Survivor retro rewatch: The dreaded recap episode, Cook Islands-style
Survivor used to air recap episodes partway through some of its seasons. Cook Islands is one of them. For this retro rewatch, let’s dive in.
There are some things I miss about classic Survivor. The willingness to go for physical challenges to break up the obstacle course and puzzle monotony is one of them. So is the attempt to include distinct nods to the culture or history of locations.
However, I do not miss the recap episode. Since yours truly is currently working her way through Cook Islands, it’s time to watch the Cook Islands recap episode.
My colleague, Cody Williams, pointed the following out, and he sums it up far better than I could:
"“[The recap episode] made sense in early, early seasons when the show was in its infancy as new viewers could tune in and catch up (and when the Internet wasn’t as quick/prevalent). But at a certain point it was just a waste of an hour.”"
Do recall that Cook Islands aired in 2006, long after the Internet had very emphatically become a thing. In fact, Borneo didn’t have a recap episode. That tradition started instead with The Australian Outback. It persisted all the way through South Pacific with a few exceptions according to the Survivor wiki.
The point of the recap episode is to basically tell the story of the season as it has gone up until that point, with some deleted scenes to make it worth sitting through the hour. In the case of Cook Islands, Probst also promised more on the big thing everyone remembers about this season: the ethnic divide (that only lasted a few episodes). That started right off the bat with extra confessionals.
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Cook Islands‘ recap also labeled “new scenes” with a Borneo-style subtitle. Those new scenes:
- Manihiki failing with the canoe.
- Rarotonga also failing with the canoe with Candice and Adam weathering a storm on a sandbar and then leaving the canoe on the sandbar.
- Billy trying to build alliances on Aitutaki.
- Hiki’s fallout from losing the first immunity challenge.
- Cao Boi bonding with Yul and finding food on Puka Puka.
- Yul covering his tracks with the hidden immunity idol.
- Jonathan (explicitly labeled as new), Candice, and Adam reading additional clues on Exile Island and searching.
- Rebecca, Nate, Parvati, and Adam commenting on Parvati’s flirting skills.
- Stephannie singing around the campfire on Raro.
- Rebecca telling Nate to vote J.P. out on Raro.
- Also, Stephannie lying to J.P. on Raro.
- Raro drinking lots of wine and everyone having to help Stephannie.
- Sundra, Becky, and Candice did not work enough to satisfy Cao Boi and Ozzy.
- More of Cristina and Adam’s fight.
- A few post-vote out interviews.
- Finally, a preview for the rest of the season.
Yul’s Exile Island adventure is about the most pertinent gameplay-related scene here, and some of the other “new” scenes are just extensions of what did get shown in the season. The truly “new” things didn’t really contribute to the storyline, so it’s easy to see why production cut them out.
Next: Survivor retro rewatch: Gabon premiere
With that done, it’s back to our regularly scheduled retro rewatch of Cook Islands.