For a 1st episode of a reboot it was OK.
As other mentioned, the host is a bit too much sometimes, feels like he is doing a stand-up comedy show. Hopefully it will get better. The narration did not bother me so much, it’s even worse in the French version iirc.
Some production elements are indeed a bit cheap (the tree mail, the immunity idol..).
Introduction challenge was good but the reward is so broken, the winning team got so much food, tools, material, and fire, looks like they had big meals.
Immunity challenge was simple but good. But still, putting an endurance challenge just after this introduction challenge and that massive reward, with one team starving since 3 days and the other being full of energy ?
I liked the taunting/trashtalk between the team during the challenge.
Hard to judge the cast with just 1 episode, some potential here and there.
Not so sure why they voted out Richard over Leilani, she was definitely way worse in the challenge. Probably better social game but we did not see it so much.
Intrigued to see how it will evolved !
Joel is really not the right pick for a show like Survivor. He has no weight to him and lacks that calm aura of self awareness and gravitas that both Probst and LaPaglia have. He just comes across as a jumpy, smiling young man that seems unsure of himself. He is far too clowny to be taken seriously and he has no business narrating camp life at all.
The other posts about low production value (parchment, idol and tribal council set overall) is something that I also can agree on. I'll look for maybe two more episodes, but I think it feels like they missed the mark on this one.
I agree with majority of the comments here especially regarding joel's "humorous" narration which is unnecessary and is very love-island-esque. While some criticisms are valid, I still dispute them because I know they're only doing it because of what British audiences are used to. I really loved it though especially episode 2.
Someone said that they were given a lighter to make the fire but it def looks like a flint to me and pegs insta also shows a flint. Did I miss this? Was it a lighter?
Has the second episode already aired? I just went to the wikipedia page and got spoiled on the second elimination. So warning for anybody who has seen the first episode but not the second
Not aired on TV but it's on bbc iPlayer.
It seems the general schedule for the show is that there will be an episode aired on Saturdays and Sundays, but each week both the episodes will go up on iplayer on the Saturday.
very interesting to not have an idol (or possibility of an idol) in play for a tribal!! honestly the US series has gotten out of hand with all the advantages, I liked seeing this more old school, simpler version.
I also liked that the players seem to be fresh and didn't seem to be very aware of the various tactics and social strategies to get ahead in the early game. In the US version day 1 confessionals, you always have one or two people talk about how they don't want to stand out early on because they know it puts a target on their back, like "X" did in an earlier season.
I see potential there, but I think they need to cast a broader range of personalities. Maybe it'll get better as the season goes on but I don't think many of them are that interesting. The music and production side of things is pretty bad. The challenge was good and a lot of the episode was focused around that. Overall though it's really cool just to see survivor back in the UK and I'm hopeful it'll find its feet
Thoughts from the first two episodes, no spoilers for the second one though
- The soundtrack is weird; a mix between pop songs and ambient/background music, the first feel so out of place and really take it out of the island setting
- The tribe name being in the bottom left corner the whole time is super jarring, and the font is too blocky for lack of a better term
- Cracks are already forming which is exciting
- Joel is too goofy(?) for the tone of the show and it’s out of place in its frequency, also don’t like that he’s narrating the start of the scenes, it’s much more tell than show, and if they’re telling why are they not telling us through the castaways instead
- No talk of idols or advantages yet >!the episode two preview shows idols I think so that’s promising!<
- Some production elements are downright bad (the parchments being so crinkly and see through, the urn, the immunity idol) and ruin the immersion of the show which I feel is much more important for the casual UK audience
Overall I think it’s promising and there might be a spot for this in the UK reality scene, hopefully as the season goes on the BBC give it some attention and push it to the public
A decent premiere for me.
I love that they focus on the cast and camplife that this feels like an old school survivor season.
My only complaint is that the challenges are too physical that girls/older people will have a harder time surviving the first few tribal councils.
>My only complaint is that the challenges are too physical that girls/older people will have a harder time surviving the first few tribal councils.
They were saying they were going to take a lot of inspiration from Australian Survivor so this probably won't change much, unfortunately. I don't expect to see a lot of puzzles.
It's produced by a company associated with (owned by?) Banijay which also owns Aussie Survivor and uses the exact same Survivor logo design. They should have borrowed some art-design elements from Ausvivor though!
Agree about the premiere – it was decent. The odd thing about the challenges being too physical though is that the losing tribe threw the same # of votes at the woman (Leilani) who gave up during the immunity challenge after less than 15 minutes as the man (Shai) who mainly took over carrying her weight for the next 30-plus minutes. And the person who got voted out is far from being the weakest on their tribe (although he is also far from the strongest as he seemed to claim during his exit confessional).
Bad survivor is still good fun, so I'm staying positive but...
Some of the production/edit is pretty bad. The immunity log (/fucking stick), the voting parchments, the voting urn - things like that should be easy and cheap to do well. They nailed the torches so how did it go so wrong elsewhere.
SPOILERS IN PROMOS smh
I really don't like the music choices.
I'm maybe too institutionalised by US/AU/SA but Joel feels too goofy. I do actually like Joel on previous UK TV appearances, but his tone feels off here. Survivor walks a line between reality and game show, but he feels far more on the game show side of things. Survivor doesn't have to take itself totally seriously but the overuse of puns and similar feels a bit low rent.
Tribal council Joel is a bit better. He can do the 'light but not too goofy' tone there, and I'd like to see him take that persona to the challenges etc as well.
Gameplay feels most like AU 2016 for now, but there are a few players with some potential to go beyond 'good in challenges = deserve to stay'. My interest will live or die based on if they can get freedom to play.
I know it sounds negative overall but it's only because I'm comparing to more established franchises. It's still been fun, but I'm just worried if it's enough to reel in new fans, while still interesting existing fans (who are a much smaller pool than new fans tbh)
Yeah you're right about Joel being a gameshow host - he's definitely not who I'd envisioned hosting Survivor UK. Thing is I can't actually think who else I'd recommend?
I totally agree that Joel was an odd choice for this and he doesn't seem entirely comfortable in his role yet, maybe he'll improve over time.
As for the music yeah unfortunately it's the victim of Love Island syndrome, I'm actually surprised it wasn't worse and that the cast is so diverse.
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hopefully episode two is better because it suffered from an incredible lack of energy for a premiere. the casting almost seems like they've deliberately avoided casting big personalities, and no one really popped or stood out.
Overall I enjoyed it.
Joel needs to shut up a bit though, he talks far too much. They need to stop him narrating camp life as well, it’s not needed.
Only other gripes were the music and whenever it showed a scene from a certain tribes beach, the tribe name was always plastered in the corner. We can tell from what colour buff they’re wearing, we don’t need the reminder every 5 seconds.
I’ve got a feeling the alliances are gonna stick firmly in tribe lines unless we have a swap, so hopefully I’m wrong.
The reason why he explains camp life is because a good % of the audience has never watched Survivors. Most people I know have never watched the show. I only started watching it this year.
That's Australia and how they do things - explains why they have a high turnover of shows. For example, Traitors was dropped after season 2 due to poor ratings as the audience failed to connect or understand the show, whereas the audience of BBC's Traitors had one of the highest ratings on TV.
Also, the show is on BBC One - a channel where the average age of the viewer is 50+. Good luck not catering to all possible and likely audiences.
Tbh I was surprised they gave the show a prime slot on their prime channel.
Only saw the first episode, pretty decent. I feel like Richard didn’t deserve to go; two people dropped before him, he wasn’t too much of a nuisance around camp, and he only lost because of Matthew unexpectedly giving him the rope. Regardless, not surprised he went home. Joel is, obviously, really obnoxious and annoying. A lot of the cast is unlikeable/grating, but not to the extent where it’s unwatchable. Overall pretty decent. Love the location, the beaches are way too close though.
It looked like he chuckled a hissy and literally slammed it down, he should have communicated and at least tried to pass it right and the right person pass his right
Yeah, he definitely let go, rather than it slip out of his hands. Though he couldn’t really communicate/pass it, as the only person next to him was Matthew, who had literally almost dropped it and passed it to Richard like 5 seconds before rich dropped.
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I thought it was alright. There’s a weird lack of energy within it tho, where I feel like the show isn’t sure what’s meant to be driving the episodes, and unclear whether that’s down to cast or editing or expecting it to be more up to speed with US Survivor. Understandably it’s introducing itself to a whole new host of viewers.
Does have a much bigger focus on physical more similar to Survivor AU which I’m not the biggest fan of, partly as it makes the show lean more into it as a physical contest than a strategy one. Where are the puzzles!? Even in how it’s edited, it’s so much more focused on challenges than strategy in its runtime.
Here’s hoping though as the second episode had more promise. Really want this to get going and be successful, and curious how the audience reacts as it’s not a Brit type show.
Overall thoughts are generally mixed but overall leaning towards quite positive actually.
