Survivor: The Sandra dilemma

I’ll be honest; I love Survivor. I realize that it may come with the same negative connotation that comes to my mind when I hear people talk about the latest developments on “Dancing with the Stars.” I don’t know how that is even a show, but that’s another topic. The “Heroes Vs. Villains” season just wrapped up last night on CBS. It was another great season filled with twists and turns with another disappointing ending, in my opinion. The 20th season (wow!) ended last night with Sandra winning the $1 million for the 2nd time. Sandra beat out Parvati and Russell in the final vote. Jeff only had to ready 8 votes, which I believe means that Sandra ended up with 6 of the 9 votes. Russell didn’t get a single vote despite getting to the final vote for the 2nd straight season. At the live reunion show, Russell claimed that there is a flaw in the show. To some extent, I agree with him.

The great thing about Survivor is that it is hard to argue against who ends up winning. There are always going to be those on the side of the contestant that doesn’t win that has reasons why their favorite contestant should have won. Many times those arguments do have validity and good reasons for them to feel that way. The problem is, the jury cannot get a vote wrong because- well, they’re the jury. They get to vote however they want to. There is no right or wrong way to vote. The game is set up so that those who are left on the panel get to decide who gets the money, and that’s what happened again last night. The majority of the panel wanted to give the money to Sandra.

The same thing that makes Survivor great also makes it insanely frustrating. Rarely does the person that plays the game “the best” win the $1 million. Now I realize that you can argue that the contestants who won should be considered the ones that played the game the best since they were, after all, the winners. But those of you who watch the show understand what I mean. There are some contestants that are just better at strategizing and have more control over getting themselves further in the game than others. Then there are others (ala Sandra) that get further along in the game because they are being used by the strong players for a vote. Sandra never was voted out because, well… she wasn’t a threat. She has won the game twice and has never won an individual immunity challenge. When her tribe needed to sit someone out for a challenge, they chose Sandra whenever possible. She single-handedly lost her tribe immunity challenges because she is such a liability. When it came down to forming alliances, she failed. She consistently made alliances that were voted out. She just happened to be at the bottom of the list when her alliance was being picked off one by one because, again, those doing the voting knew that she wasn’t a physical threat to them down the road and maybe they could even use her vote as time went on. Sandra failed at pretty much everything she did. She did find the last hidden immunity idol, but she didn’t even end up needing to play it. No one was scared of her.

Russell, on the other hand, is the best player I have seen at getting to the final vote. He is the best strategizer. He knows which people to pick for his alliance. He also knows when the best time is to cut ties with someone and form a new alliance. He’s the best at finding hidden immunity idols and then how and when to use them. He made a big play by giving his hidden immunity idol to Parvati at the right time to save her. He’s the best at manipulation. He knows what to say to those he knows he is voting out to make sure their vote goes where it will benefit him the most. When he finds out that someone is targeting him, he makes sure that that person is always the next person to be voted out if he feels like they are a threat. He was by far the best at getting himself to the final vote. Parvati wouldn’t have been there without Russell. Sandra wouldn’t have been there without Russell. But the same isn’t true about Russell. If Parvati wouldn’t have been on board with Russell from the beginning, she would have been gone long ago. He chose Parvati and protected her more than once. Sandra also had nothing to do with getting Russell where he was. Russell himself found a way to get to the end.

The problem for Russell is, the jury always holds a grudge. And that is where I think the closest thing to what could be considered a flaw lies. You would think that after 19 seasons of a game that the contestants would go into the game knowing that you have to lie and manipulate people to win this game. You have to. And to some extent, they do know that. They know this while they are playing and they all to some degree lie to someone, no matter how they want to justify it. For some reason though, most seem unable to distinguish between someone who lies to them in the game and that person’s character outside of the show. This is a game. This isn’t life or death. The game is that you are the last person standing at the end to win $1 million. Lives aren’t at stake if you lie or trick someone. All of those jury members who stand up and address the final 3 people lied and tried to manipulate the people who were in the final 3, they just weren’t as good at it in some cases. The funny thing is that Sandra herself on multiple occasions last night talked about how her strategy was to try and get rid of Russell many times during the game and never could. It was like she was confessing that Russell was too good at the game that she couldn’t convince anyone to vote him off no matter how hard she tried. And yet, she got 6 votes and Russell got none. Those who played with Parvati gave her the 3 votes. In essence, the Heroes did not vote for Sandra. They voted against Russell. And that’s their right, it’s just stupid.

