Survivor: Cook Islands and its division of tribes based on ethnicity, Survivor would go back to the drawing board in order to revitalize the slow decline in viewership. The show was still a powerhouse on television, yet was unable to translate its new twists and changes into higher ratings despite numerous attempts. On top of that, concerns from both CBS and host Jeff Probst that Survivor was beginning to run its course after almost seven years meant it was more important than ever for production to produce a home run of a season. Unfortunately, just like its older sibling Cook Islands, Fiji would attract similar controversy over its central themes.

What is Survivor?

Skip if you’ve read any of my last posts, I recommend my write up on Fiji’s predecessor , or know about Survivor.

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only a handful of castaways remain, the contestants who have made it to the merge but were voted off form a jury that chooses which remaining contestant will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for. The winning contestant must be able to form a solid alliance, be respected by their peers, and search for any in-game advantages they can find to avoid being voted off early or lose to the other remaining castaways.

Another Bold Theme

As stated before, while Cook Islands ultimately didn’t harm the show, it didn’t do anything to improve viewership. All the headlines and drama surrounding the main theme of division by ethnicity were probably more trouble than it was worth for CBS. Though it was rumored Fiji would attempt to before a contestant backed out at the last minute (leaving an odd numbered 19 castaways to compete), production stated that the nearly equal casting was supposed to follow through on their promise of diversity. Ultimately, for its fourteenth outing the show decided to experiment once again with how to divide the tribe.

This time, Survivor would split the contestants by haves and have nots.

Taking Survival to the Edge

Airing in February 2007, Survivor: began airing in February 2007 and immediately changed the formula with its . The 19 castaways were left on a deserted island with tons of supplies compared to normal seasons, no appearance from Probst, and were simply told to begin building a shelter. Despite some burgeoning tensions, the castaways got to work building an impressive shelter with all the extra supplies provided by the producers. Yet the unequal number of contestants and lack of information from the crew was on everyone’s minds: how was this season going to play out?

They would get their answer soon after arriving at the location of the first immunity challenge, Probst ordered one of the castaways to divide the tribes into two called Moto and Ravu: whoever lost the challenge would go vote off their first member and that would be the tribe the assigner joined. On top of having to eliminate a member from their team, the losing tribe would also be sent to live in a deserted area with no resources provided by production while the winners would enjoy their luxurious shelter.

You can start to see the problem with this premise.

After explaining the rest of twists this season, including the modern version of the coveted immunity idol and fan favorite Exile Island, Ravu would go on to lose the challenge and vote out their first member, gaining the leftover contestant and leaving the tribes equal once again. It was a bit of a messy premier, but this season seemed to be a step in the right direction after the mixed reception of Cook Islands. With a new interesting twist that divided the contestants between those struggling with the bare minimum versus those thriving in relative comfort, this could be a pretty interesting season right?

In Which The Poor Predictably Struggle

Ravu would go on to lose the immunity challenge the next episode. Then they would lose both the first reward and third immunity challenge again in episode 3. Now, there have been several tribes throughout Survivor that have performed poorly- with one doing so badly many consider it to have created one of the best stories in the show’s history. But Fiji seemed to drag by each episode as Ravu continued to suffer defeat after defeat. Ravu had a pot, a machete, and absolutely no morale as they continued to lose each challenge while the castaways with all the resources, Moto, didn’t relieve the weekly grind for audiences with their bland editing and controversial personalities. The season sought to form a narrative between the rich and poor, something Probst himself spelled out numerous times in recaps and to the contestants, but the imbalanced odds and weak cast on each tribe made it hard to root for almost anyone. Ravu wasn’t even able to make fire by hand (and according to Survivor’s rules would not be given a piece of flint to assist later attempts) until Day 7- an absolutely ludicrous amount of time by most standards on the show. By the , audiences were becoming critical of the lethargic energy of the season and few stand out players.

Possibly in an attempt to stop Ravu’s slow decline after losing another reward challenge in episode 4, Moto after their next immunity win and were told they either had to give up immunity and go to tribal council to vote someone out or give up their shelter and trade places with Ravu to stay safe. Naturally, Moto chose to keep their exquisite shelter and take the hit to their numbers. This vote out, along with another Moto player having to be medically evacuated, may have evened the tribes temporarily, but it didn’t stop the trainwreck that was Ravu as Moto would go on to win every subsequent immunity and reward challenge except for one until the tribes merged together. Even randomly swapping some of the players on each tribe in episode 6 didn’t change Ravu’s miserable living conditions and performance, simply forcing a few people from Moto to experience Ravu’s crippling defeats.

