Pod Insights Pop Culture Happy Hour The best Survivor seasons, ranked About this episode Survivor changed the landscape of reality television. Over 50 seasons, the competition has riveted audiences with its complex social strategy, ever-shifting alliances, and many twists. The show has evolved, and fans have debated changes to the game for years. So what’s the best Survivor season of all time?
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:20 Linda Holmes? When Survivor premiered in 2000, it was an instant sensation that helped usher in a new era of reality television. Now it's an institution that's airing its 50th season.
0:31 Stephen Thompson? So we thought this was a good time to look back on the show's five greatest seasons as chosen by some weird nerd. It's me. I'm that weird nerd.
0:40 Linda Holmes? You sure are. I'm Linda Holmes. It's just the two of us today here at NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Now, Stephen Thompson, before we get to your ranking, for those who have remained unaware of Survivor's core concept, it's a reality competition in which a bunch of people are marooned in a theoretically exotic location where they vote each other out one by one until a single winner remains. But the game has evolved substantially from its roots. As a survival competition, now it involves complex social strategy, ever shifting alliances, and so many twists, gimmicks, immunity idols, advantages. This is sort of what has alienated me from this show, which I'm sure we will talk about. Survivor is currently airing
1:24 Linda Holmes? an all-star season. It's called Survivor 50 in the Hands of the Fans. Ugh.
1:30 Stephen Thompson? That's the last thing we need.
1:32 Linda Holmes? The last thing we need. Stephen, you used this round number milestone as an excuse. And I want to stress, I didn't make you do this. Nobody made you do this.
1:42 Stephen Thompson? This was voluntary, I promise.
1:44 Linda Holmes? This was voluntary. You used this milestone as an excuse to write a full exhaustive ranking of all 50 seasons that will go up on npr.org later this month. But we thought it would be fun to talk about the five best seasons as you ranked them. They are all available right now via Paramount Plus. Let's kick it off with the season that you have at number five.
2:08 Stephen Thompson? Well, I didn't intend the ranking to work this way, but it has worked this way. That in fifth place is a season where I think if you were Survivor curious, but maybe you haven't watched Survivor since that first season, maybe the first couple of seasons. The first episode of this season, I think, is a perfect place to start. In fifth place, I picked Survivor Pearl Islands, which is the seventh season of the show. It is, I think, the best of the kind of early iterations of Survivor, kind of old school Survivor. You get several iconic Survivor players who are introduced in this particular season. Sandra Diaz Twine, who is considered one of the greatest Survivor players of all time, is introduced that season.
2:51 Stephen Thompson? Rupert Bonham, who's kind of a certain kind of Survivor archetype, is definitely one of the great Survivor self-styled good guys. You have a kind of all-time Survivor villain in this guy who calls himself Johnny Fairplay and envisions himself as a kind of a pro wrestling style heel. Some very notorious gameplay. One of the first major season-altering twists happens in this season. So it's kind of setting the table for a lot of Survivor to come. And it really does kick off with, I think, one of the best individual episodes of Survivor ever. The stage setting that goes on in this season, I think, is really excellent.
3:31 Linda Holmes? It's very interesting that this is the first one we're talking about because I cannot stand this.
3:37 Linda Holmes? I thought this season was so not my speed for this show.
3:41 Stephen Thompson? Interesting.
3:42 Linda Holmes? You know that I do not like Rupert. You know that I find Rupert's entire shtick exhausting. I find Johnny Fairplay's shtick exhausting. To me, this is the season where the show begins to circle the, we're going to make it all about self-defined bad guys and self-defined heroes. And that, to me, has always been deeply and profoundly. Profoundly boring. And I will say the episode that you are praising, the opening episode where Rupert, I think it is, decides to steal everyone's shoes. Like, what? Why? Why? It's like a pirate themed season. And he takes being a pirate like very seriously
4:25 Linda Holmes? in this kind of self-important, I'm a pirate now. I can't stand this season.
4:30 Stephen Thompson? Wow, can't stand it.
4:32 Linda Holmes? Well, listen, I may not agree with you, but maybe I'll agree with you on something later in the list. Let's go to your number four season of Survivor. What is your number four?
4:41 Stephen Thompson? Well, I think this one is one of the most polarizing seasons because of its very unfortunate core concept. But I think it is an all time great season. It is Survivor Cook Islands, which is the 13th season of the show. This is famously known as the season of Survivor in which tribes were divided by race. Now, the notion of a season of Survivor where the core concept is essentially Survivor race wars does not seem like it would lend itself to particularly enjoyable television. But the effect of it, first of all, they shuffle the tribes after two episodes. So they kind of abandon that concept right away. And they're not necessarily like wrestling over the course of the season with which race is best at Survivor.
