There have been a lot of moments on Survivor that have been talked about over the years, and while some fan classics are on this list, these are my ten personal favourite moments.
Chances are that the only people interested in such a list will be fans of the show, but I tried to write it in such a way that non-fans could understand what I was talking about. To give a basic breakdown, each season of Survivor typically has a theme: fans of the show versus all-time favourite players of the show, brains versus beauty versus brawn, African Americans versus Caucasians versus Hispanics versus Asians, etc.
Regardless of the theme, twenty (or so) people are divided into two tribes who compete against each other in various competitions while attempting to survive their exotic locations (Africa, Cook Islands, Fiji) with minimal resources. Each episode there is a competition to decide which tribe will go to tribal council, where one member of the losing tribe will be voted off by their own tribemates. The final survivor left wins a million dollars.
The Survivor motto is: Outwit, Outlast, Outplay, and the game requires a lot of strategy, social ability, teamwork/alliances, and luck.
Should you need them, here is a list of the Survivor rules.
1. Ozzy’s Run
I talk about this moment all the time to anyone who will listen. In Survivor: Cook Islands there was a challenge between the two tribes, Aitutaki and Rarotonga, that was made up of multiple components, including a swimming component. A member from each tribe must essentially swim across a lagoon, accomplish a task, and swim back. Rarotonga’s chosen swimmer, J. P. Calderon (a 6′ 2″ professional volleyball player) was well ahead of Ozzy (a slender waiter). In fact, J.P. was already halfway across.
Ozzy tosses off his bandana, and closes the gap by making a run through the shallow part of the water, before outpacing J.P. in the water, and winning the competition.
They often use these high shots to give you a sense of the breadth of the course, but they were never so effective as this moment when you see Ozzy awaken his natural physical abilities and start a dominating run of victories for himself and his tribe until the end of the game.
2. New Players Getting it Right
For awhile, it felt like Survivor was stagnating. Survivor: Philippines saw the return of some injured survivors, but not players that were extremely well liked, and Survivor: Caramoan seemed to purposefully bring back players that people did not like, including a woman who was the first to be voted off her original season.
Just as we were about to give up hope on Survivor, a tribal council in Survivor: Blood vs. Water reinvigorated the series. Three players in one alliance convinced a player in a four-person alliance to vote with them, intentionally forcing a draw. There is a rare rule (only ever used twice, including this time) where if the vote is at a deadlock, people draw from a bag of rocks to decide who leaves. The bag contains all black rocks, except one white one. If you pick the white rock, you’re out.
What was so exciting about this was that alliances often establish a cemented power, with one or two particular people in charge. It is incredibly difficult to defeat an alliance like that. And the young woman who forced the tie, Ciera Eastin, essentially forced the most powerful player in the game to take a one in three chance at losing. And there would be no alliance saving him, no idols, no schemes, no tricks – he would just be gone.
It was thrilling to watch players not only try risky strategies, but to apply reason and logic (FINALLY!).
3. Tyson Lesson
I believe there are uncouth people out in the world who help make us better. They do so by telling us straight to our face what everyone else is too afraid or too polite to say.
In a moment on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains where Coach (who’s entire self worth appears to be wrapped up in his virtue) has his character questioned, he cries. Broken, turns to Tyson for help.
“Why doesn’t anyone ever say anything good about me? Am I that bad of a person, man?” Coach asks Tyson.
This a rare moment of absolute vulnerability. And what does Tyson do? He bulldozes him. “Don’t wear those stupid feathers in your hair at tribal,” he says. “Don’t tell your stupid stories, nobody likes them. People make fun of you behind your back.”
I know I’m a terrible human being for laughing at this, but there is great comedy to this situation. That’s the absolute WORST time to be so brutally honest. All Coach needed was a hug. Instead Tyson annihilated him.
4. “COME ON, MORGAN!”
It’s extraordinary for players on Survivor to inspire. On Survivor: Pearl Islands, Andrew Savage was appointed leader of his tribe when it was not required to do so. In an immunity challenge, three members from each tribe had to carry wooden poles on their shoulders that get weight added to it each round. The strategy was to get out the two biggest guys (by far), Rupert Boneham on the Drake tribe, and Osten Taylor on the Morgan tribe, out early. Osten dropped out fairly quickly at as soon as soon as he was at 160 pounds. Seeing that their strongest guy was out, Savage refused to let his tribe quit, and held at 160 pounds for the duration of the competition. He did so purely to inspire his tribe. “COME ON, MORGAN!” he cried.
After Morgan won, he collapsed and one of his tribemates kissed him on the forehead, and another helped him up. Everyone, including Jeff, agreed that Savage should be the one to accept the immunity idol on behalf of the tribe.
A lot of people on Survivor have carried teams to victories, few have had the heart and ability to inspire their tribemates to believe in each other.
5. Banana Etiquette
There’s a small moment in Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains that is endearing, funny, and a moment of personal growth. Not many adults are able to take constructive criticism. Fewer are able make changes based on that criticism.
