Survivor One World
I have been a survivor fan for as long as I remembered. The thing about Survivor that keeps me so engaged and excited about it was the challenges and the “politics” of the tribe. It never fails to keep me at the edge of my seat in anticipation of what was going to happen next and who will be safe.
Survivor has always been intriguing watching how the players change from their innocent bright eyed looks, with their minds full of their ambitious game play when they first reach the island to becoming manipulative scrambling players later in the game. Maybe its the way the footage is cut by the producers, but it definitely placed some of the players in positive or negative light. There were some players where you watch every episode and praying that they make it through tribal or win immunity so that they live to see another day. There were also some where you feel like slapping them and praying that the other players open up their eye (and mouths) and got them out.
However it is in this season of survivor that I was sorely disappointed. Survivor One World. The whole concept of it was simple. Boys vs Girls living on one beach where each and every interaction and actions are monitored by one another. What was set up to be a great and interesting game quickly turned boring easily. Week after week after week the same thing happened again and again. There was no doubt who was going home and it takes the joy out of watching when the show lacks its usual anticipatory element.
The girls dominated, while the guys failed to stay on top of the game. Trust is often an important element in the game but blind trust and lack of strategic thinking was what got the boys all eliminated, letting the girls dominate. We see this happened twice in a row. The first time was when Jay figured something was wrong when the guys keeps getting voted off at tribal council even though they were part of the “alliance”. The funny thing was that he blindly followed through with the vote, eliminating his loyal allies. Even when faced with the situation where he may be on the chopping block, he still blindly ignore his kind, Troyzan and informed the others about the game play eventually getting him eliminated for his moment of stupidity and blind faith.
Troyzan on the other hand, we have to give him a thumbs up for his hard work and never say die attitude. While I admit that his cockiness and pride may sometimes get in the way making you irritated, his fight to stay alive on the island was admirable making me root for him. Unfortunately, this was not meant to be. He was voted out in it end.
The whole game was dominated by one person. Kim. She dominated the whole game playing the whole game and messing with people’s mind. She was pretty much the queen or the puppet master controlling all her minions or puppets which represents all the others. There were so obvious moments where you can see she dominates. People also notice her so called power and influence over the entire tribe but not one time did they try to use this to turn the game around and to their own advantage. This made the whole game really boring and pretty much not worth watching.
Kim’s dominance over the tribe kind of reminds me a little of Russell Hantz dominance over his tribe in the past seasons. But where Russel’s dominance reeks brilliance, Kim’s dominance sprout due to her tribe’s lack of skills to think and plan.
Colton is another power player. We have seen how he played right before the merge and the dominance he has over the others. At times, his crude rudeness and bullying ways makes others cringe in disgust. For example how he treated Christina, treating her like dirt seems all very high school drama to me. But coming from him, his flamboyant style and spoilt demeanor adds to the drama that we know of as Survivor. Perhaps it is cruel to see him being rude and mean to the others, but I would love to see him face off with Kim. Maybe this would be a more interesting season.
Another thing that I noticed was this season, there was no recap episode where they recap and showed some unseen footage of the players and their life at camp. Is this another sign that this season’s Survivor has lost that much viewer’s interest that they had to try and finish the show quickly, sometimes even merging together two eliminations in one episode when nothing much was happening? Well we will not know this unless the producers tell us but we can only guess.
All in all, this survivor season was a huge disappointment to me. Coming from a loyal survivor fan, the wining of Kim was not a surprise as all her dirty work was done by her sidekick Chelsea and the others like Alicia and stuff. She was the overall puppet master controlling her puppet this round of the game. Do I respect her as a Survivor winner? Yes and No. Yes because she has managed to brainwash the whole tribe into listening to her and voting off their allies. No because honestly to begin with, the people in this whole game were not smart to begin with and well it probably wasn’t that hard to control them all. So the challenge was not that great for her.
In the end, this season of survivor would not be one that I recommend to others to watch and stuff. I would only rate this entire season of survivor a 2/5 stars for its lack of (well more of a not so engaging) action and strategic play.
once upon a time… how are you going to complete this story of your life?