5:26 Stephen Thompson? The effect of it is you have one of the most diverse casts in the history of Survivor. And because Survivor producers don't want viewers at home to be like, oh, I hate that Asian tribe. They don't stack the cast with unlikable people. So you have, it's not that everybody on the season is super likable, as I'm sure you would agree with me there. But you just have a lot of people who are fun, who are interesting, whose stories haven't been told on Survivor before. And this season happens to launch the kind of career Survivor arcs of some all time famous, in some cases, great Survivor players. It's your introduction
6:08 Stephen Thompson? to Parvati Shallow. It is your introduction to Ozzy, who is in Survivor 50. It is the introduction of Jonathan Penner. Linda, you and I, I think, agree that he is one of the all time most enjoyable Survivor players. There are like weird boots kind of throughout this season. This has one of the most memorable second boots in the history of Survivor. And so it's not that every single player on this season is super memorable, but there are a bunch scattered throughout. And it also introduces Yul Kwan, who is another one of my favorite Survivor players, somebody who's kind of calm, strategic approach to the game, demonstrated another path to success in Survivor that I think has been really good for the game.
6:50 Linda Holmes? Uh huh. Now, I will give you good news, buddy. I agree with you about this one.
6:54 Stephen Thompson? Yeah, I know you like this season.
6:55 Linda Holmes? This is probably my favorite season. And it's for the reasons that you said, like, I think it was very well cast. It has a couple of really satisfying kind of turns of fate for different people. There are some moments where I think people who are very smug and unpleasant suddenly find that things are not going for them as well as they thought they were. People who appear doomed turn out to not be doomed. And as you said, I think Yul, as a strategist and as a player, is a super interesting and appealing guy who I think unfortunately, the show immediately decided, we don't ever want somebody to win that way again.
7:34 Linda Holmes? It started loading it up with more advantages and twists and shifts and stuff like that to try to avoid having people win as much on strategy and steadiness as he did. But yeah, that's a really fun season, very good season. I am not an Aussie person, but I am not a poverty person, but I am a Yul person.
7:54 Stephen Thompson? And you're definitely a Jonathan person.
7:56 Linda Holmes? Definitely a Penner person. That's a fun dude.
7:59 Stephen Thompson? And I think Penner is kind of a historically significant Survivor player in that there are certainly other fairly early seasons where this happens. But where a player is able to become kind of a fulcrum of the season in realizing that he's not necessarily in a great position in the game, but that he can decide to kind of throw the game in favor of people he enjoys more. And honestly, what a favor that is.
8:24 Linda Holmes? Exactly. It's kind of like, I'm not well positioned. Positioned anyway, but at least I can make sure these dopes are not well positioned either. I love that season for that. So that is Survivor season 13, Cook Islands. I agree with you, the opening concept of that season is ghastly.
8:39 Stephen Thompson? Yes.
8:39 Linda Holmes? But the ripples of it are actually not as bad as you would think. So that is your number four pick. What is your number three pick?
8:46 Stephen Thompson? Well, my number three pick is it's somewhat similar to Cook Islands in that I think the core concept of the show is somewhat unfortunate, but also doesn't particularly matter
8:56 Linda Holmes? Yeah.
8:56 Stephen Thompson? to the outcome of the game. I'm talking about season 33 Survivor Millennials versus Gen X. And when I tell you, Linda, I don't know if you've seen this season.
9:05 Linda Holmes? I think I've seen them all.
9:07 Stephen Thompson? Okay, this season treats being a member of Generation X like being a member of the greatest generation. And not the generation that literally like personified the term slacker. Essentially, the conceit of the season is like Survivor, slightly older people versus slightly younger people.
9:24 Linda Holmes? Yeah.
9:25 Stephen Thompson? But they talk a lot about these generational divides that are just incredibly standard to any generational split, where the older people are like the young people don't know what they're talking about with their Pokemon cards and their participation trophies. But then the actual gameplay is excellent. And like with Cook Islands, the concept is weak, the cast is terrific. Even a lot of kind of Survivor archetypes that are typically filled by not terribly nice people, here are filled by nice people. And so you have a bunch of people who are playing a hard, strategic, kind of sophisticated game. They're assessing all the game theory stuff and the alliances are shifting constantly.
10:08 Stephen Thompson? But it's easy to follow. It's good natured. You don't have the kind of viciousness that I think undercuts the enjoyment of a lot of the earlier seasons. It is one of my favorite kind of new era, new school seasons of Survivor.
