Board Thread:Season Rankings/@comment-24899664-20141222121159/@comment-26485526-20170412040908

Before I continue with my rankings, I just want to start off by further justifying my placement of Africa at number 23 given Hudson’s rebuttal. First off, I’d like to thank Hudson so much for reminding me of how awesome of a job I did at bleaching Linda Spencer from my memory. Now I remember just how much I couldn’t stand her!

Second, I will admit that Kelly was a great character, but saying that the entire cast was great characters is quite the stretch. Frank? He was the dark cloud looming over every tribe he was ever on. Brandon? The only memorable thing he ever did was vote for Kelly and screw his own game. Clarence? He stole food and begged T-Bird for immunity… that’s about it. Kim P… who? Kim J… most of my memory of her comes from Big Tom’s jury speech. If you’re counting along, that’s five, exactly HALF of the people that made the merge. Further, Ethan, the freaking winner, was a pretty forgettable character in his own right. Sure, he was likable, but at the end of the day, he didn’t seem to really do anything in the game to make him stand out. Rather, from my perspective, he seems to be mostly remembered for his life after Survivor.

Also, I should have made this point a little clearer, but Africa did lose quite a bit of points with me considering that the editors only spoiled THE BIGGEST BLINDSIDE OF THE SEASON when they revealed Brandon’s vote for Kelly when he was at the voting booth. Considering that most (maybe even all) of the other boots were fairly predictable, I just couldn’t let this slide.

So yeah, all in all, I stand by my placement of Africa in the rankings. Now, with that out of the way, let’s move on.

22) Cambodia - Remember what I said at the beginning of my first post? “If a season is filled with boring game-bots, then it won't rank very high.” Well ladies and gents, this was the season I was referring to when I made that comment. I mean seriously, all Cambodia focused on was strategy, strategy, strategy, but it didn’t really tell you WHY you should actually care about the PEOPLE themselves! Pre-swap Ta Keo (which lasted for a grand total of 2 episodes), and Angkor did give us plenty of drama at the beginning, considering the bracelet incident between Abi and Peih-Gee as well as the fact that Angkor had to completely start over. Speaking of Angkor, although I think that the adding of a 3rd tribe was a decent idea, I really feel as though they swapped the tribes too early. There were no real solid alliances formed and there really wasn’t much game to shake up at that point. I feel like the adding of a 3rd tribe would have had more of an impact and made the season slightly more interesting if they swapped at 15 castaways left and merged at 11 or 10 or something with NO second tribe switch! This game of musical tribes that they played just forced the season to be focused ENTIRELY on strategy instead of watching people develop actual relationships with each other, which would have made all the blindsides this season much more memorable and meaningful. Sure, there may not have been as many of them, but the blindsides that would have occurred would have made more of an impact, and I feel like this season would have been held in higher regard as a result. Speaking of the pre-merge, they might as well have renamed Bayon “Snooze City.” I mean that tribe had so much potential at the beginning with characters like KIMMI, KHAOS KASS, CIERA, TASHA (pre-Angkor). Instead, we got a tribe that barely went to Tribal Council and got to sit on their asses throughout the pre-merge, and as such, all these characters that I wanted to care about so badly were just unable to live up to my expectations. Yes, Bayon did have Fishbach on it, and he was playing the game hard, but the only thing he did was strategize, and at the end of the day, all that strategizing he did meant NOTHING given that he only went to Tribal ONCE pre-merge, and Kimmi was ultimately the one to blindside Monica!

I admit, Cambodia was FULL of blindsides that kept you on edge throughout the season, and the reason that it makes it this high up the list is the fact that it was so unpredictable and kept you on your toes the entire time. I admit, Savage’s savage blindside will forever remain a classic, and I can’t even recall how many times I played that on loop! Also, Kimmi’s boot was insane and I remember freaking while it was going down. That being said though, it was so full of blindsides, that those two (as well as Monica’s & Fishbach’s boots) were the only ones that actually seemed relatively meaningful. Furthermore, although Cambodia did take the “strategy first” approach when editing, there was SOME character development with people that stuck around for the duration. That being said, it was mostly BAD character development! Kelley Wentworth was literally the only well developed, likable character in the finale! Jeremy and Spencer were well developed as well, but to me, it felt like their storylines were not only forced, but shoved down our throats! Seriously, the more Jeremy cried about his wife and his baby, which was AT LEAST every second episode, probably more, the less I gave a shit because they kept telling us the same thing over and over! Not only that, but Spencer’s storyline about “changing” and “developing relationships” was not only cringeworthy and forced down our throats (because again, it was mentioned at least every second episode), but it was also clearly fake given his terrible Final Tribal Council performance and the fact NOBODY voted for him in the end!

Lastly, I will add that I was considering moving Cambodia up higher given the unpredictability factor that this season provided us. However, the fact remains that this season had so much potential with all of the amazing characters, yet it was such a disappointment due to the massive lack of characterization. As such, I feel like this spot on the list is right where it belongs.

21) Samoa - Much like with Redemption Island, I’m not going to go into too much detail on Samoa is fairly low on the list, because much like others have mentioned, it’s mostly due to the moronic way they edited the season. Much like Zapatera on Redemption Island, Galu was extremely under-edited, and the editors gave me zero reason to care about them at all! Not only that, but the editors decided to focus all their energy on one person, and that was Russell! Russell was the single most hateful person the show has ever cast, and the fact that he sabotaged his own tribe just brought a horrible atmosphere to the season. Even post-merge, while the pagonging of the majority Galu was compelling, and there was plenty of drama to go around to keep each episode fairly interesting, the season gives you absolutely no reason to root for any of them unless the person you were rooting for was either Shambo or “Anybody but Russell!”

Towards the end however, we did finally get to see some great character development, although this was more than likely because there were so few people left! Brett and Natalie in particular turned out to be extremely likable, and I do remember being genuinely touched when they were discussing their mutual faith in God. I really feel as though Brett and Natalie were finally emerging as two real, genuine characters that this season desperately needed, and I did like the story between the two of them. Also, that moment where Natalie kills the rat was awesome, and it did show that there’s more to her than what you think. Considering that up until now, I’ve said mostly negative things about Samoa, the thing that really brings me to move this season up to number 21 however is the finale. To this day, I believe that the Samoa finale was one of the best in Survivor history. I say that just because of Brett’s underdog story and the fact that I really found myself rooting for him, especially considering that he’s up against Russell “Root of All Evil” Hantz. Then, when Brett was unfortunately eliminated, everything looked bleak when it seemed like Russell was going to win. Then out of nowhere, Natalie puts on this amazing Final Tribal Council performance and steals the million dollars from “Feckless” Mick Trimming (although the editing made you think that she stole the million from Russell). I just remember being so shocked and amazed that despite all of the negativity that this season had, a genuine winner, who’s actually likable, walks away with the win! For me, the way the season ends has to be the most important because that’s the tone that it ultimately leaves you with for the overall season, and the Samoa finale left me feeling surprised, but happy with the result, and it can’t get much better than that!

Personally, I find it so unfortunate that Natalie is so underappreciated when it comes to how she played the game, and it’s 100% the editors’ fault because if they wanted to, they could have put together a more interesting season that focused on some of these root-able characters. Instead, we got a season that focused on a certain bandy-legged troll with all the social game of a squished mosquito. This wasn’t a boring season by any means, it was just terribly edited. But at the end of the day, both the finale, as well as the story between Brett and Natalie left me feeling satisfied enough to move it up to number 21.