The editing and personalities hadn’t improved either, with some heavily unbalanced screen time only allowing a few players to shine. That may not have been the worst thing for some players though, as most of the more prominent castaways were portrayed in a very negative light whenever they were on screen anyway. The ‘feud’ between players is probably the most infamous conflict in Fiji’s first half. The former’s constant bullying and mocking of the latter as “not a man” and “effeminate” up until Anthony’s elimination was so maligned the events are still by of fans today.

By the time the merge finally happened, fans were grateful for the change in pace as all the remaining contestants would live at the Moto camp for the rest of the game.

In Which A Car Deal Goes Awry

For the most part, most fans seem to actually agree that the second half of the game kicked the season into high gear. More interesting dynamics and characters soon began to emerge, a select few becoming pretty admired by the fanbase. The remaining Ravu members managed to turn the tide of the game, splitting the fractured alliance among the Moto members and creating a great narrative as rivalries within and between the tribes came to a head. But despite the growing reception the season began to enjoy, the second half of Fiji would also lead up to yet another one of the most infamous moments in Survivor history.

was a poor street performer who grew up homeless, and was heavily criticized by several contestants throughout the game for constantly backstabbing and failing to maintain his alliances even as he made it forward in the game. With only six contestants remaining, fan favorite contestant won the season’s car reward, earning himself a 2008 Ford Super Duty. Rather than keep this award however, in exchange for giving Yau-Man immunity at the Final Four should Dreamz win the last immunity challenge. This would ensure Yau-Man would make it through the last tribal council and be given a shot at a million dollars should he survive two more votes.

Apparently (though direct sources are hard to find), the other contestants all agreed to give the car to Dreamz knowing his background (though whether they would have made some sort of deal is disputed). Either way, Dreamz agreed to the deal, though did still try to vote him out before then as a means of technically honoring the agreement. Yau-Man would survive however, and when Dreamz won the last immunity challenge, the moment audiences were waiting for finally arrived as the group walked to the final Tribal Council. Probst asked if he would honor the deal and fans around the nation waited with baited breath to see if one of the most popular castaways to root for this season would make it to the end.

.

With no protection, as well as being a threat to win a million dollars, Yau-Man was immediately voted out. Now, this logically made sense. Dreamz was already disliked by several of the other castaways while Yau-Man was very respected, and likely to win outright. The latter even said so himself after the episode aired, understanding that despite some bitterness about the deal being broken to keep immunity in the face of possibly being eliminated just before the end. Nevertheless, being partly responsible for voting out the fan favorite contestant is never a good look on Survivor, let alone a contestant who never stood out like Dreamz, and many fans over the broken deal and his supposed lack of good character:

“Dreamz lost his integrity, and a million dollars by going back on his word to Yau-Man. The only thing worse was the fact that he then lied to the jury and Jeff P. by saying that this was his game plan all along. Dreamz is a pathetic loser. I feel sorry for his son.”

“Earl was great and deserved the money. Dreamz was a dishonest fool and deserves nothing.”

As far as Dreamz is concerned there is a line that even in Survivor you don’t cross. Everyone expects a few lies and deceptions. When he accepted that truck, which was a magnanimous gift, he needed to have as high a character as the person who gave it to him. Unfortunately he didn’t…

Yeah, people take this game pretty seriously at times. Discussions of the deal nowadays are , especially considering Dreamz’s background and the fact that well..this is a game, as well as Yau-Man himself showing very little ill will during and after the finale. But at the time? Dreamz was an instant pariah for what many considered to be a harsh and villainous backstab, taking out the star player of the season and attempting to spin as all according to plan. , dramatizing the central narrative that took up the last few episodes of the season.

"If I'm Dreamz, I don't have the life experience -- the wherewith all -- or greed is to big of a word in my life when I'm smelling the shot at $1 million," said Probst. "I don't have the capability to realize I'm never going to get it. That by betraying Yao-Man, I just... So I get Dreamz. Dreamz was just an excited kid who never, ever had a shot at something like this. He didn't know what to do."

His treatment by the jury wasn’t much better, with many of them relentlessly criticizing him for the betrayal and his overall game. As the reviled finalist , he understood the negativity poured on him, yet ultimately didn’t regret his decisions.