10:22 Linda Holmes? You know, I will tell you the truth. I know I've seen this season. And yet I don't know a thing about it. I don't remember any of these people. I mean, that's not true. I remember a couple of them, but I do not remember very much about this season. This is one that I have to admit sort of rolled right off me. It's possible that that's because of how goofy I found the conceit of it, the millennials versus Gen X thing. I find generational warfare completely boring. So I don't remember a gosh darn thing about this season. So I can't take issue with anything that you've said. So we're on a roll that is very interesting in the sense that we have one that I don't like at all, one that I really love, and one that I don't really remember. So we're kind of
11:07 Linda Holmes? covering the full range of Survivor seasons here. Let's move on to your number two. What is your number two pick?
11:15 Stephen Thompson? So my number two pick is season 31. It is Survivor Cambodia: Second Chance. It is an all-star season, as the title suggests, but it is, I think, one of the best ways to do an all-star season, which is to specifically bring back players who have not won and who have not played three, four, five times, the way some of these all-star seasons kind of keep bringing the same players back over and over and over again. I think often with all-star players, all-star players are typically kind of their most interesting, their most hungry, and their most sophisticated as players in their second go-round. And I think this
11:57 Stephen Thompson? season really demonstrates that. I think also the structure of how they brought people back really proved beneficial in terms of who wound up on this cast. They picked 32 former players who had never won the game, threw it open to a fan poll. And I know we were joking about how in the fans, hands of the fans is always a bad idea, but they had a fan poll where they whittled 32 people down to 20. And what that largely did was weed out people Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor and executive producer of Survivor, thought were interesting that nobody actually wanted to see. And so, no, we're not going to get Troy Zan. No, we're not going to get Brad Culpepper. We're going to get actual
12:39 Stephen Thompson? fan favorites and people the audience was most excited to see back on the show. There were a couple of kind of early players I would have liked to have seen in this cast, but largely had very few complaints about it. And then you get a bunch of really hungry, aggressive, thoughtful, Players, a mix of people I really love and a couple of people I really don't love. And just the way the game plays out winds up being enormously beneficial. There is an episode of the show where one of my favorite players absolutely pantses one of my least favorite players in kind of spectacular fashion. And unlike a lot of seasons of this era, you don't necessarily get as much of the problem
13:24 Stephen Thompson? where all the threats get taken out between the merge and the final three, which is a really frustrating issue with new era Survivor for me. I have more of a problem with that. I don't think there's an easy solution to it, but I have kind of more of a problem with that aspect of new era Survivor than I do with eight million twists. Are there seasons with way, way, way, way, way too many twists? Absolutely. The biggest problem is when you get down to the end and all of a sudden you're looking at a final three and you're like, I don't care about any of these three. This season does not have that problem. And I think that helps make it one of the all time greats for me.
13:59 Linda Holmes? Yeah, this is one where I really like the concept of it. I really like the idea of bringing people back, particularly since they did reach back pretty far in some.
14:08 Stephen Thompson? They reached back all the way to the first season.
14:10 Linda Holmes? Yeah, in some cases they reached back pretty darn far. And I was happy about that because one of my complaints about all star seasons is that they tend to suffer from a lot of recency bias.
14:20 Stephen Thompson? Yeah.
14:20 Linda Holmes? And so they'll announce an all star season, it'll be 90% people from the last five seasons or something. So I never liked that. I was happy that they reached all the way back. However, having said that, I didn't care that much. And I remember kind of watching this and being like, eh, I don't care that much. It was fine. This is on my list of seasons that like are fine. As you said, there are some people that I really, really like who are in this season, who I enjoy watching, and now a lot of people that I didn't care about and a couple of people that I can't stand. I think you're right that the fans helped to tip this away from Jeff Probst's favorite players, who are almost always an exact reverse of my favorite players.
14:59 Stephen Thompson? He loves to see alpha dudes going at it.
15:01 Linda Holmes? He really does. And like legitimately, there's only a couple kinds of ways that women play that I think he has any respect for, which is probably my biggest beef with him. So I don't care for that. But as you said, came up with an okay cast in the end.
15:15 Stephen Thompson? Okay, it's a good cast.
15:17 Linda Holmes? If people want to watch this season, that is fine with me. It's not one of my favorites, but it's also not Pearl Islands. All right. After the break, we are going to reveal the number one best season of Survivor, according to Stephen and probably not me. We will see you in a second.
