Ah, Survivor season once again! It’s always a great day when a new season begins. It’s a boon to whatever else is happening in your life at the time.
(With Mike White AKA Ned Schneebly on this season, prepare for many School of Rock gifs, memes, and whatever else I can find as long as he remains in the game. And maybe even after he’s gone.)
We start as always with host Jeff Probst greeting the tribes and officially welcoming them to the game. And the show wastes absolutely no time shoving the ‘David v. Goliath’ theme down everyone’s throats. There’s always a villain or two on each season, but based on how the opening minutes of the show went, it seems like the producers are setting up the entire Goliath tribe to be a collective villain to root against. We hear from Goliaths Natalie and Angelina about, well, basically about how awesome they are. I’m sure the producers encouraged them to speak like that, but still, the result is the result. And if I’m being honest, it felt kind of cheap. The theme by itself inherently pushes viewers to root for David over Goliath. I know on these themed seasons the show tries to get as much mileage out of it as they can before all the tribe swaps and twists. But the other themes don’t typically have such an obvious favorite/underdog set-up. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. Maybe (hopefully) it’s just the first episode. I know the theme will still have a presence in the game going forward, let’s just hope it gates taken down a notch or two from here on out. Okay, enough complaining. On to the rest of what was a pretty standard Survivor premiere, meaning it was overall solid if unspectacular – which, for the record, is how I prefer the premieres to be.
As often happens, we get a challenge right off the bat. It’s a bit convoluted so I’ll keep it simple. The Goliath tribe gets to pick a man and woman from the David tribe, the two they perceive to be the weakest. They choose Lyrsa and Christian – or as Mr. Schneebly refers to him, “Big Bang Theory”. While Survivor has it’s fair share of humor, there aren’t too many truly “laugh out loud moments” but that was one of them. Man I hope Mike is able to stick around. The Goliaths then pick their two strongest players, and they choose Allison and John AKA The Mayor of Slamtown AKA Johnny Impact AKA Johnny Nitro AKA The Shaman of Sexy AKA The George Bushy of Tushy (that might be the single best nickname I’ve ever heard) AKA probably a few more that I’m forgetting. I mean come on, the guy rattled off a list of like 20 nicknames. By the way, love John, all about him. He should be incredibly fun to have on the show for as long as he lasts.
The Davids then get their advantage. The challenge consists of three stages, each with three different options. They get to choose which tribe does which part for each given stage. If you think that’s a big advantage, that’s because it is. The challenge is actually pretty close up until the final stage, a puzzle of course. Christian and Lyrsa are working on a slide puzzle, and wouldn’t you know it, but Christian just so happened to have spent time developing algorithms to solve such puzzles. He finishes in about five seconds, securing the win (and the accompanying prize of a shelter building kit) for the Davids.
Goliath Beach
It seems that nearly every season on Survivor there is at least one contestant who makes the mistake of immediately going idol-hunting. And this season is no different as Mike goes off alone in the jungle. And why does he decide to go off looking for the idol right away? Is it because he’s been recognized and nobody wants someone from the Hollywood elite to win? Did he already clash with everyone else on the tribe? Those would make sense, but neither would be correct. No, he went looking for an idol, not because he felt he needed it, but simply because he wanted it. And I get that. You’re finally on the show, you want the full experience, maybe you get caught up in the moment. But any fan of the show should know better. Any time you go to tribal council, especially early in the game, people will look for any reason at all to vote someone out. And idol-hunting on Day 1 is a reason most other castaways can get behind.
But unfortunately for Mike, he has no such luck. As the rest of the Goliaths collectively say “Screw it, let’s all go look,” we get a confessional from Dan where he pulls the idol out of his shorts. A nifty little editing trick by the show. We almost always (or always always?) see the find before we get a confessional. But here we see Dan show us the idol before recounting the story as it plays out on screen for the viewers. I liked that it was done that way. It can be little things like this that can help set a season apart. While most of the enjoyment comes from the cast, the production and editing certainly plays a part as well. And here, taking a seemingly mundane, something-we-see-every-season occurrence and tilting it on its head just a bit provides a nice little change-up.
And speaking of Dan, it would appear we have a showmance in the making between him and Kara. They’re full-on flirting from the word “Go” and everyone knows how much trouble a showmance can be. They both are at least aware of enough to know they should try to keep it a secret. But early indications would lead me to believe they won’t succeed in that.
Meanwhile, Miss All-Powerful CEO Natalie has decided to take charge on the beach, barking out orders while seemingly doing no work of her own. Obviously this sets everyone on edge and we may have Goliaths first target for their first trip to Tribal Council.
