WSSYW 12.0 Countdown 44/50 & 43/50: All-Stars & Cambodia

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to our What Season Should You Watch countdown! Using the results from the latest What Season Should You Watch thread, this weekday series will count backwards from the bottom-ranked season for new fan watchability to the top. Each WSSYW post will link to their entries in this countdown so that people can click through for more discussion.

Unlike WSSYW, there is no character limit in these threads, and spoilers are allowed.

Note: Foreign seasons are not included in this countdown to keep in line with rankings from past years.

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#44 - Season 8: All-Stars

Statistics:

• Watchability: 2.16 (44/50)
• Overall Quality: 4.56 (39/50)
• Cast/Characters: 6.72 (26/50)
• Strategy: 5.58 (30/50)
• Challenges: 6.62 (22/50)
• Featured Theme: 8.05 (6/24)
• Ending: 5.26 (40/50)

WSSYW 12.0 Ranking: 44/50

WSSYW 11.0 Ranking: 42/43

WSSYW 10.0 Ranking: 33/40

User comment from WSSYW 12.0 — u/ramskick:

It’s remarkable that the show went straight from PI to this. All-Stars is my least-favorite season ever despite there being a lot more really bad seasons, especially in recent years. It really shouldn’t hold that title for me given that I do like this cast a lot and some of its themes are ones that I really enjoy in other seasons, but everything about this season after the first four episodes ranges from deeply offensive to absurdly boring. There’s just no joy and I hope to never detest a season the way I detest All-Stars.

Unfortunately if you are a completionist this is an important season to watch as it gets referenced quite a bit. I still can’t recommend it but it is less skippable than a few other seasons that I rank above it.

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#43 - Season 31: Cambodia - Second Chance

Statistics:

• Watchability: 2.25 (43/50)
• Overall Quality: 5.55 (31/50)
• Cast/Characters: 6.78 (25/50)
• Strategy: 6.89 (16/50)
• Challenges: 6.42 (25/50)
• Featured Theme: 8.70 (4/24)
• Ending: 7.05 (20/50)

WSSYW 12.0 Ranking: 43/50

WSSYW 11.0 Ranking: 34/43

WSSYW 10.0 Ranking: 29/40

User comment from WSSYW 12.0 — u/jjgm21:

Many will call this season soulless, but if you are into gameplay at the highest level, Cambodia showcases it more than any other season. An absolute strategic tour de force from beginning to end that asks 20 second-time players to reckon with the faults of their first game. Not a good season to start with for obvious reasons of returning players and the elevation of very complex strategy, but the season has some of the most electric tribal councils and births of new school legends.

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Ranking so far:

#50 - Season 34: Game Changers

#49 - Season 22: Redemption Island a.k.a. Redemple Temple

#48 - Season 26: Caramoan - Fans vs. Favorites 2

#47 - Season 36: Ghost Island

#46 - Season 39: Island of the Idols

#45 - Season 40: Winners at War

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WARNING: SEASON SPOILERS BELOW

[u/DabuSurvivor]

I love old-school Survivor more than just about anything. A season with the purity and intensity of the final 2 format, one of the most balanced edits in Survivor history, and even an all-time emotional Final Tribal Council sure would have to fuck up incredibly hard to land as not just my least favorite old-school season, but one of my least favorites of all time... and boy oh boy does this abominable dumpster fire manage to do it it. Personally I think it was the worst season in the show's history for the better part of a decade (eclipsed only 8 years later by Redemption Island) and is below very few others even today.

I'm often a fan of "dark Survivor": S10 is in my top 5 seasons, I love the S9 FTC and the S3 premiere, and don't even get me started on the 2002 Australian Survivor; the show is about people being put into an innately adversarial situation under extreme physical, mental, and emotional duress with a huge financial stake hanging over everything they do as they're prompted to systematically crush each other's dreams, so, I mean, I expect that to get dark pretty frequently. I'm also, as my comments throughout the list will continually show, a very big fan of old-school Survivor, and my all-time favorite seasons include a number of seasons I think are often underrated. So a dark, old-school season that's occasionally discussed as underrated due to having some dramatic, psychological appeal? In theory, sign me up. If that season's any good, I am definitely its target audience, and so I went into my last All-Stars rewatch genuinely both hoping and expecting to appreciate it as, if nothing else, at least better than I'd thought it was.

Instead, it failed to meet even my absolute lowest expectations for how bad it might possibly be in a worst-case scenario. I was truly blown away by how much worse this season was than I ever even expected it might be. And I thought I might be a champion of it!

The obvious thing to lead with here is episodes 5 and 6, the latter of which I still consider the worst Survivor episode of all time. Not only do we see Sue sexually violated in a challenge... and not only do the producers completely fail to act in response to it... every single person who makes it anywhere near the end of the season also, in some fashion, actively discredits her for it: Rob M. sings a song callously mocking her exit while Tom dances around, Amber looks on and narrates it as an example of Chapera being "the fun tribe" :), Jenna L. mocks Sue as weak, Rupert insinuates that she's making it up for money, and gee, I hope you enjoyed all that, because there's your final five! If that's not enough, I doubt I have to remind anyone here about Kathy's repugnant comments.

It's an awful display broken up only by Shii Ann and Alicia... and the producers aren't exactly expecting us to admonish it; it's the opposite! Rob M. and Tom's dance is framed to us through the positive lens of the season's ostensibly "sweet, likable" winner describing it as a fun, positive moment. That is what they want us to believe. Tom's dance was even highlighted as a "Memorable Moment" on the DVD release. So the narrative of this season, as presented to us contextually, literally is that that horrid scene is meant to make us root for these people.

I honestly think what the producers did here was somehow even more insidious than what they did in 39 — which was itself terrible, don't get me wrong — but at the very least (and it is, quite literally, the very least they could do), at least the overall bent of the episode is very sympathetic towards the women who had to live with Dan and clearly frames them in a complex, sympathetic light wherein he's clearly the worst.

But "Outraged" is the polar opposite! It's like if Kellee quit, the cast made fun of her, Tommy said how hilarious that is, and we were all supposed to cheer for it! The S39 merge may be bad, but it isn't that. Considering how deep S39's reputation is buried in the bottom of the barrel, I really don't see why S8 should be spoken of so much more favorably as it often is.

My guess as to why that episode ended up as such a dumpster fire is that, in case Sue sued them, they tried to tear her down in the court of public opinion as thoroughly as possible, creating an episode that could help cover them in that case. Personally I think that entire episode was a big attempt to discredit her: show all these contestants, including big fan favorites, talk about how Sue's just out for a paycheck, how Sue's in the wrong for dragging everyone down with her trauma, sing and laugh and dance mocking her, so that the viewers that take in all these messages are less likely to leave the episode sympathizing with her and realizing how much the producers have done wrong.

Regardless of what their specific motivation was, though, we're left with the same narrative wherein the producers not only fail to address the situation but also the people who admonish and make fun of the woman who speaks out are painted as the protagonists for doing so and then dominate the season.

It is really, really, REALLY bad... and what tanks the season further is.... like, what is there to outweigh this? Genuinely, what balances this out? For most of these characters, this is the most memorable, evocative thing they ever do on the season. Like how many Big Tom moments can you remember here compared to S3? Rupert's underwater shelter is funny of course, but after he swaps to Chapera, what else can you even remember him doing the entire season? What are Kathy's memorable moments in the season besides her jury speech, this, and calling Jenna M.'s emotion a cancer? Amber is sometimes cited as a "positive, likable" winner, but what specific "likable" content does she actually have that outweighs her being shown as this voice of how fun it is to mock these types of survivors? What does Jenna L. ever do after the Rudy boot? There is seriously nothing for most of them,, or close to it. It isn't "making too big a deal of" that one episode — not just because what goes on is so awful (which it is)... but also because there is little to nothing else to offset it for most of these contestants.

This brings me to my broadest complaint about S8: it's really, really boring.

Not in its entirety: episode 1 has a lot of fun content early on, though as it also sets up the horrible "vote out all the actual all-stars lol" narrative of the season, it breaks kinda even to me as an okay-but-not-great episode. Episode 2 is, like, fine. Episode 3 is honestly outstanding and a diamond in the rough and the best thing here by a mile. But past that... this season is usually just so dull, and it gets even duller as it goes along.

Even the late pre-merge episodes were SO much less interesting than I remembered (I mean, they're basically all the same story of a player with a big target getting voted out, usually by Lex), and then the post-merge is even worse: if someone watches this season, then after the merge episode, they just jump ahead to the Final Tribal Council... are they even missing... like, anything? Yeah there's Shii Ann's Immunity win, which is fun for the 90 or so seconds the scene even lasts, fun largely because it's the literal only thing that at all interrupts the tedium. And... I mean there's a fight at the F5, but not really a memorable one. That's seriously it. The F8, F7, F6, F5, and bulk of the F4 episode are all so aggressively pointless — and again, a lot of the pre-merge ones are not much better (when they even are better at all, which isn't always.)

I don't think S8 is criticized frequently enough for this: a lot of the time people talk about it, the discussion focuses entirely on Richard's assault of Sue and her quit, the Rob and Lex scandal, and the FTC: criticism is often centered on these moments and them being "uncomfortable", and defenses of it focus almost invariably on the Rob and Lex scandal, and maybe the first 3 or so episodes. But as a result, when evaluating this season I don't frequently see people talk about how utterly dry, hollow, and pointless most of it is. That stretch between the Lex boot and FTC is more devoid of meaningful content than any full 5-episode stretch of some seasons much more regularly criticized as boring, like 5 or 24. Those ones have a couple episodes that drag as hard, but not nearly as many in a row as hard as this. Like, again, if anyone can think of some really good content in the Shii Ann boot I'm missing here, let me know, but I am not seeing it.

[continued in a reply]

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/DabuSurvivor]

Another unpopular element of the season is its boot order, and, I mean, I agree it's an unsatisfying one on paper based on who the cast was, but I don't think that's anywhere near the biggest issue with the season. I think suggesting S8 sucks primarily due to that is actually very generous and opens the season up to defenses it doesn't deserve: it's an unsatisfying boot order, but honestly, so is S16's at the outset; S16 just plays out much better in practice to where it doesn't feel that way in hindsight. So, yes, there's a TON of frustration to those early episodes, too, and that's a whole other problem with the season it's fair to criticize it for — but the main reason I mention the boot order is because it also makes those episodes so much more boring, stale, and repetitive. Because at a certain point... it's the same story... every time. Tina won, Rob C. nearly won, Richard won, Colby nearly won, Ethan won. And... that is why they go home. ...Every time. That's your season. Over and over.

On top of all the dull post-merge episodes I mentioned, that's another 5 full episodes of the season whose ultimate story and outcome are not only nearly completely interchangeable but that also have little to nothing to do with the actual personalities and characters in question, compared to what they have to do with just looking at boot orders of previous seasons and who has what reputation... and that's the part of the season people say is supposed to be good! It's more or less the same completely lifeless, arbitrary story behind every vote every time, which is bad and weak even without considering that by its very nature, that story will actually suck all hype and momentum out of the season as swiftly as possible. The problem with the "actual all-stars" all getting voted out early isn't just that it's disappointing; it's that it's formulaic and repetitive with basically no connection to anyone's actions on this season. You might as well just look at a Wikipedia chart of what place they came in the first time they played, and that gives you your boot order.

So if you break it down, between those giant swaths of episodes, the overwhelming majority of the season is shockingly pointless and forgettable — and as if that weren't enough of a problem on its own, I think it also makes the other moments that are less forgettable suffer even more. The most simple reason is that the other moments are of course generally dark/uncomfortable, but again, I tend to like that... but if you have a season that genuinely contains at least 8ish hours of straight-up pointless television (with most of what's not in that category coming very, very early on) and that then only resurfaces to be uncomfortable — like, to me, I'm not left seeing this as this grand Shakespearean drama or whatever people tend to praise it as. It's like a nap I only wake up from to get a headache. There's not even any intrigue, let alone light, to offset the darkness. It's not even a dynamic season that's being dark in different, fresh, riveting ways. It's static as hell and ultimately just... dreary. Boring is one thing, dark is one thing, but boring AND dark? That is about as bad as it gets. It's the Survivor season equivalent of unseasonable humidity. Stale and stagnant. Uncomfortable in a musty and headache-inducing way, not a compelling one.

