The pre-merge of Survivor Australia vs. The World has been a delightful whirlwind. I have not been doing any deep analysis or hardcore Edgic for this season. I’ve been filling out a chart immediately after watching the episodes based on initial feelings, but that’s about it. It has been a really fun season and I’m enjoying just watching the show again. Survivor 48 wasn’t my favorite season and doing Edgic for it ended up kind of bumming me out. Despite the Survivor 50 cast being released, I haven’t really made a dent in the massive rewatch that I had been planning because I just needed a break. However, this season of Survivor Australia is getting me back into the swing of things.
Here is how things shook out for me over the first four episodes.
Frankly, I do not know what big differences there may be between the edits of Survivor and Survivor Australia, so granted all of my ratings are based on what I know from analyzing the American franchise. Analysis isn’t too deep since I’m not familiar with the differences.
Based on the pre-merge episodes, though, Parvati is my frontrunner. There is no doubt that she is the main character and we get a lot of her perspective and other players’ perspectives on her. I’d say she feels overexposed and therefore cannot be the winner, but it just hasn’t really felt any other possible contenders are even coming close to the supernova that is Parvati.
Other players that seem to have a chance are Kirby, Luke, Kass, and Cirie, probably in that order. All three get a decent amount of complexity and content. Luke and Cirie are undoubtedly positively portrayed, but Kass may have ultimately mixed vibes. At times she seems like the snake in the grass that Parvati needs to watch out for.
Janine, Tommi, Lisa, Sarah, and Shonee unfortunately do not seem to have a chance at this point. Analysis over.
On the other hand, I cannot overstate how much I’ve been enjoying this season. I haven’t watched any other seasons of Survivor Australia so I can’t really talk definitively about the differences when compared to the American franchise, but this is just such a breath of fresh air compared to New Era Survivor.
One of the things that I’ve been appreciating is the fact that they’ve fleshed out basically all of the players to some extent except for Tommi. There are ten fewer days in the game, four fewer players, and three fewer episodes. I came into this season only familiar with Parvati, Cirie, and Tony. However, I’ve fallen in love with so many of these players from other franchises. American Survivor feels like it’s lost its touch a bit in terms of being a show about the people playing this game. Sometimes New Era Survivor feels like it’s a show about Survivor and there just happen to be people there playing the game leading to character moments feeling forced or cartoonish at times. Watching Survivor Australia vs. The World has shown me that this really is something that is probably going on more on the production end. There are still super fans on this cast. There is the occasional flashback or backstory montage. There is franchise self-reference. There are very similar challenges (albeit, the subtle changes they make do make the Australian versions more brutal/interesting). There are twists. There are advantages. They are very similar, but the product feels so different. It’s fun.
For the American franchise to not have had an active hand in this season feels like a mistake, and hopefully they’re seeing that. Jeff Probst can be self-righteous and stubborn when it comes to the game. However, I hope in the 50’s the American franchise makes some tweaks. Watching this, I really don’t think it would take much. They just have to want to do it.