Survivor: Ghost Island First
Impressions
Spring is here! …Almost!
And you know what that means! It’s
time for TV to return from winter hibernation and shower us all in the most
delightful gift imaginable: new episodes!
As usual, Survivor returned this week with an all-new season, named after the
mysterious new wrinkle in the game: Ghost Island. I’m not gonna do a full
episode recap here, but instead I’ll be going over my thoughts on some of the
new stuff introduced as well as the players to watch.
First things first, let’s talk Ghost
Island itself. I love the look of the place for sure. All these old Survivor artifacts like snuffers and
immunity idols and necklaces and the like are scattered around forebodingly, and
there’s a giant sign that tells you if you slip up once you’re probably gonna
lose the million.
Overall, a pretty friendly place.
I also like that Ghost Island isn’t
just a fancy Exile Island where you show up and are given an advantage. You
have a chance to play for the advantage, but if you lose the 50/50 draw, you
get nothing and have to forfeit your vote at your next Tribal Council. Maybe
there’ll be other games and tests later on down the line, but I liked what I
saw here.
I also liked how there’s a chance the
game might not even be available when you show up to Ghost Island, like poor
Donathan discovered. It’s another neat wrinkle if the rest of the contestants
ever learn about it. You can send someone to Ghost Island, keeping them out of
important discussions with their tribemates, but you also run the risk of
giving them an advantage and keeping them in the game because they’re safe from
Tribal while there. It’s fun, it’s creative, and I like it a lot.
Also, the new Tribal Council design is
amazing. I love that giant flaming tiki face with all my heart.
Now, let’s look at the lovely group of
castaways we’ll be watching for the next few weeks. Already there’s a few
standouts, as well as a few people we haven’t seen much of yet, but one person
needs to be specifically called out here.
While he doesn’t earn the First Boot
Award this season, Jacob might’ve had one of the worst starts to a Survivor season ever. Losing his shoes
in the ocean, blatantly going to look for an idol while everyone’s still
getting to know each other, making a fake idol on Ghost Island…only to admit it
was a fake moments later, as well as telling Stephanie about the Legacy
Advantage he found, and then being unceremoniously booted from camp at the
second Tribal of the season. Yikes. It’s easy to say how you’d play the game
from your couch, but I suspect once you’re out there it becomes obvious that
maaaaaybe you aren’t the next Cirie.
Speaking of Stephanie, she’s my first
big one to watch for this season. She got a lot of screentime this week without
getting much, if any, heat from the rest of her tribe. She seems like an easy
person to get along with, which is definitely an asset to use on Survivor, as well as someone not afraid
to visit the Parvati Shallow School of flirting with some of the men on the
tribe to get what you want. She gives me a lot of Sarah from Game Changers vibes, and that’s a good
thing.
On the other end of the spectrum, we
have Donathan. Poor Donathan was put through the wringer on this first episode
alone, starting off as a name thrown out for the first boot, then flopped at
the challenge, and then found himself on Ghost Island with no advantages or
idols or anything to give him a boost. Do I think he has any real chance at
winning this thing? Not really. But am I rooting for him? Absolutely! I love
his charm and his can-do attitude, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on him
for as long as he sticks around.
I also really think Brendan might be a
powerhouse going forward. He seems to be a real team player, giving pep talks
to some of the less confident members of his tribe (*cough* Jacob and Donathan
*cough), and as a strong, athletic leader figure it’s no wonder that he’s
clearly going to be a reliable figure going forward. The big issue with him is
that the big leader types very rarely tend to make it past the Merge (Ben from
last season was a rare exception to the norm), because once Individual Immunity
is in play people like Brendan that exhibit both strong physical and social
gameplay are usually sent off the island before they can start a winning streak
that makes it tough to get rid of them.
We didn’t get to see too much of the
Naviti tribe this week, especially since the Malolo tribe wound up at both of
the tribal councils of the night, meaning that the editing team decided to
focus on them more. Still, I spied a few players I’m really interested in.
Chief among them is Wendell, who
demonstrated some awesome building abilities. Wendell was an easy favourite in
the pre-season material, looking like he excelled in every category of the
game. While we didn’t get much of him here (again, likely because the focus was
on Malolo and the fall of Jacob this week), he demonstrated enough
resourcefulness and gameplay prowess to succeed in the game.
Last but not least, I’d like to look
at Domenick. He’s an interesting player, clearly with a no-nonsense attitude
where he’ll do or say anything regardless of how people perceive him. Now, in
some respects this could be a good thing. He very quickly demonstrated that he’s
a determined player as he found the first hidden immunity idol of the season in
the dead of night. But a big mouth could lead to big problems, and he quickly
severed ties with Chris at the first challenge after he questioned his
decisions on who he picked to run said challenge. Making enemies before you’ve
even hit the beach is not exactly a solid plan, guy. Still, he has the idol and
a partner in Wendell, and it looks like Chris and his surfer-dude pal Sebastian
aren’t the brightest bulbs in the coconut tree, so he might have a shot at
redeeming himself.
So, I guess it’s time for my Day 1
pick to win. I gave it a lot of thought and finally was able to narrow it down
to either Stephanie or Wendell. We got to see a lot of Stephanie this week, and
she definitely gave off vibes of a strong player. My one concern is that she
might be playing too hard right out of the gates. Wendell, on the other hand,
exhibits strengths in the survival and challenge aspects of the game, but we
haven’t seen enough of him to really know for sure how good he is at the social
part of the game.
For now, I think I’ll be sticking with
Team Wendell. His strong ties to Domenick might give him safety for the time
being, and I think that if he makes it to the merge he could win enough challenges
to keep him safe from Tribal.
Overall, I thought this was a great start
to what will hopefully be a great season. Ghost Island and the promise of lots
of insane twists coming on down the line sounds tantalizing, and I’ve already
picked out several players that I’m really interested in so far. Looks like we’re
in for an adventure.
I’ll be back to talk more about this
season at the merge, where I’ll look at each remaining player and give my
thoughts on who I think is going to win!
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