Survivor season rankings: All Survivor seasons, ranked

13. Survivor 42 (Season 42)

At the time of the Survivor 41 finale, I thought to myself “That was an okay season” but after watching Survivor 42, it painted a better picture as to how lackluster Survivor 41 truly was.

Survivor 42, on paper, was a similar season with similar twists, so why then, is it ranked so much higher than its predecessor?

The biggest reason why is simple and it’s a common theme for the rest of the seasons listed this high — Casting, casting, casting.

For the most part, every single person on season 42 got a fair amount of air time and had compelling stories to tell. When looking over the finalists and the jury that voted on the eventual winner, Maryanne, there were maybe only two players that I wouldn’t need to see play again and if they did, they’d probably provide more entertainment than most of the cast from 41 gave us.

Survivor 42 gave us a group of players who you could tell were passionate about the game and wanted to play as hard as possible and those are typically when we see the best results play out in front of us. Everyone played hard and it showed.

We had the same twists with the players saying stupid phrases to gain access to an immunity idol and while the crappy “do-or-die” twist and shot in the dark were back for the second straight season, the cast made me not hate these as much because I was having so much fun while watching.

I was genuinely sad when Survivor 42 ended and have a feeling that it’ll move up my rankings the next time I do a complete rewatch.