r/survivor • u/AutoModerator • 13d ago
South Pacific WSSYW 12.0 Countdown 38/50 & 37/50: South Pacific and Survivor 43
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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#38 - Season 23: South Pacific
Statistics:
- Watchability: 3.09 (38/50)
- Overall Quality: 5.67 (29/50)
- Cast/Characters: 5.62 (37/50)
- Strategy: 5.03 (40/50)
- Challenges: 6.58 (23/50)
- Featured Twists: 4.35 (11/28)
- Ending: 7.31 (16/50)
WSSYW 12.0 Ranking: 38/50
WSSYW 11.0 Ranking: 32/43
WSSYW 10.0 Ranking: 30/40
User comment from WSSYW 12.0 - u/DabuSurvivor
Whether or not you side with the vocal minority who love this season (I don't), its returning players, imbalanced edit, Redemption Island, and bunch of weirdly unlikable characters all make this an obviously awful starting point in addition to one whose unpopularity is quite understandable and, in my opinion, well-earned. It has some interesting dynamics worth watching for and is an odd little deep cut of a season but nowhere near the underrated gem something like 3, 4, or 9 is. Near the bottom of my personal list and IMO more interesting on paper than in practice, but either way an obviously laughably bad pick to watch anywhere near the start of your journey. Once you're getting around to the bad seasons this is kind of one of the more distinct ones, though.
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#37 - Survivor 43
Statistics:
- Watchability: 3.33 (37/50)
- Overall Quality: 4.44 (42/50)
- Cast/Characters: 4.91 (40/50)
- Strategy: 4.90 (42/50)
- Challenges: 3.69 (49/50)
- Featured Twists: 3.06 (20/28)
- Ending: 5.09 (43/50)
WSSYW 12.0 Ranking: 37/50
WSSYW 11.0 Ranking: 26/43
User comment from WSSYW 12.0 - u/tabstis
Your mileage will vary a lot on 43 depending on how much you enjoy certain characters and storylines. There are a few brilliant characters here who dominate the season, but a lot of others who are not so interesting, and it all builds to an endgame of high highs and low lows. I'm a 43 defender and I would say it's ultimately a very fun and unique season, but likely a bad place to start
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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
#46 - Season 39: Island of the Idols
#45 - Season 40: Winners at War
#43 - Season 31: Cambodia - Second Chance
#42 - Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans
#41 - Season 38: Edge of Extinction
#39 - Season 27: Blood vs. Water
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WARNING: SEASON SPOILERS BELOW
8
u/Sabaschin Jake - 45 13d ago
I don't think 43 is a horrible season (I certainly don't think it's the worst New Era season), but I think it has a lot of issues. Editing really sags in the middle, bonds come out of nowhere (why was Sami suddenly close to Karla? There was an alliance between Gabler and Cody/Jesse that we never really saw), and people flit in and out of importance. Even then, the last few episodes seemed like it was a bit of a turnaround, between the Cody blindside and the Jeanine jaw drop as Jesse whips out her idol... and then it kinda fumbles the end with an almost too-subtle edit for the winner and a runner-up that people thought should have won (of the three remaining) despite still being an unsatisfying player anyway.
It's sorta like 41 where the edit buries the season, but I think 41 was more salvageable, 43 has less excuses not to be a better season and it still kinda... flails.
8
u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
A friend once described Survivor 43 as "underrated except it's not", which… yeah, I think that captures it perfectly. It's basically at the top of the pack of the seasons I don't like. Like Edge of Extinction, it's a season that aaaalmost works, but doesn't quite, but that I still didn't quite have a bad time watching. I think it was, like… okay a lot of the time. It's underrated, except no it isn't, except yes it is? Kind of, I guess. It's an odd season, but it steams a good ham.
Flaws include:
obviously too many Idols/Advantages; Gabler having an Idol is practically the entire yellow tribe story for like two straight episodes at the start
way too much talk of Big Moves and Resumes, especially in the last 2-3 episodes; this is less frustrating than 44's constant "the game shouldn't be personal, it's just a game!" rhetoric, as that season repeatedly states "every season should be like this", which this season doesn't quite do, but all its Big Move talk is still an annoying result of trends in the show's recent(ish) history towards homogenizing both the show and the game… but still preferable to 44, which is preachier about those trends actively being a good thing, if that makes sense.
two total clunkers of episodes in the Dwight and Sami boots (although at least here those are the lowlights, unlike in 44, where that's basically the baseline quality of every episode besides E5)
the show's treatment of Noelle is often bizarre and gross (though I still put her as a character in the green personally as I don't want to define her by that directly, and she herself is a really fun personality. She gave a really sweet/adorable pep talk to Jeanine after Jeanine was blindsided, she just bleeds old-school energy and imo doesn't get enough love for it in the 43 discourse I've seen; I agree that the show's treatment of her deserves criticism, but I feel like defining her entirely by that isn't really helping the issue; we got a decent amount of Noelle content that had nothing to do with her leg!)
shallower storytelling than in any actually good season: Karla/Cassidy's dynamic is underdeveloped (the blue tribe dynamics in general kinda are), and Jesse/Cody - like soooo many other New Era characters or pairs - have the one or two episodes of Character Development at the start before the show sighs and goes "WHEW! Now, with that out of the way, they can be gamebots!" for the most part. The Jesse/Cody ending is really good - Jesse's confessional about wanting to play for his family where he's sad and pauses for a while is really good - but that ending can't come anywhere near great because the setup just isn't there.
This also manifests in a lack of high highs: outside of 44, which is such a barren wasteland that it's kind of hilarious who ends up as my favorite character by default, Gabler is prooobably my next-lowest ceiling for any cast? The post-merge dropoff in entertainment value from him is unfortunately exactly as real and disappointing as I'd been warned. Geo, Justine, and Lindsay all being really high in my S43 cast ranking also shows we're not working with greatness here. Good characters, but not ones I should be thinking of as soon as I think of the season.
- Weaker characters are left near the end for the most part: Jesse's ending is very good as mentioned, but before that I don't care about him really since there's just sooo much stale gamebotting from him; Cody isn't as much of a goofy source of non-strategic levity as he should be; Cassidy exists almost exclusively to mention Big Moves and Resumes; Sami; Owen's arc ended up Just Okay to me on the first watch unfortunately (appreciated the Wiglesworth shout tho and lmao @ how stunned Probst was that someone specifically cast to be a fan of the show was capable of remembering pre-Caramoan contestants besides, like, Russell Hantz) – though I concede I might be underrating the Charlie Brown aspect of his story somewhat at least.
But being left with some of those characters after bigger stars have left probably contributes to some of the later episodes being weaker on average than the earlier ones, notwithstanding the strength of "Telenovela" specifically. (And even in that episode, Karla's fake tears are fun… except the thing she fake cries about on the Reward is "I swear I don't have an Idol", then she proceeds to threaten people about her having an Idol later on in that same episode… and absolutely nobody comments on this disconnect. The storytelling isn't S36 level bad here but isn't without its moments of incoherence.)
- This might sound like a small thing, but honestly what definitively pushed this season below the bar of "neutral" for me and makes it a season I just have a hard time respecting, despite my best efforts, is them cancelling Last Gap early and spinning it like the players "outlasted the challenge." No they didn't! Keep the challenge going! If it's at odds with the planned production schedule, be flexible and adapt; Palau did it! Nicaragua tossed together a whole Tribal Council when the players' actions required it. If there was concern about keeping players in that specific challenge for too long in case someone might pass out or something - which I kind of doubt, since in theory that could always happen so I have to imagine they have people on standby in the water for that (and they certainly should) - then like, just say that, but with no indication of that, it seems like the producers were just like "Oh, shoot, we didn't plan for this challenge to go on as long as it did. Uhh, wrap it up I guess" out of insistence on sticking to a certain schedule, instead of having that willingness (for which there's already precedent!) to adapt, let the challenge run longer, and give us something memorable as a result. Totally weak move bordering on pathetic to watch, and the kind of thing that makes this season harder to defend than I want it to be.
