Survivor 45

 originally aired September 27, 2023 to December 20, 2023

The order players were eliminated and the impact they left behind:

• Hannah (Lulu) First person to quit this season.  
• Brandon (Lulu) Engineered a quit.  Neither should have even been cast in the first place.  Likely just to emphasize for newer viewers that this remains an actual challenge just to endure the reality of the game.
• Sabiyah (Lulu) Will best be remembered for melting the wax on an advantage at tribal council.  Which didn't prevent her from being voted out.
• Sean (Lulu) This whole tribe was probably as close to another Ulong as Survivor has yet managed to produce, just a bunch of pathetic players who couldn't figure out why they were even playing the game.  Two exceptions notable exceptions, as basically with Ulong (way back in Palau, the season with the epic challenge showdown between eventual winner Tom & Ian, who dominated Koror and the season as a whole). Another quitter.
• Brando (Belo) Basically his exist helped define the games of several players (Austin, Drew, Emily, Kendra) who made it deeper, thus beginning to demonstrate there were actually people playing this season.
• J. Maya (Reba) Someone who tried unsuccessfully to navigate the chaotic voting strategies that ultimately defined the season.  I liked her, but too little too late but somehow too soon, because again, this was how long it took for gameplay to actually come into play.  So you might actually consider her the key to unlocking everyone else's game, the player who was the biggest threat and most needed eliminating.
• Sifu (Reba) Loved watching this guy, an actual player worth watching for something other than strategizing, which happens increasingly rarely in these later seasons, a fun personality who was of course unable to factor into anyone's strategies probably mostly because he was too likable, at least by viewer standards.
• Kaleb (Lulu) Easily the smartest member of Lulu and probably of the whole season, which was why he, too, needed eliminating early, although he at least made it to the jury.
• Kellie (Belo) I found most of the women to be indistinguishable this season, weirdly most of the ones that made it deep into the game and even winner of the season.  They just kind of existed as fairly anonymous players.  Kellie was most anonymous.
• Kendra (Belo) Anonymous, too, but almost possessor of a huge ego that drives pretty much every decision she makes, and an obnoxious personality she uses to compensate.
• Bruce (Belo) The poor shlub evacuated within minutes of the first episode last season (still wonder if he'll ever sue for the way they edited it so callously) comes back this season and is immediately and inexplicably the target of smear campaigns from Emily and Katurah, the latter all season long as if the game has never had returning players before (you could tell very quickly how stuffed the casting was with the worst possible vetting this season as far as any awareness of the game).  So he ends up feeling as if he's a bad guy because of how he's treated (although like Sifu, a personality viewers might actually enjoy).  All that being said, the domineering camp personality was a trope in early seasons ripe for votes.  I just don't buy into it, with Bruce, as Katurah seemed determined to despise him from the start, and just kept coming up with excuses as to why.  Had nothing to say in the edit of final tribal, only came up in relation to Emily's first episode tirade against him in the reunion.  Done very, very wrong.  But at least got to play a season, and lasted deep into the jury phase.  Needs a third chance, hopefully with more players capable of grasping the game.
• Emily (Lulu) Kaleb helped her turn around her social game, and she became a wild card no one understood as being allowed to remain on the board so long, so that she might have won the season given a chance.
• Drew (Reba) Probably the only player visibly aware that there was more than Survivor 45 to the legacy of the game this season, and as such a classic player in a season like this.
• Julie (Reba) Eventually defined by other players as the "mom" of the season and therefore a threat to win, but such an anonymous player otherwise.  This is the way the jury deliberated, and why the season played out the way it did, so many players like this just screwing up real chances at deliberate gameplay.
• Katurah (Belo) Such a hateful player, like Kendra working on therapy while being oblivious to the fact instead of playing the game.  Really needs to work on self-awareness above everything else, one of three lawyers in the season and most proud for basing her entire gameplay on hiding the fact.  Never once seemed analytical, so it's hard to see how she makes a living.
• Jake (Belo) Scrapped and clawed his way through the season, no one really willing to work with him but somehow surviving nearly to the end being able to successfully navigate, mostly because these people really didn't have a clue how to play.
• Austin (Reba) Probably the purest player this season, clever and deliberate and able to navigate the unsteady waters.  His romantic alliance with winner Dee brought with it allusions to Boston Rob & Amber, but never really felt like it, and wasn't the same kind of feel-good showdown at final tribal council.  In my texting group this season I called him Barry Allen, because he looks somewhat like Ezra Miller.
• Dee (Reba) So many standout players, and even someone winning who could make a legitimate case, and yet I was only satisfied with her actually claiming the prize when I heard my niece approved.  I suppose she earned it, but I wish she hadn't felt so anonymous until the tepid showmance bloomed.  It's kind of telling that this wasn't the obvious target for elimination in a season like this, as it's been since Romber.

And here's the big surprise: I picked out nine players worth remembering for gameplay (and sometimes through sheer force of personality), a new record, supplanting Palau in my ranking based on that criteria (with Dee ranked 10th among winners), which is kind of surprising since it was very far from a traditional season as far as gameplay went, which was refreshing and frustrating at the same time, since too much aggressive gameplay isn't fun to watch but a lower level is also hard to appreciate.  But the number of players that needed to be eliminated in order for things to play out the way it did was impressive, and the players who did make it to the finals deserved, uniformly, to be there, too, regardless of the outcome or how I felt about it.  It's nice to know I can still be pleasantly surprised by Survivor.  A most interesting season indeed.