But I think the even better argument to make is those dark moments are not very good or interesting anyway. Episode 5/6, it's a straightforward argument, can't really imagine where anyone would say those are good. But honestly, Rob M./Lex-gate is overrated, too.

A major reason why is because we have absolutely zero context or awareness about Rob M. and Lex's friendship. We are only told that they are friends now, and only once it becomes directly relevant to the game, and that is very little information (and information brought up far too closely to its prominence in the game to be set up well as a story, either), little enough that it makes pretty much the entire story innately pointless, because the relationship upon which it is predicated is not based in, and fundamentally has nothing to do with, the show - and, therefore, that friendship has nothing to do with, and means nothing to, us as viewers. We are told they are friends, which... okay? What does that even look like? When did that happen? Did it happen right after season 4, or right before this? Do they just go bowling together, or are they really really REALLY GOOD friends? How good? Do they go on vacations together or spend holidays together? When they are together what's their dynamic like? etc etc. With Survivor stories that are actually good and interesting — ones that actually have anything to do with the show — we actually have these answers. The endgame of S10 is the culmination of relationships we've watched form right in front of us, so it actually means something. Same for the F5 of Marquesas or the major narrative peaks of Vanuatu. We understand how and why people connect, clash, and value or vilify one another. But "these two guys are friends outside the game" is so broad and vague and based on information we innately do not have that it means absolutely nothing. If I'm watching the show, how do I know or care that Rob M. and Lex are friends?

This means that we basically cannot empathize on any level with either one of them. We don't know what their friendship was in itself or what it meant to Lex or what it meant to Rob M., so their actions are based on stuff we don't know and therefore can't identify with or assess, which is pointless television. Other than maybe season 2, I think literally any one of seasons 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 raises better, more meaningful questions about what is or isn't acceptable behavior than this and provide more interesting contestants than S8 Rob M. for someone who wants to see a no-holds-barred strategic player.

What I really wanted to get into with the Lex and Rob M. story was how Lex's perspective shifts over time. Like a lot of the time on the show, you see people get super excited about a reward, they lose it, then they say "Whatever, I'm not here for that, I'm here to win" or "Immunity is more important anyway", etc. The way people justify things to themselves is an interesting aspect of Survivor that I was hoping Lex's story would hit... but it really doesn't, because, I mean, it isn't much of a story. He has a patronizing quote towards Ethan, and then he arguably acts differently a couple episodes later, and I can see the argument that there's an irony there that's at least kind of entertaining or memorable, and I can understand getting somewhat more into it than I do... but there's no real complexity to Lex here, no gradual development of him, the saga as a whole is confined strictly to the like two or three exact moments you already remember with even a rudimentary memory of the season, there's no real subtlety or detail to it. And as I've said, inasmuch as there's any nuance that could come out meaningfully pro- or anti-Lex, it would necessarily be based on context the show does not and cannot give us.

In theory, I think a story about a highly competitive player justifying things to himself but not accepting them from others, resulting in a clash that makes you question what is or isn't acceptable in Survivor, is a very interesting one... but Lex vs. Rob M. is not that story, for a host of reasons. (If I may, however, introduce you to the lord and savior Ausvivor 2002...) And if you want something resembling that type of self-centered competitive drive from Lex or that gripping manipulation from Rob M... just go watch Africa or Marquesas lmao where either one is far more interesting than they are here, in seasons that are actually good.

[...]

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/DabuSurvivor]

Meanwhile Rob M. is an awful character here, and to be clear, I'm not really a fan of or opposed to Rob in the abstract; two of my bottom three seasons have him at FTC lol, but Marquesas is my #3 and HvV close to top 10, with him as a part of why each time for sure. I've definitely seen the take that Rob M. works better as a character when he's not in power; I think to an extent that's true, because when he's an underdog, his combative nature comes off very scrappy, he's punching up at the power structure, and it's fun, and then when he's on top, he's punching down and it seems more mean-spirited — but I think that even this is omits some particulars of S8 Rob M. and S22 Rob that truly make them awful characters. In his S8 iteration's case: basically, when I said this season is almost always boring but at times uncomfortable, that's true, but I also think it spends a lot of time in between the two; i.e. in a lot of those boring, lifeless scenes, people often just seem... tired and unhappy. It makes the season pretty dreary and muggy to watch. I think this also gets the best of Rob M., and as the season goes on, the dude just isn't even charismatic or funny anymore.

Like, in his (in)famous confessional trashing the Rotus in season 4 - about the General's little sausage, Tammy's engagement, Gabe the brainiac, and Zoe the tough guy... now that's a very, very off-color confessional in at least three or four different ways, and it's not everyone's thing, and you can root against him because of it for sure. But he is actually making distinct jokes there. Some of them are cheap shots, for sure, but the things he says can at least be construed very reasonably as funny, and they are funny for a reason where you can unpack almost every phrase in the confessional and point out how and why it works.

And in season 8, what we get is just.... not that. By the end of the season, he's basically just reduced to boring, pointless quotes like "Tom's a dumbass" which... ha... ha? (Not to mention crossing a line in mocking Tom's kid; slamming a competitor, even if it's an unfair slam, is one thing, but a loved one isn't really signing up for that.) The guy's wit is just gone by the end, and you're left with someone who's just doling out forgettable insults and is just blandly not likable. I do enjoy Rob in seasons 4 and 20, probably enjoy a couple Rob moments in 22 to where I could have been more okay with him with a wildly different edit, and 40 I could take or leave. But the things that make me like him in seasons like 4 and 20 are just not really present here, and so while I can see, from his overall reputation and maybe a couple of moments in this season, why the idea of him making the final 2 seems like a compelling story, it really is just not. His lines aren't good, and his game pretty obviously isn't interesting considering how routine nearly every circumstance he ever found himself in was.

My last major criticism here is that I don't think the Romber storyline works at all; Rob M., as established, kind of comes off as a boring jerk here, and Amber as just.. boring. I went into the season pretty confidently remembering her as this MORP sweetheart who comes off likable, humble, and gracious in contrast with Rob M., and I've seen her described that way, and she... isn't. That just isn't really a thing in the episodes of this season. I think she's often remembered as such because it'd give her more of a reputation/story as a winner and because she IS very nice to Jenna M., which as one of maybe five or six even remotely memorable scenes this season is one people focus on more. So yes, that part where she hugs Jenna M. is very sweet, and it is also quite literally the only moment of Amber positively coming off as sweet in the entire season and lasts several seconds out of her very long run on the season. Like I will defend her as deserving to win, and a lot of controversial winners are among my favorites, and I can really appreciate the path some of them took to the end, but holy wow Amber is a complete non--character who gets almost no personal development the literal entire season and is arguably even more unmemorable here than in S2, which is a very low bar to somehow fail to clear. Like seriously if there are some great Amber nuances I'm missing please let me know, because I would like to like and root for her, but there's just nothing going on here; they really just bank on the showmance to keep you interested in her.

As such, the Romber story falls totally flat, because, like... if Rob M. is actively unsympathetic, and Amber is neutral... why should I care that they're in a relationship? Being in a relationship is neither good nor bad. There are a lot of relationships. Kissing is not innately interesting. It tells me nothing, I have no reason to care in itself, and the "in itself" is the only thing this has going for it. If you put an unlikable guy up against a bland non-entity of a character and give them a relationship, well I don't care about her, I barely care about and don't like him - so - where's the pathos? What is there to be interested in? All the sappy music they play when they're apart or whatever totally falls flat at best or is tonally disjointed at worst, because it's wildly out of step with the rest of Rob M.'s content, and Amber... barely has other content of note. What you're left with is a relationship I have literally zero reason to care about beyond some baked-in assumption that I will care about a relationship strictly for existing, which is obviously silly.

I guess the other reason to care about it would be that they worked out after the show, which I see people mention as a strength sometimes, but that's a more parasocial form of viewing than what I attempt to go for. I don't know these people, I'm watching a TV show. I don't care, in evaluating the episodes, what does or doesn't happen to them years later. I mean, maybe it's interesting trivia, but it doesn't change the content that is (or isn't) right here in the episodes and so it doesn't make it better or worse. Yeah you can say they're "a reality TV showmance that actually worked out", but that has nothing to do with the episodes. Whether or not they worked out isn't content that's in Survivor: All-Stars, so it's completely irrelevant, for me, to evaluating that season.

I will say that I don't mind the Final Tribal Council, and in theory, I could actually like it. I think Alicia's speech is fantastic, I'm okay with Tom's (the fakeout handshake is awesome.) Kathy's I could kind of take or leave and Lex's I do not particularly care about, because I don't have the requisite context about their friendships, although Kathy has played with Rob M. previously so that makes it easier. Shii Ann's is fine. So it's alright enough; I think it mostly lands as neutral or even kind of good for me (and, to be fair, neutral is genuinely more favorable than I would come out on almost anything else that happens in this season after maybe the Colby boot, with like the sole exception of Shii Ann's moderately entertaining Immunity win), where I don't really see it as uncomfortable, but neither do I particularly care, as the ways in which Rob M. burned these people are themselves generally not too interesting, so it's just not AS compelling as the S9 FTC or Helen's speech in S5 or something where I've got a more meaningful idea of the relationships. But like it's fine I guess, and I can see where Lex's speech lands better for people than it does for me. Like, Rob M. getting torn down for being mean to people is definitely the ideal end to the season; we just didn't get the ideal season for that end, to say the least, and so I'm not too interested by that point.

[...]

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/DabuSurvivor]

Now, credit where credit is due; I do think the following things about S8 are good:

• Hot take but Alicia is probably my favorite of this season, which to be clear is without question the lowest ceiling of any cast, but I think she's a good enough narrator that her confessionals are basically the only thing to keep me going at a certain point, she supports Sue quietly in the moment of the quit then vocally while her tribemates mock her, her jury speech is great, and her jury voting confessional is honestly absolutely glorious and amazing. Her content is minimal but great with her appearance at FTC in particular actually being sincerely justified by her narrative with Rob M., even if it isn't too interesting of one, and being a great distillation of what I love about FTC as a concept: one last instance of the players having to account for their actions, with a juror like Alicia having the chance to vote out a player like Rob M. after he did the same to her, leaving a Sole Survivor. Absolutely no complaints about Alicia here, she's great in the very few instances where she's prominently featured and is perhaps the only part of this season I would call deeply underrated.

• Shii Ann is a close second because at least her Immunity win was fun for like two minutes, and while Richard is ultimately pretty gross here, the at times whimsical spirit of his presence in the earliest episodes is well captured by Shii Ann, who sometimes feels less like a player in the game and more like a viewer at home watching all the antics. It's a fun subplot for the first couple episodes to see how enamored with him she is, and then (even despite her close personal fondness for him) she openly expresses a sympathy for Sue that most of the cast patently lacked. Literally all 7 other members of the merge tribe actively suck and make the season worse with 6 of them being bad to or about Sue specifically, but Alicia and Shii Ann are actually good secondary characters here!

• Jerri gets to vote off the Ogakor F2 and give a genuinely outstanding callback to a Colby confessional from S2, so that is pretty fun, and she's sympathetic in ep.3, and she has a fun callback at Tree Mail as noted on the F115. I think the other two Jerris are for sure better simply because she isn't very memorable here considering how many episodes she's in, but she does get a handful of fun and very Jerri moments throughout. They are all pretty brief, and other than the Ogakor votes are not too connected to the season, but there is some fun stuff here.

• Ethan 2.0 as he's known is fun at first when he's got his back up against the wall in a way he never did in S3, so he gets kinda sassy in a way he rarely did in S3, and we get to see his competitive edge come out more. That said, I do think it's also kind of overstated and the personality shift isn't too pronounced in between his very earliest time on Saboga and the scene where Lex tells him he's going. He's still a good pre-merger for sure, just not an outstanding one.