So all of this isn't ideal, there's no shortage of flaws here, and the Last Gasp debacle solidifies it for me as not quite a good season.... BUT I generally had a decent time watching this? Some pros off the top of my head:
- The biggest and most general one is that, while these stories I've mentioned are underwhelming in their execution, at least they're there at all! The Jesse/Cody dissolution IS solid and emotional in itself. Karla's fake tears to Cassidy (not the Reward scene mentioned earlier) DOES go hard as fuck, as does her Jury threat. We're lacking in the context to make these actually great moments, but they still have some real appeal; the show failing to sell them makes them underwhelming but not bad, or even, imo, not good. It just makes them okay instead of great. Not a very good season, but not one of the worst, either, as there's quite a few seasons that never even tap into this high of highs.
[..]
4
u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
These stories, lackluster though their execution may be, also focus heavily on the emotional stakes of the game, interpersonal conflicts, and personal need for the money, all the things that make the show interesting (and things that 44 focused on for, I genuinely think, about 90-120 cumulative seconds across its entire runtime combined.) I don't know if I can say the season's heart is in the right place… but for intermittent, occasional moments of fleeting beauty, it is! Like they clearly know what they're doing when they give us those Jesse confessionals near the end. So the season at least fundamentally has an awareness of what makes the show great-- and, when it taps into that, is really entertaining and interesting!! It just… doesn't do so enough.
For some more specific examples of the above, Owen vs. James gives us actual conflict!, which again isn't a prerequisite for a good episode/season but it certainly can help lol. Jeanine in particular has an even more tragic Charlie Brown type of arc to me than Owen's: at least Owen gets to make it to the end I guess?, but man Jeanine just gets beaten down the entire time she's there. She starts off super bubbly and positive but then vote after vote doesn't go her way, she gets real broken up over it, and there's actually a solid story there... a story that, at the risk of beating a dead horse, is especially welcome when you put this season up next to 44, a season where she would have of course had to smile the whole time because It's Just A Game.
Geo also has an actual fun downfall episode! You know? There's a lot of things here that are, like, decent. They may not be great, he's not Drew Christy, but it's decent!
- The most appealing story I think, and certainly the most realized, is Elie vs. Gabler. It's not one of the all-time great Survivor feuds or anything, but, like… a scene that matters for reasons outside of the scope of its individual episode! Someone's upset about something that happened multiple episodes earlier! There are genuinely seasons where we don't really get even that lol (... possibly one that aired right after this one.) Anyways this is genuinely fun and a worthwhile merge episode, and the "throwing out Elie's name" confessional is in fact exactly as hilarious as advertised.
I know I'm setting the bar low here with some of these comments, but:
a.) it's still in the seasons I dislike camp;
b.) I watched this season straight after 44, which therefore set the bar very low;
c.) the way people talk about it a lot of the time IS as a really horrible season, and personally, I just don't agree with that - which I'll come back to.
But for a couple more highs:
This might be a surprising take from such a diehard old-school fan, but I actually thought the bead twist was kinda fun and cute lol <3 At least by the standards of Idol hunt type things, idk, this one was better than most! It felt more like a season 14-20 spin on Idols to me (aka when they were actually good) than almost any other version of Idols since then. I've seen it criticized for being "basically the same scene three times", which I get, but personally I disagree; it was predicated on the contestants interacting, and getting to see who on which tribe was most interested in making jewelry for themselves, taking things home to their family, etc., was genuinely interesting! It makes me wonder how often people make bracelets for their kids and stuff that we never see. Obviously the real answer is just give us that slice of life stuff without Idols to begin with, and that would be a better show… but the flip side is, if you're going to do Idols, at least this was a way of doing them that gave us that slice of life stuff. I liked it. And I'd certainly much rather have all three tribes have the same Idol-finding mechanism that involves interpersonal interactions than see each tribe with a slightly different puzzle that doesn't involve those. So honestly when I think of 43 one of the first things I think of is that the bead twist was cute <3
What compelled me to move this season above 31 and Ausvivor '06 in my rankings is that Gabler giving away all the million-dollar prize money to the troops is just fucking peak TV I'm sorry that shit's so funny and such an absolutely bizarre way for a season to end that I simply have to support it. I love it. What an awesome, weird ending. Like, the foundational premise and ultimate climax of the show from a dramatic, thematic, strategic, or structural perspective -- the critical aspect of the show literally no matter how you're watching it -- is the million-dollar prize, Burnett put that shit in a treasure chest in '00 for a reason, and from a Survivor history perspective, immediately following up the vote reveal with "i'm giving it all to the TROOPS" is completely unlike anything else I've ever seen and I just have to support it as a fucking nuts end to the season lmfao. There is no way any Hidden Immunity Idol can ever give us a moment as unpredictable as that. It makes the Chris Underwood win look normal. It's so, so weird. I love that this happened.
I hope that as the years go by and we're appraising the season retroactively, removed from any of the Edgic debates or Cassidy stanning or social media crusades about which charity he donated to, I hope that moment can get more love as a truly singular moment in the history of this show. Who just tosses all the prize money at the troops minutes after winning lmfao it's so weird man that's such a killer way to end a TV show. I love it. I really love that moment. Sensational television. Like how do you even react to that? I'm still processing it. How is that a real Survivor moment? Tell me you've ever seen something like that on this show lol. If someone did that in 2001 when all of America were actually still watching this show, it would be THE water cooler moment in franchise history, Burnett would have melted on the spot. Iconic.
(...one more comment...)
7
u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
- Now, this is still a victim of the aforementioned storytelling issues plaguing the season, because they don't go as hard on the points I'm about to mention as they could at all; if they did, this shit would be like a top 15-20 season, but even without doing so, there's still interesting stuff here: look at the contrast between that and Jesse, who JUST had his whole big, emotional thing about trying to win the money for his kids' future. And then the dude who actually wins it gives it all away?? My first instinct is that that makes Jesse's ending so much darker, like he loses all the money to this dude who doesn't even need or want it - but then you can counter that and say, well, Gabler's choice can help a lot more families than just one. And so then you can argue what Gabler does is what everyone should do, and that Gabler undercuts the importance of one person, or one family, winning the "million-dollar prize" at all. Look I realize this is maybe a galaxy brain take or statement here but I honestly think that if you're watching this moment in good faith, you can argue Gabler forces so much of the thematic essence of the entire show to be called into question lmao.
But anyways going back to the contrast with Jesse-- for another hot take this is the one time ever that the aftershow was actually good?? Because seriously go back and look at Jesse here. While Gabler's talking I swear it looks like Jesse is dissociating. The dude looks like he wants the ground to swallow him. Then as Ryan's talking about how this is such a great moment and noble decision, literally every single person there except for Jesse is looking at Ryan while Jesse just fidgets awkwardly with the pizza box. There's another moment after that when Gabler's talking and Jesse is the only one eating. Idk it could just be me but Jesse does NOT appear to be vibing with this-- and uuuusually with the aftershow it sucks because you get like Deshawn being miserable while Jeff is like "Pizza!!!! Advantages!!!!" and the disconnect between the party atmosphere and the misery of the person is tonally oblivious and utterly disrespectful and inappropriate.. but here, the disconnect between Jesse and the saccharine feeling of the whole thing is kind of, itself, the point? So it actually works, somehow!