Dreamz: As I went there, I knew I wasn't going to give him the idol. But the closer and the closer I got, I wanted to give it to him. And then if I gave it to him, then that wouldn't have been me playing the game. Which that would defeat my whole purpose of coming out there. I was so close to giving it to him. I planned not to give it to him but I also didn't want to go back on my word. In the end, my mind kept saying 'it's a game, you're playing a game, that's what you came here to do, do it.' So I ended up just finishing the game off.

In Which Nothing Valuable Was Lost?

Another fan favorite and well respected contestant, Earl Cole, would in a blowout 9-0-0 vote most audiences saw coming against a jury that was very uncomfortable to experience with their rather personal and bitter speeches. It should be noted this was the first all black finale in Survivor history, and the attitude from contestants and at the finalists make up what many consider to be an extremely unlikable and increasingly controversial last leg. Several fans on the subreddit how of the finalists, especially Dreamz and the many insults laid at him for reneging on the deal, only exacerbated Fiji’s the negative reception of more unlikable contestants.

Whatever experiment Fiji was attempting, it seemed to have landed pretty flat. Survivor was still the biggest show on television, but the slowly every season as the one two punch of Cook Islands and Fiji failed to bring back viewers. Probst himself would rank Season 14 in out of the first nineteen seasons in 2010. As the season was airing, he even admitted the would have been changed had he known the season’s outcome. Probst would later cite this season as a driving force behind the years later.

“A lot of us thought maybe the end was on the horizon,” CBS executive Kelly Kahl said. Jeff Probst told EW, “I was mentally prepared to be done,” and cites the Fiji season as the primary reason. “You cast people, you build your creative ideas into the show, and sometimes your creative doesn’t work, and your casting doesn’t work. Sometimes you end up with Fiji. We would have loved to have just erased that season,” he said.

That explains then why very few elements of Fiji have been revisited since. Survivor has not done the haves vs have nots twist since, and the car reward had disappeared the next season and every outing thereafter following the fallout of the Yau-Man/Dreamz debacle. This season would only feature a single returnee, and smaller concepts like an odd numbered starting field of contestants and choosing between giving up immunity or comfort were mostly dropped as well. Ravu remains one of the worst performing tribes in Survivor history, with only one win across seven episodes and thirteen different challenges. As for the truck, conflicting sources I found stated Dreamz either couldn’t pay the insurance or decided to trade it in for a different vehicle. Regardless, Yau-Man would never get the car he won despite the fan outrage, though another appearance on the show and his continued cult following probably helped a little.

Aftermath

Despite all the negativity the season experienced at the time, Fiji still has its ardent defenders and share of fans for the season’s interesting narrative, exciting second half, and introduction of new tactics and modern Survivor staples. There are several fans who won’t hesitate in calling this a hidden gem for its more positive aspects.

In terms of widespread consensus though, reception is a lot more mixed. While far from the worst the show has to offer, both the and popular Survivor podcast were very harsh on the poor cast, uncomfortable moments, and the disaster that was the haves vs haves not twist.

Nowadays, Dreamz has been looked at in a more favorable light, with recent threads seeming to be more understanding of the situation on the subreddit (though as always, the help ). Whether it was manipulative or not, most of the contestants seem to have moved on from the season and enjoyed their own success (UFC fans may have his cousin a little while ago). Yau-Man would take part in one of the I’ve read just recently, and is currently enjoying retirement. Even Anthony and Rocky seemed to have after the show despite their ugly conflict on screen.

Survivor: Fiji simply turned out to be another failed gamble on the producer’s side, and it’s doubtful the show will ever stack the odds for a whole tribe this severely again. Still, the most recent season has experimented again with worsening conditions on the castaways, and it’s clear there is an appetite for Survivor to accentuate the ‘survival’ part of the experience. There’s a fine balance to strike when portraying survival on reality television. People want to see how others brave the elements, but they don’t want to see contestants barely function and slowly starve to death for a month. Survivor still hasn’t completely pieced together how to implement and display this in recent years, but fans are hoping the show will once again revive that spark which made the show so unique without going too far in enforcing the struggle. It’s a bit of an ironic and a difficult situation to solve to be sure, especially considering all the interviews contestants have given afterwards on what the sudden exposure to the limelight and living in the wild for so long caused in even the most hospitable areas, but that’s Survivor for you.