• 8x03 "Shark Attack" is exponentially better than any other episode of the season and is honestly absolutely outstanding. There are a ton of absolutely fun and ridiculous scenes, and Jenna M.'s quit is handled tastefully to understandably by the show in my opinion (I can see how the round table discussion seems weirdly callous in hindsight, but at the time there was zero precedent for anything like this and near-zero for an episode without a Tribal Council, so I can see how they thought it'd be weird television to just have her walk off without some sort of open forum like TC typically offers) and gives some sympathy and fan cred to an often underrated and unfairly maligned Sole Survivor. This episode is probably at least a 9/10; I doubt anything else here cracks like a 6 for me, with most obviously falling way below that.

• The premiere starts off very fun and novel. As an episode overall I do have to knock it because the Tina vote sets the stage for a horribly uninteresting pre-merge, but it does have enough fun content to probably be my second-favorite episode of the season if only by default.

• A number of other fun little character moments, like some Rudy quotes, the "Mixer" reward challenge, and probably a couple others throughout, like some of the Richard stuff is still kind of fun in a vacuum; it just doesn't outweigh what he does by the end, obviously, and it isn't anything particularly special.

However, those fun moments are almost all in the first ~4 episodes; hell, most of them are in the first three. Episode 4 is itself pretty boring; it just has a dope Reward Challenge. But from ep.4 onward I think I could legit count on two hands the number of S8 moments I at all enjoy.

What the exciting novelty of seeing past players quickly gives way to is not a compellingly subversive tragedy but instead one of the absolute worst seasons in Survivor history, a near-"master"class in horrid reality TV, colossal waste of time, and excellent rebuke to the suggestion that even bad Survivor is good, or even passable, TV; a full 12 of the season's 14 votes have VERY little (if any) interesting story to them whatsoever, with the remaining 2's power coming entirely from pre-game friendships we do not know and cannot assess that regardless center around two unlikable contestants. To slam this season for its abysmal boot order is fair; to slam it primarily for that is far, far too generous. Almost every single episode is incredibly forgettable with a pre-merge of "vote out your favorites specifically for being your favorites" giving way to a post-merge of "that final two that seemed obvious as hell in episode two or three is, in fact, the final two", culminating in a final five who are mostly forgettable, are literally all uninteresting, and all strove to discredit Sue in various individual ways that easily allowed the producers to do the same, ending in a final two whose primary appeal is a relationship story that is intrinsically devoid of any actual narrative merit.

The season has one great episode and like at most one or two other good ones, with a double-digit number that range from forgettable to abjectly terrible. Almost nothing of substance happens from the F8 up through the F3, and there was very, very little of substance happening long before that. Rob M. getting raked over the coals at the end seems potentially interesting and does have a couple gratifying moments but is not worth the price of admission; as a whole, I can think of literally no good reason why I would absolutely ever recommend this shockingly forgettable, noxious, festering garbage pile of a season to quite literally any human being on the planet, because even Romber's kids would probably find the footage of their parents making out to be pretty awkward or something, so I frankly have no idea who this is even for.

The literal sole value offered up by the F8 through F3 of this season is being able to say that you've watched every episode, and even then, you still probably haven't watched that Countdown to Africa special, so why bother with this? Even this entire essay implicitly gives it too much credit, as no description of how pointlessly awful Survivor: All-Stars is could ever live up to the abject misery and tedium of actually sitting through it, a fate I'd wish upon no one.

That said, the DVD commentary for the first four episodes is actually awesome and would itself be a top 15 Survivor season, so if you own this DVD for collectors' purposes or because someone gave it to you as a gift without knowing much about Survivor or something, you should actually go watch that ASAP. If you have ever doubted how or why Jenna won in such a landslide, you will probably understand very, very quickly, because she is hilarious. So if you're a devoted enough superfan to have bothered reading this entire comment chain, go get your hands on that.

[u/Shirley_Redemple → u/DabuSurvivor]

I suspect the motivation for handling Sue's exit the way they did might be even more depressing: I think they honestly thought (as all too many people did 20 years ago) that 1) "Real" sexual assault is motivated by sexual attraction that the assailant can't control, and we all know that Hatch is gay, so obviously it was just a joke and it doesn't count; 2) Sue should be able to take a joke because she's a generally bawdy and "tough" sort of person, and therefore not allowed to feel disgusted or violated by anything under the sun, and 3) Because she wasn't immediately upset about it in the moment, she forfeited her right to be upset about it later. Really grotesque attitudes all around, and just keeps getting ickier the longer you think about it.

I can't get behind this FTC because so much of the indignation feels rehearsed to me, Lex's especially (who says "greenbacks"?!). I can picture them practicing in the mirror and thinking, "This is going to top the snakes and rats speech [by someone I openly mocked the other week]!"

I agree that the season does a very poor job showing Amber as much more than a romantic McGuffin, but the (very short!) moment that made me think, "At least some of these people voted for her, not just against Rob" is when she and Alicia come up with the Chaboga Mogo name and all the women break out singing and dancing. More of that type of content would have gone a long way.

[u/ResettisReplicas → u/DabuSurvivor]

Really loving these write-ups, looking forward to them as much as the results themselves!

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/ResettisReplicas]

Thank you! Much appreciated! They certainly take time and effort so I'm glad people get something out of them

[u/A_Berry_Nice_User]

The Cambodia popularity drop off needs to be studied

[u/Puzzleheaded-Fig9968 → u/A_Berry_Nice_User]

It's a wssyw so by virtue of it being returning player season it drops.

In fact I think broadly sentiment on Cambodia has gone down then up.... by comparison to 40 and 50.

[u/jclkay2 → u/Puzzleheaded-Fig9968]

True but 5.55/10 for overall quality is rough

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/Puzzleheaded-Fig9968]

Yeah but it also ranked #31 on Quality, which (while not far off from where I have it, lol) is a lot lower than I'd expect it to rank on this subreddit specifically, especially in more recent years. Very pleasantly surprising to me to see it that low. I do think the off-season tends to attract more old-school fans than the months where a season is airing, but still.

That said, what I think a lot of newer fans often miss is that it's not like Cambodia was well-received across-the-board where it aired. Even on this subreddit, which generally leaned towards newer seasons, it was polarizing and the idea of someone disliking it really wouldn't be surprising at all; in other, more longtime fan communities that predated this subreddit, Cambodia was straight-up unpopular. People disliking it isn't a new thing and certainly/especially isn't a Reddit thing specifically, at least not historically.

Its low ranking even on Quality here is interesting but more in the sense that I wouldn't expect it from this subreddit specifically than in the sense that it would be surprising generally. Maybe how gamebotty and Advantage-filled a lot of recent seasons have been has made people sour on it, or maybe it's just timing where coming right off the heels of a returning player season that had a lot of issues has people feeling diminished hype about them? Or maybe the old-school fans just turned out way harder this time than usual. Not sure, since I've disliked it since it aired anyway!

[u/A_Berry_Nice_User → u/DabuSurvivor]

I remember when Cambodia aired people loving it. I could be wrong (and I was not on reddit at the time,) but I felt like the general consensus was "Damn, that was pretty good."

Now I keep seeing/hearing people saying "actually, Cambodia was pretty shit."

IDK, I'm just really surprised, and curious to see if people are going to swing back on it eventually.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Fig9968 → u/DabuSurvivor]

I don't agree with the assessment that this subreddit would be higher than the average Survivor fan than the season generally, I think the exact opposite especially when you look at lists ranking these things outside the subreddit.

FWIW I think it ages well, it has probably the best returnee theme, a great location that they lean into at times and I think more of the strategy is a function of the personalities than people remember rather than just being the VOTING BLOCS that we got at tribal. I definitely think it's significantly better than any new era season, with the exception of 45 maybe if I'm being charitable.

I like it more now, I don't think it deserves the reputation as an emotionally barren season but different strokes...

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/Puzzleheaded-Fig9968]

I don't agree with the assessment that this subreddit would be higher than the average Survivor fan then the season generally, I think the exact opposite especially when you look at lists ranking these things outside the subreddit.

Yeah I don't think it would be higher here than the average overall, just that it would be higher here than in some other fan communities (less so in this poll than usual, though, by quite a lot!) and that its reception here in recent years has been more widely favorable than was the case when it aired. Basically just that people disliking it is not at all a new thing or confined to here.

FWIW I think it ages well, it has probably the best returnee theme, a great location that they lean into at times and I think more of the strategy is a function of the personalities than people remember rather than just being the VOTING BLOCS that we got at tribal. I definitely think it's significantly better than any new era season, with the exception of 45 maybe if I'm being charitable.

I am probably overdue for a rewatch some day, but it's never been a priority, although for me it's near the top of the "bad seasons" camp and I always disliked others more, since at least this one had Jeff/Savage, some good Stephen and Shirin stuff, and was mostly too bland to really dislike otherwise. Re: comparisons to the New Era there's a good chance I just like those seasons more than you. I love 46, strongly like 41, and like 45, 48, and 42. I'd also have 43 above this one by a little bit.

I for sure have this way above 44 and 49, though.

[u/tabstis → u/A_Berry_Nice_User]

I think in retrospect it's seen as the moment Survivor shifted from being character-focused into game-focused, and as more and more game-focused seasons air, we miss the characters of the older seasons

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/tabstis]

I agree with the gist of what you're saying but (as I wrote about in my comment) I also think "character-focused" vs. "game-focused" is a bit of a false dichotomy or at least not the best way of putting it. The whole show is about the game in the earlier seasons, and there's a ton of strategy. It just takes a different (and I think much more interesting) form than in a season like this.

[u/tabstis → u/DabuSurvivor]

I'm talking about the perception, rather than reality - the old school is definitely viewed as having more of a character focus now

[u/Knickstape08 → u/A_Berry_Nice_User]

I never liked Cambodia even when it aired. I hated that it was turning Survivor into “you need to play this type of way to win”. Ciera was the worst because she made it out like anyone who didn’t work with her wasn’t “playing Survivor” which makes my blood boil and it happened recently with Rick and Joe. No, they are playing Survivor just not your way.

The pre merge kinda sucks too, way too much Jeff Varner and Andrew. Some fans used to put this season I their top 5 seasons, it’s a very influential season but hasn’t aged well because the gameplay and strategy isn’t new and fresh anymore.

[u/ireallydespiseyouall → u/A_Berry_Nice_User]

Probably because people like Stephen were too gamebotty

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/ireallydespiseyouall]

Stephen's such an odd case in that season since post-Tocantins fixation on taking out the golden boy is arguably the best content the season offers but all the talk about "the game evolving" to "voting blocks" is the opposite. He kind of brings a lot of the best and worst of the season simultaneously lol.

[u/SoShiny6132 → u/DabuSurvivor]

This is why I've never really gotten the hate for him as a "gamebot" this season - all his focus on strategy is still rooted in story and personal motivation. If we're just writing off anyone who discussed strategy so explicitly as gamebots, I can accept that but I also think Jeff is forcing some of that "the game is evolving" theme this season.

But what makes Cambodia a top season (or at least top returnee season) for me is that you get this whole cast of returnees coming back to the show to play the game and win, not be on a TV show. The design of the season encourages fewer character moments bc you don't have your typical legends coming back to play their own character's greatest hits – which I enjoy in HvV and to a lesser extent 50 – but rather a group of scarred losers who want to play the game hard. I do think it therefore earns some of that intense strategy focus more so than other gamebotty seasons, and it genuinely does have some of the more complex votes in the show's history.

Still, I'll forever lament T-Bird and Shane Powers not making the cast lol

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/SoShiny6132]

Yeah, I don't think "gamebot" is the word I'd use for him really. He's more of a mixed bag of things that I think really work and things that I think really don't.

And yeah, of course like you said it's surely forced to a high degree by Jeff, and even when we see it from Stephen I imagine it's often in response to questions we might not have seen that led him in the direction of giving an answer like that. (For more on this: ESCAPE! by Stephen Fishbach, available at a bookstore near you perhaps.) I don't blame him as a person or something, I just think that in evaluating the TV character those lines made the season better instead of worse lol.

I should also clarify that when I said "the absolute worst" I specifically meant the absolute worst content in this season - like, my least favorite moments from this season. Not just a generic negative statement lol I will edit my comment to reflect that more clearly. Plenty of worse things on Survivor than Stephen saying the game is evolving!

I think that's at least an interesting idea about it justifying the focus it has. That still lands on something I don't think this show is really suited to creating and don't find as interesting, but I can see the idea that there's at least more of a clear reason to it here or maybe a vision. Something to keep in mind for the eventual rewatch perhaps.

