Ten Worst Survivor Moments

Before the landmark 40^th, all winners season had aired, they did a special on what they felt were some of the greatest moments in all of Survivor history. Now there is also a problem that there are also a lot of terrible moments in Survivor history too. This list is about that as I go through what I felt was the ten worst Survivor moments. There are moments that we don’t like to talk about and only look back at with contempt what terrible things have happened in Survivor’s past.

#10 Spoilers from some seasons- Thanks in part to a man named Jim Early, many detailed spoilers such as the boot list and winners of both Samoa and Heroes versus Villains were released well in advance of those season’s airings. Consider yourself lucky if you never knew that. It was hard for me to enjoy what was supposed to be an otherwise great blindside when Tyson was voted out when I knew that Russell and Parvati, the only two other targets, were in the final three. Rob’s vote out later that season was also quite spoiled in advance with his talk with Coach revealing too much about it. It ranks lower on my list since some might not have known about it and it matters even less now that those seasons aired.

#9 The purple rock- This twist has been around for quite some time and it was always a terrible idea. If they were randomly deciding who among the tied players should be voted out through this method, then it wouldn’t be so bad. But making it bounce back on all the non tied players, just to discourage the idea of ties? Or why else is it done? I don’t get it. While it is largely only on here for its first appearance, it is one of the worst things to appear in the show.

#8 Voting out a jury member- When it appeared in Kaoh Rong, I couldn’t quite explain just how utterly and horribly terrible this was for a twist at the time. I’m even annoyed with myself for forgetting to include it in my awards for the worst of TV in a different blog. While that was my only issue with what had happened in the finale, it should have been the worst twist in a finale until they started changing too much of the format with this:

#7 The forced fire making tie-breaker- Now we will never know starting with Heroes versus Healers versus Hustlers just how many final fours could have turned out differently if this twist hadn’t been introduced. Some winners are now controversial and eliminations happen now where there used to be none going that way before. It is hard to tell just how much the game has changed because if it and it seems like we will never know the game we now have in its place.

#6 NaOnka and Kelly Shinn double quit- While there might have been more to this than we saw that made it make more sense, it was still quite disheartening for many to see not one, but two players make it that far in the game just to quit. Even more horrible was the fact that they were allowed on the jury based on the last time that someone quit that late in the game. While we don’t know just how much of an influence this made on that season, we do know that the rules were changed as a result of this.

#5 Dan Foley being attacked at the reunion show- This might be what people would most disagree with me about. In Worlds Apart, I probably hated Dan until this very moment. Basically, Dan was attacking production in post show interviews based on what he felt was an unfair edit. When it was the time for the reunion show to air, they thought that they would air a segment on this. What they did was that they went out of their way to attack him and make him look bad. This is supposed to prove him wrong? If anything, you proved his point. Why so many people take production’s side with this is beyond my understanding. They shouldn’t have attacked him even if they felt he deserved it.

#4 Sue’s quit- Even worse than the double quit from earlier in this list, it is hard not to think of just how horrible this moment was. While the bulk of it started in the previous episode, they made what felt like a whole episode devoted to this departure. It didn’t even make much sense from some standpoints to quit since that would put her in sequester with Richard, right? Still, it is hard not to think of this as among the most disturbing episodes of Survivor.

#3 Zeke is outed- More disturbing than that was this moment from not too long ago. It can often be quite terrible when whatever airs is something that you hear about the next day. Can you believe that someone, especially someone in this community, would out another member of it? Zeke may not have ever been known as transgender before, but now he has to deal with the fact that this is part of his life and so does Jeff Varner who did this insanely stupid thing.

#2 The Caramoan reunion show- What makes this bad isn’t just the fact that it happened, but also that they seem to care less and less about reunion shows after this one. They spend so little time on those in the game and made a lot of them sit out in the audience. Even if this was about Brandon’s departure, to not talk about it is doing a disservice to those in the game who might not care or notice if he isn’t even there. They have done reunions since then without the whole cast and no one would have noticed what had happened without noticing it was gone after the fact.

#1 Dan Spilo’s expulsion- As recent as this was, it is still hard to think of a worse moment than having to expel a player from the game. While some may talk about how he might have been wronged in some way, I don’t see it since they aired all the evidence of inappropriate touching from earlier in the season. Even if production did want to rig it to ensure that Dan wasn’t part of the final three, they would have to know how it would look. They wouldn’t say that Kellee was right to complain. Dan wouldn’t have then apologized in an interview afterwards if he didn’t feel guilty about what happened. If he had always been silent, there never would have been any reason to doubt the severity of this. It is hard not to think of a worse part of Survivor’s history right now.

That’s it for this post. As you already know, there will certainly not be a Survivor: Gabon post on this Sunday as I have to post a different blog then instead. I hope to be back with more of that and the other season that I’m working on soon. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.