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16:44 Linda Holmes? All right, welcome back. It is time for Stephen to reveal what he considers to be the best-ever season of Survivor. Stephen, drumroll, what did you pick?
16:59 Stephen Thompson? Well, once again, I picked a season that has, I think, a very flawed core concept, but great gameplay, a great bunch of stories kind of interlocking and unfolding throughout the course of the season, a very satisfying winner, a lot of kind of Survivor myth-making. I picked Survivor Heroes vs. Villains, which is season 20. Now, Survivor has a very weird... Description of what constitutes a hero and what constitutes a villain. And in the write up that's going to go up on npr.org, I have a long kind of breakdown of how weird it is and why. Like, there are several people on this season whose heroism seems to be rooted primarily in the fact that they found women on their season annoying.
17:43 Stephen Thompson? You have Colby Donaldson and James Clement, who have never been seen doing anything heroic on the show, except sort of proclaim themselves to be heroes, and they're annoyed by the women around them. But I think one of the interesting things about this season is I found myself rooting for a mix of people who are identified as heroes and people who were identified as villains. The kind of fungible nature of what constitutes a hero and a villain kind of affects people's arcs in really interesting ways. I think this is a season that has a bunch of really interesting gameplay and is kind of sits at this perfect fusion of what I like most about old school Survivor and what I like most about new school Survivor, where it feels like an advanced game.
18:26 Stephen Thompson? It feels like it is full of people who are largely playing well, and in several cases, people making spectacular, terrible moves that blow up in their faces in super interesting ways. This, to me, is just a fun season. And, you know, one thing, when I talk about like, what makes a really good season of Survivor, it often just boils down to a cast made up of fun people who play hard. And to me, it's not that I like every member of this cast. Several of my least favorite Survivor players of all time are on this cast. The fact that they're kind of hoisted by their own petard over the course of this season is part of what makes it so fun.
19:04 Linda Holmes? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I mix this season up always with fans versus favorites, which is a season with a bunch of the same personnel.
19:11 Stephen Thompson? Yes.
19:12 Linda Holmes? And kind of a similar feeling, although, obviously.
19:16 Stephen Thompson? And a similar reputation as an all time great season.
19:19 Linda Holmes? Yeah. One of the things I realize as I listen to you say this is that some of these seasons are populated by people who. In retrospect, and sometimes they have been on Survivor or other reality shows so much now, even after these seasons.
19:34 Stephen Thompson? Right.
19:35 Linda Holmes? That when I look back at this season, I look at some of these people and I'm like, oh God, poverty. I'm so sick of looking at poverty. But that's partly because of the things she's done since this season, right?
19:44 Stephen Thompson? Oh, yeah.
19:44 Linda Holmes? Like, I can understand how if you just took this season in isolation, although I did not enjoy her at the time, I will say that. But with some of these people, it's like, I can't watch this person again. I've watched this person a million times. They keep shoving this person in my face. That is how I feel about somebody like Russell Hans. That is how I feel about somebody like even Boston Rob, who I did used to enjoy in his early iterations.
20:07 Stephen Thompson? Which is funny, because I enjoy him more later as kind of workaday girl dad whose day in the office is playing Survivor.
20:14 Linda Holmes? I think that's right, but I'm also, I've also had enough, right?
20:17 Stephen Thompson? Sure.
20:18 Linda Holmes? I've even had enough of some people I really like, like Ceri Fields, who I really like.
20:22 Stephen Thompson? I will never have enough Ceri Fields.
20:24 Linda Holmes? I am a Tom Westman was a jerk at the end of his original season truther, if I can put it that way. There's a lot of people here that I just didn't need to see again. But now even more feel like I wouldn't want to see again.
20:38 Stephen Thompson? But you don't like to see JT face planting as hard as JT face plants in this season?
20:44 Linda Holmes? I do, but you know, I'll tell you this, buddy. I at some point reached a level where no matter what happens to someone, there's just people I don't want to watch on television anymore. So I get to the point where unless I really find it fun to watch you, I don't even care if I dislike you and you're going to fail miserably. It's like the limitations of comeuppance as an attraction to reality television. At some point, I'm like, you know, the best comeuppance of all is zip it. The best comeuppance of all is not being on television anymore.
21:19 Stephen Thompson? Stay home.
21:20 Linda Holmes? You're not going to be on television anymore because I'm bored with you.
21:23 Stephen Thompson? That's enough out of you, coach. Yeah.