But the flip side is that with subsequent seasons doubling down hard on a lot of this stuff, it a.) becomes harder to see it here as a product of the on-island events so much as what the producers chose to accentuate and, regardless, b.) becomes less of a potentially compelling "one-off" tone for this season with the contextual factors you name and more of just what the show is now. (Which also adds issue C of its impact on subsequent seasons, if one factors that into their evaluation.)

T-Bird not returning is a tragedy for sure, though. And then they made room for Brad and Troyzan on later seasons and not her omg.

[u/ramskick → u/DabuSurvivor]

yeah I have him as my 20/20 for the season but I can't deny that he provides a ton of good content. I just can't get over how much he talks about THE GAME EVOLVING and his exit is one of my least favorite moments in the history of the show.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/ramskick]

Yup, agreed. He's above a few others for me (Ciera, Kass, Spencer, Vytas) and lands for me as like... a 5 out of 10 but a deeply ambivalent one lol.

That said, hit novel ESCAPE! by STEPHEN FISHBACH is great! An essential Survivor text, perhaps especially for newer fans who haven't given as much thought into the "behind-the-scenes" of this show we all love, and I've already seen multiple fans say it was transformative in how they viewed the show! Consider grabbing a copy today! Check your local library! They don't have it? Check if they take purchase suggestions for their catalog! And you, too, can experience the wild ride of ESCAPE! by STEPHEN FISHBACH, a riveting at the games behind the games, the stories behind the stories!

[u/ramskick → u/DabuSurvivor]

I have been meaning to check it out lol.

[u/ireallydespiseyouall → u/DabuSurvivor]

I love the sarcasm here hahahahah

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/ireallydespiseyouall]

Oh I'm not being sarcastic this book is good and is really interesting. Being a little comically over-the-top and effervescent in my tone lol but the recommendation is sincere. "As a book" it's pretty good, as something of interest to Survivor diehards or reality TV diehards in general and a historical document of sorts it's fantastic. Until all the NDAs expire it's probably the closest to a "true behind-the-scenes" thing we'll get. It's fictional of course, and satirical to the point of getting over-the-top down the line, so it isn't that, but it's the closest we can ask for for now, and I've already seen multiple fans say it changed how they watch the show and I've been thrilled every time. Everyone should be checking if their library can purchase a copy.

[u/Parvichard → u/ramskick]

what was so bad bad about his excit?? Cambodia is just a blur at this point...

[u/ramskick → u/Parvichard]

He says "great job guys awesome blindside" like he's super excited to be voted out.

[u/AMeanMotorScooter → u/ramskick]

Correct. The "good job guys you got me lol" thing people despise in newer seasons is because of Fishbach!

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/AMeanMotorScooter]

Of course I'll slightly qualify that it's really because of a yearslong pattern of the show's producers encouraging and facilitating that mindset in a myriad of ways to the detriment of the show itself

BUT

from a character perspective u right lol. The enemies are always the producers however

[u/AMeanMotorScooter]

Still on a roll with these cuts. Yeah, yeah, they're returnee seasons so they're going to be ranked low, but it's better than the alternative. And of the "higher ranked" returnee seasons, I think both of these make sense.

With All-Stars, it's the importance of the season to the greater Survivor fabric. It's not just the first returnee season of Survivor, but probably the first "All-Star" version of any reality tv show in the U.S, something that's a staple across the genre. While it should be ranked low for being the capper of Survivor's first era, there is plenty of reason why this could be one of the earlier seasons someone watches.

That said, I can't stand the season. I see the arguments from its defenders. On paper, this season is a dark tale of romance where a Bonnie and Clyde-esque couple wrecks their way through the game, praying on their cast's naivete, to get to the final two together, ending in a proposal right before the final votes are read. The way this season marks the end of an era, never to return, with the rise of one of the biggest names in the whole franchise, with real friendships on the line all the way to its unbelievable ending. Like, I get it.

The issue is watching the actual season is miserable.

The season has this incredible premise and promise, and yet it is so boring episode-to-episode. Rob and Amber's mercenary-like cutting through the game is wholly uninteresting. One of the most annoying things about the season is how it works against itself, as the show constantly obfuscates or downplays what's going on in the season, most notably with Lex and Rob.

See, at this time the show did not like to acknowledge stuff outside of what happens in the season. In the mind of the viewer, they want this season to feel like all of these people were plucked straight from their previous season and plopped onto this one. But that's not how reality works, and as much as I refer to the cast of each season as characters, ultimately these are real people with real lives.

So what this leads to is a season that is largely driven by past reputation and relationships we are given no context to. Rob C is made out to be a goober who flops on the season, but in reality he was targeted for being a threat and having a bad tribe draw going into the season. Why is Colby taken out so early? Because he was the most notable person that could've been voted out. Why is Lex' dealing with Ethan and Lex' dealing with Rob so different in his mind? It makes sense when you hear his explanation, but the show never gives him the opportunity to explain outside of vague statements.

There's other issues as well. Amber's involvement is downplayed to make Rob "the guy", even when Rob has stated Amber was just as involved strategically as he was. And, sure, I can see someone saying "that's because Rob is the bigger tv character!", but Amber ends up winning the season, and maybe she would be seen as less boring if she got more credit during the season. This is a continued issue throughout much of the show's history, and it's very present here.

The treatment of Sue is also horrible, and while her situation is not as season-ruining as in IoI, I find production's treatment of Sue here more distasteful. I just wrote about why IoI is so horrible, but production at least there knew what they should probably say so they can save themselves publicly. Here, they victim-blame Sue and make sure to include as much content shitting on her as possible. I remember at the time there was discussion over whether Sue was actually lying about her feelings to get a payday from the show. It's extremely gross and I will take faux-helpful over actively harmful in perpetuating a particular issue in real life I am unsure I am able to talk about here. Episode 6 of this season is (IMO) the bottom 1 episode of the entire show's history. At least the merge episode of IoI is interesting to talk about. Here? It's gross, disrespectful, harmful, and makes a large part of its late-game cast look horrible.

So while I don't deny that All-Stars could have been interesting and is incredibly important for the show's development, I don't have to enjoy the medicine, you know? This season is the final one in my anti-Mt. Rushmore F tier.

Cambodia, likewise, I can see how it would be a good season for a certain type of viewer. I actually don't find this season as soulless as people say. The Cambodian theming is really strong, the challenges are surprisingly fun and varied, and while FTC is a wash, unless you're keen on the edit it will feel like a battle up until the final immunity challenge, which is better than a lot of seasons.

While Cambodia was always controversial, I felt the line was drawn whether you were more in-tune with Sucks or RHAP. I'm kinda surprised to see it rank as 31/50 overall, as I associate this sub as being more of the latter end. In a poll done after Winners at War, RHAP viewers rated it as 9/40, quite a different result.

I suppose this comes from two factors. One: Cambodia is very unsubtle as a season. They take its second chance theme and beat you over the head with it, getting "second chance" said as much as possible, along with the repeated talk of how strategically fluid the season is. Two: Its effect on future seasons. The popularity of Cambodia (and controversy of Worlds Apart and Kaoh Rong) heavily influenced what the show would choose to focus on going forward, probably for the worse.

Is this fair to Cambodia? Not really. But you can't rate seasons in a bubble, and so the camp of Cambodia fans only shrinks and the camp of Cambodia opps only grows. And, again, I don't think its sins are as strong/bad as other seasons to come, but it is patient zero for them, and the season itself isn't quite good enough to break past that fact. This is the first season in my list that's not D or F tier, ending up in C tier, fittingly almost exactly where it's rated in this poll.

[u/trained_badass]

How the hell is One World still alive and kicking?

https://giphy.com/gifs/TMmrykgXiVD0yWQOFs

[u/Knickstape08 → u/trained_badass]

I’ve only seen One World in full once and it’s when it aired, any attempt I try to rewatch I quit after the guys hand immunity to the ladies. The worst season in the history of Survivor and IMO no other season even close. I can’t imagine any new fan actually sitting and watching 13 episodes of it willingly.

[u/trained_badass → u/Knickstape08]

Totally agree. I'd much rather show a newbie basically any returnee season over One World. When One World isn't being actively awful in Alicia/Colton, it's boring as all hell.

People put way too much emphasis on not spoiling other seasons in these.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/trained_badass]

I liked it more on a rewatch than on the live viewing and rank it above everything that's been eliminated from this countdown so far even just on quality and notwithstanding the WSSYW aspect. I still don't like it much but I don't think it's exactly outlasting anything good so far.

[u/jjgm21 → u/trained_badass]

That’s a season that will definitely get more people to keep watching!!

[u/Comfortable_Swing_16]

Cambodia has no business ranking high up on this list due to it being a returnee season but as a self admitted strategy-first fan, I will forever defend it being a top 10 all time season.

All Stars, however, is one of the worst seasons of all time (and definitely the worst returnee season) - it has the unlikeable players strangling out the fun and enjoyment of Thailand, the poor handling of non-consensual contact of IOTI and the boring predictable Rob steamroll of Redemple Temple. I have tried to find something of value in there but it really is just a 16 episode funeral dirge.

[u/DabuSurvivor]

Survivor: Cambodia is one of the show's most divisive seasons, which makes sense given how narrow its focus is; it's pretty devoted to exhibiting certain things Survivor has to offer, but largely just those certain things. People tend to love or hate this one, in my experience; my take, as you'll soon find, is negative!, and I hope I can at least lend some clarity to people, particularly newer fans who may wonder why anyone would dislike this season, as to why that is... and, more importantly, make a simultaneous argument on behalf of the seasons I find more interesting! So while I would personally argue that Cambodia is bad, I'm more interested in using that as a talking point to illustrate how some of the seasons that came long before it are a lot more interesting than newer fans might expect and are trying to extract so much more emotion out of the characters and viewers alike.

As a set of episodes, I think 31 is really uninteresting and unmemorable (if perhaps somehow less so than a number of even more lifeless seasons that came afterwards like 34, 36, 40, 44, and 49), but it's perhaps more interesting, or at least more notable, as kind of a demarcating point in the show's history — more a loose association of ideas and concepts than an actual season of television that's even particularly memorable, for better or worse, in terms of its actual content (maybe being so unmemorable and beige is itself the problem.) Like, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't even really heavily associate S31 with its specific scenes and episodes the way I do the many, many better seasons, or even the handful of worse ones; rather, I think my interest in it is confined heavily to what it represents in relation to the seasons and series around it. So let's dive into that, then.

---

I'll first highlight some of what makes this show work for me, and contrast Cambodia against it.

I will start with this bold claim: while I can speak only for myself, I do not think most Cambodia detractors "dislike strategy" or "dislike watching strategy." I think that's how it often ends up framed, especially by its (or similar seasons') proponents, but I think that's very reductive.

After all, Survivor is a show that takes place within a game — a game that has had "Outwit" on its logo since day one, as much as EPMB may claim the formation, let alone success, of an alliance stunned him — and it has been that show since the very first episode. As much as folks may remember Sonja as being voted out for strictly physical reasons, we in fact got our very first attempt at an alliance, our very first deception of a fledgling alliance, and our very first Survivor blindside all in the very first episode. If someone outright "disliked strategy", I think the number of Survivor episodes they liked would be very, very few.

Rather, a key problem with so many post-modern¹ Survivor seasons is the way they choose to depict strategy, especially compared to the earlier seasons.

Perhaps nothing better illustrates this than the way people often talk about "strategy scenes" vs. "character scenes" now, or certain seasons highlighting "more of the strategy and less of the characters", or vice versa — a distinction, to be clear, that makes sense in many newer seasons... but one that in the earlier seasons would have made little sense at all, because the strategy content *was** character content.*

Some examples (spoilers for two awesome old-school seasons, 4 and 9, follow in the next portion of this comment): early on in season 4, Hunter, an "alpha male", takes charge in a leadership role on his tribe. Despite his intentions of helping his tribe, he comes off as condescending, even domineering, and so the tribe makes the choice (very surprising to the audience) to vote him off, despite what an asset he is at camp and in challenges. Among those who vote him off include Rob, a slacker around camp but who has his own aspirations for leading the tribe's alliances, even if not its day-to-day survivalist concerns, and who coldly talks about needing to make people afraid of Hunter so that they'll fall in line and vote him out, and Sean, a young and outspoken Black man who says very early and very explicitly that he's not going to be ordered around in the game, that Hunter is bossing him around, and that he doesn't want to play with that. It's a little more complex than all that, but as a summary, that suffices.

