"Survivor Season 40 - Winner At War" opened last evening with a 2 hr. episode called "The Greatest of the Great". The basic premise is as simple as it is brilliant: the producers have selected 20 winners of the previous 39 seasons to battle for the Survivor GOAT title. There are a couple of new twists: first and most importantly, there is now a currency in the game called "fire tokens" that allows the players to buy certain things (like an Immunity Idol, food, tools, etc.). All 20 players start off with 1 fire token each, but you get the sense that a lot more currently will be injected into the game in due course, and that it will only add to the craziness and uncertainty of the game. Second, the prize money has been doubled to 2 million dollars, the highest price in reality TV history.
Couple of first impressions after watching the 2 hr. opening episode. All the big names in Survivor are back, including among others Boston Rob, his wife Amber (did you know that they now have 4 daughters?), Tony, Parvati, Tyler, Ethan (who is a TRUE survivor, having survived cancer), Ben, and of course Sandra, the self-titled "Queen" of Survivor (she is the only person to date to have won the game twice). I obviously am not going to put any spoilers in here as to what exactly happened last night. But suffice to say that there is PLENTY of action from the get-go. Also very noticeable is the divide between the "old school" players and the "new school" kids. Old schoolers like Ethan , Yuul and Parvati, who all have been away from the game for a very long time, simply cannot get over the fact how much quicker the game has become. "Compared to this, Survivor Africa went about at glacial speed", comments Ethan.
As a Survivor fan from the first hour, I cannot get over the fact that this show has been around for 20 years now, and is still going strong. I typically am not in favor of rehashing past players, but for celebrating the 40th season of this show, I'm fine with it. I expect this to be an epic season on so many levels and if the opening 2 hr. episode was any indication, we are in for a jolly good time. Well done Mark Burnett, Jeff Probst and the rest of the Survivor production team, "the tribe has spoken!"
"UPDATE 2/19/20* I've also watched the second episode. Oh boy... This is all-out war for sure... watch Boston Rob's reaction when he learns that the other tribe has voted out Amber! And as anticipated in the first episode, the fire tokens indeed are playing a major role in how this season is taking shape, I just hope that the game isn't flooded/overwhelmed with them! We shall see in the coming episodes, See you next Wednesday evening!
Couple of first impressions after watching the 2 hr. opening episode. All the big names in Survivor are back, including among others Boston Rob, his wife Amber (did you know that they now have 4 daughters?), Tony, Parvati, Tyler, Ethan (who is a TRUE survivor, having survived cancer), Ben, and of course Sandra, the self-titled "Queen" of Survivor (she is the only person to date to have won the game twice). I obviously am not going to put any spoilers in here as to what exactly happened last night. But suffice to say that there is PLENTY of action from the get-go. Also very noticeable is the divide between the "old school" players and the "new school" kids. Old schoolers like Ethan , Yuul and Parvati, who all have been away from the game for a very long time, simply cannot get over the fact how much quicker the game has become. "Compared to this, Survivor Africa went about at glacial speed", comments Ethan.
As a Survivor fan from the first hour, I cannot get over the fact that this show has been around for 20 years now, and is still going strong. I typically am not in favor of rehashing past players, but for celebrating the 40th season of this show, I'm fine with it. I expect this to be an epic season on so many levels and if the opening 2 hr. episode was any indication, we are in for a jolly good time. Well done Mark Burnett, Jeff Probst and the rest of the Survivor production team, "the tribe has spoken!"
"UPDATE 2/19/20* I've also watched the second episode. Oh boy... This is all-out war for sure... watch Boston Rob's reaction when he learns that the other tribe has voted out Amber! And as anticipated in the first episode, the fire tokens indeed are playing a major role in how this season is taking shape, I just hope that the game isn't flooded/overwhelmed with them! We shall see in the coming episodes, See you next Wednesday evening!