Survivor fan since 2000 here. Despite straying away from the show here and there, I always go back to it.
Season 45 is my first back watching since Covid hit, and boy am I glad I decided to watch this season as it's been really good.
I quickly caught wind of the existence of a UK version (actually, more like a reboot as the UK had previously tried their hand at Survivor in the early 2000s, with poor results) which was airing at the same time as the US version, and figured, winter is coming, I live in Canada and I don't ski, skate or follow hockey, so it's not as if I had better things to do than taking on a double dose of Survivor.
I won't lie, the first couple of episodes were pretty slow. I almost felt like I was being transported back to the first season of US Survivor, watching Richard Hatch figure out how this game worked before everybody else he was playing against on that season.
It was pretty clear from the get-go that most of the cast of this Survivor reboot knew very little about the show and needed some time to understand what the hell they had gotten themselves into, unlike the American contestants who start talking game and building alliances the second they step off the boat.
I think it's also safe to venture that the slow pacing of the early episodes was a way to properly introduce an audience who might not be familiar with the strategic dimension and the cutthroat nature of Survivor; and given how sometimes needlessly convoluted and complicated US Survivor can be these days, with all its twists and idols and amulets and advantages, I'd say it was a wise decision. If a long-time Survivor fan like me can barely keep up with all these trinkets and powers, an audience new to the show has no chance. So keeping things simple and straightforward early on was the right way to go.
The second batch of episodes (UK Survivor aired every Saturday and Sunday night) was better than the first one. Nothing amazing, but still, a neat improvement. Characters were starting to emerge, game talk was happening from several contestants, and things were definitely looking up. And they did keep progressing week after week, and I was thinking, we're started to have a pretty good little season going here... Not great perhaps, but very decent nonetheless.
Then the merge happened. And boy, did almost everyone left kick things into high gear. After this pre-merge which had improved week after week, my expectations for the post-merge had grown, but I'm very happy to say that Survivor UK far exceeded them. Several of those post-merge tribal councils were simply electric, that hanging-off-the-edge-of-your-seat kinda stuff. Seriously, I'm not kidding. This was grade A Survivor, surpassing many US seasons.
Watching these people initially stumble their way through this weird, brutal game of strategy where the pawns are all fellow human beings, seeing them slowly start to understand the game's mechanisms, how to use other people to get yourself further in the game, how to dispose of these same people without pissing them off too much because you'll need their vote if you make it to end, was pure joy.
And while this Survivor UK season was excellent in its own merits, for me, there's a second reason as to why I enjoyed it so much. I'm a bit of a Survivor purist, I like to keep things simple. And while I understand that a game as bare bone as Survivor Borneo would never fly nowadays as it would put north American audiences to sleep, I find Survivor US' habit of continually messing around with the format, insisting on adding often unnecessary twists very irritating.
And while the magic that was Survivor Borneo can never be recreated, Survivor UK allowed me to be transported back to a time when the game was a lot less complicated and completely devoid of the meta aspect of US Survivor, where players now constantly refer to previous contestants or things that took place in earlier seasons. And I don't fault the franchise for that by the way. This show has been on for 23 years, for God's sake, of course it's going to be meta and self-referential, and that too can be a lot of fun.
But what Survivor UK brought back to the show, was its innocence, as dumb as that may sound. I'm aware a few of the UK players were familiar with the US version and some are actual fans, but it seemed pretty obvious most of them knew very little about the show if anything at all. And getting to witness these folks navigate their way through this surreal experience, realize this is a game of numbers, but also a game where very real bonds are formed, and that to get further, they may have to betray people they genuinely like, simply feels like a privilege. Because it felt a bit like getting the chance to hop into a time machine to watch Survivor back in the early 2000s, before it became this super fast-paced meta game plagued with contrived twists and bags of tricks.
Oh, and I'm writing this a couple of hours after watching the finale, and I won't spoil the winner, but I'm happy to say it's a very satisfying one. That's an extra feather in Survivor UK's cap!
Tl;dr: Survivor UK starts off slow, then it gets better, then it gets even better, then it becomes absolutely awesome post-merge, you should go and watch it right now. You can thank me later. :)