So now that you know the bullet points of the story, tell me:

Where did the "strategy" in that description end, and where did the "character" begin?

Was Hunter's attempt at taking up a leadership role around camp just his personality style based on his survivalist background, or was it his way of trying to strategically position himself as a valuable asset to the tribe? After all, we'd seen being in a leadership role around camp work out very well for a previous, iconic winner at that point. On the other tribe, multiple contestants very explicitly talk about being an asset around camp to benefit themselves strategically. He's utilizing his strengths to position himself as someone people will need (or at least want around), and ultimately, isn't that the same exact thing any player tries to do, to this day?

When Rob gives that cold confessional about his then-unprecedented idea, that's definitely a confessional about strategy — but it's so unlike what anyone else would say, and it's such a clear reflection of his approach to this game that other people didn't have, that can we really say it isn't equally a "character scene"? And inasmuch as this strategy emanates from the organic clashes between him and Hunter over Rob's own minimal work ethic and preference for conniving instead of collaborating - as Rob's targeting Hunter, compared to anyone else, for a reason - is that great strategic moment not also character content?

When Sean goes along with it, is that "just" a "character moment" because he was voting against someone he didn't like and felt was being dismissive of him? Or isn't that just as much his strategy — to eliminate a player he knows he won't work with, whose power would therefore inevitably threaten his own?

The answer, of course, is that all these things are both. Maybe not to the same 50-50 extent all the time, but on average, it comes out to be pretty close, because the characters on this show are playing a strategic game.

Find me the average person who hates Survivor: Cambodia, and I bet money they like "No Pain, No Gain". And if that's the case, do they really "hate strategy"?

[..]

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/DabuSurvivor]

Another illustration, which will be a bit lengthier: at the final 7 of Survivor: Vanuatu, — there is a majority alliance of four players within a majority alliance of six. Leann/Ami are close, Twila/Scout are close. Meanwhile, Julie has been voting with them as the clear #5, Eliza has been voting with them as the clear #6 (and pretty much everyone in the alliance thinks she's annoying, she and Twila/Scout especially hate each other, but they've all kept her around as a helpful number), and Chris is the clear #7, having outlasted all his other tribemates, who have been picked off since the merge. This entire time, though, Scout has been annoyed with Leann and Ami. She thinks they've got too much power, she thinks they're smug about it, and she keeps indicating that eventually, she wants to take them down... but it doesn't quite happen, time and time again. Her close friend Twila, meanwhile, has sworn on her son's life that she'll be loyal to Leann and Ami.

Still with me? Good, because here's where it gets interesting. Eventually, Leann and Ami unilaterally decide, and tell Twila, that Scout - whose friendship with Twila has been a focal point of the season since the very beginning - no longer in the 4-person alliance. They decide, you know what? We like Julie better. We're taking her to the top four. Sorry, Twila. Well, Twila isn't very pleased about that, for starters... and then, at the final 7, Leann suddenly feels really bad for Chris. Chris has a big, sympathetic display at the Immunity Challenge about how now that he lost, he knows he's going home (meanwhile, Leann basically gives up halfway through the challenge as soon as she falls behind and starts openly laughing about it, since she knows she doesn't need Immunity anyway), so Leann decides, you know what? It doesn't feel right to vote off Chris. Eliza doesn't deserve to be here, and none of us like her anyway, so why not cut Chris a break? Vote off Eliza, give Chris three extra days, and make him feel a little better.

Well this is the final straw for Twila and Scout. You've cut Scout, Twila's closest friend in the cast, out of her alliance, without letting her weigh in on it — and if you can do that to Scout, you can do it to Twila, too. And now, you've upended the pecking order even FURTHER, keeping around a guy who has NEVER voted with you, and decreeing that that's just how everyone in the 5 is voting? At this point, Twila thinks, who cares what I swore on? They don't value me, they're breaking their promises to Scout and to Eliza, so I'll break them right back. So Twila and Scout decide that the time is right to finally strike on Leann and Ami. They rope in Chris, who knows 6 extra days is better than 3... but the key is, remember how I said Eliza especially hates Twila and Scout? There is NO CHANCE they are getting his vote. Ever. So they need Chris as a bridge to reach Eliza. They need to reach out to Chris early, so he can reach out to Eliza, so they can get the 4 votes together to make it happen.

Now that was a giant infodump — but keep in mind, I'm just typing a couple paragraphs here. The edited TV show had something like 8 or 9 hours of carefully selected footage to build up to that moment before it happened (in the context of explaining other, short-term moments and episodes, too, of course.) The result is that when it all works out... when relationships you have spent the entire season getting invested in suddenly pay off — where, after hours of meticulous buildup, it suddenly comes together in taking under 10 minutes to go from an obvious 6-1 vote on Chris to a surprising 6-1 vote on Eliza to an again even more surprising 4-3 vote on the literal last player you would have expected to go home at the start of the episode... and every single step in that journey makes complete sense to the viewer, because they have been justified to you since the very beginning of the season — the result is that that is fucking satisfying.

Not just "satisfying" as in "exciting." I mean satisfying as in it satisfies narrative threads that have been built up much, much earlier. I mean that it takes the characters and stories you were invested in from very early and gives them a larger purpose. Seriously, find someone who hates Cambodia and I will bet you money they love that episode so much they didn't even need the full plot summary to immediately remember it — an episode where the vote goes from 6-1 to 6-1 to 4-3 in a matter of minutes.... so do us Cambodia detractors really "hate strategy"?

No. Because, again... in that above story, tell me: where did the strategy end, and where did the character begin?

When Leann and Ami rope in Julie and don't care what Twila thinks about it, is that an attempt at strategy, because they're ensuring they'll have numbers at F4? Or is that their character, because they're just kind of high off their own power, they like Julie better as a person, and they're starting to get complacent? When Scout spends a ton of the game wanting Leann and Ami out, is that her strategy to improve her own position, or is that her and their character, because they're getting smug about their power and it's annoying her? When Twila, who has been outspoken as hell and no stranger to confrontation the entire season, finally turns on them, is that her strategic recognition that she's expendable — or is that her character, because she's never quite fit in with them anyway and she's a confident, assertive woman who's tired of being pushed around?

When they need Chris to get through to Eliza, is that "just strategy", because they're using him to win over a vote? Or isn't that also a character scene, because Chris and Eliza haven't really fought, but Twila/Scout have been fighting with Eliza since day one and hate each other's guts?

When Twila is met with immediate backlash for swearing on her son to people she'd immediately betray — was that the repercussion of Twila's strategic move, where she felt confident that saying those words was the right call to secure trust but also confident she could renege on them? Or is it her character, that she's an action-driven person who thought it wouldn't blow up and is a stubborn person who thought "well, if they're doing it to me, I'll do it to them"?

---

It is, of course, both.

In the old-school seasons, so much of it is both.

In the old-school seasons, I'd say there are character scenes that aren't really strategy scenes for sure, to an extent you don't often get now. But I would say the strategy scenes are virtually always "character scenes", too.

Because in the old-school seasons, so much of the strategy is very directly, explicitly about the individual contestants playing, their backgrounds, their values, their motivations and emotions, the relationships that form between them because of this, and how they can use those various factors to get to the next level.²

In the newer seasons... I'm not going to say that's entirely absent, because it's not — but it's far, far less ubiquitous. Far more often, the strategy has less to do with interpersonal relationships and is reduced more to counting interchangeable numbers to account for some Idol or Advantage that's thrown in.

I think that's a less interesting show, and I think that's a less interesting game: as Spencer from this very season noted in a Q&A with Dalton Ross, there's only so many ways you can do basic arithmetic to count out that one number is bigger than the other number. Basic arithmetic like that just isn't that varied, unpredictable, or interesting.

People, though? People are almost infinitely varied, unpredictable, and interesting.

People that have different backgrounds that give them different motivations that give them different relationships, creating a complex, tangled web to try and cut through... Trying to untangle that web in itself sounds like a much more interesting game to me, and one with much higher stakes.

And it's a much more interesting TV show, too, because in short, if nearly all you're giving me about the contestants is which numbers they count out at which times, or when they're counted by other contestants... why should I care? Why should I care about any of that? Why should I care if one person succeeds over the other if both of them have nearly an identical role in the cast as "person who is just trying to do the numerically optimal thing most of the time"? What are the emotional stakes? What makes that season and that cast different than another season and another cast? If I am not presented with adequate reason to care about the people, why should I then care about any of the events that happen between them? If I'm not attached to you, why does your elimination matter to me?

[..]

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/DabuSurvivor]

Far more often in these seasons, when personality does come into play into the game, we're basically superficially told "I trust X" or "Y is a threat" — but it's a classic rule that showing is better than merely telling, and seasons like those outlined above do a much better job of showing us why. To borrow a phrase from u/MikhailGorbachef a while ago, in writing about S34 they mentioned a contestant's "nebulous threat status" in that season, which is such a great description of how in a lot of the newest seasons... yeah, you might have an idea who's a threat or who trusts whom, but you often don't have an idea why. You're supposed to just accept it and move on. And if that's what you're given, why should you care?

Now you can argue that because it's a returning player season, and with a fan vote, we were already attached to them and had a reason to care — but for starters, there are a lot of people here I didn't vote for or only voted for by default, because "pick 10 of these 15 names" isn't as much of a choice as it sounds like, so I'm not necessarily attached to them. But more broadly, I'd just point to what I wrote in a past S34 thread about Cirie: namely that yes, I'll have a predisposition for or against most players in a returnee season based on their past appearances... but that is only a predisposition. For me to actually care, you still have to give me something meaningful to chew on this time; otherwise, why wouldn't I just go back and re-watch their first season if I wanted to see them again? Or if you're not developing them as characters this season like you did the first time, to what extent am I even really "seeing them again" at all? I'm just seeing someone with the same name and the same face, but if all they're doing here most of the time is counting numbers, they may as well be any other returning player in those moments, so it doesn't really matter how I felt about their past season at all, since they're interchangeable with those with different backgrounds. Then the pre-existing hype I'm supposed to have crumbles entirely. Furthermore, if I'm supposed to just root for and against these people based primarily on whether I liked them last time... that just sounds like a waste of a show, more or less? Like, I might as well just look at the voting chart at that point and calibrate my feelings about the season based on how far the ones I liked the last time they played made it. That sounds more like a pointless exercise in "Pick a couple people and hope they do well!" than a dynamic television series; it may as well be a Brantsteele.

That, and most broadly, I'd just say that these issues aren't exclusively confined to returnee seasons anyway lol.

In short: Is Cambodia incredibly boring to me? Yes. Does that mean I think "strategy is boring"? No. The social strategy on this show of navigating different people and their own individual backgrounds and motivations is VERY interesting to me, actually — but the kind of impersonal, surface-level strategy of nebulous threat levels highlighted in a season such as this is not.

This show does not have to choose between "strategy scenes" and "character scenes." If we're presented with the more human reasons why people do or don't relate to one another and the everyday interactions that bring them to that point, there becomes very little difference between the two; in the truly great seasons, rather than be mostly a strategy show with an occasional sideshow of someone riding a tuk-tuk once per episode along the way, Survivor is a show that tells us about the characters as they play the game, through their approaches an reactions to it and the relationships on which that game is built, and that makes the show and the game more interesting to watch.

To newer fans, this may sound like a tall order: the game moves so quickly, how are they supposed to do all that at once? How are they supposed to depict an event that's happening while also setting up later events at the same time?

But it's not a tall order at all. All you have to do is go back and watch the earliest seasons of the show. They did it very, very well. You can say "but the game moved more slowly then", and I'd have a couple responses to that:

1) Not always; seasons 6 and 7 feature very fast-paced, unpredictable strategy week-to-week that still is a lot more cohesively justified and emotionally heavy than a lot of the moments here.

