I'm doing this series of Survivor discussions alongside Rob Has A Podcast's Survivor Season Rankings, so if you have no idea what that is, click here for more info!
As we’ve made our way through the 13 lowest-ranked seasons, it’s been impossible to ignore the fact that only one of those seasons came from the first half of the show’s run. And it’s ranked that low largely due to nastiness from players on the season, not from the game or gameplay itself. But now, we have another early-season entry, with Survivor Fiji, season 14.
I’m a fairly recent Survivor convert-- I only started watching back in 2017, and most of my season watches have been binges. When I started watching, I adopted the apparently ill-advised strategy of starting from the very beginning and going chronologically. So I’ve seen seasons 1-14, most of the 30s, and a smattering of other seasons here and there. And as we’ve gone through this ranking and I’ve thought about the early seasons in comparison to newer seasons at the bottom of the list, I’ve been theorizing that upon a 2021 rewatch… these older seasons might not hold up the way people expect them to.
If Fiji is the first test of my theory… then I’m very incorrect.
After watching several second-half Survivor seasons back to back, Fiji really felt like a breath of fresh air. And despite its flaws… I found myself really enjoying it. Perhaps more than any other season I’ve watched recently. But, is this due to it simply being a change of pace? Or is it genuinely just a better, more enjoyable season to watch? I'm not sure, and I'm not sure I'll figure that out in this post, but it's definitely something I've had on my mind all week.
Let's start with the season's twist-- unofficially dubbed the "haves" vs the "have-nots" twist. I'll come right out and say it-- this twist sucks. I appreciate that it's not one that completely changes the rules of the game, such as Edge of Extinction or Redemption Island. But, it essentially dictates which tribe will dominate the game, hinging entirely on winning the first challenge.
That said, I do wonder how much this was truly the intended twist. We know someone quit right before the game started, and I'm of the belief that the tribe breakdown was going to be by race again a la Cook Islands. Yau said they saw a challenge set up with four mats instead of two. I feel like this is corroborated by the prominence of red and blue clothes among the cast's outfits. And, of course, the fact that the makeup of the cast is exactly 5 of each race as organized on Cook Islands. Minus the pre-season quit, of course.
This is also our third season in a row featuring Exile Island, which I don't have a super strong opinion on. And, of course, this season introduces us to the current rules for playing idols, so it certainly feels like a strong step forward in terms of gameplay.
Next up-- the cast. This, for me, is often the make-or-break point of the season. Barring truly amazing gameplay, I tend to weigh cast a bit more more than strategic gameplay when ranking my favorite seasons. Because yes, strong strategy is important to both the game itself and the entertainment of the season, but if I can't find myself rooting for anyone making those moves... who cares?
Fiji's cast isn't necessarily a top-heavy cast for me, but it does certainly have a low floor. A month from now, I'll be hard-pressed to remember that people like Liliana, Jessica, Erica, or Rita were even on this season. Furthermore, you have characters like Rocky, Dreamz, and Lisi, who are incredibly polarizing characters. I still haven't worked out how I feel about any one of them, apart from the fact that I hate that I kinda enjoy watching Rocky despite being offended at his problematic statements.
The Horsemen are another interesting factor in the season, because although they tried to do well, none of them were really great players. On top of that, arguably the best player & most rootable character of the bunch (Alex) also had some moments and comments that made him hard to like in 2021.
Pitting a tribe of haves vs have nots inherently makes the have nots tribe inherently rootable, which probably would've already been the case for me, because most of my faves from episode 1 got put on Ravu anyway. Earl, Yau, Anthony, and Michelle were all extremely likable, rootable players for me, and I even liked what little we saw of Sylvia. The only Moto member I found myself actually rooting for was Cassandra, and I still wish we could've seen more from her throughout the season.
This season certainly has one specific moment that everyone remembers-- Dreamz "stealing" the car from Yau Man. Even as someone who's in favor of lying, manipulating, and backstabbing, I feel conflicted about this moment. Yes, lying and backstabbing are a part of the game. Yau trusted Dreamz's word and gave him a car, and in the end Dreamz broke the deal. This happens all the time in the game to little consequence, but usually there's not a massive gift of a car in the mix. Does that change things? Should it change things? I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about that. But it leaves me feeling a bit icky and definitely very sympathetic toward Yau.
One key detail is that Dreamz was definitely lying when he claimed he always planned to go back on the deal. That much is very obvious to me. I feel like if he owned up to the fact that he was genuinely originally going to keep the deal, we'd be dealing with a different situation. Instead, we get Dreamz doubling down on an obvious lie, and it's really to his detriment. My opinion is this: lie to the other players. Lie to get yourself ahead in the game. But don't lie to the audience, and stop lying when the game's over. Dreamz... definitely broke my lying rules lol.
In terms of gameplay, one moment this season really stood out to me, and that was the tribal council where Edgardo was voted off. That was the one moment this season that felt like it transcended the time period it took place in. The double-bluffing, Dreamz going back and forth, and the last minute change of target all feel like a huge step forward in strategy from what we've seen so far this season and in previous seasons. A lot of this season was pretty straight-forward, or the person eliminated just wasn't an interesting character, so it wasn't incredibly impactful. But this elimination kept everyone on their toes, eliminated a key player, and gave us some actual excitement. I very much enjoyed that.
So, that's just about all I have for Survivor Fiji. On the whole, despite its flaws, I found myself really enjoying watching this season. In relation to the other seasons I've watched for RHAP's Survivor Rankings series, it's definitely going to rank highly. If you want to see that full list, that's linked here. However, in the grand scheme of Survivor, I'm not sure that Fiji is going to hold that high ranking for very long, and I expect it to probably end up placing somewhere within the bottom half, but not all the way at the bottom of the list. Probably somewhere in the 20s! As for our winner, Earl, I think he played a very solid, if unremarkable game. Great social game, very likable, good head for strategy, but no big, impressive moves that really stand out to me.
Thanks for checking out my blog! Come back weekly (hopefully) for updates to my Survivor season rankings, which will be here, on the same page I've linked several times on this post already. If you'd like to follow me on social media, the links are below!