Spoilers for all of Survivor 41

It’s been a while since I did posts, hasn’t it?

26 Days

18 People

Fans have a very…complicated relationship with CBS and the production crew, in particular Jeff Probst since he became the sole executive producer sometime around 2010ish. Survivor, at the end of the day, is a reality television show based on flying a bunch of contestants out in Fiji to live on a deserted island for a month while backstabbing all their allies for a million dollars. And while it can be great to watch, production always has an investment in ensuring episodes are as crazy and dramatic as possible. Sometimes that comes about organically. Sometimes it is ugly. And sometimes…it’s a little more forced.

Again, reality TV is by nature “fake”. Any seasoned fan knows the show isn’t fair and definitely is influenced by the producers. But problems arise when input from behind the scenes bleeds into the enjoyment of the season. I’ve written about numerous , a ton of , and that have all fallen flat. Many of those have come from the past few seasons alone, and it can be argued that Survivor has been going through a bit of an identity crisis recently. The more hardcore audience, at least, aren’t very impressed by the surge of advantages and twists that have entered the game, feeling it cheapens the drama and ensure the crew’s favorite players will have a much easier journey to the end. So when Probst announced after a year-long hiatus due to Covid-19, many were relieved.

What Probst describes is a stripped-down game — one that he says goes "back to the very basic idea of a group of strangers, forced to rely on each other to survive while voting each other out." The game is the one the contestants create, without the top-down divisions by social class, generation, gameplay experience and even race: This is to be "Survivor 41," with no subtitle and no stated theme.

Needless to say, fans were ecstatic to see the change in direction. It was certainly better than his original idea of a capitalist society based on collecting in-game tokens where the rich would reap the rewards- . But whatever. That wasn’t happening, and it seemed production was finally reigning in all the messiness of the past few years. With this promise, and after a year without any Survivor, many were delighted as they .

Unfortunately for fans (and some of the contestants), that wouldn’t quite play out how they expected.

What Is Survivor?

Skip if you read any of my other posts on Survivor, such as the ones I’ve linked up there in the intro. I swear I’m going to make a master list one day.

Survivor is a reality television competition where contestants are stranded on a deserted location and compete for a million dollars while living with the bare essentials. Upon arrival, contestants are split up into teams, called tribes, and compete for rewards to improve their living conditions as well as immunity from Tribal Council. The losing contestants must make the trek to Tribal Council to vote someone off their tribe: whoever has the most votes will be eliminated from the game. When about half the cast has been eliminated, the tribes are merged into one and contestants must then compete individually to win immunity. Finally, when only two or three castaways remain, the contestants who were voted off after the merge form a jury that chooses which of the finalists will earn the title of Sole Survivor, winner of the million dollar grand prize.

Each season varies in structure, and there are numerous twists and changes incorporated to switch things up, but Survivor at its core is truly a social game. The winner is usually not the one who wins the most challenges or does the most work at camp (though both of those traits can certainly help), but someone who can form strong bonds with others or at the very least have a story and strategy that the jury is willing to vote for. The winning contestant must be able to form a solid alliance, be respected by their peers, and search for any in-game advantages they can find to avoid being voted off early or lose to the other finalists. Above all, the Sole Survivor must in some way connect to the people on the jury, and convince their fellow castaways why they deserve to be sitting at the end and get the million dollars.

Drop Nothing, Keep The Advantages

, yes that’s its official name, was marketed entirely around being “back to basics”. Essentially a rebirth of the show, 41 was going to have significantly less resources and food for the contestants, be only 26 days instead of the usual 39, and a return to the more treacherous camp life of the show’s earliest seasons. But when the season premiere aired, fans realized that there was a lot more going on than what they expected.

There were many different changes to the viewing experience for one. The usage of frequent flashbacks to explain people’s decisions, Jeff Probst taking a few minutes each episode to segue into new challenges, and the ability for fans to solve puzzles in the episode at home (though the ). With the new season also came some new twists, both of which were rather interesting but a little concerning for the season’s trajectory.

For one, contestants would be chosen by their tribe to set off to a deserted island for a sort of Prisoner’s Dilemma. There, they would meet up with castaways from the other tribes and choose to risk their vote or keep it. If everyone chose to risk their vote, they would all lose it at the next tribal council. But if even one person chose to protect their vote, then the contestants who picked “risk” would gain an extra vote usable until the final 6.

