Miscellaneous differences
Here were a few other fun differences I noted:
- Ancient Voices theme song
- Introducing each contestant in the first episode – Jeff Probst went through every single castaway and mentioned their name, occupation, and hometown.
- Losing a challenge not only meant going to Tribal Council, but Probst harped on how they’d have to hike through the jungle to get to him. He made it sound terrifying!
- Every contestant would hit a gong when they entered Tribal Council. Of all the old school elements of the show, I wish they’d bring this back the most. It was so simple and added to the eeriness of the moment.
- There was a treasure chest with a million dollars cash sitting in it at every Tribal Council. If they attempted to do that now, some crazy castaway would probably try to steal it and run off with the money.
- Tree mail! They used to put A LOT of work into those.
- Right before the merge, ambassadors from each tribe met up to decide which beach the merged tribe would be moving to and to pick a new name and design the new team flag.
- After Rich won (there was no “you’ll have to wait to hear the results” schtick), everyone shook hands, hugged, and congratulated each other. Rich then sat by himself at Tribal Council and reflected on how he got to that point.
- Bryant Gumbel hosted the reunion special.
Survivor truly was the greatest social experiment, and we got to witness it from the beginning. The show might not be quite the same 19 years later, but it had to change to stay relevant and appealing. People loved the initial concept of Survivor in 2000, but that wouldn’t play in the year 2019. It’d be considered too boring.
I was nine years old when Survivor premiered, and I’m 28 now. The show has been on for over half of my life, and that’s crazy to ponder. While I appreciate the gameplay in the current editions of the show, I’ve enjoyed going back and rewatching season 1 and reliving some of these classic moments and remembering the show for what it was.
Here’s to another 19 years to the greatest reality show of all time.