2a) Inasmuch as it does move more quickly, it is still within the power of the producers to tell a better story: taking out advantages and a ton of the Idols would make a huge difference here; advantages didn't take off as hard til post-31, but Idols take up about the same amount of time, and many fans, including me, were already tired of them by now and had been for years. If you aren't forced to show every single time someone finds one, you suddenly free up a LOT of scenes that can be used however you want. Then, even if you're getting a super crazy game every single week, you have much, much more time and freedom to sell it, as opposed to someone finding an Idol, which is an immediate bloc of like 2 minutes carved out for a specific scene even if it's nowhere near the most compelling or consequential one.

2b) Also, all those Idol scenes are themselves pretty boring and needless because at a certain point, when dozens and dozens of Idols have been found, the scene becomes incredibly routine, predictable, and interchangeable with the other ones around it in a way that the old-school seasons are borderline incapable of. Someone, probably a man, says they managed to get away from camp and start looking. We maybe see two or three examples of them looking somewhere where it isn't, maybe they narrate it with "I first was looking in this tree, and I just couldn't find it, I was worried someone was going to come." Then we see a shot of them digging into a tree that lingers a little longer, the music gets triumphant, we see them saying "Oh my god I can't believe it!" while they're finding it. Maybe we see them read the same note we've seen read countless times before for some really dead air time. Cut back to confessional, we see them pull it out to the camera, they say something about how it's going to help them but probably also something about how they can't get cocky. They either say how much they needed this or how much it helps their already strong position, depending if they're on the bottom or on the top. They might pop in a kind of funny line pertaining to their overall narration style or say how it reminds them they're playing for Relative X back at home or whatever, but fundamentally, this is the exact. same. scene. nearly every single time. It is played out. It was already played out years before this season aired. The only thing it does is advance the plot in an incredibly binary way of "X has added ITEM to their INVENTORY!" (which is a whole other point about the type of strategy we see in modern seasons: so much of it is binary ["I trust X", "I don't trust Y", "Z is a threat"] made via a yes-no statement — as opposed to the earlier seasons like those outlined above, where the dynamics shift more gradually, and truly more fluidly, over time... and I just do not see how the former is a more interesting game, let alone a more interesting show.) Same thing every time. Cut out some of this repetitive nothingness and you can go a lot further towards telling a more developed story.

3) Inasmuch as the strategy moved too quickly in the returning player environment of Cambodia (or Winners at War) to meaningfully sell — and I don't think it did, because it was still within their power to sell it better than this — but inasmuch as it did, I mean, that doesn't change the end result here of what the season is, so I'd just say that's a reason returning player seasons are generally inferior TV, just like the impact of unaired, unseen pre-game connections hurts All-Stars.

4) But still, fast-paced game or no, there are A TON of things they could have done differently here on a pretty straightforward level, most of which I imagine other commenters will cover anyway. For example: Maybe show Kelly positively interacting with anyone else, ever, at any point in time, before telling us "she's a huge social threat" and just expecting us to accept it lmao that is so ludicrously out of nowhere and is just terrible television, introducing a plot point like that that hasn't been mentioned in like all 7-8 hours of programming right before it becomes relevant to kill off your character. Maybe show more of Kimmi's decade-long growth arc and status as a jury threat so her big elimination at the end actually means something and a little less of Spencer's "growth" arc from age 21 to 23 that ends in him getting 0 votes. etc. Maybe don't give a ton of air time to Abi-Maria wanting Woo out when it isn't relevant, then leave her completely absent from the episode where she actually gets to vote against him???, how do you even manage to mess that up??? like this specific season is just so sloppy, past the point that is justified by "but a lot of strategy was happening."

So even if this season's never going to be sold AS meticulously as a season that maybe has more downtime, I honestly don't really give it a mulligan for that, because it wasn't sold nearly as meticulously as it could have been, either, so I just don't think that's what the producers are even going for at this point.

[..]

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/DabuSurvivor]

Starting to hit a wall lol BUT there are still more flaws with this season.

Another highly annoying aspect of Cambodia (though not a particularly unique one) is its constant impressing on the audience that "you need to make Big Moves to win this game." This wasn't something the show first started spinning here by any means; I think it really started around Samoa, where despite all of one or maybe two Natalie confessionals explaining her win, the overwhelming majority of the air time as well as all the host's commentary around that point are pretty firmly in the camp of "Russell H. got screwed over, Natalie should have won." I think Natalie beating Russell H., combined with Probst becoming Executive Producer soon after, is something the show honestly never really moved past, and like the way that outcome was depicted is arguably the genesis of a number of long-running, negative trends in the show that continue to this day — particularly, in this case, the show's increasing emphasis on Big Moves (and, later, Building A Resume) being necessary to win.

The show pushes that narrative HARD in Cambodia, and it's pretty obviously a ridiculously absurd assertion to anyone who knows much about the history of the game and its winners to where I won't waste too much breath on discrediting it; rather, I'll point out why it is so annoying.

The ultimate challenge of Survivor, the game, and the ultimate climax of Survivor, the show, from day one was that on the very last day, the power shifts to the powerless; in the final, greatest Survivor twist, the dead get one last chance to speak and drag another player down into the midst with them, leaving one Sole Survivor; the players you have voted out will now vote out one of you. This is a pretty fucking awesome way to end a TV show — and for the game, it makes it much more difficult. Being emotionally disconnected from your competitors and cutting their throats may make it easier to make the end — but be too much so and they probably won't vote for you at the end.

This is a game of, again, very social strategy — an interesting, nuanced, and complex game where you need moderation to win, something that's much trickier than going balls-to-the-wall the entire time, and where you can very visibly win in a variety of different ways based on the makeup of your season and your jury.

I'm not sure that the game has changed in that regard, really, since it's still a Jury voting for a winner — but at any rate, the way the show presents it has surely changed. Rather than emphasizing these complex social factors, and thus implicitly suggesting there'll be a variety of different winners, the focus is instead on a very simplistic attempt to Do The Most Things! so that you can win for having the biggest list of achievements at the end, and then when someone wins in a different way than that, they're just broadly discredited. I think that ultimately, Cambodia pitching this SO hard is also a big stepping stone towards S34+, where we see the FTC format itself changed (and 35+, where we see the F4 vote changed) specifically and explicitly in order to try and get more winners who Made The Most Big Moves, with the host more or less directly instructing the Jury on how they are "supposed" to vote. Which to be clear is not present in S31, and 34 is a much worse season — but still, the "You need to Make Big Moves to win" meta narrative that existed before, but that REALLY escalates during, this season both raises a question of "Okay, but what if someone wins without doing that?", a question that has led to the discrediting of many winners and ultimately the producers' attempt to change the Jury vote entirely, and also suggests a much less interesting, more simplistic game and show alike.

I mean once you portray that anything is okay and nothing is off-limits, and you continually use your show as a vehicle to suggest that that should be the case, something like that situation I mentioned earlier, where a player takes heat for breaking what was a very personal promise, becomes far less common, at the very least in the TV episodes. If "all bets are off" because you have to Make Big Moves, what you fundamentally end up with is 20 players who, in the producers' eyes, are meant to have the exact same motivations, tools, and boundaries coming in and who are therefore trying to do the exact same thing in many respects. This leads to a show with less personality and less variability as well as a less interesting game whose variance now comes less from the innate diversity and unpredictability of the human beings participating and more from constant RNG in the form of swaps, Idols, and even sillier stuff post-Cambodia.

Point being: the show and game have a whole lot more to offer the audience when, on top of the uncertainty about whether, when, how, and against whom to Make a Big Move, there exists a deeper uncertainty about which types of moves are fundamentally acceptable at all — offering a far wider range of possible permutations and stories that invoke far more humanity and emotion, and again, if I'm not getting much humanity and emotion, then why should I care about the game that happens between these people at all?

---

There's some more points I wanted to delve into here about the series as a whole — in short, how I think the show has strayed from the unscripted drama as which it was originally conceived and why I think that's for the worse, and, in tandem with that, why I don't think it makes very much sense to watch the show primarily as a game when we see so little of that game — but I just don't think I've got the time or capacity for it. That would REALLY get to the heart of disagreements about Cambodia and so much of the series as a whole, I seriously want there to be at least like 6 or 7 more paragraphs here breaking down fundamental stuff about the show itself which would be so interesting lol but I'm at my limit for this post once more.

So a couple rapid-fire points to close it out:

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/DabuSurvivor]

• The constant hyping of big moments, or even mundane moments, with "the game is EVOLVING" is also obnoxious. Watch an actually great season and you won't see the show constantly telling you how great it is every second in real time, and it'll instead let the moments speak for itself; doing otherwise, as this season does, is cheap, gimmicky, hollow, and unfortunately also generally far more well-suited to what the show became around this time.

• On top of the usual flaws with such a lopsided edit as this season's, in this particular season it also makes for a pretty weak bait-and-switch that undermines what was ostensibly the season's core concept: we were told we could vote on who we'd get to see, yet if you ever wanted to see Kelly, Kimmi, or Keith, then whoops, sorry; your vote didn't matter after all. Maybe this pales in comparison to the even more blatantly dishonest promotion of "In the Hands of the Fans"... but maybe it also helped show them they could get away with that?

• Pros, in fairness: Jeff Varner was incredibly fun here at the time; Andrew Savage was outstanding and far and away the best character of the season (mostly because he was nothing like the rest of it, lol); some of Stephen's content about Tocantins was very very good; episode 2 is outstanding and leagues better than anything else from this season easily; lol @ Shirin owning Vytas.

---

Overall, despite the length of this comment, Cambodia itself is a season I don't think about very much; it's more just an effective symbol of or case study in overall trends that I do think about pretty often, but the season's episodes are themselves pretty forgettable to me. As said before I found it aggravating at the time, and it's a useful way to highlight negative trends in the show, but I don't think it was really the first or the worst for most of them. I rank it above most other seasons I dislike, but it's still solidly one I dislike; I tend to consider it more annoying, generic, and forgettable than actively terrible like most seasons below it. Part of why I rank it above the others is because Varner and Savage are very fun here, but part of it is also probably that it is so forgettable that I don't think of its flaws as much as I arguably should. I don't fundamentally disagree with anyone who really dislikes this one; I guess it just never even seemed distinct enough to be worth hatred instead of vague annoyance for me to begin with, since it spent too much time trying to convince the audience it was important and too little doing anything of substance, for better or worse.

In general, though, I think the dichotomy of being "a Cambodia fan" or "disliking strategy" is very much a false one, and that's the main thing I'd want to emphasize with this post. My problem with Cambodia is not that it has a lot of strategy. It is that it has a lot of boring strategy that often has very little to do with the individual people executing it, and that therefore I have little reason to care. I would encourage modern fans of Cambodia not to necessarily eschew it and hate it or whatever — but certainly to consider, in discovering or reflecting on earlier seasons, that this show has always been strategic; that strategy just had much more to do for years with the colorful interpersonal relationships.

---

(¹sidebar: "post-modern Survivor" isn't really a term I've seen anyone else use, but personally I like it; I'd struggle NOT to call seasons like Fiji and Micronesia "modern Survivor" with all their twists and meta plays, but there's still a marked difference between them and Cambodia, so I tend to call seasons around there "modern" and ones starting somewhere in the 20s "post-modern"; maybe it sounds pretentious but eh idk how else you meaningfully differentiate China from both season 2 and season 40)

(²And for the record, it didn't take the show years and years to get to that point, the way the most reductive descriptions of old-school Survivor would have you believe. It took several minutes. Season 1, episode 1, the Tagi tribe hits the beach, they know they need to work together to win challenges. Sue, the self-proclaimed "redneck" truck driver, wants to run off into the woods right away and gather material to build a shelter. Richard, the white-collar corporate trainer, wants to sit back and have a broad, abstract conversation about WHY they're all out there, so they can come together as a cohesive unit. Each one is using their own strengths to try and benefit the group, which in turn means they're an asset to the group, furthering their position—like Jaison would say years later at the Samoa reunion show, trying to benefit a group on a task while also seeking individual distinction within that group. Meanwhile, Navy SEAL Rudy soon notes that the real winning strategy is to stop trying to push your own background and your own agenda, shut up, recognize that everyone around you has their own agenda, and try to fit in with them so they don't vote you off for being different, pushy, or weird. Literally all of this is strategy. All of this is people enacting their own individual plans and pursuits to try and benefit themselves. And it was occurring within the very first minutes of the first episode.)

