Australian Survivor: Champions vs. Contenders 2 - One Fan's Retrospective
I’ve had a varied relationship with the show Survivor. I started watching on August 23rd, 2000 – the night of the Season 1 finale. As was often the case during those years, my parents and I began watching shows based on water cooler talk at my dad’s office – talk that would eventually grow into an office pool where employees (and adolescent Bekah) would draft castaways before every season. After that finale, I watched weekly until 2011 when my TV habits shifted drastically as I entered college – missing anything that came on TV from 2011 to 2015. A few years ago, I decided to watch Survivor through streaming. Next thing I knew, I was caught up with all missed seasons and became a regular, weekly viewer again after seven years.
Then, the
pandemic happened. My fiancé and I made some choices for middle of the
night TV viewing during the early days of lockdown. One such choice was
watching almost all of Survivor: Marquesas in one night. My
fiancé (who had watched very little Survivor) threw me an unexpected
curveball – he wanted to watch more! As someone who excels at strategic games,
he enjoyed the good seasons for the gameplay. As a lover of B movies, he
enjoyed the bad seasons for the trainwrecks. In early 2021, during the Survivor
drought, we both wished we could watch a season for the first time (for
both of us), and that’s when Australian Survivor came to Paramount +.
Countless
blogs have been written (and RHAP conversations had) about the evolution of Survivor,
and I don’t need to restate those discussions. That said, it is important
to place Australian Survivor in its unique time and place to understand
the importance of Australian Survivor: Champions vs. Contenders 2.
Australian
Survivor had the benefit
of coming to air after Survivor went through the growing pains for the
brand. Survivor is often described as a microcosm of society, and I
would argue in more ways than one. While it shows how people work with others,
encourage each other, and manipulate each other, being on the air for 20 years
also means we can use Survivor to trace the evolution of what we do and
do not allow on television – a reflection of behavior we do and do not allow as
a community. Ironically, as Survivor shifted away from a show of “morals
and integrity” the more the show developed moral storytelling of advanced
gameplay. Australian Survivor had the benefit of skipping this growth
process. It had already been established that, in the end, it is a game show. That
is no secret. There is no need to allow a participant to treat others poorly or
pretend that these contestants aren’t humans who should be supported by a professional
production team.
Additionally,
Australian Survivor proved that Survivor can survive without Jeff
(Gasp!). I lovingly refer to Jonathan, the host of Australian Survivor, as ‘Not
Jeff’ but he is living proof that the brand will not die with one host. If
anything, ‘Not Jeff’ resets the host duty to a mediator, a vessel needed for
the show to move forward, as he holds up a mirror to the contestants as they are
the primary focus of the show. We don’t see him talking to the camera, making
meta comments, and trying to outwit the contestants’ banter. I still love Jeff,
but it is incredibly reassuring to know that Survivor can go on without
him.
While Survivor
41 strove to put the cast above a theme, a first for Survivor in a long time, Season
4 of Australian Survivor laid that groundwork. Sure, there was a theme (Champions
vs. Contenders 2) but was it a theme in the sense that American viewers are
used to? No. Minus one person, Australian Survivor: Champions vs. Contenders
2 had a knock-out cast – hands down my favorite cast in franchise history. I
have never rooted for a cast as both players and people more than this one. We
saw moments before and after challenges and tribals that showed an encouraging
community – a community that wanted to play as hard as possible but be the best humans
to one another along the way. This element was primarily demonstrated during a
challenge where a Tsunami survivor hesitated to jump off a cliff during a water-based
challenge due to PTSD. Jonathan didn’t over-dramatize the moment, as Jeff may do in
American Survivor. Rather, it was the cast that through small acts tried
to help her conquer her fear. When it was clear that couldn’t be done, they
easily put the challenge aside and prioritized the mental health of their
teammate. It wasn’t an overdramatic moment. Rather, it was one of many small
moments that gave us powerful human storytelling that tied together the
progression of the game narrative.
