Survivor Of The Fittest?

I think I might be done with Survivor.

Pretty much all season long, I haven't been watching the show until at least the next day.  Given how much I surf around the Web, particularly to entertainment-related sites, it is pretty impossible to avoid "morning after" spoilers... so house rule is... always watch reality television on the night it airs.  But for some reason, Survivor did get pushed to the next day... and given our pretty heavy TV schedule/commitment in the fall, Todd jumped off the boat early on (the first Survivor season he's missed since we've been co-habitating).  But it seemed like even the media was tiring of Survivor... most days I did not get spoiled... and when I did,  I really didn't care all that much.

Thanks to the TiVo, I found myself fast-forwarding through much of the challenges... stopping every so often to hear the "strategy" talk...

So it sounds like the show is on pretty shaky status... but the real sign of trouble is that, for the first time in its 14 installments, I didn't watch the Sunday night finale "live"... and yes, I know the winner and even one of the end-game backstab, but again... it was "oh well"/"so what" reaction.   

Obviously, casting is key to any reality show...  so I don't know if this crew just didn't cut it for me... but I can still name people I liked and disliked... and there were the usual unique personalities... this season was a bit low on the "hunk" meter... but I'd like to think I am a little less shallow than that (and most of the times the hunky guys are stupid and/or jerks and/or get voted off early... so usually that ultimately doesn't matter much). 

Or maybe Survivor has finally played itself out (and its not the only show I feel this way about)... is there a new way to mentally and physically play the game?  Plus the challenges just seem like a jigsaw puzzle of things we've seen over and over before... while any twists and tricks just seem lame or trying to hard to do something different.

We'll see... I'll probably give next season's trip to China a tryout... more out of habit than anything else... see what the cast and locale are like ... but if there's more than a two show TiVo conflict ... or if it doesn't immediately draw me in... well this tribe of one will speak with a torch snuffing via the TiVo remote.

Comments

[JD]

But you gotta admit, Yau-Man was quite a lot of fun to watch this season, especially toward the end when he started kicking ass on challenges!

*spoilers*

The main problem was that Dreamz and Cassandra were such useless contestants, the thought of either of them winning just brought down the whole season. (Clearly the jury thought the same, since Earl won 9-0, the first-ever unanimous jury vote.)

It was a very odd season. Hopefully China will reinvigorate, but you do wonder if Survivor's time has come, or if they need to scale back to once a year, more like American Idol. (though even Idol's already starting to feel a bit rote as well, after only six seasons)