Survivor challenges should learn from their Australian counterpart

Especially with season themes of specific backgrounds, Survivor should be more like Australian Survivor and mix head-to-head matchups with team challenges.

We’ve reached the Final Eight of Australian Survivor, and the past week’s worth of challenges have reverted to the core basics of individual and pair-based challenges. It’s a shame because up until the merge, the variety of challenges produced by the Ten Network crew went the distance, offering up different looks, different strategies and heightened the drama.

I hope the US Survivor team has been paying attention, as the matchup of Champions vs. Contenders with the season casting theme, much like David vs. Goliath (in theory), has seen fantastic challenges. There were many one-on-one Reward Challenge matchups before the merge, with team-based Immunity Challenges balancing things out.

By having so many 1v1 encounters, we saw natural character development and story progression. Despite Matt eating Luke’s lunch many times in tugs of war or idol faceoffs, Luke was likelier to get the last laugh as their tribe won reward often. It gave us the origins of Shaun vs. David, culminating in a hearty chunk of the season. Who could forget a Fijian river setting the stage for a “swim against the current” challenge, with producers using nature as their vehicle?

Though those matchups were generally physical-based, they were complemented beautifully by the team-based challenges following. Simon went on a tear during a challenge that saw players retrieving balls in an obstacle course and one player diving underwater to hold open a goal area for others to shoot into and score. It’s a simple concept made more intriguing by requiring unique skillsets at critical opportunities.

Because there was only one tribe swap, the dichotomy of Champions and Contenders in Australian Survivor 2019 meant these head-to-heads were an opportunity to share information after the tribe swap. Multiple times, a player would leave a message to a former teammate about their current status in the middle or after a challenge, creating more dynamic play such as strategic throwing of challenges and idol information.

It’s how we saw the Russell Hantz and JT-esque idol swap from Shaun and David, as David luckily approached Shaun during a Reward Challenge and pulled off the swap at the next challenge. By balancing vital elements of strategy, dexterity, strength, and strategy with challenges in ones, twos, threes, and larger teams, separately, you have more honest gameplay options other than going on an idol hunt at every opportunity.

Though the next two seasons of Survivor have already been filmed, I hope the future after the 20th anniversary year explores a balance of head-to-heads and team challenges. Of course, that would involve keeping two tribes instead of swapping into three, so maybe it’s an impossible ask in the first place!