There was also the , where a contestant could choose to sacrifice their vote just before a tribal council. They would then essentially have a one in six dice roll to gain immunity at that tribal. Using it in any way meant losing their vote, but it was definitely useful if the player felt threatened and needed a last lifeline.

It was to take in and understand, and not really the “back to basics” theming people expected either. In fact, Probst himself stated just before the premiere , believing the new changes he made created a much more entertaining season.

With each season, the players have gotten smarter. And as a result, the gameplay has evolved and become much more sophisticated. If we eliminated the ability for a player to shift the game with an advantage or pull off a blindside with an idol, you would be left with a majority of very predictable Tribal Councils. Predictability is death. What we’ve done in Survivor 41 is do a full reset in terms of survival and gameplay by leaning into the best parts of what makes Survivor fun. I think fans are going to enjoy it!

While the assertion that advantages helped the show was true to some extent, it was definitely concerning that the season had already introduced so many new concepts in such a short amount of time. And it was definitely not what a lot of the hardcore audience expected. Still, it didn’t detract too much from the solid premiere. Plus, both mechanics were at least interesting, and required the player to read the other contestants and decide if going for an extra vote or a chance to gain immunity was worth it. Ignoring some social media controversy over whether Probst taking five minutes to state he would no longer say “” was necessary, fans still seemed to enjoy the episode overall and were ready for more.

It’s A F--king Butterfly

Then Episode 2 premiered, and fans were introduced to the Beware Advantage. An extremely risky twist that when found, the player could choose whether to open it and accept the possible drawbacks or just put it back. Xander, a , chose to open it, and was immediately greeted with .

Don’t understand it? Don’t worry, a lot of fans didn’t either when the episode first aired. But it was essentially a piece of paper saying Xander needed to say something about before an immunity challenge started. When a castaway from each of the opposing tribes also said their own phrases at the same challenge, one about and another about a , Xander would finally receive an immunity idol, granting safety at one tribal council. Until that happened, or until the merge hit, he couldn’t vote nor use the Shot in the Dark to save himself. In a season where the three tribes were divided into just six people each. For an idol that required at least two other people to activate. For an advantage that had ten conditions baked into it and required way too much screen time to explain.

Reception was decidedly mixed, not helped by the following episode being considered by many to be one of the . There was practically no time spent on for a season supposed to be one of the hardest ever, or really any time that wasn’t given to the plethora of advantages and . With what many considered to be an amazing cast of contestants, it felt like the show was wasting the entire season on explaining, discussing, and dramatizing all the twists and gimmicks it tried to :

Survivor producers have heard the complaining from some segments of the fan base about this, but instead of pulling back in season 41, they have done the exact opposite and doubled down. Look no further than this week's episode. Once you take out the commercials, the episode run time was 43 minutes. The first 19 of those 43 minutes were spent almost entirely on idol- and advantage-related material. That's 19 out of 43! The other 24 minutes roughly consisted of a 10-minute challenge, seven minutes of Tribal Council, and then a few minutes at the Ua beach as contestants decided whether to get rid of JD or Brad — and even that discussion was almost entirely based around an advantage (which JD accidentally revealed).

For many fans, the central premise of the season going back to what made Survivor fun had become . A great cast that was buried under new gimmicks and extremely uneven editing that spent more in the game rather than the people themselves. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be the worst of the outrage.

That Is Immunity

The show, overall, would recover from its early low point. Aided by some , 41 would start to get back into form. Still not perfect. And the introduction of yet another advantage called , which would allow a contestant to ask if someone had an idol or extra vote and automatically steal it if they did, was . But it was much better than the beginning. And when the tribes “merged” into one during Episode 6, it seemed the worst of the season was over.

Then, Probst surprised the contestants by telling them they weren’t actually merging yet. Instead, the twelve remaining contestants would be randomly split into two teams of five for the next challenge, with the two leftowever not having any chance to compete. The team who won not only “made the merge” and a reward feast, as Probst explicitly stated, but they would also choose one of the leftover contestants to be exiled on a deserted island for two days while giving the other one immunity as well. When that contestant, Erika in this case, got to the island, she was greeted privately by Probst who brought with him a hammer and an hourglass. There he presented her with the ultimate dilemma. The ability to change history:

Don’t smash the hourglass? She and the losing team would have to compete for one last chance to receive individual immunity before the next tribal council.

