All-Returnee Survivor Seasons – Number 1: Heroes vs Villains (Season 20, 2010)
The best all-returnee season in Survivor history is – without a doubt – Heroes vs Villains, which pitted ten of the show’s favorite heroes against ten of the show’s most notorious villains. The end result was an epic season that many have as the best season in Survivor history.
The first 20 minutes of Heroes vs Villains are bad ass, with the contestants being flown in by helicopters and Jeff Probst then taking the time to recognize how monumental this season is. From there, the first challenge that’s held was so physical that it saw both Stephenie LaGrossa and Rupert Boneham sustain injuries. This was also the infamous moment where, in Tyson’s words, “Colby got owned by Coach”.
The pre-merge is one of the best pre-merges ever, as we had the Rob vs Russell show on the Villains tribe, which is still one of the best showdowns ever and even led to its own season a year later.
We also had the moment where J.T. wrote a letter to Russell and gave him the Hidden Immunity Idol, which was later used to take him out at the merge. Speaking of that vote, Parvati’s double idol play is still looked at as one of the best in Survivor history.
The only true knocks I have on Heroes vs Villains are the editing and the fact that Parvati should have won. The editing focused way too much on Russell and ignored fan favorites like Tyson and Courtney. I like Sandra, but Parvati played the best game and Sandra winning was the result of a bitter jury.
Otherwise, Heroes vs Villains is a near perfect season and isn’t just one of the best all-returnee seasons ever, but one of the best overall seasons ever.
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What do you think Survivor fans? How would you rank these five seasons?