Australian
Survivor had the
best of every theme without needing one. They had the best villains – snarky,
conceited confessionals without being uncomfortable or offensive. They had the
best heroes – fallible, honest, and relatable, not sitting on any pedestals. While
there was technically a theme, this season is the ultimate cast-led narrative.
They controlled the story with little production interference. They held onto
and dismissed their identities as ‘Champions’ and ‘Contenders’ – a perfectly
fine, but irrelevant theme. The best part of the theme? That it came with a “People’s
Champion” in a returning player, our beloved Luke.
Luke was the
impetus for my putting my Survivor thoughts to paper. In the penultimate
episode of Australian Survivor: Champions vs. Contenders 2, I saw the
best elements of this franchise come together. Allow me one more trip down Survivor
memory lane. I haven’t cried during an episode of Survivor since
November 20, 2003 - I was 10 years old,
and Rupert had just been voted out of Survivor Pearl Islands. I will
never forget my mother telling me “If you are going to cry when people get
voted out, we can’t watch this show anymore.” Well, I kept that promise for 18
years. At 28 years old, I broke into This is Us level tears during this
episode of Australian Survivor.
This tribal is the most meaningful tribal
for the future of Survivor from both a cast and gameplay perspective. It
is the final growth for what we mean when we say that Survivor is a game
and Survivor is played be real people.
The first
element that made this episode so powerful – the editing. Survivor has
been slowly improving and changing their editing for years. There is one,
conscious choice made by the editors that is the single best choice made by Survivor
production regarding their storytelling. In this episode, fan favorite Luke
(returning player, father of three, and overall wonderful guy (I hope)), is
voted out in the final four by his ally, Pia, both original members of the Champions
tribe. Never, to my knowledge, in the recent
history of Survivor have we seen the results of the deciding vote in the
voting booth. The editors had every reason to show us Pia’s vote (the deciding
vote between her friend Luke and Baden, a former Contender) when they have
always showed us the votes – when Jonathan reads them. Instead, we get to watch
Pia write down “Luke” on her parchment and deliver her voting confessional. We
watch her walk back to her seat and sit with Luke, knowing she has just voted
him out. Because they invested almost 30 hours establishing these players' relationships,
and not just their gameplay, this is the most beautiful moment I have seen in
21 years of Survivor. We know she must vote him out in order to win, but
we empathize with how painful it is for her to do it because we have been given
just as much storytelling as gameplay in the season. That curveball editing of seeing her vote before the votes are read is like a punch in the gut and makes this moment far more emotional. It is what makes this a game great – that we know the clear game move and are now in an era where it is
expected that players make the move, not the performative, “moral” choice – but
ironically, we get genuine emotions and relationships along the way, so that one tiny editing choice can bring us to tears.
This season
of Australian Survivor proves that with the right contestants, we will
watch twice as much Survivor. This season is 24 episodes that vary in length,
most over an hour (without commercials). They play for FIFTY days, again, twice
that of current seasons of Survivor. Because audiences can now watch
Survivor on their own time and we aren’t beholden to prime time viewing
schedules, it is my hope that American Survivor will embrace longer or
additional episodes. We don’t have to stay up late on a Wednesday night to
watch a longer episode – we will watch it when we want, and when we do, we can’t
get enough.
With all
my love for Australian Survivor, that love will have to wait. After finishing
Champions vs. Contenders 2, the first three seasons of Australian
Survivor were added to Paramount+. After I watched a couple of
episodes of Season 1, it was removed from the platform. While it seems unlikely
that they would lose streaming rights days after putting the seasons on the
platform, I certainly hope that is the reason and these seasons will return.
Many fans online think that Australian Survivor was more popular than American
Survivor, and that threated the brand. As I have stated, these separate
shows within the franchise are informing one another. Australian Survivor benefited
from our growing pains, and our Survivor saw the power of a cast-led
narrative. Australian Survivor’s success is all our success as members
of the Survivor community. Champions vs. Contenders 2 represents
the best this franchise has to offer, and I see similar growth happening in Survivor 41 & Survivor 42. I am a ressurected fan, and these international versions can bring many back to the franchise.