Survivor Australia finally finished up last week after 55 days! On a Samoan beach. I wrote a post a few weeks ago on my thoughts of the program at around the half-way point (be sure to check it out if you haven’t already). Today I am here to detail my verdict. I’ll give you the short answer now, although quite long, and a little drawn out towards the end the final episode left me very pleased.
I mentioned in my previous post that I thought producers were throwing in all kinds of twists and turns in case this was their only season, I didn’t mind that BUT I do think there was one move that evidently could not be over thrown – the tribe mix, where Saanapu chose all the ‘strong’ players and left the others on a constantly losing Vavau tribe. This was a bit of a fail in my eyes, it’s not fun viewing when one tribe dominates purely because they had a hand-picked team. That along with episodes which didn’t have eliminations, or just a plain old change on TV scheduling (going from 3 days a week to 2, in what seemed like a tactic to prolong the season to go against the start of X Factor live shows) were the things that most annoyed me about the season.
Besides that there was plenty to love. I think others felt the same way with ratings pretty steady on the 600,000-700,000 viewers – not what was hoped for I’m sure but up against The Block and X Factor, pretty well done – and the finale cracking the 1 million views (OzTAM), it’s no wonder there’s a second season (or fourth overall Australian Survivor if you want to be technical) in the works. Not to mention the online catch-up views.
Let’s quickly talk about the finale episode because I must say I was cheering out loud from my living room couch. That final immunity challenge was insane and Kristie absolutely smashed it AND THEN smashed her closing statement to the jury. She blind-sided the jury AGAIN! And even I as a viewer felt blind-sided. Kristie told us she had systematically worked to get out the old Vavau and Saanapu tribes leaving her with two other original Aganoa members in the final three.
I didn’t even notice it, and she didn’t even let us as an audience in on it. You know those little sections where they talk to the camera, she so easily could of told us what her plan was but never did, she only eluded to the fact that ‘this’ or ‘that’ would be good for her game play and we didn’t know what game plan that was, just like her tribe members. It was the ultimate ‘screw you’ to everyone who doubted her abilities and choices. I loved it! Great winner.
– ME
“First they ignore you, then laugh at you and hate you, then they fight you…then you win”
– Robbie Williams
Poppie Paradise 