One person's 'Survivor' selling points are another person's deal-breakers
By Stephen Thompson
The CBS competition show Survivor helped make reality TV a phenomenon, but it’s also a sport.
Sure, it has more variables, more X-factors, more season-to-season changes, more unseen machinations and more TV producers than most sports. And, sure, it’s at least possible for those forces to affect outcomes in ways audiences can’t see. But the core concept, and the core skill set needed to excel in the game — a cocktail of strategy, endurance, athleticism, adaptability and social dexterity — is unmistakably sports-adjacent in nature. It’s a sport, it’s a game, it’s a metaphor for society and, yes, it’s a piece of narrative entertainment. As such, it’s possible to be a great Survivor player, a terrible Survivor player, an extremely unlucky Survivor player, and so on.
Photo: CBS, llustration: Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR
The game’s central conceit hasn’t changed since its debut in May 2000: A group of contestants — as few as 16, as many as 24 — are marooned in a remote location and must vote each other off until a jury of ousted players has awarded a million dollars to the winner. But Survivor’s evolution has been profound. In the first episode back in 2000, the concept of a Survivor alliance was foreign to players; by the second season, everyone knew collaboration was vital to success. In the series’ early years, cutthroat gameplay was frequently punished by Survivor juries in favor of players who’d done no harm; eventually, that reversed itself. Host Jeff Probst, who’s accumulated ever more decision-making power over the years, has had vastly different roles as the game has progressed. Different types of dominant players — providers, challenge beasts, masterminds — have fallen in and out of fashion, while later seasons often come down to the best ways to control the game without appearing too threatening. It’s more sophisticated, more chaotic and, still, always changing.
Along the way, Survivor has grown more fiercely competitive, while also, generally speaking, getting less mean. But its evolution has also led to trade-offs. Old-school Survivor brings exciting firsts, diverse locations and classic moments, but suffers from slow stretches and uneven casting. New-era Survivor — generally understood to begin with Survivor 41 — moves more quickly and chaotically, but in identical locations and in ways that can feel random and lead to middle-of-the-road winners. And the transitional seasons in the 20s and 30s bring the best and worst of both worlds: some of the highest highs, many of the lowest lows, and players who altered and even redefined the game.
As you can imagine, then, it’s not easy to rank every season of Survivor. The show offers many different pleasures to many different fans, and one person’s deal-breakers — vicious jerks and bullies, cruelty in jury speeches, needless injuries, pointless dehydration, people who think “being good at challenges” is the same as “having integrity” — are another person’s selling points. Part of what makes Survivor such a great show, and such a great sport, is how much viewers’ mileage may vary.
Still, the aforementioned deal-breakers should give you a sense of the thoughts that informed this particular ranking. Because it really is as simple as this: The key to any great season of Survivor is a cast full of fun people who play hard. Everything else is window dressing.
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