The Ghoul's blog

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Ranking Survivor Seasons: #22 and #21 May 20, 2014: recently finished a very long process of rewatching every survivor season in order and will be doing writeups as i rank them from worst to first. after I finish these up I will be redoing my top 39 characters that I did a long time ago, and then i am leaving this site forever and ever

after these two it's all seasons I like so it doesn't feel like a chore anymore

22- All Stars

All Stars is the mother, father, and guardian of legacy assignation. In theory it sounds super cool, bringing together some of the biggest names from the greatest era of Survivor. Going into it and seeing how epic the opening scenes are, and seeing people like Colby and Richard on the same tribe, it’s hard not to get excited about it. And that excitement lasts for the first couple of episodes, even though the season isn’t going perfectly. But roughly after the Richard boot, especially after the Ethan boot, the season takes an awful nosedive into a dark, bitter world that Survivor had difficulty ever escaping.

I don’t know. Really All Stars is a mess of controversy and divided sides between Rob and Lex, and no matter what side you align yourself with, the season is a mess of disappointment. The season itself is produced very well and matches up with the previous seven in that sense, you can tell the producers put a lot of effort into it and loved the show still, but the contestants gave them nothing positive to work with.

The season itself is interesting and isn’t the worst, I think there are worse below it, but it definitely is the season that did the most damage to the show and to the fan base overall, which I don’t really feel like going into. But that and the legacy damage (unless you were like Amber, Ethan, Shii Ann, or Richard) is enough to drive this season to the bottom end of my list.

Favorite Character: Ethan Zorn

21- One World
One World is basically a Cook Islands with a better cast for me. It’s extremely boring and nothing really stands out about it for me. The gameplay wasn’t particularly compelling; it was basically watch Kim walk slowly to a win. The twist was interesting at first but was quickly abandoned.

What saves it from Cook Islands status is that it’s less detestable than ASS or SP, but at least has a few good characters that make the dull ride a little bit tolerable. I enjoy Sabrina (especially premerge Sabrina which is the closest the season gets to a star), Troyzan, Kim, and Tarzan. The season does feature the awful duo of Colton and Alicia, but other than that the cast is average with a few decent footnote contestants.

Really the season could probably be lower but I just find it less objectionable than the others, so it lands here more because of other season’s weak points as opposed to its own personal strengths.

Favorite Character: Colton’s Appendix..... or Sabrina

Now we finally get to seasons I like!!!

steel obscurity clone massgustavo95 prada bostonrob_

Hint for 20: A season with returnees; Points: 84 10 comments
Ranking Survivor Seasons: #23 May 20, 2014: recently finished a very long process of rewatching every survivor season in order and will be doing writeups as i rank them from worst to first. after I finish these up I will be redoing my top 39 characters that I did a long time ago, and then i am leaving this site forever and ever

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23- South Pacific

Prior to my rewatch South Pacific was my least favorite season, other than maybe Redemption Island. After rewatching it, I certainly didn’t do a 180 on it but it eased away from hatred and simply became dislike.

South Pacific is hindered by what effects a lot of modern Survivor seasons, bad editing, overexposing a character to death etc. It has Redemption Island, which outside of a premerge BvW setting is just a time suck and a distraction away from the characters. So it has all the makings of Redemption Island’s sequel.
But even with that it has some strength. It actually does have a semi-decent cast, which is somewhat hard to believe because pretty much anyone not named Ozzy, Coach, Brandon, or Cochran was buried or pushed into the background for most scenes. Characters like Sophie, Albert, Rick, Edna, Stacey, Elyse, and even Semhar are all people I enjoyed, even with marginalized edits for a lot of them. SP Ozzy is quite possibly my favorite Ozzy as well and I thought his underdog arc was great, especially when it ended abruptly one round before taking an easy win home. Sophie and Stacey are two great characters and are probably my favorite two from the season. It goes through the same dance RI does, but instead of the boring gamebot returnee winning Sophie takes it home, saving SP from completely repeating history.

From what I’ve written so far I actually really like SP considering its production faults, but there are a group of characters that make me want to gouge my eyes out. Coach was a watered down/gamebot version of himself, which is truly a crime. Jim Rice is an awful Survivor contestant who I hope to never think or hear about after I post this blog. Cochran is annoying and someone I don’t think should have ever been brought back. And Brandon is like watching a train wreck unfold in a human body and it really felt like exploitation to have such a fragile person out there with soul bared to the world to judge and ridicule him. The fact that he was ever brought back is another travesty.