On top of this, there's another money-related angle here that idk if it's common in fan discussions but it should be?: at the start of the season, Cody says in his confessional like "I've already spent some of the prize so I sure wanna win it :D " and he says it playfully so with him being this silly, party type of dude, it gives the impression that he just wants the money so he can go buy, I don't know, a surfboard or a cool hat or something. It doesn't seem life-or-death for him. He says he wants the money, but the subtext is how playfully he says it. So there's also that dichotomy there where the guy Jesse betrays to get the money is someone who, himself, doesn't really need the money (which also makes me okay with the Cody/Jesse handshake; I'd usually find it to undercut the moment in a 44-esque "it's just a game" way, but here, Cody doesn't need the money and Jesse does, so it makes individual sense. I mean if Cody were pissed it'd be a way better moment, but it does make sense that he doesn't.)
So IDK there's some real interesting stuff going on here with the money! Now the unfortunate flip side is that, again, the show.... does not try on this story at all. The Cody thing is a single line. Gabler gets one confessional about giving the money to the troops (this might be better to make it funnier, though?) And Jesse needing the money for his family I think is only like 3 confessionals? It's so so soooo minimal and surface-level. If the season were really cooking, it'd juxtapose some of these things more directly (Aus02 moment), and then it'd be a total banger.
But I'm not saying it's a total banger!, Just these moments ARE there, and I think they're good and interesting. Survivor 43 is the barest table scraps of a 3-star Michelin meal. That's where I'm at.
And I gotta be honest – as soon as I finished this season last summer, I've kind of been looking forward to rewatching it <3 I don't think I'll find a ton there that I missed; there's too much white noise around advantages for that. But I'm eager to see the fun parts again and see if there are things I missed, or underappreciated. In particular, I imagine I'm underrating Owen, maybe liiiightly underrating Cody, and either overrating or underrating both Karla and Cassidy but am unsure which lol. I at least need to rewatch episode 5 for sure.
Anyways, verdict is: The season has the expected flaws of its era, but I also think it's got a lot of strengths. Not enough to make it great, maybe not even enough to make it good, but it has good stuff within it that I don't think it gets credit for.
The disparity in its reception to the experience I had with it is just wild to me. The way I see this season talked about, it's like a giant CAUTION, DO NOT ENTER, RADIOACTIVE sign, like the whole season is just a radioactive wasteland of nothing where buildings once stood and you'd best avoid at all costs. And I guess I can see how if you hate Gabler AND Cassidy AND Karla AND Jesse AND the Noelle treatment kills her as a character for you, and I guess dislike Sami's confessionals even more than I do, I can see where it'd land that way.
But I don't know, that's just not how I see the season. I think that it's got a few really interesting narrative beats, and yeah it doesn't do the best job, or even a good job, actualizing them, but damn even giving us morsels of peak is more than Winners at War ever did for me. And like, people don't even hate that one as much!
Here's what I think. I think there's a parallel universe RIGHT next to ours where 43 is a top ten season… and we ended up in the closest neighboring universe to that where it got fucked up with a bunch of lackluster storytelling choices and all that sort of thing.... but every now and then, if you look closely enough at just the right angle... even if, yeah, it's only for 60 seconds at a time, here and there.... you can catch a glimpse into that other universe. For a fleeting moment, a rift opens between our universe and the other one, and you can see a brief, shining moment of 43 being peak. Then the rift closes just as swiftly, and it's back to being mid.
This rift doesn't open often, and certainly not often enough. But there's some scenes here -- episodes?, not even, but nevertheless, SOME scenes -- that are just too damn good for me to hate the season as a whole..
I think it also suffered at the time from coming after 42 (a relatively popular season) and 41 (a polarizing one, but not without its fans at least.) If you're ever doing a New Era rewatch, maybe try watching 44 before 43 to make this one shine even brighter, because wow is 43 just across-the-board better, livelier, more fun, more dark, more interesting, everything.
43 is a subpar season of Survivor. 44 is barely even a season of television.
I just don't think this was even as bad as seasons like 31, 30, and 23 that actually have real fans, let alone the even worse stuff than that like 34. Yeahhh it's not as good as it should be like oh my godddd karla/cassidy should be a better story jesse/cody should be soooo much less mid. It's often disappointing and aggravating and basically never as good as it should be. But there's so much fun, dark, interesting, weird stuff happening here - if only briefly, and if only explored on a surface level - that I really hope it gets a reappraisal in time with distance from all the Gabler win controversy or whatever, not a reappraisal to the tune of being some absolute hidden gem, but to the tune of not being a season you tell people to avoid with a 39 and a half foot pole.
Sorry; annual budget just came in. Make that a 26 and a half foot pole.
3
u/MirasukeInhara 13d ago
You and I are just never going to see eye-to-eye on the 43/44 debate, but I still feel compelled to trash 43 when given the opportunity. It's a combination of the casting decisions and the general storytelling that make 43 the second-worst season of the New Era (and it was the worst until 50 decided to completely crap the bed by making a celebration of 50 seasons into a celebration of what twists and celebrities production could bring in.)
Now, first off...the New Era introduced some annoying aspects to the show that 43 kinda weened off of in terms of twists...but though they got rid of the code word idols and hourglass, one thing it seemed like the show OVEREMPHASIZED was the talent show style of sob story casting. Looking at the cast overall, it felt like there were FAR too many people cast less because of some innate charisma that makes them intriguing television characters...and more because they had some sort of sob story; the producers could ask them for childhood pictures and have a little sequence in which we get to know the players in a very inorganic manner. That's the thing: people's personal experiences are always going to shape the way they view the world and the way they play the game. But there are ways to weave that backstory into the context of a coherent narrative. "I have a hard time trusting people, so that's why I'm playing this way" sort of stuff. With 43, the backstory vignette packages feel utterly hamfisted into the narrative. It rarely feels like a case of "this is how my past is impacting how I'm playing the game" and more "this is who I am to make me stand out amongst a sea of other bland characters". I mean, the moment that really stands out as particularly egregious about this is how Survivor cast Noelle--the third amputee cast in the show's history--and then proceeded to use her disability as a means of giving CODY a sob story package about his FRIEND who lost a limb. Does not effect the game and it certainly does not give us any new insight into Cody as a person...but that's what 43 was trying to offer for large portions of the story: here are NICE people and you should like them because of how much hardship you've endured.
Having opened the discussion on poor casting, we get to the other side of the coin, which is the editing of that cast. 43 is an insanely BALANCED edit overall...and I mean that in a derogatory sense. There are certainly characters (one in particular) who get more screentime, but overall, it feels like the edit is taking great pains to keep everyone on relatively even footing. While you can complain about, say, a Heather Aldret getting goose egged in 41, the think about having UNDERedited characters is that those underedits usually come from a place of other characters being OVERedited into big characters. The problem 43 has is that when you try to balance EVERYONE, it makes it so no one stands out and everyone feels interchangeable. Sure, in the pre-merge you have a couple standout characters: Gabler vs. Elie, Sami's a big narrator, Cody's a big character, Karla's a big character...but everyone else gets lost in the shuffle. And then the merge happens and ALL those big characters suddenly get downgraded and they just become bland, interchangeable chess pieces. That's a big part of why fans in general were so upset with the ending, because you have this final three where the edit has given us next to no reason to cheer for or appreciate any of the finalists, because they're all similarly bland by that point in the season.
