Board Thread:Season Rankings/@comment-24899664-20141222121159/@comment-27391152-20170407141950

#5- Survivor: Kaoh Rong

At first, I figured it was recency bias but the more and more time I've had to let this sink in, the more and more I feel as though this is a truly GLORIOUS season which could've easily, EASILY been in the Top 2/3 if it weren't for one thing.

I feel like this season really delivers an extremely strong showing on all fronts. We obviously had some amazing blindsides both pre-merge and post-merge (Jenny, Peter, Nick, Debbie, Scot), some incredibly interesting gameplay (sacrificing Debbie in order to save Cydney from going home since Tai could've used the super idol on Scot - don't try to tell me the rules stated otherwise, the producers most certainly would've allowed for this since there was so much confusion), but most importantly, EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. WAS. A. CHARACTER. No joke, I truly feel there was not one person on this cast that we didn't get to know. Heck, even Joe had a storyline despite his minimal confessionals.

Not only did every single character have a storyline, but I truly appreciated every single character this season. We had Darnell, the comedic relief who was robbed, Jenny, the girl who went mental at TC because Alecia blew up her game <3, Alecia, the scrappy underdog, Anna, the girl who got tribefucked, Liz, Peter and Nick, the three cocky alphas who got their comeuppances. There were Debbie and Tai, amazingly hilarious characters, Jason and Scot, two of my favourite villain characters tbh and Cydney, Aubry, Michele and Julia, who all showed savviness without being too game-botty about it. Whether I was rooting for them or not, I did enjoy every single person that was playing on the season, which I don't think I could say the same for any other season except for maybe one (we'll get there :P)

Another thing that I truly loved about this season was the amount of craziness there was to it. I mean, usually even if it's a "blindside", I can still predict who will go home but gee, this season had quite a few shockers. Jenny's boot in particular just blew me away. I thought Alecia was done, she was finished, but then Jenny goes insane at Tribal and somehow blows it. I just couldn't believe it. Then we had the Julia boot, where I genuinely thought Tai was going home with the idol in his pocket (mainly because the editors kept showing clips of Tai saying "I will not go home with the idol in my pocket." Honestly, even the Jason boot surprised me for some reason (Again, I thought Tai was DONE). Even when the boot didn't surprise me, there was still so much chaos ensuing at each Tribal (the Debbie one at particular had me completely baffled as to what was happening). I really do feel the editors did a great job with hiding who was going home.

Despite the many, MANY things Kaoh Rong has in its favour, there is, of course, ONE thing that keeps me from inching it up any higher. The three med-evacs. I mean, having three people evacuated from the game simply cannot be overlooked as they all drag a season down for obvious reasons. I think everyone agrees that seeing somebody get voted out is the best part of each episode, so the more people who don't get voted out, the less entertaining the season is.

Even though the med-evacs make this season significantly worse, I feel that everything else does even more than just make up for it and btw, having Michele win this season completely, and I mean I was in utter SHOCK, blew me away. I thought for sure, for sure Aubry would win this season but somehow it was Michele. I have never been as surprised by a winner than I was Michele, which honestly just pushes this season even higher for me.

#4- Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains

Heroes vs. Villains...what can I say? This season is universally beloved by the community and I really can't fault them for it. I mean, across the many rankings I've seen, Heroes vs. Villains is often #1 and almost always in the Top 5. I'll admit, for a very, very, very long time, this season was my #1 but after thinking things through, I feel that fourth place is a rightful spot for it.

When it comes to themes, I feel this is the one time it well and truly worked. No swaps, no other gimmicks, just ten all-star heroes and ten all-star villains duking it out in a bloodbath of a season. The cast is great, some hilarious moment, most entertaining Final 3 EVER, Sandra is a goddess, Parvati is a goddess, Russell was made fun of all season, making for television gold, there were some legendary moves, blindsides, a fantastic winner and no quits/med-evacs. On paper, there is very, very little that goes against it. There is of course, a few slight things that make this season slightly worse than the three above it, BUT before we get to that, let's take a trip down memory lane and relive all the amazing moments this season has to offer.

We have Courtney, who although was ROBBED this season, had some amazing moments, for example calling Russell a troll, making fun of Coach and being an AWESOME, shady-throwing juror with her comments. Jeff: I'll go tally the votes. Courtney: You go do that Jeff. XD <3 Then we have Tyson voting himself out, which was frankly an outstanding strategic move by Russell. No matter how much you may hate him, you have to give him credit for having the savviness and the guts to make that move. There's also JT giving Russell his idol, which is to this day, the most iconic moment of ALLLLLLL time. One of my favourite scenes is of Parvati and Russell reading the note together <3 <3 "See you seen, BFF forever, xoxo, JT." I could go back and rewatch that moment 100 times and never get tired of it. Finally, we have Sandra who was just a GOLD MINE of hilarious quotes, confessionals and moments. Whether it was "He's a stupid ass", "I don't know about THAT" or throwing Russell's hat in the fire, Queen Sandra was amazing this season and it simply would not have been the same without her.

As I alluded to earlier, there a few slight things that tinker with the quality of this season just a little bit. People seem to forget, but there was a mini-Pagoning post-merge, which I feel wasn't actually that bad since there was still stuff going on like Sandra tempting Heroes that she would flip or Candice flipping on the Heroes for no reason at all <3. Plus, the editing WAS a little bit uneven, I mean I don't really feel Danielle had much of role to play in the season. However, it is really hard to fault this season because it's just that good, and based off of the first five episodes of Game Changers, HvV is probably going to be the best all-star season we've ever.



So, with only three to go, which season will win. Will it be the old-school classic of Pearl Islands, the highly underrated eye-watering with laughter middle-school season of Gabon or the crazy, constantly up in the air new-school season of Cagayan. I guess you'll just have to wait and see.

(Can't be bothered proof-reading this btw)