Board Thread:Season Rankings/@comment-24899664-20141222121159/@comment-26485526-20170411032035

26) Fiji - Fiji for me is one of those seasons that was very difficult to place. On one hand, there was A LOT of negativity and bitterness this season, which was hard to look past. However, there were a fair number of interesting characters with some great moments. The pre-merge for me in particular is probably one of the worst in Survivor history in my opinion. There were a lot of bland and uninteresting characters and the first few episodes were all quite boring. The only two moments for me in the pre-merge of Fiji that really stand out were: Lisi falling face first in the matching challenge (which did make me laugh my ass off, I must admit); and Rocky constantly harassing Anthony. I get how some people thought that Rocky was funny, but some of the stuff Rocky said to Anthony just rubbed me the wrong way such as “Take off your skirt; be a man,” and just constant jabs at the guy for being fairly weak in challenges and continuously kicking him when he was down. Those comments only made me feel bad for Anthony and utterly despise Rocky because they did take me back to a period of my own life that I’d rather forget. That being said though, with Rocky being the first juror, I really didn’t have to put up with him for THAT long for him to have that big of an impact on how I felt on the season overall. The “Haves/Have Nots” twist was also the stupidest idea the producers ever came up with and it did ruin the games for a lot of people considering that you were basically doomed to lose if you were on Ravu. On the bright side though, quite a few of the bland and boring characters were eliminated early on, which left us with some great characters like Yau-Man, Earl, Cassandra, Lisi, and Stacey. Further, the truck deal between Yau-Man and Dreamz was iconic and it was so interesting to see Dreamz’ moral dilemma play out as he tried so hard to eliminate Yau-Man before the final four so he didn’t have to make his decision, but failed every time. This all led to the moment that ultimately sealed Dreamz’ fate and officially cost him the million dollars when he refused to give Yau his immunity necklace.

Despite those few positives though, although the downfall of the Four Horsemen was iconic and Edgardo’s blindside is now legendary, it did lead to a couple of very negative, boring, and predictable episodes in which Mookie and Alex were booted. Speaking of which, Alex was the one character to have made the merge that really pissed me off given how smug, self-righteous, and condescending he was. Finally, there was the negative and hate-filled Final Tribal Council which could basically be renamed “Everyone hates Cassandra and Dreamz.” I mean, at that Final Tribal, Earl seemed to have stayed quiet through like 95% of it because the jurors all seemed to enjoy taking turns shitting on the other two. Alex’s speech towards Cassandra in particular was quite cringeworthy as the woman tries so hard to answer his question, yet he talks to her in the most condescending tone possible and keeps interrupting her. Finally, I am really happy overall that Earl won the season considering that he played a great strategic game, yet was also very calm and level-headed the entire time. So yeah, all in all, this season was okay. It did have some bright spots and some good characters, but given the amount of crap it did have, I feel like number 26 is a good place for it.

25) Thailand - Note, this first bit has no bearing as to where Thailand placed on this list, but I figured I’d mention it anyway. I remember being 9 when Thailand first came out in 2002 and I remember thinking that the way they set up Tribal Council and the way they designed the torches was just the coolest ever! That being said, I wish 23-year-old me can say the same thing for the overall season, but I just can’t.

Anyway, I do feel as though Thailand is a bit of an underrated season. Although it is still quite low on my list, I don’t feel like it’s quite as bad as people seem to say it is. It did have some fantastic characters like Helen, who I hated at the start, but grew to love! Then there was Clay, who may have been dragged as a goat, but I’ve always found myself amused by him. Shii Ann was great, Jake was a good leader for Sook Jai, and Jan was adorable! Then of course pre-merge you had Robb (TWO Bs GUYS!) and Ghandia, who provided just amazing television… most of the time. Then there’s Brian. When I re-watched Thailand, I knew right away that Brian was going to win, obviously. Even though his game-play was sociopathic, you could see in his confessionals that he had a bit of a dark sense of humour, which I actually kind of found intriguing. I was also quite amused watching Brian’s Final Tribal Council performance, seeing him absolutely flop on every question that had anything to do with a social game. Example: Penny asked Brian where she’s from, and how many siblings she has, and he gets both those questions so horribly wrong you just have to laugh! Then there’s Clay, who basically recalled Penny’s life story! Then of course, there was Helen completely tearing Brian a new asshole, which was just great! All that being said though, Sook Jai overall was quite boring, and none of the characters, except Robb and Shii Ann were very well developed. Even though the fake merge was a nice twist, it completely ruined Shii Ann’s game and ultimately led to a string of boring episodes where the remaining Sook Jais were picked off one by one. Even in the final five where Brian betrayed Ted, I didn’t feel was that great in my opinion. Maybe that was because I knew Ted was going home, but still, it didn’t really strike me as anything that interesting.

Finally, the last reason I have to knock this season down a bit is because even though Chuay Ghan had most of the interesting characters, the dynamic on that tribe was pretty negative overall, and it only got worse after Tanya left. Then of course there was Grindgate, which was one of the most controversial moments in the show’s long history, and that whole scene was just so uncomfortable to watch. Despite the good characters that did remain after that episode, I feel like that moment kind of poisoned the whole season and left the overall atmosphere to be just bitter and negative. So yeah, while I do think Thailand is better than a lot of people give it credit for, you can’t deny that there are some very good reasons to not like it. As such, I feel as though number 25 is an appropriate place for it in my rankings.

