Survivor
Recommended
Thanks to my boyfriend Harry, who started watching Survivor in early March, I’ve spent all of my free-time during quarantine watching CBS's two-decade-old reality series. Other people I know have developed new hobbies and healthy routines during the past two months. I have watched ten seasons of Survivor. The show is a puzzle I need to solve. In Survivor: Cook Islands, the most controversial season, contestants were split into four tribes to start the game. For the first and only time in show history, players were divided into racial groups: Caucasian, Hispanic, African American, and Asian American. The segregation was like an alt-right wet dream; it also forced the show to cast more diversely. When the original tribes reshuffled—or, “integrated,” as host Jeff Probst, unfortunately, said—the stakes were raised: should the contestants stay true to old alliances or make new ones to survive in their new tribe? There’s a similar, more complicated dilemma in the show’s “Blood vs. Water” seasons where contestants and their family members compete against each other. They form connections within their tribes but already have built-in relationships with their loved ones (fathers, mothers, partners, an uncle in one case) in enemy tribes. So, I watch, I overanalyze. Harry and I have consumed more Survivor than seems possible. There's definitely a Jeff Probst-sized hole in the time-space continuum that opens up on Saturdays to allow us to watch entire seasons in just a day.
by Nathalie Graham
by Nathalie Graham