It’s going to be a long time before Survivor David vs. Goliath airs in the fall. Some fan seasons out there may prove just as entertaining as the real deal!
It’s been a rough year for CBS Survivor. The advent of the forced Final Four fire-making challenge has produced two winners that would have otherwise been voted out of the game in 34 prior seasons. Ghost Island was predictable both before and after the merge, with both storylines focusing on the absolute dominance of one group over another.
It’s hard to know if we’re in the middle of the second coming of the Survivor dark ages, but with the forced storyline archetypes of David vs. Goliath and the possible unfairness surrounding the upcoming Island of Extinction, it certainly feels like it. Plenty will start to look to foreign seasons of Survivor to get their alternate fix (or to see Russell Hantz again), but fan seasons are not that bad an option, either.
There are definite pros and cons to any fan season of Survivor. Chief among the cons is the low level of production quality in the challenges, but that means that those producing those shows must rely on creative twists on the game. Furthermore, players are competing for the love of the game, not for a million dollars, meaning they’re priding themselves on their competitiveness.
Here are the main types of Survivor fan-made seasons fans should keep an eye out for, as well as some top examples.
Production Value
Where fan seasons lack in survival aspects, they more than make up for it in the focus on social gameplay. A ton of these seasons are based on either college campus life or among people who get together for a weekend and film it, but some of the best fan seasons have showrunners shelling out extra resources for additional cameras and production help to up the level of production value.
Austin Trupp has been running Survivor Maryland for years at the University of Maryland, and even after just watching the first two episodes of the ongoing All-Stars season (episodes currently dropping every Monday as of this post’s release), you can tell how much effort has gone into telling the story of these competitors.
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Some of these people live together. Some line in the same dorms. Returnees from past seasons make up the cast of Maryland All-Stars, but that only increases the level of competition and how hard everybody is playing. They’re not getting paid, but they’re giving up 89 days of their college lives to make alliances, backstab each other and give compelling confessionals.
There are even neat gameplay twists introduced in these fan seasons that could be implemented in a future CBS Survivor season, and it would be a refreshing twist to the proceedings. Survivor Maryland is a great place to start, and even though you get the context for these players and why they have a history with each other, the show strikes a good balance in getting everyone’s perspective, so you don’t have to watch back ~40 hours to get the full picture.
Survivor Players Competing
Not all fan seasons will have carefully edited subtitles, select tracks from the show’s myriad of seasons and the basic format of the CBS show. However, one thing that can be a draw for prospective viewers is seeing former Survivor winners and legends compete with fans and see how it affects the gameplay.
Survivor Brooklyn season 4 is an interesting case in that regard for a myriad of reasons. It contains a winner, a two-time player and a three-time player from the CBS show. Sophie Clarke and Andrea Boehlke competed in season 4, as well as Zeke Smith before he flew out to Fiji.
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This show has its organization challenges surrounding its production (it was filmed in just a day), but it mixes the gameplay structure you know and love, some of the players you can recognize and newbies mixing it up in a game for glory. Plus, it helps provide better context for Andrea and Zeke’s relationship before Game Changers and how that affects the overall storyline of that season.
That’s not the only fan season to feature former players, though!
Bit Of Both
The college structure of Survivor fan seasons offers perhaps the most compelling structure for recreating the gameplay of the real thing. Having the option to use the facilities the players are familiar with, allowing for longer seasons and interpersonal relationships affecting the mind games and the alliance dynamics add interesting wrinkles to the gameplay.
Throw in a former Survivor player on top of that? You have the Survivor: Time & Change – Buckeye Battles from Ohio State University; a mix of a known commodity and higher than usual production values. Sure, it doesn’t quite reach the levels seen in Millennials vs. Gen X, but seeing how Will Wahl just watched his season unfold a month prior, it creates a compelling redemption arc.
However, because he is the only known commodity in the show, that puts a target on his back. More importantly, because the season’s producers know the stakes involved with a known player competing, fun twists are introduced, OSU students up their gameplay and there are a ton of compelling, close votes throughout the season.
Of all fan seasons, I would start with Survivor Maryland All-Stars if you’re jumping right in, but be prepared to see a lot more of the social dynamics due to the lack of a “camp” life. Most importantly, when watching any of the fan seasons, remember that these are often younger adults playing for fun.
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