A tradition of Survivor intro videos making its way online instead of airing on television continues, as a last-second version is here for Winners at War.
There was once a time in the late-20s of Survivor, where the intro videos featuring the 18-20 castaways were completely cut from the show. As a response to fan pushback, they made their way online as part of each season’s preseason press content, usually right before the premiere. We are sometimes lucky enough to get one pop up here and there like we saw with the Survivor intro appeared at the beginning of the Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers finale.
Ahead of Island of the Idols, however, both Dalton Ross and production confirmed there wouldn’t be an intro at all, let alone put online ahead of the season premiere. That seemed to continue into the 40th season and 20th anniversary of the show, although it seemed as though somebody on production finally pushed for something to be slapped together at the last second.
As we prepare to celebrate the last time we’ll watch Survivor for an indefinite amount of time until season 41 airs sometime in the future, CBS has released the official Winners at War intro video that previously wasn’t made available to the viewing public. Many of the shots include moments of players much later in the game than we’re used to, as several players feature both small and large amounts of facial hair grown on the islands.
As someone who has tendencies to explore the editing techniques to glean information about the season, it’s difficult not to spot some inconsistencies or interesting notes. For example, Sarah Lacina is the first person in the intro, and I believe the only player introduced first to go onto win the season was Adam Klein for Millennials vs. Gen X.
Earlier this 2019-2020 television cycle, fans had rebooted the #SaveTheSurvivorIntro campaign, hoping to bring back more of the staples that made the show appointment television for millions of American families back in the 2000s. Even though it’s a bit more haphazard than fan-made iterations, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth!