Revisiting Survivor Themes: What worked and what didn’t for Survivor Heroes vs. Villains

Survivor 41 is set to be the dawn of a new era. Not only is the show seemingly running with a shorter game on the island, but production is also doing away with season themes.

Since the show’s sixth season, several seasons have used a central theme to help set the stage for the game. With that about to go away, we wanted to take a look back at the many themes that Survivor has used over the years and see what worked, what didn’t, and how it helped shape the franchise.

What worked for Survivor Heroes vs. Villains?

Survivor Heroes vs. Villains is not only one of the fanbase’s favorite seasons, but it also has one of the most robust themes in franchise history. It directly helped set up two of the next three seasons, gave production a blueprint for what a great returner season should look like, and impacted the season’s gameplay in a major way. That’s an impactful theme if we’ve ever seen one.

Let’s start with the latter first. By putting players into tribes of Heroes and Villains, Survivor production was able to influence how castmates played the game. You had players on the Heroes tribe trying to live up to those expectations, while most Villains were emboldened by the freedom that came with playing as a villain. Others worked against their best interests as some form of image rehab. It was absolutely wild to watch how much of an impact this theme had on the players.

We’ve seen this put up a few other times since. Seasons like Game Changers and Second Chances were similar all-returnee seasons that placed the burden of a theme on the survivors. While not quite as impactful as Heroes vs. Villains, it was impossible for the players not to have that theming in the back of their minds. After all, players in Second Chances were voted into the game by the fans. Surely, they owed to it them to play hard and make big moves?

On its own, that’s probably enough to make this a successful theme. It was excellent in the moment and gave Jeff Probst and his crew a blueprint for how to get the best out of returning players. However, Heroes vs. Villains takes things one step further.

While on the Villain’s beach, a rivalry brewed between Boston Rob Mariano and Russell Hantz. Those two were constantly fighting over who would be the tribe’s alpha male to the point that the show decided to build an entire season around them. Redemption Island is far from the best season, Survivor has ever given us, but it likely wouldn’t exist without Heroes vs. Villains. And that means Rob’s never won and we never get to see Phillip’s purple undies. That’s not a world we want to live in.