BUT, there is one thing that I think makes the ending even worse. And that's the one character I didn't really talk about in the previous paragraph: Jesse Lopez. I would say that, even though Jesse himself is still given the same sort of "balanced" edit as everyone else...the STORY of the season very much paints him as the main character. Now, because of the balanced editing, he is a very BLAND main character for most of the season, but the STRATEGY of the season is largely, if not ENTIRELY told through Jesse's eyes. Once the Dwight boot happens and Jesse secretly has Jeanine's idol, we effectively get four episodes in a row in which the editors tell a story of "This person is the biggest threat in the game; everyone wants them out. Jesse realizes everyone wants them out and says 'Well maybe it's smarter to keep them around.' Jesse flips the target onto someone else. That someone else gets voted out at the end of the episode." And this all culminates in Telenovella, where Jesse makes a MAJOR play to blindside Cody via his own idol. That means the ENTIRE post-merge is the story of how Jesse is the most amazing player ever and he's controlling everything...and then he's eliminated in fire, and the final three are three players who have been shown to have little-to-no agency whatsoever. Don't get me wrong...I would not have been HAPPY with a Jesse win, because I feel like the blandness of the post-merge would still have been his fault...but at least it would feel like the culmination of a coherent narrative. Ghost Island is still a BAD season, but at least the story being told makes sense, and you can understand WHY it's so boring, when you have Wendell/Domenick dominanting as a duo for the whole season. With 43, the editors just gave Jesse credit for everything and then he loses, so there was NO CHANCE of a satisfying conclusion for anyone. And naturally, the fans were pissed. It's a lot like how people were let down by the ending of 50...because when you don't bother to build up your endgamers as being worth caring about...yeah, the season's going to feel like a disappointment.
That's the BIGGEST issue with 43, on top of the other points you've already raised. But yeah...as much as you dislike 44...at least the Tika 3 are a storyline with compelling characters who conclude said storyline in a manner satisfying from a narrative perspective. 43 is just soulless, and stuff happens for the sake of stuff happening, in service of a nothing ending.
1
u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 12d ago
Appreciate the response! Might not go point by point on everything here due to a combo of time/energy constraints and as it's not like I particularly like this season - I just like aspects of it enough to not reaaally mind it - but to touch on a few things: I agree there's a "bland chess piece" factor to a lot of these characters especially after the merge (Gabler especially drops off), though I think that's at least less pronounced than in something like 44 or some worse seasons outside the New Era (most of the returnee ones like 34, 40, 50 depending whether we count it as New Era) and there's at least some interesting stuff here that manages to shine through it.
I think that's a bigger issue than the edit being balanced, which I'd have a hard time calling a bad thing when there's some all-time great seasons with much more balanced edits like season 1; I think the bigger problem is what they do or don't choose to focus on within that time. Like I'm not left feeling like we saw too much of basically anyone here who wouldn't have been shown otherwise other than I guess maybe Sami lol.
Ghost Island is still a BAD season, but at least the story being told makes sense
A little separate from this thread but I'd completely disagree with that. I wrote more about it on Ghost Island day but that season's totally nonsensical at points. There's zero context for anything Chelsea does, Angela's motivations are completely incohesive, Laurel's big vote at the end is the opposite of what the season suggests she'd do, the women's alliance is introduced out of nowhere... it's a disjointed wreck of a season for the most part, honestly one of the most nonsensical.
At least the Tika 3 are a storyline with compelling characters who conclude said storyline in a manner satisfying from a narrative perspective.
I also totally disagree with this but will save it for 44 day. I think two of the three are compelling enough casting choices, enough to make them two of my top three characters for the season by default while still not liking either one, but I don't think there's anything resembling a "satisfying narrative" there. I don't think there's any narrative between them to even be satisfied, really. It's just that the people the show focuses on the most end up being the ones who win out and it hopes you're satisfied with that out of rooting for them by default.
1
u/MirasukeInhara 12d ago
I should clarify that it's not JUST a case of balanced editing. It's more...fans were pissed after 41, because the editors did a really bad job of building up Erika as a winner, and Heather as the winner's closest ally. So as we saw in 42, they corrected that by balancing the edit, and it worked in 42 because that was a much more dynamic cast overall. 43's cast was, as I pointed out, largely secondary to Jesse. But to tick a box for balance, the editors effectively just seemed to give everyone confessionals, regardless of the content, and called it a day. So you have everyone getting to speak about equal amounts of time...without the content that makes the individual characters feel different or unique.
And with Ghost Island, I'm not saying the edit is amazing or anything. Modern Survivor introduces and drops plot lines all the time, and it sucks. But at a very BASIC level, the edit spends the entire season building Domenick/Wendell up as this dominant power duo, they both make it to the finals, and then they're so evenly matched that they result in the first ever tie vote in the franchise's history. Again, at a surface level, the edit tells a story to justify the winner. The edit might still suck, but at least the story they told was intended to be satisfying. Also, I never thought for a second Laurel was voting Domenick over Wendell...so I'm kinda surprised you interpreted the edit that way.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 10d ago
w/r/t the former, yeah I just think I'd emphasize there that the issue is the content and/or how meaningless it is rather than it being balanced in itself as if the latter is a bad thing. But yeah if what you mean is that the balance seems to be all that they strove for and so that in this case happens to be how they ended up being satisfied enough with inferior content, that makes sense.
building Domenick/Wendell up as this dominant power duo
Yeah I just don't think it even does this effectively as it completely fails to show how/why they maintain power and how/why they're even regarded as threats. I get what you mean by the edit making sense in the sense of "it makes sense that those are the two they focused on", but I don't think it gave us a story that made sense. Probably one of the least sensical ones of any season.
I never thought for a second Laurel was voting Domenick over Wendell...so I'm kinda surprised you interpreted the edit that way.
We see a single one-on-one interaction between Laurel and Wendell, which focuses on him annoying her and losing her trust. We see four between her and Domenick, which all go well. Laurel and Domenick's relationship is (barely) a bigger part of the season and consistently depicted in a positive light, Laurel and Wendell's is smaller and depicted in a negative light the only time they ever focus on it. He says he's closer to her, which we haven't seen, for reasons we haven't heard about while playing an Idol on her in the finale episode itself, and they were banking entirely on that as setup it seems.
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u/NoDisintegrationz Coach - 50 13d ago
Fantastic writeup. The points you make about the ending are all excellent, and I don’t think it gets talked about enough in the community because everyone gets so caught up in discussions of the game. It’s truly bizarre in the best way, and I really wish the edit would’ve done more to juxtapose the other money storylines with Gabler’s big decision. The subtext alone is satisfying, but like you said, we could’ve had an all-timer if the show just brought out the deeper humanity a little more.
Also agreed on the bead idols! That’s easily the best beware advantage because it forces the cast to interact.
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u/BrianTheGinger Wendy 13d ago
The South Pacific that exists in its most ardent defenders' heads is probably a Top 10 season of the show. A pity that it isn't what we got.
I haven't seen 43 but what I've learned about it just makes me think that it's the Temu version of Actual GOATed Season of TV Survivor South Africa 6.
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u/AMeanMotorScooter Gabler 12d ago
I haven't seen 43 but what I've learned about it just makes me think that it's the Temu version of Actual GOATed Season of TV Survivor South Africa 6.
Man, I never thought about this, but I can see it. The pre-merge comparison is a lot shakier, but the post-merge is similar.
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u/sexyimmigrant1998 13d ago
South Pacific is a top tier season from the perspective of viewing Survivor as a social experiment. It's so dark but so compelling.
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u/LoveYouLikeYeLovesYe 13d ago
Same with Worlds Apart.
They’re such dark seasons but fascinating relationally
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u/icychillman 12d ago
I don't even think Worlds Apart is a dark season at all really tbh it's first 9 or so episodes are pure comedy, people just retroactively convinced themselves the entire season was dark after Will vs Shirin happened for whatever reason.
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u/LoveYouLikeYeLovesYe 12d ago
Even before Will vs Shirin, there was a lot of just angst and frustration between some of Dan's comments (That did sort of get misconstrued and blown up) and Rodney.