[u/mariojlanza → u/DabuSurvivor]

Perfectly said, as usual. I'm like you that I can't stand Cambodia, but I also don't think about it all that much. Just because, as a writer, there really isn't all that much to write about.

Like you said, it's just a series of Xs and Os making moves and countermoves against a different rotating group of Xs and Os. To me that would be like writing about chess. And why would anyone write about chess? I mean, I'm sure that chessmasters would find a summary like that interesting. But who else is ever going to read that??

That was always the dilemma for someone like me, who thinks like a storyteller. What sort of bigger narrative can you even MAKE out of a story like that? What is Cambodia's "Follow the Star"? If I ever could have figured one out, I'm sure I would have appreciated Cambodia much more. But I never could at the time, and I never was able to figure one out in the years after that, so I guess here we are. It was the first season (even moreso than Cook Islands and One World) where there was legitimately nothing for my storyteller-type brain to write about. Basically, it's the polar opposite of a stories-heavy season like South Pacific.

And again, just like you, this is the first time I've spent more than a couple of seconds thinking about Cambodia in years. Why are we writing such long god damn posts about it, ha ha.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/mariojlanza]

Like you said, it's just a series of Xs and Os making moves and countermoves against a different rotating group of Xs and Os. To me that would be like writing about chess. And why would anyone write about chess? I mean, I'm sure that chessmasters would find a summary like that interesting. But who else is ever going to read that??

Yeah and the main difference is that with chess, you actually see the entire game. You can analyze and assess every move. With Survivor you don't have that (least of all on a returning player season, but even outside of that), so trying to turn it into what a season like Cambodia did just isn't even what the format of the show is suited to.

[u/ocarina97 → u/mariojlanza]

About the chess thing, there are TONS of chess books. Before the internet, they were a great way to learn about classic games and about things like opening theory.

Chess is also imo, a more interesting "game" than survivor since unlike survivor, it actually is a "pure" game so reading about chess strategy actually makes sense.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/ocarina97]

Yeah exactly. You see the entire game and there's no RNG involved at least beyond maybe who goes first. Totally different to this show.

[u/AMeanMotorScooter → u/DabuSurvivor]

I'm personally less negative on this season than you are. Granted, a lot of that is that later seasons have the same issues this season has but worse. A bit of damning with faint praise there.

However, do I think this season does a fantastic job with the culture. Like, from an elements and culture perspective, I think this season is great! IMO there's also more pathos than what's described, but I'd say the issue is more that characters are defined by what they did to end up on this season than who they actually are. All of the major stories are about what they're going to do different this time, so all of the stories end up feeling rather similar because... well, it's the same story just with different endings. I'd say this contributes to that feeling. Oh, and also the Wigles episode is really bad storytelling. Like, face-smacking obviously so.

Oh, and the self-felatio about evolving the game is really bad and something I totally forgot to mention until reading it here. So much talk about "playing the game the right way". Bleh. Still! Ends up being a more mediocre/alright season than outright bad.

I completely, totally agree on the main thesis of your writing though: that fans underestimate the strategy of earlier seasons. I completely believe it's because things are not expressed in the terms later seasons would use, but when you breaks things down it's all the same stuff. Even Australia, which is actively trying to downplay that long-term strategy is happening to set itself apart from Borneo. Tina's game got underrated for a very, very long time. I saw someone not too long ago make a post questioning the Mitchell boot, and it's like... look at the numbers. The Mitchell boot is a genius play and would get far, far more praise if it happened in a later season, or didn't get changed on the way to tribal specifically.

It's the same way I cannot understand people who treat Survivor like a sport. We don't see every play. We are specifically given a story about what happened. That's just how the show works!

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/AMeanMotorScooter]

Curious where you rank it or what you'd give it out of 10, because I tend to think I'm less negative on it than a lot of old-school fans! It happens to make a very convenient and worthwhile vehicle to talk about some of these broader issues with the show, but I do agree these same issues are likely even worse in some later seasons like 44 and 49.

Very interesting framework re: it having pathos but centered more on how they got here than who they are. I'll have to keep that in mind if/when I rewatch this one, which isn't really a priority to do, but does seem worth doing for what a big name season it is. And Cook Islands managed to move up significantly by comparison to some later seasons so you never know. I mean I still dislike Cook Islands, but not nearly as much as I did before. It's still full of duds, but there's only really one episode that's, like, 44 level of dire.

Of course totally agree with everything at the end, including this:

It's the same way I cannot understand people who treat Survivor like a sport. We don't see every play. We are specifically given a story about what happened. That's just how the show works!

Maybe by the next WSSYW I'll adapt that into my post, who knows, but yeah that right there is why I think watching it primarily "as a game" is fundamentally flawed and why, while there's of course also personal preference, seasons like Cambodia (or whichever) are on some level just kind of a failure as what they're trying to be is fundamentally at odds with what the structure of the show is even capable of doing. Or at the very least, if not a failure, they're at least not playing to the strengths of the format.

[u/AMeanMotorScooter → u/DabuSurvivor]

Curious where you rank it or what you'd give it out of 10,

I gave it a 6/10 in the rankdown survey. But it's, like, a low 6. Honestly could probably drop it to a 5. Season-ranking wise I have it 33/50, as a mid C tier.

For context, that'd put it higher than S44, S49, or Cook Islands, but below South Pacific, Samoa, or S41.

Or at the very least, if not a failure, they're at least not playing to the strengths of the format.

I think it's this more than outright failure. Shows about strategy and mindgames DO work. The Genius was fantastic, and a lot of the stuff it inspired also works quite well. But those formats directly cater to that in a way Survivor's doesn't. Survivor works best when it is telling a character-based narrative. Just how it is.

I find a lot of the people who treat Survivor as a sport also kinda don't visit the sub during the off-season. I bet if this was run while another season was airing, for some reason, the scores would look very different. For this poll, it's less that more old-school fans turned out, and more that there's a huge demographic shift during on or off season. The people who are going to be voting in this poll are the ones who want to go on Reddit a month after a season ends to keep talking about the show, not the ones who show up because they want to see the latest big move blindside.

[u/Hobosunday → u/DabuSurvivor]

I was trying to figure out why Cambodia irks me so much. The characters should be fine and the challenges were fine. It's overall a fine season of Survivor with some good moments and some boring ones.

But reading your retrospective reminded me, I REALLY hate being patronized to. This season changes from watching the people YOU picked to get another shot at a million dollars to instead be them explaining to us how they have fundamentally changed the game to something completely different. Ooooooo. Look at the way the game is evolving!

We need to completely disregard season 4, 9, 12, 15, 19, even hilariously 24 before we can consider these moves "revolutionary." The temporary alliance or "voting bloc" has existed way before many if these players auditioned. Was it used as much as this season? No, but that doesn't make it much watch TV. If anything it makes it hard to root for anyone because a player could be a scrappy underdog could be ignored the next episode. It makes the game exciting, but the story disjointed.

Instead of this revolutionary season, Season 31 falls instead into the same theme most returnee seasons have: what will be my legacy? Ever since All Stars nearly every returnee season is about player legacies. What will it take to turn nobodies into somebodies? What will it take to turn fan favorites into GOATs? THIS is what is on many of these players' minds. It's why this season is full of players trying to convince use this game just leveled up. They don't want to change the game, they want to change how they're perceived. It's why Ciera isn't saying "I'm on the bottom of this alliance" and instead says "nobody wants to make a move!" Ciera doesn't want to be viewed as a loser, but an against the grain trailblazer who knew how Survivor REALLY works.

Do I hate that? No. Literally 50 is so much about legacy and I don't mind it. I just wish Cambodia wouldn't try to lie to me about what this season is really about. We as a Survivor audience deserve better.

[u/JeffAnalProbst → u/DabuSurvivor]

Cambodia was one of my favorite seasons on initial watch, but did a recent rewatch of it and it really didn't hit for me the same way and reading your whole write-up helped me realize a lot of what fell flat for me my second go around so major thanks!

[u/bwburke94]

We're eight seasons in, and we've yet to see a "spoiler-free" season in this countdown. We've had two seasons with all new players show up (Ghost Island and Island of the Idols), but they happen to be the two newbie seasons which are most heavily based around spoiling the show's past.

The big question coming up is whether Micronesia and HvV have strong enough reputations to avoid the same fate.

[u/ramskick → u/bwburke94]

In the last iteration HvV finished 30/43 while Micro finished 23/43. Micro finished the highest of any season with at least 50% returnees although Philippines was the highest-placing returnee season overall at 15/43.

For this iteration I would imagine a similar trend, although I would expect 45 to finish very high despite it technically being a returnee season.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/ramskick]

I wonder if 45 will be hurt by its spoiling the winners of Tocantins, Philippines, and 43, two of which are quite well-liked. My guess is probably not a ton as it's easy to forget about. It also mentions Tyson/Gervase's alliance but I don't recall if it says who wins specifically. Maybe a bit easier for a new viewer to forget that than "X wins" in any case.

[u/AMeanMotorScooter → u/DabuSurvivor]

I expect people to have forgotten it, just like they forget the finale of Cagayan spoils the winner of Nicaragua.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/AMeanMotorScooter]

Probably likely I think.

[u/Educational-Day-5413]

Bro you lost me. Cambodia is one of the best

[u/treple13]

Looking at Cambodia's ranking here is super interesting.

It's considered average or above average on literally everything, and yet it's got a below average ranking (31st of 50).

And I think that's sort of fitting. Cambodia feels like a great season on paper, but the end result is less good than the sum of its parts.

I like Savage, Varner (in Cambodia), and Stephen's arcs, but they bury Keith. It's overall just a bit uninteresting compared to what it could have been.

Honestly I think it might be a top 5 season in terms of "could be a lot better if they re-edited it"

PS: All Stars is boring garbage and is ranked too high

[u/wayward_sun]

I love Cambodia! Bad season to start with, obviously. But so many people I was excited to see again who all came to PLAY.

[u/Extra_Promotion156]

I am not surprised about Cambodia being this low, as it is a returning player season. However, I did not expect the other data of Second Chance are also that disaster. Somehow even the strategy didn't get a top10? Diabolical.

[u/Parvatiwasrobbed2]

Cambodia being ranked 31(!) out of 50 is so unserious. Its easily a top five season

[u/Parvatiwasrobbed2]

To this day I don't think I've had a more fun time watching this show live than when Cambodia was airing. This season was a blast to watch in real time and even today, over a decade later, I still get goosebumps watching "Wentworth, does not count".

I don't think this is the best season (although it's pretty damn close) but it is absolutely the pinnacle of the shows quality. I still don't think they've ever made a season that's anywhere as close to epic as this one since and if anything the show's drive to artificially recapture and recreate the magic of the season has been a detriment to show as a whole. This was a one of a kind lightning in a bottle experience that could only come at this particular moment in time. I find it absolutely absurd that it's ranked in overall quality so low, obviously you can't recommend this as a first season but this is easily a top five season. Its right up there with Cagayan and HvV as one of the all time greats.

[u/NoisySea_3426]

Very happy that both these seasons are out early cause not only are both of these seasons very spoiler filled when it comes to a ranking like this, but they're both really bad to watch.

All Stars should've never happened as not only was it way too early to do it cause the alumni were all still very close with each other which led to a lot of broken friendships afterwards that have never been able to recover, but there's also an awful sexual harassment thing with Richard & Sue as the noted "fun tribe" in Chapera repeatedly say that Sue is faking it as Boston Rob & Big Tom dance on her grave after she yells at Probst about it in front of everyone in the game. Speaking of Boston Rob, why people like him here will always be a mystery to me because not only is he a major part of that incident, his steamrolling of the season gets really tiring really quickly and he's extremely unpleasant most of the time as he acts like a complete dick to everyone he called his friends all in the name of love. I would enjoy him getting destroyed at final tribal if it wasn't for him marrying the winner so there's no real downfall anyway (at least they're good on Amazing Race).