David Beach
Like Natalie with the Goliaths, Pat takes control of the David tribe and puts everyone to work constructing the shelter. But at least Pat is in there doing the work with everyone. As the rest of the tribe begins to tire of his constant ordering and jokes (“I’d give my left nut to be 36.” “Once you see the crack you never go back.”). Certainly some interesting choices he’s making here. Christian astutely points out that it can be risky to tell jokes, especially as everyone is still feeling each other out. The wrong joke can be all it takes to get yourself voted out.
We see a number of different alliances start to form here. Christian and Gabby. Jessica and Bi. Jessica and Elizabeth. Jessica and Carl (Get it, Jessica. I see you working). Nick and Elizabeth.
Nick attempts the “surefire” strategy of not doing any work around camp and assuming nobody will notice. Suffice it to say he succeeded on half. He had no problem staying away from that pesky shelter-building nonsense. But alas, seemingly everyone noticed that he wasn’t helping out. And really, how could they not? I get the mindset that you don’t want to spend your energy if you can avoid it, but come on man. You’re on Survivor for crying out loud! This unsurprisingly puts him on the outs with the rest of the tribe. He does try to ingratiate himself back into their social graces later on. The Davids have taken to opening up about some of the personal struggles they have had endure in their lives. At first Nick holds back, but then later that night he wakes everyone up (?) to tell them his story of losing his mom to an overdose three years ago. I guess only time will tell if that helps his social standing or not.
Rain-drenched Immunity Challenge
Rain-drenched might even be putting it lightly. They were competing in a downpour, which couldn’t have been too enjoyable. It was a fun challenge, made more entertaining with the added rain factor.
For the challenge, each tribe sprints through obstacle to sand pit, then send one member to dig and go underneath a log. The first of the two to get under the log uses a machete to chop a rope, releasing a ladder. The second tribe then loses out on the machete and must then untie knots to release their ladder. Once the entire tribes climbs up the ladder, they do a Survivor pole vault to go from one platform to the next, before ending with giant number puzzle.
The Goliaths get to the machete first, giving themselves a large lead. It ends up being large enough as they complete the number puzzle first, winning the season’s first Immunity challenge
This was a solid challenge. I actually kind of prefer the premiere to not have an excellent challenge. As counter-intuitive as that might seem, let me explain. Having a superb challenge right off the bat certainly would set a great tone for the season. But then where can the show go from there? There are usually ups and downs with the challenges in any given season, but starting off on too high of a note can set up unrealistic expectations for the rest of the season. Give me a nice, solid, above-average challenge in the first episode every time. That being said, if you hate this take and want them to come out with the best they’ve got, I certainly see and understand that point of view as well.
37 Seasons in and a Survivor First
Yes, that’s right. We cut back from the post-challenge commercial break only to see Pat being brought onto the beach by a medical team. I thought my TV cut out and we missed something. I was frantically checking Twitter to see what I had missed. But no, that was not the case. For the first time in the show’s history, someone was injured on the boat ride back to camp. These moments of transportation are some of the few parts of the game where no cameras are present, so of course we wouldn’t have seen it. From what we heard on screen, the waters were choppy, the boat hit a big wave, and Pat went down, doing some potentially serious damage to his back. Dr. Joe makes his first appearance of the season earlier than he likely hoped, and he has to make the call to pull Pat from the game. As grating as Pat had been portrayed, you really have to feel for the guy. Sure, he may have been the one voted out at Tribal, but you can never be sure of these things. And he wasn’t even medevaced from an injury sustained during a challenge. Just a brutal way to go. You hate to see that.
As Pat’s game concludes, so too does the David v. Goliath premiere. It was a fun episode. Nothing great, but entertaining from start to finish. My thoughts on premieres mirror those of the first Immunity Challenge. Give me something a little above average to start off. Allow the season some room to grow. So far the cast looks good; there are definitely going to be some really fun characters this season.
So now comes the time to make my official winner pick. Lots of pressure here after correctly picking Wendell in this spot last season. Granted, that was only my second ever correct pick (shouts to my man, Yul) so some of the pressure is lifted. I didn’t really get a strong feeling from anyone. I liked Nick at the start, but I’m a little worried after seeing his name already come up as a possible first boot. Angelina gave off a good pre-game vibe, but those words from her at the beginning of the game really made me second guess her as a potential winner. It came off as over-the-top arrogant, even with the likelihood of the producers egging her on there.
With all that said, I’m going to (very) unconfidently (Is that a word? Let’s just assume it is.) pick Gabby to win Survivor: David V. Goliath. Be sure to tune in next week to see Gabby voted off.