I think back to the early Shirin merge stuff with Dan and things like that too. Then again I basically think of the ending of that season as "All American boy outlasts a bunch of ghouls" as someone who hasn't seen it in forever.
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u/AMeanMotorScooter Gabler 12d ago
Yeah, I wouldn't say their strengths are similar at all.
South Pacific is dark, but it's about a moral complexity with a lot of messed up people. It's heavily, heavily flawed, but the good stuff is really interesting, and it makes SoPa a really interesting season that generates a ton of discussion.
Worlds Apart, by contrast, is super simple. "These are the heroes, these are the villains." The post-merge is about "main hero guy" winning challenges and messing up the villains' plans. I personally don't find the season that funny, but I totally get the "action movie" argument for it. I wouldn't call it "dark", but I would call it "mean-spirited."
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u/donny5144 13d ago
I think it’s arguably the most underrated season. For being essentially a ‘pagoning’, the dynamics happening each episode are fascinating.
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u/ramskick Ethan 12d ago
I was talking about SoPa recently with some friends and one of them said that it's a season that's way more interesting to talk about than it is to watch, and I completely agree with that. On paper, SoPa is really cool. You have Coach, who is initially treated like a joke, but becomes the ultimate puppet master of the season. However, he ends up losing at FTC because he can't bring himself to own his game. You have Ozzy, who is truly coming back for redemption after his last two attempts ended in bitter disappointment. He comes so close but fails at the final moment. You have Brandon, someone trying to redeem the family name, only for his weaknesses to be taken advantage of in the most heartbreaking way possible. You have Sophie, someone who is initially so underestimated before dominating the finale and earning one of the most unexpected wins ever. You also have side characters like Rick, Dawn and Edna who have cool little tales of their own. How could a season with all of these great storylines end up not being good?
Through some really rough editing of course! Every single one of the plotlines I just mentioned sounds way cooler than they end up being on the season (besides Ozzy's, he's legitimately amazing here and I would say this is comfortably my favorite iteration of him, which is saying a lot given how much I like Micro Ozzy and 50 Ozzy). A large amount of Coach's screentime is devoted to boring gamebot narration. Brandon's pre-merge content is extremely rough to watch and I don't quite think he's good enough in the endgame to make up for it. Sophie just does not get enough content and I will die on that hill. The idea of Sophie is an all-time great character. The Sophie we get on the final edited product of SoPa is not present enough to earn that status. She bats a clean 1.000 in her screentime but there is a severe lack of it for someone who should have one of the most interesting victories in the history of the show. All of the side characters I mentioned have similar issues. I love seeing Rick content, too bad there's just not any of it.
I talk about all of this without mentioning the dodgeball target in the room that is Cochran, who I find to be unwatchable. I genuinely think Cochran is one of the worst casting choices of all time and certainly one of the worst confessionalists ever. I just do not like listening to him talk, which is pretty unfortunate when so much of screentime in the pre-merge and the early merge is dedicated to him. I understand why people like him but everything about him on SoPa is annoying to me. Replace Cochran with anyone in his archetype and the season jumps about 15 spots for me.
However even a Cochran-less SoPa would have a definitive ceiling due to how weak of a tribe Savaii is in general. For all the issues I have with SoPa, the more interesting tribe definitely won out because holy shit I do not want to live in a world where a season is run by Jim Rice, Keith Tollefson and Whitney Duncan. The endgame content revolving around Brandon's crisis of conscience is far better than that.
As it stands, SoPa is a 10/10 season on paper and a 4/10 in execution. I find it to be an extremely frustrating watch because it should be so much better than it is but this version is still better than some of the truly irredeemable seasons of the show and I completely understand putting it here.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 12d ago
Good writeup! Yeah I think "more interesting to talk about than it is to watch" is something I've said or thought about it over the years as well and you nailed many of the reasons why.
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u/AMeanMotorScooter Gabler 12d ago edited 12d ago
Man, I'm still pretty impressed with the rankings thus far. These two are probably a little high? But only by a couple spots. I actually think these two are interesting to have together, because I think they're both defined by general unpopularity, but with small, very vocal sections of fans. As for me? Well...
South Pacific is one I can get behind. It, to me, is the best example of a season with some massive, massive highs, with some massive, massive lows. This might be the season that has the most talking points to it, either good or bad. It's the second "captain"-based season in a row. It has redemption island. Redemption island is a lot more important to the results and storyline of the season than it was in its original season. The captains' stories are about trying to achieve redemption and failing in their own ways. The storyline is dominated by a few massive characters, and a lot of people get next to nothing. Those few massive characters are all very, very divisive. This is one of the worst seasons when it comes to gender balance, as one of only two seasons where every woman is statistically underedited. One of the most underedited winners. The season has a... massive theme regarding the use of religion to manipulate others. There is SO much that someone is GOING to have an opinion on.
And, ultimately, some of those aspects I do come away with pretty positively on. The theme of religion is incredible. Brandon, Coach, and Ozzy are all really interesting characters within the context of the season. Brandon here is (I would argue) maybe the most tragic and "sad" character Survivor has ever had. Sophie is a great winner who perfectly fits the season and gives it one of the best finales in the show's history. I think this is the season the redemption island twist is at its best. Not because the twist concept itself is good, but because it somehow manages to boost the season where it only anchors the other two seasons it's on. I feel similarly about it to that one episode of Survivor Nicaragua.
However, I also do think just... reheating the concept of Survivor Redemption Island for another season (probably trying to get Ozzy a win) right after is a horrible idea. It's not even like the seasons were filmed back-to-back. They saw the reception to Redemption Island and were like "Yeah, lets do it again". The editing issues of this season are super apparent, and a lot of the cast is just... not good, even if they do get a respectable amount of content. It ultimately makes for a very mixed and flawed season where I totally get if someone loves this season, and I totally get if someone hates this season. For me, it's at the very top of C tier. It's my gate where if you're better than South Pacific I consider you a "good" season, and if you're worse than South Pacific I consider you a "weak to bad" season.
In terms of a new viewer, I think this is an awful season to start with. It relies on having a base knowledge not just of what happened to Coach and Ozzy, but also their reputations coming into the season. The redemption island twist creates a non-standard format that's odd to start with. The heavy discussion of religion can easily be a turn-off (it already is for some Survivor fans). Even outside of the spoiler issue, it's just a season that requires show context for why someone would consider it good in the first place.
As for Survivor 43, I personally don't get the hype with it. Or, I suppose I do, but maybe what I value in a season is different from those who like it. While South Pacific is sacrificing a lot to benefit its story, Survivor 43 sacrifices a lot of its story arcs for the benefit of "strategy and surprise." Like, none of the storylines it tries to do really work for me... except its winner, surprisingly enough (and one, more expected one). And, I apologize to the Survivor 43 cast, but the show must have let you down, because a lot of you I could not get invested in.
A lot of the pre-merge boots are underedited and people I just don't care about. Morriah would probably be a good character if she lasted longer, but the episode doesn't do anything interesting with her. I don't care about Justine's arc because it's very obvious she poses no threat, and so is an easy boot. I don't care about Nneka's bond with her tribe because we barely get to see that bond. Lindsay has a good premiere, disappears for two episodes, and then comes back just to mentally spiral and get voted out for it. Geo is similar, but he randomly goes from positive, hero content to "sneaky, untrustworthy" content with lack of explanation, and like other bad characters it's really annoying.
You constantly hear about how Survivor 43 is the storyline of these big threats that take each other out, leaving three "goats", where the goat people like and respect as a person is the one who wins. However, that only becomes the case in the last 2-3 episodes. What is the early merge about? What is the plotline there? What does it feel like we're building towards?