So with all that said SP is a season with a really horrible side to it but actually has a good core, which is more than I can say about similar seasons like RI and Caramoan.

Favorite Character: Stacey

Hint for next: The next two seasons had a female winner

steel porschefan101 obscurity ilovesleep best clone massgustavo95 prada; Points: 97 8 comments
Ranking Survivor Seasons: #25 and #24 May 20, 2014: recently finished a very long process of rewatching every survivor season in order and will be doing writeups as i rank them from worst to first. after I finish these up I will be redoing my top 39 characters that I did a long time ago, and then i am leaving this site forever and ever

i was going to do 25 by itself but i want to get through the bad seasons in as few blogs as possible so double elimination again

25- Cook Islands
It’s hard to think of a season that I have less investment in. While I despise Redemption Island and Caramoan and wish that they could be expunged from history, I feel nothing for Cook Islands. The characters and results of the season leave me feeling nothing. The season really felt like a competition on who could offend the least number of people and the result was the flattest cast in Survivor history (Or at least I’d argue.) The one character that I enjoyed and actively wanted to watch, Cao Boi, was a premerge boot and after that there was no one that I would consider compelling. Relatively large figures in Survivor history are born in Cook Islands, namely Parvati, Ozzy, Penner, and even Candice, but I found none of them interesting in their original season.

Besides the lack of interesting characters the season was filled with twists that created a comeback story that I used to love, The Aitu 4, but really it was a bunch of subtle and not so subtle rigging/influencing on the part of the producers with the super idol, final 3, and the bottle twist.

Yawnnnnnnnnnnnn, Cook Islands was just the major speed bump in an otherwise solid time in Survivor history as far as seasons go and it’s hard to think of anything good to say about it.

Favorite Character: Cao Boi

24- Samoa
Samoa was the season I was most curious about going into my rewatch. It was a season I hated prior to watching because of the damage it did to the show’s reputation and the legions of Russell fans it created who lack an understanding of the game, but I have seen people say it’s actually better on rewatch and you can appreciate it a bit more.

So I went into it with an open mind, ready to change my thoughts on the season like I have with various seasons/characters during my rewatches, but it just didn’t happen for me. It’s mostly a season of Russell being Russell, and Russell is my least favorite contestant of all time by a long shot. Outside of him bumbling his way to a lopsided loss, most of the enjoyment was lost in the editing for me, where they bury several characters that I would have loved to see more of and would have rooted for (Natalie, Brett, Dave, Kelly S, Cardona, even Mick, etc.)

I will say though that I really enjoyed the final FTC and Erik’s speech to Natalie is one of my favorite moments in the franchise, and that Shambo is a great character but Shambo alone against the tyranny of airtime that is Russell isn’t enough for me to enjoy a season. But other than those two there isn’t much that I felt invested in.

Favorite Character: Shambo

tags: Obscurity Steel Best Ilovesleep Clone porschefan101

Hint for 23: Post HVV season; Points: 113 14 comments
Ranking Survivor Seasons: #27 and #26 May 20, 2014: recently finished a very long process of rewatching every survivor season in order and will be doing writeups as i rank them from worst to first. after I finish these up I will be redoing my top 39 characters that I did a long time ago, and then i am leaving this site forever and ever

to kick it off:

27- Redemption Island
There’s really little reason to elaborate on this one…but a season geared to benefit Rob, filled with a skeleton cast of characters who contributed little and it had Phillip, who other than like Russell and Colton is my least favorite Survivor.

Favorite Character: haha hahaha ha

26- Caramoan
Another season with Phillip which isn’t a coincidence. The season was mostly boring, filled with gamebotting from uninteresting characters. For a returnee season it brought very few people who I was interesting in seeing again (Phillip, Brandon, Cochran, Andrea) and then the ones I did want to see were quickly booted (Fran) or ignored/neglected for large portions of the season (Erik, Corinne (who was irrelevant the first few episodes), and Malcolm (another lower key character in the beginning who subsided into mostly gamebot territory when he became big.) Coupled with all that most of the fans sucked, the exceptions being Laura, who went early, Eddie and Reynold who aren't really a big deal, and Sherri who vanishes once the merge hits.

Ultimately there was nothing I really liked about this season as is only a few inches above RI in the crap pile.

Favorite Character: Corinne

obscurity porschefan101 steel best ilovesleep @anyoneelse

Hint for 25: Season with 20 contestants; Points: 167 57 comments

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Ghoul's blog

The Ghoul's blog

1...262728 Posts 166 posts

1...26 27 28
Posts 166 posts