Survivor Finale Flops

I’ve been a fan of the “Reality TV” show Survivor since season one. Some seasons are better than others and some casts can be more interesting and entertaining but I have enjoyed each and every show. Plus I won’t lie, watching some sexy young women in barely there bikini’s bouncing around on a beach is quite enjoyable as well.

When I think back to the first season of Survivor, it was groundbreaking entertainment and something fresh and new. The first winner was Richard Hatch who of course went on to enjoy fame and jail time for tax evasion after winning the 1-million dollar prize. Of course, had the show really been about survival, I have no doubt that in that first season Rudy Boesch the ex Navy Seal would have easily won. He could have killed them all on the first night. But of course the game isn't really about that.

The game of Survivor is set up so that in order to succeed and ultimately win the game, you need to avoid being voted out by your fellow tribe members and in the end receive votes from the jury.

Up until recent seasons I have been mostly satisfied with the chosen winners. Those who schemed, lied, cheated, outwitted and outplayed usually were rewarded for doing what they had to do to win. A few times the odd person skated through by doing nothing and won and that has bothered me a little.

Nowhere in the rules of Survivor does it state you must play the game with honesty and integrity to win and as witnessed in numerous past seasons, the person who schemed the most was given the title as sole survivor and the million dollar prize to go with it.

Jury members were able to put aside their bitter feelings of being outplayed and outwitted and realized that the game play of someone who might have taken a less honourable route should be rewarded because they played the best game to get them to the end. You may not like how they did it but they got the job done.

Sadly, during the last two seasons, the Juries have wimped out as Russell Hantz has clearly been the better player and made it to the end in both of his seasons. He lied, schemed, bullied and basically ran the show by getting people to do what he wanted, yet despite being what I would consider the best Survivor player ever, he has never won.

After the worst jury ever on Season 19 failed to award the top prize to Russell because they couldn’t get past their bruised egos, I thought for sure when Russell made it to the end during this Heroes vs. Villains finale he was a lock to finally win. I was wrong.

I figured with a group of Survivor veterans casting the votes on the Jury, surely they would be able to recognize the nominate play of Hantz and give him the victory he not only deserved but earned.

Boy was I wrong and so were they. Neither Parvati Shallow nor Sandra Diaz-Twine (the winner of season 20) deserved to win. And among those two, Sandra was the least deserving of all. She never won a challenge, was physically inferior to everyone else and had no social game at all. Parvati was at least a strong competitor in the challenges.

Quite simply, Russell got screwed again because he had a hand in almost every person on the jury being voted out and rather than applaud his superior game play, they gave the money to a much less worthy individual.

For the record, who wins and who loses only ruins the end of the game and show for me. Sure I’d like to see the most deserving person win but as long as I enjoy the season as a whole then I’m satisfied. I just think this season they had a chance to get it right and they blew it. Sandra gets her million and I’m sure she can use it and Parvati gets her 100-thousand dollar prize for finishing second.

Russell is left sitting there shaking his head having played the game perfectly but knowing that the one part of the competition he can’t control did him in once again. The consolation for Russell is the knowledge that for the second season in a row he was awarded the 100-thousand dollar prize voted by the fans as Player of the Game. At least the fans knew who the best player in the game was.