James Clement, perhaps the largest, strongest survivor ever to play the game hurt his knee and the tribe was considering voting him off for being injured. In an attempt the get him to stay, his friend, Amanda Kimmel, tried to explain to him how he could convince the others that he should stay. She told him to show them that he could run. She also took the opportunity to inform him that he was eating too many of the tribe’s bananas. She also said that if he wanted to have one, he must ask everyone around him if they wanted one first.
James not only took the note, but put it into practice. He had a race with fellow tribe member J.T. and lost, but remained smiling. As they walked away from his defeat he asked, “Hey J.T., would you like a banana?”
6. Rob Establishes Leadership
Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains had some of the strongest personalities to compete in a single season. So to see a single person (Rob Mariano) take control of them was impressive.
At the start of the season, everyone on the Villains tribe was trying to make fire without flint. Randy Bailey said, “If you don’t have flint and steel you can’t make fire. Not by rubbing two sticks together.” Rob, undeterred, said he wanted to try it anyway and convinced the tribe to give it a shot. As the tribe worked together and some smoke started to billow out, the doubtful members of his tribe (including Randy) looked at Rob in awe. As Rob brought the embers down to the rest of the wood, Randy said, “You’re in charge down here too. None of us are going to do anything.”
The look on their faces said it all. They worshipped him. It’s insane to have that kind of power amongst so many strong personalities.
7. The Burden of Power
On Survivor: Redemption Island, Rob Mariano may have played the best game of Survivor to date. He built personal relationships with everybody, used his knowledge of past games and star power to influence them, and did an obscene amount of verbal legwork to get people to vote how he wanted, when he wanted.
And there’s a private moment with the cameras where he looks off to the side and admits just how tiring it all is that always makes me laugh. It’s such an honest moment. It not only shows us how difficult playing Survivor (and playing it well) can be, but just how tired he is. His body language and tone say it all, he doesn’t want to do it anymore. But he has to if he wants to win.
“It seems like no matter what the situation on Survivor, I have to do the dirty work because everybody else is too stupid to do it. So I basically told Phillip we’re voting for Grant. Then I had to go to Philip, Ashley, and Natalie: ‘We’re voting for Grant.’ Then I had to go to Grant, ask Grant which way he wanted to go, if he wanted to go with Philip or if he wanted to go with Natalie … It’s a lot of work. It’s exhausting. It really is.”
8. Spencer Carries the Team
There’s a momentum to the competition between tribes in Survivor. Early on, (especially if there are more than two tribes) one tribe typically gets dominated. They lose over, and over, and over again until their tribe is so empty that all tribes have to be broken down and reorganized just so the competitions can continue.
I suspect one of the reasons for this is that certain groups of people simply don’t work well together. And when you’re on that losing team, in the middle of a competition that’s not going well, it’s very easy to give up.
In Survivor: Cagayan, this was the case with the Luzon tribe. They got whittled down to four members, largely because they insisted on keeping around a woman (J’Tia Taylor) who threw away their rice and was an incredibly poor competitor in challenges.
In one such competition, Luzon was losing once again. And in this moment, Spencer Bledsoe, a 21 year-old kid, refused to give up. Staring down at a team that had never won and probably could never win, he didn’t quit, he simply tried harder.
The challenge was to swim underwater to a series of buoys, each at varying depths, release them all one by one, then collect them all and shoot them into a hoop. None of Spencer’s teammates could get the deepest buoys so Spencer had to get them all, back to back. Afterwards, he temporarily collapsed from exhaustion, only to get back up again and do the shooting for the team, refusing to concede defeat.
I’ve never seen a more desperate, solo attempt to carry a survivor team. And it’s precisely this unbridled determination that made Spencer a fan favourite.
9. Jeff Probst Talk-Back
Jeff Probst’s job is to narrate what the other survivors are doing in the challenges. Sometimes he adds some of his personal opinion. And one time a survivor took exception to it.
In Survivor: Cook Islands, there was a challenge to drop cannonballs from a boat into an underwater target. Jeff commented that the Raro tribe “just wasted a cannonball.” To which competitor Jonathan Penner said, “Oh please, Jeff.” And not missing a beat, Jeff narrated, stone-faced: “Jonathan, getting frustrated with me.”
Hilarious.
10. The Robfather
If survivor is in fact scripted, this was their best.
On Survivor: All Stars, after getting Lex to save his wifey, Amber, Rob betrayed the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” nature of that deal, and orchestrated Lex to be voted out.
Before Rob did that, though, he told Lex to his face (since they were friends) that he was not going to vote with him or make an alliance with him. Lex was furious.
“You’ve got more allegiance to them than you’ve got to me? After asking me for a special friend favour,” Lex said. “It’s about being betrayed by my friend.”
Rob goes, “Honestly I don’t know what you want me to say, Lex.”
Lex: “I want you to say that you’re going to truthful to the word that you gave to me.”
Rob: “Make no mistake about it Lex, between you and I, and you want to put our friendship on the line, I’ll put our friendship on the line for this. The word I gave you was that if I could take care of you I will. I’m sorry, I cannot.”
No other survivor moment has such a mutual, raw emotion behind it, because these people knew each other; liked each other. The betrayal was genuine. The game move was personal.