21:25 Linda Holmes? Like, what do you think really constitutes comeuppance for some of these people? For some of these people, it's not getting to play anymore. And if you still believe in comeuppance, man, give me a live feed of them sitting on the couch going, I would have been better than this. Oh, I would have been more interesting than this. They should have cast me. I think the other thing I will say is that as they go more and more into All-Star seasons. You get the feeling more and more that it's very influenced by relationships that you didn't get to watch and don't know anything about because they take place out in the world.
21:57 Stephen Thompson? That is a factor in a lot of All-Star seasons, including season 50.
22:00 Linda Holmes? Classic sort of first example of that where I saw it, where I thought it was fascinating was in the first All-Star season they ever did, which involved Rob Mariano and Lex and some other people. And I thought it was really interesting there because I hadn't seen it before. But now you feel like, I want to feel like what I'm watching is the result of what I've been shown.
22:21 Stephen Thompson? Sure.
22:21 Linda Holmes? And when you don't know like who goes to whose house and who drinks at bars with who, it feels like, oh, well, I would not have anticipated that because I didn't have the information. And so the more they go down this hole of essentially, it's not a matter of All-Stars, it's a matter of casting a bunch of people who already know each other. I don't care for that as much. And that started to show up in seasons like Heroes versus Villains and, and even to some degree, Fans versus Favorites. So anyway, I think this is not a bad pick. It wouldn't be my number one, certainly, but-
22:53 Stephen Thompson? What would be your number one, Holmesy?
22:54 Linda Holmes? Probably Cook Islands would be my, my number one. I am also a big defender of Fiji.
23:00 Stephen Thompson? Oh, the first half of that show is impossible to watch.
23:04 Linda Holmes? I hear you, bud. But there is some very good material in that.
23:09 Stephen Thompson? See, comeuppance, comeuppance is fun.
23:11 Linda Holmes? Also, great winner.
23:13 Stephen Thompson? Great winner.
23:13 Linda Holmes? Also, some hilarious, I mean, speaking of face planting, there's a classic face plant by a person I did not like. She was fine. And so that is one that almost nobody likes. And there is some stuff late in that season that I don't like. There's some weird-
23:28 Stephen Thompson? There's some stuff with dreams and the truck.
23:30 Linda Holmes? There's some stuff with dreams and the truck and all that, that I really don't like. I'm uncomfortable with how that all gets talked about from a couple of different angles. But I am a defender of that season as containing a lot of good elements that I enjoy and having a winner that I very much enjoyed.
23:46 Stephen Thompson? Yeah.
23:47 Linda Holmes? I'm a defender of that season, even though I'm well aware of, of many problems with it.
23:52 Stephen Thompson? The bullying in the first half of that season is like unwatchable. So if you're gonna try that season, start at the merge.
23:58 Linda Holmes? Yeah, I think that's perfectly fair. And I suspect, you know, one thing that happens is when you do what you did and you go back and you insist upon rewatching the entire thing in every case, which I'm not trying to harp on it, buddy, but my goodness, what a thing to decide to do with your precious life. I think you did an amazing job with this list. Despite picking some of your your choices apart, you are definitely picking seasons here that I think you have made a very good case for. And I, despite the fact that I find this entire endeavor somewhat quixotic on your part.
24:33 Stephen Thompson? Holmesy, it's my favorite sport.
24:34 Linda Holmes? Somewhat specific.
24:35 Stephen Thompson? Survivor is my favorite sport.
24:37 Linda Holmes? I don't know if that's true, man.
24:39 Stephen Thompson? Why not wallow in your favorite sport? And it's just interesting. It's interesting to watch the way the show has evolved, the way society has evolved around the show, the way the show has and hasn't reflected that society. I find it super, super interesting.
24:51 Linda Holmes? Well, I'm glad. It sounds like you put in the work and.
24:54 Stephen Thompson? Definitely put in the work.
24:55 Linda Holmes? I cannot wait to read the entire thing.
24:57 Stephen Thompson? Wait until you see it. It's like 30,000 words.
25:00 Linda Holmes? OK, OK, I cannot wait to read it. I am sure it is wonderful and I am sure I will agree and disagree with it only with the utmost respect. Make sure to check out Stephen's full ranking of all 50, that is indeed five zero, seasons of Survivor later this month, to see where your favorite seasons stacked up. Sign up for our newsletter so you won't miss it. That's at npr.org/popculturenewsletter. We'll also have a link to sign up in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show. Stephen Thompson, thank you so much for being here and for being you.
25:34 Stephen Thompson? Thank you, buddy.
25:34 Linda Holmes? Unbelievable work on your part. Unbelievable. This episode was produced by Huff Saphathama and Mike Katseff and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes and we'll see you all next time.
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