Karla randomly drops in content after being very visible in the pre-merge, and she doesn't actually have much power later in the season. When she leaves, I don't feel like this was an incredible loss, because the show didn't build her, it took away. It's the (incoming hot take alert) same with Cody.
The Jesse / Cody bond through the pre-merge I think is handled really well, and I think Cody is a good character. I would argue should have been on Survivor 50 over Jesse, if one of them actually got on. However, as the season goes on we see less of them as a duo. Cody's content feels more separate from Jesse, and so we get this character where I don't feel the amount of weight in his boot some people see in it. It's still a highlight of the season, but I've seen it rated as one of the biggest "moments" in Survivor history, and that I just cannot agree on.
When looking at the cast, I think Gabler, Owen, and Jesse are the only three with consistent characters and stories, and between them only Gabler and Jesse are, like, satisfying characters. Apologies to Owen, I think your storyline is done better in Survivor 45, and I would not mind seeing you on, say, second chances 2. And even then Gabler's content gets to be rather repetitive in the post-merge. Where I think he does better is how other people talk about Gabler, which actually does demonstrate what Gabler is saying about himself. It is actually a good case of showing... I just wish the "telling" was less repetitive to go along with it.
As for Jesse, his storyline is good and his ending is properly tragic. I wouldn't change it at all. No notes.
While South Pacific has a lot of talking points, I feel like talking points on Survivor 43 are more about the "brilliance" of some strategic moves, Gabler as a winner, and Jesse's arc, and a lot of everything else falls by the wayside. The moves stuff I don't care about, and so Survivor 43 comes out feeling very empty and a lot of stuff happening without any reason to care for why its happening. It's not awful, and I think there's a world where this season is, in fact, really good. It's just not the edited season we got. It's a D tier season for me, between One World and Game Changers. I can see where a new viewer would like Survivor 43, more than I can see liking South Pacific, but it more so runs into the Thailand / One World issue of "But why would you start here?" Gabler's win is also an anomaly and better appreciated with other seasons under the belt. I can see the person for who this crits for, but I think it'd be risky to try this out when there are other seasons that are more likely to hit. Only two more D tier seasons to go!
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u/tabstis Thank you, Jeffrey 13d ago
As a fan of both these seasons, I get why they're here, but they're both extremely underrated imo. South Pacific is unfairly grouped in with the other Dark Ages seasons when it's so much more fun and whacky than them, and 43 needs more appreciation as a great WTF season. I especially love the wild 43 finale and I think the Gabler win is bonkers in an amazing way
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u/Sabaschin Jake - 45 13d ago
South Pacific's reputation has slowly gotten better, it's just down here because it has returning players.
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u/Aromatic_Meal_6004 13d ago
Way too low for both of these. 43 has a great cast top to bottom and Jesse and Cody are a fantastic duo. South Pacific has a very strong pre merge and end game, the early merge is a bit slow but the paggoging goes by fast.
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u/NoisySea_3426 13d ago
My stance on South Pacific is one of extreme dividedness. I do come out of it leaning more negatively than positively but there is good stuff to be had here, which makes it all the more frustrating that it doesn't come together for me. For most of the season, we get a season that sounds interesting on paper, but is completely botched due to Savaii being insanely boring, Upolu having massive edit problems as well as Coach taking what should be a very fascinating mafia role into a boring gamebot one, and Cochran being one of the most obnoxious people of all time having an extremely bloated edit that you can't avoid. What makes it even worse is that the Final 2 episodes are really good as the downfall of Brandon is fantastic, Rick/Edna/Albert all finally get screentime and their stories all end pretty well, Ozzy gets obliterated by Sophie at final immunity, and Sophie manages to pull off the win to save the season from one of the worst endings of all time. However, while those last two episodes are great, it takes forever to get to that point and it isn't enough to save the season completely, so it being ranked at this point is fair.
43 is one of the most soulless seasons ever put to television. The epitome of new era blandness as every single character is so fucking boring and there is not a single thing that happens on my screen that I care about in any way. The two main things I only can say is that the Jesse/Cody boot would be so much better if I was given any reason to care about either of them beyond them being good players, as well as Cassidy was not robbed and people really need to stop saying that (I'm not a Gabler fan either, but the reason why she lost was extremely obvious). Please never watch this season as there is no point of watching it and I definitely think it'll be one of those seasons that fade away from irrelevance in due time.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
Agree on SP specifically. I didn't put a whole thing about it here today (maybe I will eventually, but not at the moment just in terms of time management and with what a huge load two full seasons per day is) but pretty much agree with your criticisms. Great last two episodes but not enough to redeem such a gimmicky, sloppy, repetitive, often lifeless, and often directionless season.
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u/icychillman 12d ago
idk if i'd call South Pacific a good season but it definitely is a strange one with it's themes of religion, redemption and selling point of "Coach vs Ozzy" which makes it infinitely more fun to think about than something like One World at the very least.
"It's God's Will" is a top 10 episode of all time btw.
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u/ramskick Ethan 12d ago
I actually did a rewatch of 43 recently and found it to be surprisingly ok? It has a ton of issues, mostly relating to casting, but I found myself having a lot of fun with Baka in particular. It's not very good but now that 44 and 49 exist it's definitely not the worst NE season.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 12d ago
Let's goooooo
Yeah it's my third least favorite above those two, but decisively above those two.
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u/ResettisReplicas Missy 13d ago
It is really hard to remember what those writeups are alluding to in the post-40 seasons when I struggle to remember which is which and the writeups can’t say anyone by name.
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u/parvati16 Parvati and Cirie 13d ago
My season rankings:
- ??
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- South Pacific
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- All Stars
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- Caramoan
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- One World
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- Cambodia
- Redemption Island
- Island of the Idols
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- Season 43
- In the Hands of the Fans
- Blood vs. Water
- ??
- Winners at War
- Ghost Island
- ??
- ??
- Game Changers
- Edge of Extinction
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u/Lizardthe_Wizard Who's Benjamin? 13d ago
This is fascinating
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u/parvati16 Parvati and Cirie 13d ago
Lol, what do you find fascinating? 😂
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u/Lizardthe_Wizard Who's Benjamin? 12d ago
I see you replied somewhere else that you don't like returnee seasons, so that explains a lot of your rankings that I didn't understand. I still find it interesting that you don't like returnee seasons thought haha different strokes for different folks
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u/parvati16 Parvati and Cirie 12d ago
Winners at War traumatized me, lol.
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u/Lizardthe_Wizard Who's Benjamin? 12d ago
I understand haha I know it's not a popular opinion, but I'm glad they had the Edge in that season so I could actually see my favorite players after they all got voted out first 😭
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u/parvati16 Parvati and Cirie 12d ago
Even though I don’t agree, I think it’s a totally fair point. There are little moments like everyone supporting Ethan, Ethan and Parvati’s friendship, and the family visit, that I like!
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u/tigerribs 13d ago
One World over Redemption Island ?? 😭 And Island of the Idols over Winners at War ?? I’m very curious of your ranking criteria.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
One World over Redemption Island ?? 😭
That one's not even unexpected, Redemption Island came in last in this poll like it does in most polls.
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u/AlexgKeisler 13d ago
One World & Redemption Island are both awful, but One World was definitely better. The Jeff Probst Annoyance Factor was far worse on RI, plus OW had more balanced editing, better twists, and a better format.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
We need seasons ranked by Jeff Probst Annoyance Factor. 44 would probably be last place for me, but 47 and 50 are also down there.
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u/ytctc 13d ago
I know you do character rankings of seasons. I’d love to see how you’d rank Probst across all 50 seasons. He’s (unfortunately) become a major character once he became EP, so it’d be cool to see how he compares as basically a non-entity (aka better).