Survivor 44

originally aired March 1, 2023 to May 24, 2023

The order players were eliminated and the impact they left behind:

• Bruce (Tika) If people begin suing Survivor, it might be this guy at some point.  The edit clearly shows exactly how and when he smashes his head and gets a concussion, which ends up leaving him medically evacuated, to dramatic, apparently entertaining effect (the smash, not the evacuation).  And he's immediately shipped right back to play in Season 45!
• Maddy (Ratu) During the earliest part of the game there was tremendous gameplay, leading to a tribal council where nearly everyone had and/or played advantages, leaving to Maddy's exit.  Tremendously misleading, as it turned out, for the season as a whole.
• Helen (Tika) As I've pointed out before, watching Survivor these days means a texting party every week for me, and this season I spent a lot of time complaining, since I thought this was a bad season.  Helen's ouster was the result of Carson deciding to keep Carolyn around.  Long-term this worked out extremely well for both of them.  As a viewer I couldn't possibly have enjoyed the results less.  Carson was an early candidate for someone I could actually root for, but he turned out to be someone I couldn't care less for, since he formed an alliance with two players I loathed.  And who both outlasted him.
• Claire (Soka) Ha.  The player who thought she didn't need to compete in challenges.  Turns out to not be a winning strategy.  At all.
• Sarah (Tika) At this point it was very clear Tika was made up of knuckleheads.  Who in this kind of season ended up producing the winner.
• Matthew (Ratu) This knucklehead, however, played for a different tribe, and very early in the game foolishly climbed a rocky protuberance, fell from it, dislocated his shoulder, and kept participating in challenges.  This in itself doesn't sound laughable.  It sounds courageous!  Valiant!  But he kept using his bad arm.  And eventually got medically evacuated because of it.  I see no good defense of any of that.
• Josh (Soka) A player who was kind of almost worth rooting for.  
• Matt (Soka) This season's showmance was one of the few highlights.  One of the very few positive, viewer-friendly things to emerge from it.  More on this when we reach his sweety.
• Brandon (Ratu) The extreme problem this season was that they didn't cast players who viewers could easily root for.  Or at least featured an edit worth savoring.  Brandon was one of the many bland personalities who might have otherwise been worth rooting for.
• Kane (Ratu) Almost by default someone I could bother watching without disdain.  Kind of interesting.  Didn't really know how to play.  This was a whole season of players who didn't really know how to play.
• Frannie (Soka) Matt's sweety.  If either of them had been as strategic as Frannie tried to be before she was voted out, they could've basically had the game in the bag.  But that's the kind of season this was.
• Danny (Soka) I dubbed him Ninja Dan based on one fleeting sequence in the edit.  I loved this guy.  An actual personality!  But surrounded by knuckleheads.  A whole season of knuckleheads.  Aside from "Mannie," really the only reason to care this season happened at all.  
• Jaime (Ratu) Hey, look!  Another bland personality!
• Lauren (Ratu) Hey, look!  Another!
• Carson (Tika) The cheat code challenge player who basically wasted all his geeky knowledge by having no real idea how to play the game socially, eventually putting all his chips in the Yam Yam/Carolyn bucket, which, as I noted in a text, gave the two of them more power than the one of him.  Which led to his ouster.
• Carolyn (Tika) If even a smidgen of her personality was an act (which she was oblivious enough to admit at final tribal, which probably cost her all remaining hope of any votes), then wow! did she wildly miscalculate.  The edit was almost Carolyn all season (with most of the rest of it given to Yam Yam), leaving viewers with someone most of them probably couldn't stomach.  Who made that call???
• Heidi (Soka) Bland personality like Lauren the editing half-heartedly tried to redeem with a sympathetic factoid.  If the edit had bothered with any of them, I don't know what kind of viewing experience this would have been, but it would have been far less obnoxious.  Which I think would have been better than what we got, regardless of outcome.
• Yam Yam (Tika) Wow.  So obviously from the very beginning Survivor has tried to present a representative sampling of society, and this is sometimes peppered by quirky casting choices, including the lively foreigner, which almost always backfires.  Yam Yam checked a lot of boxes for the casting director, none of which entertained me in the least bit.  I couldn't stand the guy.  You're gonna see his name listed at the very bottom of winners.  I have a new all-time low.  If Carson hadn't legitimized Yam Yam and Carolyn, they would never in a million years have lasted to the finals.  Not even to score easy votes.  They maneuvered, but only out of sheer lucky opportunity, since this season was chock full of players who didn't have the first clue what they were doing.  I have in the past bitterly complained about "master strategists."  This season I found out I would vastly prefer "master strategists" to clueless knuckleheads.  I really blame the edit for how this season played out, though.  Heavily featuring two players guaranteed to alienate even some parts of the viewership is a terrible idea.  They were not even remotely balanced by anything else.  Carson certainly couldn't.  They didn't even try with Ninja Dan.  "Mannie" almost did, but very inconveniently both were voted out early in the jury phase.  Yam Yam was the yuppie's delight.  For the more affluent members of the fanbase, I'm sure he was a delight.  For me he was just an entitled brat who smiled his way to victory.  He isn't even particularly representative of any Puerto Rican I ever met, which is the even more insulting part of it.  He doesn't have to represent Puerto Ricans as a whole, but if you go out of your way to cast a Puerto Rican, and you have someone like Heidi sitting next to him in the finals and you give her all of two minutes to voice the authentic journey he claims to represent...Just a total disaster of a season.  The Ulong of seasons, really.