How to Improve Redemption Island

Okay, I promise that until Survivor: San Juan del Sur premieres, I will post information about the first season of Survivor. I will post these updates every Sunday, although I can watch these episodes at any point in time, should I roll a number four when rolling for something to watch with a meal or whenever I’d watch some sort of TV show on DVD. And, this is the part of the promise that applies to this post at the moment, if there is not a post on Sunday or I know that I won’t be able to post as usual, I will post a random Survivor blog post full of random information about Survivor. I have brainstormed the names of many future blog posts that you might see in the future, whether it is during the summer hiatus or the winter hiatus. I want to keep doing this blog to keep people entertained and you’ll find out what these random blog posts are should I ever write them. But, for now, I should get to the real point of this blog post. And I should tell you why I’m saying it.

Redemption Island is a revolutionary and underrated twist in Survivor history. Instead of the boring great players being voted out and that’s that, we get to see voted out players fight for a chance to get back in the game. They compete in challenges known as duels where the winner stays to see if they can get back in the game and the loser is permanently eliminated from the game (although, for better or for worse, they can always become a returning player in the future). There have been three seasons so far with Redemption Island in it and the twist had varying degrees of success depending on the season it was used it. The blood versus water twist made it work better to some people and it is already confirmed that you will see it in the upcoming season. And while a lot of it makes sense in its current form, there are some things that still need to be changed.

What needs to be changed? Here’s my list: 1- Reedit the episode so that the Redemption Island duel is the very last thing in the episode. That way, episodes still end with a definite elimination. 2- This goes more into number one and is a nitpick more than anything else: give the losers of Redemption Island an exit confessional. To not do that gives these players a disservice. 3- Give contestants on Redemption Island more airtime. If you don’t, it just seems like a waste of a twist. 4- Another nitpick, but can Redemption Island be an actual island? Exile Island was normally its own island and if contestants still have to walk there, you can make tribal council its own island area. 5- This one is important and I can’t stress it enough so I’m going to make this one as obviously stated as possible: BETTER CHALLENGES ARE NEEDED AS DUELS! Blood versus Water made this more evident than it might have already been, but don’t use challenges that don’t work. Keep two way duels as simple two way duels and if a challenge doesn’t work with certain number of players, then don’t use it. Some challenges have failed as Redemption Island duels and shouldn’t be used again. (We can bitch and moan as much as we like, but it’s ultimately the producers who decide which challenges to use in each season. I just hope that they use common sense with what’s failed so far.)

The list continued: 6- Since we are on the topic of needing good challenges, I might as well bring up the fact that no new and untested challenge should ever be a Redemption Island duel. They’ve done this before, but it would be nice if they didn’t do this again. Just because it works for the dream team doesn’t mean it will ever work otherwise. The final immunity challenge in Palau taught us that what the dream team says may not be what actually ends up happening. 7- Do the contestants in the game need to know what happens on the island? I still don’t like the idea of that. 8- Explain whether or not throwing a duel here is considered quitting since some people want to know. 9- Replace the buff burning with something else since buffs are a great thing to have and burning them seems kind of unneeded. 10- Avoid the first impressions twist sending someone there. 11- Have challenges that aren’t Redemption Island duels be two-part: one for reward and another for immunity. Although, now that I’ve reached this point, I think that I’ve run out of things to say regarding this topic. So, for now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.