Survivor: Worlds Apart brings drama, dumb moves and lots of potential

By Julia Bianco on February 26, 2015

In thirty seasons, Survivor has brought us some pretty terrible themes: Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty, Fans vs. Favorites, even Heroes vs. Villains were all horribly contrived ways of splitting up contestants into tribes that made viewers roll their eyes. Still, another thing that all of those seasons had in common is that, despite that horrible theme, they ended up being awesome. And according to what Jeff Probst has to say about Season 30, which was saddled with the White Collar vs. Blue Collar vs. No Collar theme, it may be priming itself to join that club.

Photo from asm kabir on Flickr.com

The season, which premiered last night, started with three tribes, which I love. Starting with more than two tribes has had a great history for Survivor, mixing up the traditional formula and making it all the more difficult to steamroll the game with a five person alliance made on the first night (ahem, South Pacific). Even though the theme is basically the worst, you’ve gotta respect the three tribe decision.

We started off the episode with one of Jeff Probst’s lovely sweeping speeches about how awesome and great and individual and different every single one of these players is. He brought us through Survivor super fan and former college professor Max, coconut vendor Vince, and Russell Hantz clone Rodney, among the myriad of others who have come here to suffer on national television for our enjoyment.

Photo from Nick Cannon Admin on Flickr.com

He made a wonderful, rousing introduction, but I could hardly even pay attention because my mind was so filled with curiosity about the most important question of every Survivor premiere—where is Jeff Probst standing? In a helicopter? On a cliff? Me, myself and I want to know. This season, they made us wait a whole four minutes to find out, but the reveal was pretty great—Probsty was standing on a rock in the middle of the ocean, waves cresting around him as he welcomed viewers to what he has promised, both on camera and in multiple interviews, to be one of the best seasons ever. Hopefully he’s right.

Once we got through that big reveal, we had another typical Survivor trope to get through: who will ruin their chance at a million dollars by stepping forward as leader? Here, two people on each tribe got that honor, marking six sitting ducks for the first few eliminations to steamroll through. This year, the chosen targets were So and Joaquin on the White Collar Tribe, Dan and Mike on the Blue Collar Tribe and Jenn and Will on the No Collar Tribe.

The two chosen tribe leaders got to make a decision between a small bag of beans and a hidden immunity clue or a big bag of beans. I liked this twist, because it made it easier for people to take the small bag and find a lie they could tell their teammates. Unfortunately, that didn’t play out too well for the only pair to take the small bag, So and Joaquin, who were hampered by So’s absolutely ridiculous and complicated tale involving three boxes, a neutral option, and a clear indication that she had never, ever watched Survivor before.

The move would ultimately get her sent home, after the White Collar tribe had a dismal showing in the puzzle portion of the Immunity Challenge, which had the fun twist of making each tribe pick their poison on the final and most crucial part of the competition.

Photo from Totol Totol on Flickr.com

Honestly, I was kind of happy to see the White Collar tribe lose, as they had the most players who I currently find insufferable—namely Carolyn, who seems to be taking this theme a bit too close to her heart, and Joaquin, who takes pretentious to a whole new level. Unfortunately, both Carolyn and Joaquin live to see another episode, and with Carolyn finding the hidden immunity idol (sans clue, which is impressive), its unlikely that she’ll be leaving anytime soon. Joaquin, on the other hand, is standing on thin ice.

As far as the other two tribes, they currently seem like pretty standard fare. You have the gorgeous Sierra, who is a barrel racer (?) on the Blue Collar tribe, the “YouTube sensation” Will, who, despite his very judge-able profession seems very nice, and a good amount of people who identified themselves as Survivor super-fans, which is always great to see.

Photo from Totol Totol on Flickr.com

One thing I’m not looking forward to watching the progression of is this Jenn-Vince-Joe love triangle. Survivor isn’t the show for showmances, and certainly not unnecessarily complicated ones involving not one but TWO men with luscious ponytails. Hopefully one of them gets themselves voted off soon, because that’s not a storyline I want to have to see play out.

As far as premieres go, this one seemed pretty standard, but they usually are. The players, even though we don’t know them that well, seem fine, and there are some who seem like they could be legitimate threats to win this game. I’m excited for what the rest of the season holds—as long as there are more dumb lies, crazy but not too crazy twists and Probst standing in weird places, I’ll be happy.

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