I Watch Survivor [Australian Outback]
 

Started this last night and I've watched two episodes already.

I've only seen 28+ so I thought I should just start at the beginning and make my way up.

It's so different to how it is now.

Borneo
Favourite: Greg Buis

It's so much different but it's good to watch how it evolves.

Sonja going first </3

Sonja the first EVER boot :love:

I don't have any faves because I haven't had a chance to know any of them yet. Greg is fit though

Do you stan legend Sue Hawk?

Yes :love:

I like Stacey too

and queen Ramona

Stacey <3 she's no Stacey Powell though :love:

Ramona :love:

Borneo is possibly my favorite season of anything ever. Truly fantastic

This is a bittersweet comment! I'm glad that it's a good season, but the fact it's the first and best doesn't fair well moving forward to the rest of them!

Was Borneo the first season ever? I've never really watched much Survivor

Yeah, season one from 2000!

I think you will like other seasons better because they have more drama and blindsides.

It's so cheaply produced like the tribal council is just a meeting on a decking area

Damn that's crazy! How many seasons have there been in total?

Which season has the best asian chick to stan? I've only seen one season before and I stanned Edna

Seasons 15 and 21 :lovedup:

30 :joker:

The thing with Survivor is that it's soooooo hard for me to rank the seasons because almost all of them are really really good. Admittedly part of the reason I loved Borneo was because I was there for it and Survivor was HUGE (53 million people watched the finale wtf), but I actually rewatched it over my winter break and it held up really well. The whole story and the motifs and the arcs and the good and the evil and everything is stellar, from start to finish.

Watched up to episode 4 now, sad about both Stacey and Ramona's eliminations. I felt they had more to give... Especially after reading about the fixing allegations.

Not sure what to make of him yet

The guy is a grade A dick, but his importance in the mythos is undeniable.

ahhh, I understand!

Borneo is great :love:

Peih Gee (S15) or Christina (S24) :love:

Also brown asians, then Natalie (S29)

Natalie Anderson is by far the best.

I'm liking it so far, the challenges are so easy though :joker:

tbh I much prefer the variety in the early season's Challenges than the modern day's endless variations on "collect all the puzzle pieces and complete the puzzle" and "do this endurance thing for as long as possible." Bring back fallen comrades and hands on the idol and SOS signals <3

Kelly was a queen

I finished. Took longer than I'd hoped but had a lot on. It's such a different show to how it is now. Sue went hard on Kelly at the end :omgno:

Snakes and Rats speech >>>

Poor Kel didn't see it coming

Rich was such an underwhelming winner though

Richard pioneered strategy and alliances from day 1 in Borneo and rightfully won and earned his spot as a legend. He seems to kind of suck in real life based on social media stuff but idk either way there's no way his win can be seen as underwhelming if you look at it in the context of the first big competitive reality show on US TV and his approach versus Kelly's. If Kelly had won, Survivor would have been so much different, as the alliance-forming and decetion wouldn't have been seen as near as advantageous for future contestants.

Yeah, on a personal level I much prefer Kelly but reality TV is still to this day a reaction to Richard winning.

I guess you're right. I didn't agree with Kelly's speech when she said "vote for the better person" because it's about the game which Rich played

It really wasn't about the game back then though! I know that's weird to hear in 2015 and it's definitely hard to mentally put yourself in that Y2K timeframe, but in 2000 the premise of the show was literally "let's put 16 people from all different walks of life on an island and see what happens." Kelly was young Y2K hippie chick and as the series went on pretty much no one respected her. She was 23 at the time and would've gelled much more with Pagong, but she was thrust into Tagi and agreed to an alliance with people much older than she was, but that was back on Tagi and she wasn't all that fond of Dirk or Sean so she didn't feel like the alliance was amoral.

HOWEVER, then the tribes merge and she meets Pagong and realizes how much she likes them and suddenly her morals come into play. Now that she has to vote people out who she closely relates to, she gets super conflicted on being in the alliance but is still too weak to back out. The closest she gets to leaving the alliance is throwing a vote at Sean during Jenna's boot, but that didn't change anything and was a really passive form of defiance. Kelly knew that being in the alliance benefited her even though it was against her morals, so all she did was throw her vote away to signal her complicated feelings on the game. I wish that the editors went more into the reaction to this vote because you know Richard and Sue had some choice thoughts about it.

Once the game starts to wrap up and Kelly gets further and further, everyone is sick to death of her inconsistent morals and sees through her desperate attempts to balance her conscience and inner turmoil, and the alliance that consumed her and she's now trapped in. Richard and Sue are completely over her bull****, and all of Pagong is ridiculously skeptical of Kelly's "moral dilemma" because as conflicted as she seemed, she never did anything to help herself or help them. This is how we get to Kelly almost getting voted out before Colleen and Sean, and the big blow up between Kelly and Sue. Tagi is ready to boot Kelly but will gladly use her as a number during her immunity run, and Pagong gets along well with Kelly but are puzzled when she doesn't do anything to help them out.

Right before the final TC, Greg summed up Kelly pretty well in a confessional by referring to her various identity crises ("I'm a hippie but I'm not a hippie" ; "I'm a double agent but I'm not lying" ; "I'm here for the money but I'm not") and Colleen really captured the Pagong spirit about the final two vote ("Does anybody really think Go Kelly! She's number one! I am SO HAPPY she made it to the final two! or God, I'm glad Rich made it there. Big winner!). That's why I never understood people's issues with bitter juries. Like, a lot of Richard's votes were anti-Kelly and a lot of Kelly's votes were anti-Richard. Bitter juries have been around since the first season and are perfectly acceptable.

I know I've been talking a lot about Kelly but I love her. Her confusion on how the game should be played aligns perfectly with the audience's confusion as to how the game should be played. But at the end of the day, Richard won and we are meant to look at his cutthroat attitude and see that as the way to win. Kelly lost by being wishy-washy and we are meant to look at her conflicted morals as the way to lose.

That being said, I *LOVE* that Kelly is going to be on S31 because the game has evolved into everything she hated about it back then <3

Thanks, Macie. That really helped a lot.

I started watching with Cagayan, so the game was obviously well established by then and I have my views on how the game should be played based on Tony and Natalie winning only. So watching the first season, it wasn't as exciting but it makes sense because they didn't know about blindsides or even what was coming next. I liked Kelly more than Rich, but I get why she didn't win. She only lasted so long due to her immunities. I don't get why Sue was so nasty to her though... I liked Sue but calling her a rat was completely absurd when Kelly wasn't a nasty person, she was just a confusion, really.

I'm excited to move onto Australian Outback though.