Smash the hourglass? She and the losing team would “reverse time”, gaining immunity and forcing the other team to compete instead. It was a tough decision, forcing Erika to ask if immunity, at the cost of burning a group of people who exiled her for two days, was worth it.

...

So yeah. Not much of a dilemma. In fact, a lot of . And the media wasn’t .

The episode ended on a cliffhanger. Jeff Probst even told us in our little fireside chat before the challenge that it would end in a cliffhanger and that nobody would be voted out. Fine. I'm not going to sit here and rail against the show for not booting anyone like one of those lame non-elimination legs of The Amazing Race. That actually didn't bug me. I thought it might, but it didn't. However, while the episode ended on the cliffhanger of Erika's decision, it was really no cliffhanger at all because why would the person clearly deemed on the outs and at risk of being voted out next not change the result and give herself immunity?

It's not the fact that the cliffhanger is not really a cliffhanger that I object to — it is what that fact illustrates: that the team that just fought so hard to win a challenge they were told would give them safety to the merge were actually competing to lose.

Erika had literally nothing to lose smashing the hourglass and giving herself safety for the next vote. The winning team explicitly sent her to a deserted island, undercutting any narrative weight along the way by deciding , leaving her to dry for the next tribal council. Even ignoring how little of a “choice” it was, many took issue with the show essentially lying by omission to the contestants for this twist. Survivor has always placed heavy importance on winning immunity to remain in the game. To give a contestant the ability to essentially take that away, and reward everyone who lost, was a huge change in the status quo.

There was some humor in the situation, something and many , but it also highlighted just how dependent this show seemed to be on forced twists. Probst attempted to explain the idea , but with full honesty, I’m still unsure how exactly this was supposed to play out beyond a conceptual stage. Even if Erika was friends with the entire team that decided to exile her, not having guaranteed immunity was too much of a risk to leave up to chance. Either way, most weren’t happy with the episode. Especially for some contrived drama that seemed to have an . On top of all the other controversial changes and twists, it was for what was supposed to be a “fun” season.

So the advantage itself isn’t the problem, in my eyes. It’s the advantage plus all of the other 20 advantages…it’s the fact that the conflicts don’t come from the players interacting with other players anymore, instead they are usually discussing advantages, who has what, etc., etc…it’s changing the game from 39 days to 26…it’s the format changes with the flashbacks and Probst addressing us personally…the list goes on and on. Again, it’s all just too much for us to handle, which is why this season seems like such a drastic departure from the show we’ve loved for over 20 years…

The Players Don’t Take It Well

When the , and Erika revealed she smashed the hourglass, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. She apparently never either, which nearly everyone watching also expected. Regardless, she and the contestants that lost were now safe, and the rest of the castaways would need to fight for a last shot at safety.

Despite this twist not paying off in any major way, the episode itself proved to be one of the best of the season filled with the highest of highs and lowest of lows. At the very least, there was that and subsequent removal of the Knowledge of Power advantage from the game. Ultimately, it would culminate in the surprise elimination of Sydney which, ironically, could be attributed to being the first contestant to use the Shot in the Dark. She didn’t get immunity from the dice roll, for using the twist, and was eliminated in a 5-4-4 split when it could have gone to a 5-5-4 revote. Overall though, it was a great episode. And fans seemed content enough to move on.

Until Sydney bashed the show in her exit confessional, critiqued all the advantages in the game, and stressed that she wouldn't have been voted out had the hourglass not been thrown in at the last minute. She even that a fellow castaway, Danny, argued on the spot with Probst over the twist.

[Sydney]: Danny basically reamed Jeff out. He was like, “This isn’t a twist. This is a lie! You told us that if we won the challenge, we would get immunity,” and there was a long conversation about it. Jeff’s like, “OK, well maybe I can make it better for future seasons. What can I change?” I’m thinking like, “Really, bro?” I don’t want a change to go benefit someone else that I don’t f–king know because I don’t have empathy for them. What the hell do I care? This is about the now, and it’s about me getting f–ked over.

Danny himself would , agreeing with Sydney’s comments that the “twist” put him off during the season. While he still enjoyed his time, it certainly made returning in the future a much less likely prospect, and affected his psyche throughout the game.

