Survivor: Blood vs. Water

originally aired 9/18/13-12/15/13

The order in which players left the game, and the impact they left behind:

• Rupert (Galang; Pearl Islands, All-Stars, Heroes vs. Villains) Played with his heart this time.  Very plainly sacrificed himself as the first victim of the season's theme.
• Colton (Galang; One World) Quitter (x2).  Should not be allowed to play again, no matter what he said at the reunion.  He's really good at making himself sound better there.
• Rachel (Tadhana; Tyson) By his own admission, a huge part of why Tyson eventually won.
• Marissa (Tadhana; Gervase) Probably the most tenuous and superfluous loved one of the season, and her fate played out accordingly.
• Candice (Galang; Cook Islands, Heroes vs. Villains) Got sent immediately to Redemption Island Arena, and just never made it out.
• Brad Culpepper (Tadhana; Monica) A classic case of strategizing himself right out of the game, although to his credit was the first one to do so this season.  Monica was competing against him all season, too, at least in her own mind.
• Kat (Galang; One World) Not as memorable this season as her first one, probably thrown off by the loved ones gimmick.
• John (Tadhana; Candice) Got tangled up in the loved ones affair and never really recovered.
• Laura B. (Tadhana; Rupert) On the plus side, probably did about as well as Rupert ever managed on his own, making this a Boneham tradition of coming up well short of the prize, although they both remain one of the classic pieces of Survivor history.
• Aras (Galang; Panama) Needed to be eliminated so that other people (read: Gervase and Tyson) could make it further, although his basic gameplay ability was definitely validated just in case anyone is still doubting that he deserved his Panama victory.
• Vytas (Tadhana; Aras) Proved he was every bit the match for his brother's gameplay.  In any other season probably a viable contender for the title of sole survivor.
• Caleb (Tadhana; Colton) Still trying to figure out what he sees in Colton (the reverse is obvious enough), but made a surprisingly competent contender although one without a real chance of winning.
• Katie (Tadhana; Tina) One of the real surprises, and one of the better strategists in the game, the last best victim of the loved ones affair.
• Hayden (Tadhana; Kat) Learned that there is a big difference between Survivor and Big Brother.
• Laura M. (Galang; Samoa) The subject of the season's biggest strategic move, although I'm not sure if it made a real difference other than in that family.
• Ciera (Tadhana; Laura M.) The loved one with the most gumption, although not the best strategist; even voting out her own mother didn't amount to everything she thought it would.
• Tina (Galang; The Australian Outback, All-Stars) Perhaps the biggest surprise of the season was a former winner who actually played better this time than when she won, a much bigger threat somehow and therefore a target to be eliminated.
• Gervase (Galang; Borneo) Moreso than Tina, a hugely remarkable turnaround from his earlier gameplay, although to be far he was one of the last two Tagi that first season so perhaps there was always indication that he could do well given another chance.  And so he did.  Not the most impressive in the challenges, but he did what was necessary at camp strategically to secure himself a worthy place in the finals and a good argument for winning if his ally Tyson hadn't done it better.
• Monica (Galang; One World) The classic case of an emotional argument speaking against its own chance of success, no matter how good it can sound, the feel-good argument of playing to believe in herself, creating her own legacy.  She achieved that her first season, and making it to the finals without really having done anything herself to get there (and deep down she knows that; she was the third man, and in the three-way final tribal, no matter how the votes actually shook out, that one never wins) was its own statement as well.  But she never had a chance to win, to be clear.
• Tyson (Galang; Tocantins, Heroes vs. Villains) A player who greatly benefited from a second and especially third chance, always memorable but never a clear threat to win until this season, and he did everything he needed to in order to do it, including clever usage of the hidden immunity idol.  Very happy with this result, a total deserving winner.  In a season heavily dominated by strategists rather than any one truly strong player, he still stood out.  Surprising for a season with a gimmick geared toward emotion, but it was Tyson who managed to strike the right balance, and so here he is.

Survivor: Borneo

originally aired 5/31/2000-8/23/2000

This remains my favorite season of the competition, possibly because the concept was as fresh for the participants as for the viewer, and an outlining how participants and how they left helps illustrate that:

• Sonja (Tagi) The wonderful old lady who survived cancer but not Richard Hatch, the original mother figure and obvious to anyone not expecting a traditional reality show experience to be the first to go.
• B.B. (Pagong) Crotchety old man set the standard for being too bossy and believing in his own superiority.  The first and perhaps last smart movie Pagong made as a tribe.
• Stacey (Tagi) Famously supported the belief that the producers had her tribe vote her own in favor of keeping Rudy around.  Honestly, even if it's true, thank you Tagi.
• Ramona (Pagong) The first official casualty of the physical demands required the play the game, and also the first to prove that it's as much surviving the elements as your own tribemates that gets you further.
• Dirk (Tagi) His legacy is being the first obvious Christian to play the game.  Otherwise an extraneous piece of the Tagi puzzle.
• Joel (Pagong) "Captain America" was a victim of Pagong not realizing that staying strong as a team means putting personal differences aside.  But no one on Pagong realized that numbers equals money in this game.
• Gretchen (Pagong) In some other version of this game, she would have been an obvious winner.  Except she was purely Pagong.  Never realized that she was playing this one.
• Greg (Pagong) The only Pagong who knew what he was doing, but he also used a coconut phone.  The best personality of the season, ended up on the wrong tribe.  
• Jenna (Pagong) The template for the bubbly ditz, even if she still thinks she was anything else.  Known for not getting a video from her babies.
• Gervase (Pagong) Another giant of personality from the season, voted out as the "Sitting Duck," because he lasted long enough to realize Tagi knew what it was doing.
• Colleen (Pagong) The original Survivor sweetheart, the erstwhile "Target," Greg's snuggle buddy, and the first contestant to be the last member of their tribe.
• Sean (Tagi) The doctor of questionable sanity inadvertantly supported the Tagi alliance thanks to his inane alphabet voting method.  He is also the creator of Super Pole 2000, for what it's worth.
• Susan (Tagi) Made immortal by her speech at the final tribal council comparing Kelly and Richard to the two kinds of creatures that they all got to know living on the island, being rats and snakes, and declaring that in the end it should be as nature intended it, for the snake to eat the rat.  
• Rudy (Tagi) The more famous crotchety old man, and the one with all the inadvertently hilarious one-liners.  He's also most responsible for Richard's win, being the first player of unquestioning loyalty in the game as well as part of the original alliance.
• Kelly (Tagi) She tried to have it both ways and discovered that this game almost as a rule simply won't allow it: you can't use trying to be everyone's friend as your best strategy.  Of course as a backup she also took part, increasingly reluctantly, in the original alliance, but discovered that people respect running the alliance at more than playing along with the alliance, no matter how you spin it.
• Richard (Tagi) The first winner in Survivor history was cocky enough to say he would be in the first episode, and I agreed, because it was obvious that he was there to play and no one else was.  He started out being abrasive to his tribe, but wisely backed off and did what was necessary to ensure his survival, and that didn't mean that he would be the best around camp or at challenges, but rather in the social game, in which he formed the original alliance around himself.