You can tell that there is a disconnect between the viewers of the show and those that play the game. Two seasons in a row the fans voted that Russell was the player of the season while those who were beaten by him refused to vote to give him the million dollars. It was personal. They don’t like Russell. They feel like there is a code that he is breaking. What’s interesting is that there is an unwritten code that the other players feel like he should have adhered to while playing while Russell feels like there is an unwritten responsibility for them to use their votes to reward the person who played the best game. One of the contestants told Russell last night that you have to lie while playing the game but he took it too far. What? So now we’re distinguishing between what lies someone can tell? The point of the game is to get to the end and win. Why would you do anything less than to do whatever you can to win the million dollars? The purpose of the game isn’t to make friends or get people to like you. All those people that talk about giving their vote to someone because they seemed to really care about them are confused as to why they are there to play the game. It’s still their right to throw their vote away and give Sandra another million dollars for being bad at the game, but it’s just dumb.

The majority of people that watch the show on tv agree that Russell played the best game. Parvati did a great job too- she was almost impossible to beat towards the end in individual immunity challenges. I could have stomached her winning. But Sandra? Come on. What the contestants are saying is that we would rather give the money to someone that made their tribe worse off in team reward and immunity challenges, that constantly picked the wrong alliance to belong to, that was unable to vote off the only person she wanted to, that was unable to even contend in personal immunity challenges, and that regardless of how angry the Heroes were that Russell lied to them and voted them out- Sandra was right there writing their names down too—she’s the one you want to reward?

I’m waiting for the season where someone stands up at the end and says “I thought we were together but you tricked me and you’re sitting there with the chance to win the $1 million and I’m not, so you’re getting my vote because you were better at getting there than I was. You deserve to win the money because you got yourself there through hard work, strategy, and logic and you aren’t there because someone else didn’t mind you staying because you weren’t a factor in any capacity of the game except having a vote to help their cause. I may not like you as a friend in this game, but I realize that the purpose of this game is to win $1 million and you did everything you could to put yourself in that spot. I also realize that just because you played by a certain set of standards and rules in this game, it does not say anything about your character outside of this game in the real world.” If someone ever says anything along those lines, I will know that someone finally understands what it means to play Survivor.

Let’s be honest. Anyone could be a Sandra or a Courtney. There’s a million of them sitting at home with no real physical ability. And honestly, how many of us see Sandra or Courtney as someone we could be in the same room with for more than 10 minutes? It’s not like they won because they’re so gosh darn likeable.

Ultimately, you have to take into account how the winner is chosen. And you have to realize that people cannot get past being beaten and reward you for being the one to have knocked them out. If I were the show’s producer, I would seriously consider changing how the winner is chosen. I would think about giving the decision to those who watch the show. I think this would make for better tv in the long run. Think about it- aren’t the most exciting times of the show when someone makes a big play and switches alliances or blindsides another contestant? Those are the best moments that Survivor is known for. If the jury keeps rewarding those that never do anything big and are the least hated, you’re going to see less and less of those types of moves because no one wants to be the one that has offended anyone. We’ll have a bunch of sissy’s playing the game walking around asking each other what their best childhood memory is. Who cares about that? I want to see lying and betrayal! I want to see people voted off who were so sure they weren’t going home that night that they didn’t even play one of their two immunity idols! That’s why I watch the show. Don’t give the contestants motivation to play a safe game.

Who cares if you like Russell? He won what the game was set up to be. Sandra getting those votes from the jury proves that Russell was successful in the game itself. No one on that jury can honestly say that Sandra was the best player. Do you think anyone on the jury would actually say that Sandra played a better game than they did? No way. She made it further in the game because those who were voted out before her were better players. Sandra made the claim last night that being awful at the challenges was a strategy. No it isn’t or she wouldn’t have even tried, though at times I think it’d be hard to tell.

The point is this: Sandra winning for the 2nd time is a kick in the crotch to those who watch this show. It’s a byproduct of giving the jury the power to pick the winner. I understand the ramifications and the fact that the players need to take that into account while playing. I’m afraid that it’s going to ruin the entertainment value of the show eventually when players start figuring out what Russell has exploited: You can’t be the best at getting to the end and win it at the same time. Russell is right- this is a flaw. As much as it is a part of the game that the jury decides the winner, it is too contrary to the game that you are trying to promote. Change it. Give the power to the people- isn’t that one of the reasons that shows like Dancing with the Stars and American Idol have so much success? How about flipping what is done now and let the jury have a $100,000 vote for their “player of the season” and letting the people decide who should have won the game? I think that way would be less wrong… and isn’t that how things are decided on Survivor?