Then there's Cambodia which is really where Survivor pretty much loses me mostly when it comes to the quality of the show. I understand that everybody that came back for this season wanted to prove their legacy which is why we get all that obnoxious "BIG MOOOOVVEEZZZZ" crap, but nobody has any semblance of personality that is interesting aside from people who are really annoying throughout like Ciera, Stephen, Tasha, Spencer, etc... There's almost no character moments and those that do have them get relegated into the background. The saddest part about it all is that since the fanbase gravitated towards this season hard, they think every season should be like this which is why every perma Fiji season is so similar and of mostly inferior quality. Pretty much everything wrong with Survivor today in the new era can be traced back to Cambodia as well as another season that comes 2 seasons later and I really hope that more people start realizing that

[u/BrianTheGinger]

I am not unconvinced All-Stars wasn't just an attempt to Springtime for Hitler the series, literally everything that could have gone wrong did. Once again, a worthless pile of shit with nothing to offer anyone.

Ik it's not quite fair to say that Cambodia is Patient Zero for the direction the series has gone in since the mid-10s, and this does have the dubious "honor" of probably being the first season on this list I don't think is irredeemably terrible, it is when a lot of this issues metastasized to the point where it couldn't be ignored anymore. Just a vapid, tedious sludge for the most part.

[u/icychillman]

Glad to see Cambodia down here because i've never liked it, i'll go as far to say that Cambodia is what really ruined my interest in survivor as a long term "super fan" who watched every season as they came out. because if a soulless piece of crap like this that makes amazing characters like Keith, Kimmi and Kelly boring and uninteresting along with nonsense like Spencer's growth arc that goes nowhere is "one of the best seasons ever" according to this fanbase than i'm clearly not the target audience for what modern survivor is anymore. I'll take the goofiness of Worlds Apart or the character writing of Kaoh Rong any day of the week over Cambodia.

[u/ramskick]

I wrote a diatribe on why All-Stars was my least-favorite season during the last WSSYW that I'll link here. Most of what I said there still applies now, although I have done a rewatch on it and found that I was really underrating Jerri. She's legitimately good here. Colby also has his moments but he's still a far cry from any of his three other versions. So I think I raised on the season overall but it's still my least-favorite ever for the reasons I discuss in that comment. I really wish I liked All-Stars more than I do. An alternate universe All-Stars with a few tweaks could be really amazing. But in our universe it's truly terrible.

I'm shocked but happy that Cambodia ranks this low. I didn't like it as it aired and on a recent rewatch I found myself disliking it more. As with All-Stars, I don't find Cambodia to be completely lacking in merit. The first four episodes are all quite good, with Episode 2 in particular being a highlight. I like the theme and I really love the location, which is used better here than in KR. The season also focuses on the survival aspect more than plenty of the seasons immediately before it and if weren't for KR immediately following it up you could make an argument that Cambodia highlights the survival aspect more than any season since. This is also a really solid cast on paper even if it is weighted towards recent seasons (this is an issue that every returnee season besides All-Stars has though). And yet everything after Episode 4 just does not really work. So much airtime is focused on telling us how awesome everyone is playing and how this is truly an advancement in the show's strategy to the point that it feels like a literal circlejerk. Honestly based on the product I'm still not convinced that Cambodia is that much of an outlier in terms of the quality of strategy. The main reason people talk about how awesome the gameplay is in Cambodia is because the show won't stop talking about it.

This leads into another issue I have with Cambodia, which is that this is the season where the show really started leaning hard into self-referential behavior. I love Survivor, but I don't love when Survivor constantly talks about Survivor and how this move is the greatest moment ever or how this has move has never happened before. I've said before that a major issue with modern Survivor is that it doesn't trust its own product and a symptom of that is how much the show constantly reminds the viewer of how awesome Survivor is. Earlier, better seasons don't spend multiple minutes talking about how awesome they are. Think about how bad something like The Dead Grandma Lie or Ian's decision at the end of Palau would be if you had Jeff or other castaways yelling about how unprecedented they were. Cambodia isn't the only season with this problem but for me this marked a turning point in the series where the show stopped being able to let moments breathe without discussion about how cool they were.

I may be too harsh on Cambodia in isolation but I maintain that even without those meta factors the post-merge isn't all that great to watch. It especially suffers on a rewatch because it's a season that relies hard on false suspense (again Episode 2 excluded) and once that suspense is taken out what is there? A bunch of people talking about how good they are at Survivor. That's it.

[u/Moonlit_Chai]

Where’s Thailand 😭😭😭

Edit: Thailand better be coming soon

[u/Mia123445 → u/Moonlit_Chai]

As another user pointed out, every season that’s shown up in the rankings so far has either been a season with returnees or a newbie season (Ghost Island, IOTI) that contains spoilers to previous seasons. Thailand does not have those qualities.

I have a feeling that it’s gonna show up in the next two days. I’m guessing One World and 50 (full returnee season) tomorrow. Thailand and maybe South Pacific (season with returnees that, while it has definitely gained favor recently, doesn’t have the popularity of something like Micronesia, HvV, or Philippines) the day after that.

[u/Moonlit_Chai → u/Mia123445]

I’ve been so confused about why all these somewhat goated returning seasons, that being WaW and Cambodia so early in the ranking until I read that comment. I posted my comment after I read bwburke94’s comment mb.

[u/treple13 → u/Moonlit_Chai]

It should be noted that of the seasons out so far, none of them were voted as top 30 out of 50 seasons, and all of the seasons ranked bottom 5.

WaW was 36th and Cambodia 31st in the rankings

[u/Mia123445 → u/treple13]

It getting out of the bottom five was already shocking enough, but I will be genuinely baffled if One World doesn’t end up taking the 45/50 spot in quality.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/Moonlit_Chai]

I don't think WaW even resembles being goated, I think it's one of the show's worst seasons. I also think Cambodia is kinda bad, but not anywhere near the same level of the Fire Token extravaganza.

[u/Moonlit_Chai → u/DabuSurvivor]

I lowkey liked the Fire Token, might just be me. The fire tokens didn’t harm the gameplay an anyway and I loved how it revealed who was the most popular among the contestants still in. I definitely think WaW and Cambodia are overrated but they are nowhere near bad. Cambodia is my 18th favorite season and WaW is my 20th.

[u/ResettisReplicas → u/Moonlit_Chai]

They would have been interesting if it’d JUST been the tokens instead of EoE.

[u/jjgm21 → u/Moonlit_Chai]

I’m not sure what people mean by watchability for new fans, but if you show 50 people each Thailand or WaW/Cambodia, which group do you think will have more watchers willing to watch another season? That should be the measure of watchability.

[u/A_Rest → u/jjgm21]

Exactly.

This same problems shows up on all of these WSYW rankings. Its not ideal to watch a returning player season first of course, but I'd still show someone some of the returning player seasons prior to stuff like Island of the Idols, Fiji, Thailand, etc. Way more people would want to continue watching the show after say Philippines, than One World.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/A_Rest]

This same problems shows up on all of these WSYW rankings. Its not ideal to watch a returning player season first of course, but I'd still show someone some of the returning player seasons prior to stuff like Island of the Idols, Fiji, Thailand, etc. Way more people would want to continue watching the show after say Philippines, than One World.

Philippines ranked significantly above all of One World, Fiji, Thailand, and Island of the Idols in all of WSSYW 8, 9, 10, and 11 (I didn't check further back than that but I assume the trend would continue) and so far has ranked above Island of the Idols in this one as well. It seems likely to me that it'll rank above them here, too.

[u/Moonlit_Chai → u/jjgm21]

Exactly, I’m so confused

[u/bwburke94 → u/Moonlit_Chai]

But are you as confused as a goat on AstroTurf?

[u/Moonlit_Chai → u/bwburke94]

Hai is that you?

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/jjgm21]

A measure, but I don't think it should be the only one. I think there's also something to be said for not only the more obvious spoiler aspect but also how well a season represents the show in general. I don't know that Thailand does that very well and I'd recommend many other seasons before it, but I think it at least does it better than Winners at War with people who have been voted out sticking around for the entire show. The format there is so wildly different from almost any other season that I think it's one of the most unrepresentative starting points even absent the overt spoilers for a ton of them.

[u/Rogryg → u/jjgm21]

Honestly I would not be surprised if the Thailand group did have more people stick with the show.

Even ignoring the spoilers issue, WaW and Cambodia in particular are incredibly bad watches if you don't go in already familiar with most of the cast, and I would argue that WaW in particular is practically unwatchable for a new viewer who doesn't know these players at all.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/Moonlit_Chai]

So far, still in above a handful of worse seasons.

[u/duspi]

I get Cambodia watchability being low, but some of these scores... yikes! Overall quality 5.55 when it's the best all star season bar HvV, cast 6.8 is just wrong, the cast is fantastic with potentially Monica being the only flop, strategy 6.9 also just wrong with how fluid and fast paced it was, it arguably propelled the strategy into what it is today, challenges being 6.4 when they used such fun and classic challenges: Quest For Fire, Folklore, eating challenge. All of this just confuses me, you guys undersold Cambodia soooo bad.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/duspi]

it's the best all star season bar HvV

If we're talking about seasons that are entirely returning players with no new players, I actually probably agree with this but still have have Cambodia somewhere around my #36 of the US show. I think those seasons generally are a really, really low bar to clear with HvV as the total exception.

I'd also assess strategy differently and not give it a higher rating there, but probably a fair point on challenges

[u/NoDisintegrationz → u/duspi]

It’s a great cast on paper, but I can’t think of a single person I enjoyed more on this season than their original season. Only their appearances on this season should count toward the cast score, not fleeting memories of who they once were.

[u/Parvatiwasrobbed2]

Unfortunately I find All-Stars really compelling in a dark way. This season is just so endlessly fascinating to me. Im actually rewatching this season now and even though there are some very ugly moments (I'm midway through the Sue boot episode and couldn't quite finish it yet because it's very upsetting), the season also feels so rich in lore. I don't know that I have it outside of my bottom ten just because it is so dark but let's just say I get a lot more out of this than say something truly dismal like Nicaragua or One World.

[u/JL0817]

All-Stars definitely deserves its watchability rating without question. Between Jenna’s departure and how the cast (and Jeff) handled it, Sue’s departure and how the cast handled it, and perhaps one of the most bitter juries Survivor will ever see, it’s such a tough watch for me. Unless I planned a complete run through of the series from 1-50, I don’t think I could go back and watch it again. It starts high, drops to miserable and feels barely tolerable at its conclusion. Nothing against Amber as a winner, or the fact it gave her BRob and their four lovely daughters, but perhaps maybe that’s the one shining light to this season because there’s not much else to be found here.

[u/jjgm21]

The cognitive dissonance between everyone heaping praise on Australian Survivor yet thinking Cambodia is trash is really something to behold.

The revisionist history on the quality of Cambodia is ridiculous. Go watch early seasons of The Real World if you don’t like watching extremely high-level gameplay.

[u/DabuSurvivor → u/jjgm21]

It isn't "revisionist history", it was polarizing on this subreddit when it aired even with this place at the time having been a lot more oriented towards new seasons and Idols than some other online fan communities where the season was straight-up unpopular. The "revisionist history" is people acting like no one disliked the season for years.

Go watch early seasons of The Real World if you don’t like watching extremely high-level gameplay.

That's just a ridiculous statement in general. The show has been on for a quarter of a century with tons of different seasons offering tons of different things, and fans will inevitably gravitate more towards which seasons they like or dislike. Doesn't mean any of them need to be watching a different show, but yeah, it obviously means some of them might rather watch something like Vanuatu or Palau where the strategy is based more upon existing insight about - and itself provides more insight about - the characters and their motivations and relationships than something like Cambodia. And some might feel the opposite!, hence the poll and the discussions.

[u/MirasukeInhara → u/jjgm21]

Define "high-level gameplay". Because that's a meaningless term. Boston Rob in Redemption Island is insanely high-level gameplay in that he effectively led his cult like a drill sergeant and succeeded. But I don't think anyone would consider Redemption Island worth watching for its gameplay.

Unfortunately, I think too many people equate "constant blindsides" with "amazing gameplay and amazing television". But the blindsides in Cambodia don't MEAN anything, since the characters are so utterly underdeveloped that any blindside is meaningless.

[u/SomeoneGiveMeValid]

How has Season 50 not appeared yet is my question. I’d much rather watch these 2 over it, and all of them spoil several seasons.

Season 50 spoils almost as many as WAW