[Danny]: Laughs Listen, I’m not a confrontational type, and I love Sydney, but I wouldn’t say I was yelling at Jeff or anything like that. But it was very important for me to let him know that the integrity of the game is at risk when you are the host and you’re able to lie to the contestants. If you go out there and say, “Hey man, this is what’s happening,” kind of like the Do or Die twist, then I can accept that. But when you are the person that says, “Work hard, dig hard, you have to earn everything this season on Survivor,” and then you earn it, really just to not earn it, it didn’t sit well with me. Being a competitor, it was difficult for me to process.

…

I stand by saying this was not a “twist.” Everybody wants to compare it to idols and every other thing that happened, and I say, “Listen, Jeff has never looked at anybody in their face and lied to them. Blatantly.” Erika had no choice but to do it, but I feel like it was a really, really forced moment.

Do Or Die Or Don’t

At the final 7, Probst would introduce one last twist called , where the first person who was eliminated from the immunity challenge would be punished at the next tribal council. Before the votes were read, they would have to take part in what was essentially a and choose between three boxes, being allowed to switch once after Jeff revealed one of the duds. If they didn’t pick the box with fire in it, they would automatically be eliminated from the game and tribal council would be canceled.

It was technically more fair than the hourglass at least, actually telling the contestants what was happening is definitely a positive. Plus, the contestants were given the option of just not competing in the challenge, giving up immunity but also making sure they wouldn’t be the one punished. Still, it was to introduce something this big and this late into the game. This is a show based on voting people out, and having a mechanic which would automatically eliminate a player who may have not even been targeted at the next tribal council was certainly far from what people expected.

Luckily, though it once again undercut any impact, the castaway that dropped out first, Deshawn, and avoid elimination. The debates around whether he should have switched when Probst for those who understood the Monty Hall problem at least, but it was also yet another shoddy attempt at injecting extra controversy into a season that didn’t need it. Regardless, the new major twists and advantages were finally done for real, and the season would continue as normal towards the finale.

Erika, that same contestant who smashed the hourglass and avoided potential elimination all the way back at the merge, . A dominant final tribal council performance in front of the jury, and her stellar gameplay after the merge, granted her 7 out of 8 jury votes. It wasn’t without a lot of controversy, ranging from her lack of screen time to being overshadowed by the two other men next to her during the season (leading to a mountain of debates about POC/White jury biases and editing I’m not getting into). Not to mention without the hourglass twist she may have been put in a much more dangerous position, . But the season was finally over. And there was certainly a lot to process.

Reactions

Honestly, for all the emphasis placed on the twists this season, very few of them amounted to much. , and technically led to that contestant’s elimination. Do or Die affected one tribal council, and while definitely harsh, ultimately didn’t change the vote at all. Same goes with the Knowledge of Power, contributing to a great moment but otherwise still a very overpowered and ruthless advantage in the right hands that quickly vanished. What definitely was a problem, despite the lack of payoff for nearly all these very punishing gimmicks, was the amount of time and focus they ate up. Complaints were , And while many understood some degree of change was needed to keep the show moving, .

But many of 41‘s advantages and twists have placed far too much focus on sheer luck, as opposed to well-thought-out strategy. Compounding all of this is the fact that the beware advantages and idol rules have grown so complicated and multi-layered that they eat up precious minutes of airtime to explain. From the prisoner’s dilemma scenarios to the secret phrase idols, too many precious minutes have been wasted simply setting up these toys, which takes away from the true heart of the game — camp life and social relationships. With less time focused on the players’ interactions, the less insight we have as to why players make the decisions they do.

Even former players agreed the show was becoming too dependent on all these twists, both and criticizing Probst and the show . Whether audiences enjoyed these or not, it was definitely not a “back to basics” season, and definitely not the social experiment Survivor prided itself to be in the past. Despite all this criticism and drama, changes likely won’t occur just yet considering 42 was filmed almost immediately after 41. Fans will just have to wait and see what will happen with the next season. Though if reactions to this are anything to go by, then it’ll likely be just as controversial.

Aftermath

41, at the end of the day, is very polarizing. I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the controversy and big moments throughout the season. From the and all the flame wars that caused, to Erika and other women being buried by the edit, to all the differing opinions about the actual quality of the season. This season is definitely a mixed bag, with a cast of contestants that many love and nearly as many hate. Filled with interesting dynamics and complex gameplay fueled by advantage after advantage bursting into the room, shaking up the formula almost too much. Whether people love or hate the season, though reception for now , it definitely felt like a continuation of Survivor’s recent legacy. For better and for worse. If nothing else, .