24) Worlds Apart - Worlds Apart for me was initially much higher on the list, but the more I thought about it, the further down I felt that it needed to go. The reason this season was originally so high was the pre-merge, just by itself. I feel like each and every tribe this season was very entertaining and there were very few dull moments. On Masaya (White Collar), you had Soquin, which completely flopped in the first episode. But even after that, I was surprised and amazed by Joaquin’s social game as the obvious next boot laid low and worked his way up the totem pole as Max and Shirin were being morons! Then you had the two clusterfuck tribes in Nagarote (No Collar) and Escameca aka Blue Collar aka Tandang 2.0. On Nagarote, Jenn was both sassy, and hilarious, and she completely ran that tribe! I’d go as far as saying that she was one of the most entertaining players I’ve seen in a long time! Then when they went to tribal, it looked like Jenn was a goner, but Nina told Will that Vince was “worried about him” and that sealed the creepy coconut vendor’s fate! I must say, I hated Vince with a passion, but I re-watched that episode a couple of times just to see his downfall again because it was that iconic! Then of course on Escameca, every episode until the tribe swap, a different person was on the bottom and looked like they could be going out! As much as I hated seeing Lindsey go, I find it very difficult to deny that pre-swap Escameca was TV gold! Even the post-swap tribes were amazing as we got to see the downfall of the cocky idiot, Max! Then the next episode was fun as well as we saw the Bromance of Rodney and Joaquin develop and get ripped apart in that same episode, despite Sierra being treated like shit by her alliance. Like seriously, Joaquin was robbed! But then of course, you have the first merge episode, which was just awesome! The arrogant asshole blue collars, led by Head Asshole Mike, thought everything was set up perfectly until The Amazing Jenn Brown played her idol to oust Kelly. The absolute best part of that episode was watching Jenn laugh, laugh, and laugh some more as Jeff pulled out each vote with her name on it. I can’t lie, I laughed right along with Jenn there! For me, that was honestly the greatest moment of the season! Unfortunately, as this season is flying high, something malfunctions in the plane and it suddenly takes a steep nosedive!

Yeah, unfortunately the greatest moment of the season was the last great moment of the season for a long, long time. The pagonging of the rest of the Nagarote tribe made for a pretty boring string of episodes, and the majority alliance just became more and more smug and arrogant as it went on. Then of course, there was Will’s treatment of Shirin, which was completely and utterly uncalled for. The other thing that pissed me off this season was the third fake “underdog/conquering hero” story on this list so far, which they gave to Mike. Not only did they make it painfully obvious that Mike was going to win, Sierra has since said in interviews that the reason she didn’t vote for Mike was because what she remembered from living with him was the fact that he acted like a crazy person while on the island. She believed at the time that he was unstable and just didn’t have it together while he was out there, while believing that Carolyn played a stronger game. Not only that, but Mike put himself into the bad position he was in because he wanted to be a game-bot at the auction instead of allowing people to have their letters from home! The worst part about this was the fact that for the rest of the season, we had to sit through about a gazillion of Mike’s confessionals where he goes “Boo hoo, woe is me, I’m a target, I need to win immunity. Blah, blah, blah, blah!” It was just so cringeworthy, yet he allowed himself APPEAR more likable because everyone hated the other alliance, and the editors played it up along with him! Then of course there was that cringeworthy show at the reunion where he jumped up and kissed Jeff after being declared the winner. *BARF!!*

All in all, the post-merge of Worlds Apart only had 2 great moments. The first of which being Shirin refusing to allow Will to see his letter from home. I HATED Shirin with a passion the more the season went on, but she didn’t deserve how Will treated her and said that “nobody loved her”, so I’m glad she was able to take a small measure of revenge there. Then of course, there was the moment when Carolyn played her idol and sent Dan home! For me, Carolyn was the only person post-merge that made me want to tune in every week and see the next episode, and I think it’s a shame that she didn’t win! So, with all that being said, despite the dynamite pre-merge, the boring and negative post-merge on top of Mike’s obvious and cringeworthy winner’s edit, I can’t put this season any higher.

23) Africa - Honestly, I don’t have much to say about Africa, to be honest. I feel as though it’s a pretty dull, one-note season. I can’t really complain much about it, but that being said, there isn’t really a moment this season that made me go “WOW! That was awesome!” One thing I might add is that it had probably the worst premiere episode ever, considering that the atmosphere at Boran was pretty negative overall, especially after Clarence stole the food, and it was pretty obvious at the first vote that Diane was going. From there, there was very little for me that happened to really give the season momentum. I admit, the first tribe switch was interesting, and Silas’s downfall was great to watch. But then the season ultimately slows down once again, especially after Lindsey goes home, and for me, Lindsey was one of the very few characters pre-merge that actually kept me awake.

At least Theresa “T-Bird” Cooper switched her vote to Lex after the first merge Tribal Council, because that episode where Lex hunts for the person that cast that “mystery vote” like a mad-man was so fun to watch and it really added some much-needed life to the season. But of course, the editors screwed the pooch in the worst way possible that episode by revealing Brandon’s vote for Kelly, even though he was the swing vote! So, anyone paying attention knew Kelly was gone before the votes were read! Beyond that, although the episodes that followed Kelly’s blindside were pretty predictable, Lex and Big Tom especially really came into their own as characters. Big Tom especially kept me laughing in those last few episodes, so even though they were predictable, they were at least fairly enjoyable. Also, who can forget Tom’s jury question when he compared Kim J’s mush to hyena shit!? Lastly, even though Ethan was far from a great winner, I can’t be mad that he won because he was easily one of the most likable people this season, and as it turned out, he did great things with the money.

So yeah, although Africa wasn’t a terrible season by any means, the fact that it was pretty dull and predictable overall prevents me from moving it any higher up the list.