Survivor Season 34 - 2017

I always enjoy the Avengers seasons, where we get a full slate of returning players to mix it up with Advanced Gameplay. I watched this the week that the Survivor 50 cast was announced, so I’m getting another one next spring. These seasons are always Bigger than others.

The cast was bigger. Every returning players season is full of Survivor’s most memorable characters, but this may be the most stacked the cast has ever been. My girl Aubry returned and once again schemed her way into the late game. Sandra was finally defeated after back-to-back wins. Tony had a mini-Russell arc, where he was deemed too dangerous to keep in the game after the reign of terror that got him the victory last time around. Everyone was bringing it.

The character arcs are bigger. One of the most interesting this time around was for Brad “Fuck You Brad” Culpepper, who played the redemption arc much more successfully than Colton but let his inner control freak out at the very end, which tanked his final tribal. Winner Sarah was the other cop with Tony during their first run, and her ability to detect that Tony was a cop helped send her to the jury early. This time she decided to actually play the game, letting her inner criminal run free, and it worked out extremely well for her. I hope she returns.

The game mechanics were bigger. In a series first, perpetual late-gamer Cirie was eliminated from the game without receiving any votes, due to immunities and advantages protecting every other player.

Finally, the controversy was bigger. In a moment of television that absolutely went down in infamy, Season 2’s Jeff Varner attempts to smear wily newbie Zeke by insinuating that because he was transgender and had not shared that fact with his tribe, he was inherently untrustworthy. This was a very dumb thing to say, and seeing Varner deflate like an old sad balloon as everyone instantly turns on him was satisfying at least. IDK, it’s 2025 now and I’m not sure what that would have looked like now, but in the late TwentyTeens at least every other contestant and the show’s host really dug in and stood up for Zeke in a way that was as Faith in Humanity Restored as it was embarrassing for Varner. It seems like he learned something from the whole ordeal, which is the best you can hope for.