Board Thread:Season Rankings/@comment-24899664-20141222121159/@comment-26485526-20170425015631

12) San Juan del Sur (29) -  I’m not going to go into much detail about San Juan del Sur since Tozza and Hudson above do a good job of summing up this season and why it is so underrated. I also never understood the hate for this season, especially towards Missy. Missy is quite an underrated villain and I really enjoyed watching her take control of her game and lead her daughter towards the end. People hate on Missy for “coddling Baylor”, umm… what mom wouldn’t look out for their daughter? I also don’t think Missy did anything THAT bad. People also seem to hate on Missy because she wasn’t medevac’d when she injured her ankle. First off, they only evacuate people when it’s life threatening (which Missy’s injury was not). Second, those people all seem to forget people such as Amy in Guatemala, Alexis in Micronesia, James in HvV, the latter had his full leg in a cast, and none of them were pulled due to their injuries!

Anyway, San Juan del Sur had many dynamic characters with a lot of interesting and innovative gameplay, especially as the season got closer towards the end! It was also full of shocking blindsides, which included Drew’s, Jeremy’s, Wes’s, Alec’s, Jon’s, Baylor’s, and others. Coyopa was a disaster of a tribe, but they were at least fun to watch for the most part at the beginning.

My biggest criticism of this season however is the fact that Josh and Jeremy hogged the screen-time and the editors flat out ignored a lot of people pre-merge, many of whom would turn out to be the most interesting characters of the season (Jaclyn & Jon immediately come to mind). Josh and Jeremy on the other hand were both boring game-bots with nothing interesting about them. It was only once Josh in particular was gone that I actually started to thoroughly enjoy San Juan del Sur. My other criticism of the season is the Hero duels since they were pointless in the grand scheme of things, and did very little to entertain me as a viewer. All that being said though, I was also super happy with Natalie’s win because she was a great character, who played an amazing game! Natalie also had a fantastic story considering that her sister was the first one out, yet she made it to the end and won! At the end of the day, San Juan del Sur is an amazing, and incredibly underrated season with just a few minor criticisms that prevent me from moving it any higher.

11) Tocantins (18) - I have a confession to make. As much as I really tried to take nostalgia out of my rankings, if it was the reason for any season being higher than it should be, that season is Tocantins. I don’t know what it was about this season, because it’s not the first season I watched (that was Borneo when it first came out. I don’t care if that makes me old). Anyway, but Tocantins was for some reason, the season was the catalyst for my (dare I say) obsession with this show. I remember being in high school when this season started and I showed it to a friend, and he fell in love with the show as well, so much so that he started watching old seasons (starting with Thailand), and he started to become an even bigger Survivor fan himself!

If I had to guess, I think the biggest reason people tend to dislike Tocantins has to do with the fact that it had to follow Gabon, which had some of the biggest personalities in the show’s history (which I will get to when Gabon appears in my list). Tocantins moved at a much slower pace than Gabon, it was back to the traditional 16 contestants, there were no idols played (although Brendan did get voted out with one in his pocket), it was back to the final two with a seven-person jury, and as a result of all this, it almost felt like it was an old-school season in a sense. I admit, the pre-merge did move along pretty slowly, the vibe on pre-merge Timbira (and even Jalapao to a slight extent) was pretty negative, and I absolutely could not stand Tyson in Tocantins, so those minor details do keep it just outside of my top 10. That being said though, the rise and fall of the Exile Island Alliance was AWESOME (especially Taj), the Erinn/Coach rivalry was FANTASTIC (Erinn must return!) Sierra, Brendan, Coach, Stephen, and Debbie were also great characters post-merge. Sydney is HOT!! Not only that, but there was also Sandy pre-merge, who was also incredibly awesome, and I was so sad when she left! For the people that say J.T. walked to the win, I seriously thought it was going to be Taj until she was blindsided. Taj’s blindside for me was fantastic because it was one of those that I feel like I should have seen coming, but I didn’t. Tocantins also had some pretty funny moments such as Sandy grabbing hold of Erinn’s bra during an immunity challenge and refusing to let go, Sandy’s terrible (but entertaining) attempts at a social game, Taj acting mad whenever being chosen to go to Exile, Brendan’s blindside, Debbie at the auction, Taj when she realized her husband was coming for the loved one’s visit, Erinn’s and Coach’s impressions of each other, etc! So yeah, I think Tocantins was a fantastic season overall, but the minor issues that I brought up about it earlier simply meant that Tocantins wasn’t quite good enough for me to bump into the top 10.

Alright boys and girls, after all that time, here are the seasons that managed to make my top 10 (in chronological order):

Marquesas, The Amazon, Pearl Islands, Panama – Exile Island, China, Micronesia, Gabon, Heroes vs. Villains, Philippines, and Kaoh Rong!