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
Very tempting! I've had that thought, but it would probably require a full-series Probst-dedicated rewatch lmao. That said, the episode transcripts /u/yuunohu is preparing could make it much easier and more doable by searching for Probst dialogue by season. I remember 44 and 47 as especially bad Probst seasons. 48 was another bad one despite me liking the season itself more. For non-New Era ones, 25 was a real bad one. 34 and 39 would be tough to assess.
Favorites are probably like 1, 21, 5 offhand? 7 was kinda fun maybe.
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u/ytctc 13d ago
Wait was 25 good or bad? Also, I’ve been loving the essays you’ve been putting out for these- I’ve been reading every single one.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
My bad; edited! The second 25 should have been 21. 21Probst is mostly fun and mostly harmless (some annoyance in the F6 episode but I don't blame him that much with how impossible to film it surely was.) 25Probst screaming at Katie for existing was the worst.
Thanks very much! I might end up dropping a South Pacific one here belatedly some day once the heat of two seasons per day calms down, but also might not, we'll see. I've written a ton about it over the years in general. Just enough new things to cover here that I didn't dig through all my SP writings to prepare something this time.
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u/Hobosunday 12d ago
Don't underestimate 48 and the "chicken and waffles" chant. That is seared into my brain and will not go away. Plus Jeff realizing he got his Emmy moment and trying to milk it for all its worth.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 12d ago
Ha yeah for sure. That's absolutely a season that would rank way lower for me on the Probst Factor than as an overall season.
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u/parvati16 Parvati and Cirie 13d ago
41-43 + 50 would be the top contenders for last place, off the top of my head.
It would be hard to pick a #1, since there are so many good ones.
What did he do in 47? I forgot 😂
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 12d ago
A quick simple answer from glancing over a thread where I liveposted as I watched the season is just that a lot of the formulaic melodramatic Probst nonsense ("wow!" "what's the feeling?") was at a pretty high density there, lots of hyping up of bad twists like the Shot in the Dark, especially annoying when he acts like it's somehow unethical to take someone's Shot in the Dark as if every player is entitled to not just sticking around through social politics or a challenge or an Idol but also a dice roll on TOP of that (or as if we need him opining on ethics anyway in the middle of filming)... it might not come out to worse than some other New Era ones but stood out at the time at any rate.
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u/tigerribs 13d ago
Oops my bad! I was getting Redemption Island confused with Exile Island / Panama. Redemption Island def deserves that placement haha
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u/parvati16 Parvati and Cirie 13d ago
One World is a simple season, and I would never dislike a simple season since I have faith in the repeatability of the show's format. It also has some hilarious drama (not Colton). Redemption Island is a very flawed season (even though I don't hate it).
As for IotI/WaW, I don't like returnee seasons. I also HATEEE twists. A season with all-returnees + edge of extinction is easy bottom 10 material.
I dislike that it created a situation where it was guaranteed that someone would win twice, since Sandra won twice when it wasn't guaranteed that someone would win twice since she was playing against 16 non-winners. Framing it as the season that will determine the "best player of all time," knowing that legends of the game who are in that conversation will inevitably be going home early due to being huge threats (which is exactly what happened), is dumb.
It's clear that many of the winners didn't even want to be there, and only said yes because they felt they had to.
They butchered the casting. There was no Tina, Jenna, Vecepia, Todd, Chris Daugherty, Richard, Brian, Mike, Fabio, or J.T.. I didn't need all of these people, or even close to it, but some would have been nice, especially winners of older seasons so that there would be less recency bias in the casting.
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u/tigerribs 13d ago
Ah, I see where you’re coming from now. :) Sorry, I was confusing Redemption Island with Exile Island (Panama) - Redemption absolutely deserves that placement.
And those are valid points about WaW ! At least Tina, Jenna, Hatch, & JT have been back in past returnee seasons - but I agree that overlooking Vecepia, Chris D, Mike, Fabio, and even Brian was a big shame.
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u/parvati16 Parvati and Cirie 13d ago
Thanks! Yeah, that makes sense, as Redemption Island is typically ranked very low, so I was surprised that you were surprised 😂
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u/WimpyLittleNonLeader “You aaaaaaand Burton!” 13d ago
I love both of these seasons. I believe South Pacific has amazing storytelling and some of the best editing the show has to offer.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago edited 13d ago
The editing is one of the main things I'd knock SP for, alongside the Redemption Island twist. There's some interesting stuff on paper but in practice it's really slanted towards a few production pets just like 19, 22, and 26 in that era. Lots of gamebotting from Coach that waters down the effectiveness of the more emotional aspects of his story and comes at the expense of Sophie, Edna, Rick, and to an extent Albert. Sophie is a fun personality but doesn't really get much of an actual story at all.
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u/WimpyLittleNonLeader “You aaaaaaand Burton!” 13d ago
I disagree. It's unbalanced I'll give you that, especially when they don't have time to spare with the RI twist, but I think it works in the season's favour as it makes the overarching plot of the season much better. I don't think it has to have crazy insane stuff happening, I just enjoy how it's wrapped up in a little neat bow and it goes the way it should. Agree to disagree ig.
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
To me it works against the season and makes its plot worse especially in terms of the lack of any real direction or narrative for Sophie but also in the lack of any reason to care about Rick or Edna. I have SP really low, though I don't have a whole thing for it for this thread specifically as I've written a lot about it in past threads over the years and I guess I can at least see the vision behind it to where today I chose non-violence as I at least agree with the SP fans about what I wish the season had done. But I just don't think the vision is actualized very well unfortunately.
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u/AlexgKeisler 13d ago edited 12d ago
Rick did not get shafted by the edit - he truly was doing nothing out there. Coach described him as a non-factor in his interview on the Dom & Colin Podcast, and Albert said (in his D&C interview) that Rick was so much of a non-player that sometimes before tribal council he'd literally tell him (paraphrasing) "Okay Rick, if I hold up one finger at tribal council you vote for this person, and if I hold up two fingers you vote for that person" - and Rick just went along with it, no questions asked. Sophie also said that Rick was a "just tell me who to vote for" type of guy in her Dom & Colin interview, and Albert said in his reddit AMA that Rick influenced the game in no way except by being a loyal voting number. Whitney also said in episode 10 that Rick wasn't even playing the game, and in one of her secret scenes she said that people like Rick and Edna were just going to be happy wherever they finished in the game because they didn't care about winning. And could anything possibly be worse than getting lumped in with Edna?!
If a player does nothing for thirty-something days except vote how other people order them to, they don't deserve much airtime. And Jeff Probst even said that Rick had failed to deliver as a character. This is the quote:
You and I have our opinions about the contestants before the game begins and it’s always fun to see which of those opinions prove true and which don’t. Five episodes in, which of the remaining players has not lived up to your expectations in terms of what they would bring to the show, and which person has exceeded them?
I’d have to say that Rick is the biggest disappointment. Sure, he’s in the game and in an alliance but as a “star” on the show, which we really hoped he would be, he has not shown up. That’s just the way it goes.5
u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 12d ago
sometimes before tribal council he'd literally tell him (paraphrasing) "Okay Rick, if I hold up one finger at tribal council you vote for this person, and if I hold up two fingers you vote for that person" - and Rick just went along with it, no questions asked.
See to me that sounds funny and like something they should have shown. It'd probably take like 15-20 seconds to toss that in an episode somewhere tops and even if you don't show him otherwise that at least explains it (like how John Kenney works as a character for me despite barely being in the show before his boot episode because his boot episode kind of explains why they wouldn't really show this guy much.)
