…that this is the best season of Survivor ever ever EVER.
The first Survivor All-Stars was also brilliant, so it seems clear to me – just let the same twenty people play it over and over in future, like they’d do on Japanese television.
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Mmm. I’ve been watching last season and this via the very good http://www.realitytvfan.org/ . Without wanting to contradict you, because I know you know far more about this than I do, I have a gut feeling that, well, there’s just not all that much to it – a series of the show without someone as interesting and as good at the game as Russell would be, well, a bit dull to watch. Is this true? You’ve seen far more series of it than I have done.
I like the players this time. I like Russell – he’s brilliant, resourceful and great TV. I liked Boston Rob. I liked (redacted – the player voted out this time); what they did didn’t work, but it was such an imaginitive thing worth trying that it was great to watch it be tried. I like (the player who did the exciting thing this time), who pulled off quite a feat. Yeah, I’m happy to say that I like the players, but there just doesn’t seem to be that much to the show. By comparison, I can only remember a handful of players (mostly the ones who were voted off early, oddly enough) and a very narrow handful of twists from our two series, but I have a gut feeling – rightly or wrongly – that there was just more content to our show than there is to the US ones, not least because our commercial TV hours are more like 50 minutes than 42 minutes.
Very weakly relatedly, I recently used the same site to marathon series 14 of The Amazing Race, and I reckon that it was at least as good as this one or the last one – slightly more interesting challenges, generally very likeable contestants and very slightly less stunt-y casting. (Still pretty stunt-y, but slightly less so than what has come since, which is probably inevitable for any show that gets to series 14/15/16/17.) Unfortunately some of the episodes are only available there on Megavideo which has an “endearing” habit of declaring you’ve been watching video for 72 minutes and need to take a break, unless you care to pay to subscribe, and others are only available on YouTube. Specifically, the final episode of the series is online in five parts and CBS have managed to dispose of the last two parts of it. So you can watch almost all the race except the very last bit and so don’t get to see the exciting conclusion! It’s almost as if CBS have done that deliberately and thought that having everything except the actual last bit up there is satisfyingly annoying in a way that having nothing at all up there is not! I have caved in and looked at the result on Wikipedia, on the thinking that it’s a show where the journey is more interesting than the result, but all the same I wouldn’t mind a pointer to a complete version of the last episode of series 14, should such a thing exist.
I’m enjoying following both series, but I have a nagging feeling that they’re only 7/10 shows at the end of the day, and the sort of thing where all the evil genius that goes into The Mole makes a heck of a lot of difference. The format’s fine, the budget’s fine, but get (say) a Hugill and a Bodycombe on the case and you’d be able to turn a 7/10 show into at least a 9/10 show.
Yes I think it is fair to say that this season is brilliant in spite of the format rather than because of it and its entirely down to the resourcefulness and personality of the players doing unexpected things – my jaw has dropped several times this season (especially this week), and if a show can still shock and surprise after twenty seasons then best of luck to it.
I’d love to see the show adopt some of the twists used in various Scandinavian and Dutch/Belgian versions, but I fear people would just whinge that it messes with the formula too much.
I think you’re seeing the Brit show through slightly rose-tinted spectacles sadly, it gets through that extra time by being rather more slower-paced but I grant that it became brilliantly rewarding if you stuck it out. There was no extra content, although some of the challenges were more long form in a way US challenges just aren’t these days.
What twists would you add from those series, out of interest? I’m watching the Serbian one at the moment, and I’m not sure I’d add much from that, to be honest!
I too am *loving* this series of Survivor, and I’d be happy with repeated All-Stars series, just as long as they don’t have to involve Russell all the time. Or rather, involve him, but have fewer confessionals and screent-time. Oh, and no James. I did read a rumour that every even-numbered series from here on out will be an All-Stars style series, with a different theme, reusing the location from the previous ‘normal’ series.
Things like the swamp, the black vote (for coming last in immunity challenges), leadership challenges (they flirted with this last time), multiple voting, that sort of thing. And I always quite liked it when they start with having everyone from one tribe sit in a cage until one someone surrenders.
I admit I haven’t watched the Scandi-dutch show for a while. Back in the day allainces were severely frowned upon which make those sorts of twists work, I don’t know if this is still the case.
I have a suspicion, which may well be incorrect, that (almost?) every episode of UK Survivor had a reward challenge and an immunity challenge whereas some US eps only have one. That’s my biggeat beef with the show.
It’s quite recent (last season, I think) that the US episodes went that way too. And I agree with you.
I don’t know that this is The Most Awful Thing ever as there is enough politicking to keep the show entertaining, and the challenge designers need to come up with some new ideas but I do generally agree.
I’m reminded at this point that the casting director of The Amazing Race thinks that TAR “is a relationship show”. TAR and Survivor both work as both relationship shows and challenge shows, but I’m more interested in the challenge aspects of the shows than in the relationship aspects. In each case, each show would be rather more to my taste if the balance were dialed rather more towards challenges and slightly less towards relationships, but your taste may vary.
This criticism applies rather more to The Amazing Race than it does to Survivor, but it still applies to Survivor a non-trivial amount.
Whereas I’m completely the opposite, especially with Survivor. It’s all about the relationships for me
According to the official books, there were Reward Challenges on every episode except for the merger and semi-final episodes of series 1, and the opening episode of series 2. The reward challenge from the opening episode of series 1 was edited out, on the grounds of being even more boring than the rest of the show – a feat that still amazes me.
There was a series 2. Honest. I have the book and everything.
Series 2 was the one that former Hampshire cricketer, C4 commentator and Britain’s Best Dish host Mark Nicholas presented.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8taH-niwDwc&feature=related
So Mexico’s got a new series of The Price Is Right. Intro is a redux of the new French one I think.
Yes, looks that way. Quite fun, not as fun as the French one.
Also odd in how they give out $1,000 pesos (worth about £50!!) for spinning 100, then giving out a £20k car for doing it again.
I still maintain that TAR should give the winner of each leg 2 options.
1) The usual prize
2) A race reward, this could be an advantage that they can use any time on the race upto the final leg. It could include things like extra cash,the ability to skip a road block or detour or changing a U-Turn providing the selected team has not passed.
While not a huge problem i do think winning a leg should give the winners something to advnace them in the race.
As for Survivor, i do think we will see some changes next season to keep viewers interested.
If there’s another All Stars, I think I’ll stop watching for good seasons always fail – everyone takes the game too seriously and all the interesting players getting voted out fpr being threats (Hatch/RobC and Steph/Tom) so we’re stuck with deadweight like Danielle and Colby all season. This is just a repeat of the first one: a smug tart, a casting mistake and a pathetic bully bulldoze through the game, only to lose jury votes because of their horrible personalities.
I’m enjoying Coach and Courtney at Ponderosa more than the actual show. I’d agree with the there isn’t much substance in these past two seasons, though the earlier ones (even back to Gabon) had more than the UK seasons. The strategy is now more about who has the “magical stick” than social politics. Despite Russell having had over 10 times as many confessionals as the winner of Samoa, almost all of them were just him talking about how great he is, instead of talking about anything of substance.
If you like watching the same players over again, you might like MTV Real World Challenges (up to Season 19 now – take that, Survivor), as long as you don’t mind the alt-rock soundtrack and all the castmembers being in their 20s.