Retro Survivor rewatch: Borneo episode 3, “Quest for Food”

Survivor actually showed its contestants eating rats and even sparked its first lawsuit in its third episode overall. Let’s get back to Borneo.

Today, the Survivor retro rewatch of Borneo continues, after looks at the premiere and the second episode. Although some things changed, others stayed the same, and

As I’ve come to expect, Survivor again opened with a full explanation of what show everyone’s watching before it even got to the actual recap and the credits. That’s nearly three minutes that the show could have spent on showing the actual events of episode 3. (I might miss the full credits, but I don’t miss them taking up nearly a minute of every single episode.)

But once the show actually aired something new, Survivor emphasized food, as evidenced by the title. It’s been apparent for the first two episodes, but this first season of Survivor gave the players a lot of stuff — canned food, fish traps, raincoats, and so on. That seems like a disconnect, considering how much the show also talked about survival. It’s definitely harder in modern Survivor.

Then, Pagong discovered a “mud volcano,” and Survivor got to play some of the most 2000s music I’ve ever heard while everyone got dirty. It did not, however, use the horns.

Survivor also gave another Tagi member some characterization: Dirk. The show spoke openly about his religion. That can and does happen every so often these days — witness the cross incident in Heroes vs. Villains with Coach and Russell.

Jeff Probst also appeared partway through the episode to introduce a challenge, where he walked toward the camera and made things sound very serious. This is not a thing I miss in modern Survivor. The show then immediately counterpointed this with Richard and cheerful music on Tagi, while Pagong got 2000s beats.

Speaking of the challenge, it was the first reward ever for a fishing kit. Probst, hatless, finally said “Survivors ready? Go!” before everyone swam out to a tube to get a chest from underwater and bring it back to shore. No puzzle, no nothing, just a straight race. Gervase actually got a life ring on Pagong, thereby proving that people have gone on the show without swimming well since the very beginning.

Probst did not announce who won again, but it was nice to see Tagi congratulate Pagong on a well-fought challenge before opening the chest to reveal the rest of the fishing kit.

This episode, therefore, marked the rise of Richard Hatch, original (fishing) king of Survivor. While Dirk and Sean failed with the Superpole 2000, Richard speared stingrays. Interestingly, the spear didn’t appear to be a Hawaiian sling, just a normal spear. Even more interesting: Pagong apparently knew that Tagi was catching fish before Probst told them. It’s logical to figure that out, but Colleen explicitly said she had heard something. Sans spear, Pagong built a rat trap, and the show didn’t shy away from showing the rat corpses … or the tribe eating the rats. (Also, this was the first episode where Greg got weird for Pagong. Rat sauce? Really? Yes, really.)

For the immunity challenge, the tribes had to actually make stretchers themselves instead of the show providing them. Also, the immunity challenge had a story! They even put Colleen and Kelly in flight suits and said that the tribes had to imagine that the two of them had been wrecked. It was pretty quick, all things considered, but Pagong won and even got to take a fancy walk to go get the immunity idol instead of Probst just handing it over.

Tagi had to decide who to vote off. Stacey and Rudy both acknowledged they were in trouble, and Probst also didn’t say anything to viewers about it, another change from the first two episodes. Speaking of changes, Probst introduced the talking conch shell, and Tagi dutifully passed it around. He also cut things short because of the storm — and all the votes were wet, something Survivor has since fixed.

Stacey ended up going home with five votes and two for Rudy, accusing people of changing their votes before Probst symbolically snuffed her torch (since it was already out). He even let Tagi stay at Tribal until the rain cleared, since they actually had to walk back and forth to Tribal.

Now, about that vote-switching … Survivor was not without its big news items, even back at the beginning. This was just the first one, because Stacey actually sued, saying that Sean and Dirk had changed their votes because of Mark Burnett. Dirk even had a deposition. There was even a countersuit. As the show’s still on the air, you can guess how this ended.

Next: Harry Potter characters as Survivor castaways

On Borneo episode 4, the focus will turn to Pagong’s experience with the storm (and other things, of course).