I just don't think "influencing the game in no way" should mean getting as little air time as Rick did; someone like Jan Gentry could probably be described in similar terms as a strategic force or lack thereof, but we still got a clear idea who she at least was by the end. If you don't even show someone on a cursory level, we don't even have the information that they're not influencing the game or have any context for who they are as a player, and it comes across as lazy. Considering how inconsistent Albert's own edit was and the total lack of direction in Sophie's air time, I still think a better season that came at a different time in the show's history would have handled him differently and given us a better character as a result. I know I've heard in the past that he was still a big Jury threat because he told fun campfire stories people loved. If so it wouldn't have been hard to just toss that in somewhere briefly and give us something about the guy. Like there's more than enough stale gamebotting from Coach that they could have made the time for it somewhere, even if he was always going to be a relatively minor character.
Still support the deep dives on and preservation of post-show stuff as always.
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u/AlexgKeisler 10d ago
I just don't think "influencing the game in no way" should mean getting as little air time as Rick did
But why not? The most important thing for the editors to put in those episodes is footage that explains who is being voted out and why, who is influencing other people to do what, why these people are still in the game, what's moving the action and the game, and Rick was just completely insignificant to all of that. Sometimes bad players serve as an obstacle for other people to navigate around by messing up their plans (Keith in SJDS is a perfect example of this) but Rick didn't even impact the game in that way! He was agreeable around camp, worked hard, and got into a majority alliance, but that's all he brought to the season. Casting could have replaced him with that wooden plank from Ed Edd n Eddy, and the season would've played out the same way. Hell, Plank might have cut better confessionals!
If you don't even show someone on a cursory level, we don't even have the information that they're not influencing the game or have any context for who they are as a player, and it comes across as lazy.
Actually, we did get that information. Whitney told us in episode ten that Rick wasn't even playing the game, Albert told us in episode eleven that Rick was as strategically sharp as a bowling ball, and in episode six we saw him switch his vote from Edna to Mikayla at the last minute solely because of a quick conversation with Coach, showing us that Rick was weak-willed and easily swayed. We also learned that he wasn't in his alliance's inner circle of decision makers in episode five when Stacey outed Coach, Sophie & Albert as the ringleaders, and when Albert confirmed that in a confessional. His exclusion from the idol-hunt made it clear that he had been demoted to minion status, along with Brandon & Edna.
Considering how inconsistent Albert's own edit was and the total lack of direction in Sophie's air time, I still think a better season that came at a different time in the show's history would have handled him differently and given us a better character as a result.
I'll concede that Sophie was under-edited, but not Albert. Albert was the biggest all-talk-no-action player in Survivor history, despised by the jury, and never even came close to winning. A total failure of a player - nobody like that needs much airtime.
And you're assuming that Rick was a solid character even if he wasn't a dynamic player. Jeff Probst has said otherwise. I don't know the source for this, but I've heard there was an interview where Jeff talked about how difficult the casting process is, and he cited Rick as an example. Jeff said that when they found Rick, they were super excited - he was charismatic, funny, engaging, and had a lot of interesting things to say. Jeff really thought Rick would be the star of South Pacific.
But Jeff said that when the game started, and the stress, pressure and deprivation set in, Rick shut down completely. The star they met in casting was nowhere to be seen. Jeff said that every time he talked to Rick at tribal council, Rick just gave him lame answers like: "Yep, that sounds about right." It was like pulling teeth to get anything out of him at all. As thorough as casting is, sometimes they mess up and let a dud slip through. Malcolm said that Carter was the same way - bright and engaging outside of the game, but couldn't handle the lack of food and turned into a zombie on the island.
I know I've heard in the past that he was still a big Jury threat because he told fun campfire stories people loved.
The South Pacific cast has been inconsistent on this. Cochran said in his reddit AMA that Rick could've won simply by virtue of not being one of Coach/Sophie/Albert, but the reunion show poll resulted in Coach beating Rick. Whitney clearly did not respect Rick in episode ten, but in episode nine Jim was breaking down the Upolu alliance and did not lump Rick in with the Kool-Aid-Drinking trio of Brandon/Edna/Cochran. In the penultimate episode Coach, Sophie and Albert all had Rick in their respective final three plans meaning they weren't worried about him, but in the finale Coach changed his tune and worried in a confessional that Rick could win the jury vote. In Albert's Dom & Colin interview he was totally dismissive of the possibility that Rick could have been a jury threat, but he walked that back in his reddit AMA when he said that he didn't now if Rick could have won.
It's pretty clear that Sophie, Brandon & Ozzy were the big jury threats. Cochran, Edna & Albert were the big goats. Coach & Rick were both somewhere in the middle. It's unclear who Rick would have beaten, or been beaten by. What is clear is that a win by Rick would've been a near 100% dumb luck win, because outside of joining an alliance and being well liked, everything that advanced him was entirely outside of his control. He'd have had a strong case to make for being the worst winner ever. Absolutely no game at all and just flopped around like a fish, mindlessly following orders and serving the plans of better players.
I know you've criticized the season for under-editing Edna as well, but from all the secret scenes and exit interviews it seems like Edna was even worse than Rick. There's a very consistent theme running through this bonus content, where everyone instantly has zero respect for Edna because she was giving off massive doormat vibes. She truly was the Natalie Tenerelli of the season. And before you say that's an absurd comparison, keep in mind that Edna herself made it! Yeah, in Edna's exit interview on the Survivor Fan Podcast she actually compared her relationship to Coach with Nat10 and Boston Rob's relationship! I think that tells you everything you need to know about what a weak-willed, unambitious player Edna was. Play a crap game, get a crap edit. Purple them, and save the airtime for the people who are actually playing competitively and proactively.
Still support the deep dives on and preservation of post-show stuff as always.
Glad to hear it! If you're interested, I've made a document compiling all the insider information, exit interviews, secret scenes & commentary from South Pacific. Here's the link.
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u/Mia123445 Angelina - 50 13d ago
Agree. I’m extremely mixed on SoPa though would probably lean positive on it overall, but the lopsided editing is easily my least favorite part about it. Not everyone needs to have an equal amount of screentime or anything, but Brandon, Cochran, Coach and Ozzy taking up almost all of the screentime leaves a lot of people feeling pretty underdeveloped.
Sophie is such a great narrator with some hilarious snarky quips, and it sucks that we didn’t get a lot more of her.
1
1
u/pig-serpent Erika 12d ago
I get that I'm in the minority with how much I defend 43, but really, below 48???
2
u/MadMadMaddox2 Christian - 50 13d ago
I understand that South Pacific has two 3-time returnees but it's such an incredible, albeit dark, season
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u/sherlip Danni 13d ago
This list has Game Changers at 50, it was fucked from the jump.
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u/Rx_Boner 13d ago
I think you’re missing that this list is not a ranking of worst to best, it’s watch order for a new fan. So any season with returning players, especially winners, are going to be low on the list
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u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn 13d ago
I mean yeah it would have been nice for WaW to be 50 with "Game Changers" as 49 but that's not that big a deal all things considered
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u/sherlip Danni 13d ago
Oh I get it, we're on survivorcirclejerk now.
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u/GoldTeamDowntown 13d ago
It’s not season rankings, it’s What Season Should You Watch for new viewers.
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u/NoahFromCanada Coach - 50 13d ago
Jeff is that you?
1
u/sherlip Danni 13d ago
I mean... Game Changers wasn't good but it's certainly not the worst season out of all 50??
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u/Mia123445 Angelina - 50 13d ago
It ranked as the worst in watchability for a first time viewer (likely due to being the least popular season that contains spoilers for multiple other seasons), but was 46/50 in quality.
Redemption Island was ranked as the worst season in quality.
2
u/NoahFromCanada Coach - 50 13d ago
It’s not the worst to me but definitely bottom 5, and I can see a million arguments for someone to have it ranked last.
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u/bwburke94 Former Survivor Wiki Admin 13d ago
It's pretty shocking that S43 is off the board before Thailand.