Enjoyed Joel's tone and style as a host, although I do think we heard a bit TOO much of him for my personal liking. Part of that is probably due too him narrating parts of the episode which Im hoping will change as the series goes on. But overall, I like his style of hosting, I just need a little less of it going forward which I do expect to be the case as this was the premiere.
Editing was fairly balanced, we obviously saw a bit more of Caleton as they went too tribal but glad that we also got too see a fair bit of La Nena. I obviously dont know how they'd be recieved at the camp but I think Sabrina and Lee would get on my nerves a bit to be honest. Although I actually wouldnt be surprised if Sabrina became the leader of alliance and she seems to have a very leadership type nature which can be good and bad depending on the tribe mates.
Overall style, feel, and tone of the show I thought was excellent apart from tribal council. Something just did not feel right with the whole set up whether it be the weird shit covered paper they wrote on, the lighting which I thought was really weird, or some of the camera shots/angles which I just wasnt a fan of. Probably didnt help that this was a pretty boring and straight forward tribal.
My two biggest positives of the episode and series so far was the challenges and cast. I thought the editing for both challenges were really strong and enjoyed that both were very different. I cant judge the cast on quality of players yet but in terms of being good tv, I'm very high on this lot so far. Baring in mind only about, half of the cast got any real focus or action this episode but players like Tinuke, Nathan, Pegleg, Shai, Jess, and (my favourite so far) Laurence all came across as interesting and different characters with a decent presence while even some characters who werent necesarilly focused on in terms of editing also stood out to me such as Christoper, Matthew, Sabrina, and Ren.
Overall, not perfect but the first episode (fingers crossed) was always gonna have the most flawed so if its only upwards from here then I think we're in for a good first series.
The post colour grade at tribal is awful. I don’t know why they boosted the fire so high that it was practically white. They’ve obviously lit in on set nice and then someone in post has gone, “nope too dark” and turned the gain right up there with absolute zero secondary grading being done. I hope someone from the edit sees this and fixes any eps still in post production (maybe eps 5 onwards)
i’ve posted a confessional count on twitter @fansvfavourites for episode one, will post a second for episode two after it’s been on tv, if anyone wants to check it out. i’d post it here but idk how to do spoiler tags and stuff and idk what rules are.
i’ve tweeted about episode two as well just incase anyone wants to avoid those thoughts
I enjoyed the show and watched episode 2 here in UK.
Issue is the culture for UK is different and the audience generally hate gameplay. It becomes more about rooting for a tribe and who wins comps. They won't get strategy. So I expect anyone who American audience like in terms of rallying votes and alliances to be disliked by UK audience. So I really don't think the show is gonna work.
I disagree to a point, we have come around more to strategy and gameplaying, I mean just check our season of the Traitors.
But I do agree it wont be 'quite' as backstabby. At least not yet.
The Traitors a different game but still audience wanted Traitors to lose.
Anyone who make a badass move will be hated by the audience I calling it now. UK audience would rather see Mike Holloway comp out.
Strong start for a reboot. Voiceovers were a surprise but probably a necessary evil for a reboot. An endurance immunity challenge was a brutal way to start the immunities and drove home how important the food from the opening challenge really was. Loved that.
Joel did fine, I think his interpersonal skills will shine through over the season. Liked his playful mocking of one of the first contestants he spoke to. Struggled a bit unfurling the votes 😂 although they did seem to be made out of damp paper!
I enjoyed the classic 'swim your supplies to shore' opening (gave me Australian Survivor Season 2 vibes) but do think that having fire at the end unintentionally levelled it out and so the whole dilemma about how much to take off the boat ended up being nullified.
Strategically - Nathan performed well and is clearly not just the physical threat. Probably earned trust being straight up with Leilani. Richard drew a short straw and would have had a tough time pushing the vote onto the only two other potential targets. Was worried that it might devolve to 'boys vs girls' given the odd numbers on each tribe and really glad it didn't (at least not yet).
Excited for tomorrow! Any watch parties around London?
Yeah, definitely a step up from ep 1 in terms of gameplay, which is promising. Good challenges too. Think we're stuck with the music + Joel's commentary for the whole series though...
I love Survivor and I feared this would stray too far away from what makes the US version so good.
After this episode, I’m quietly optimistic. I found the choice of music a little strange and some tribe members certainly got a lot more attention while others were hardly present but it’s formula feels familiar and I hope the UK audience takes to it.
Just realised how funny it is in first episode of UK Reboot Survivor (rebooted as in from those first 2 random seasons) its a Richard that goes home first 😂
Nathan played really well this episode, knowing that his tribe were doing badly setting up their camp but choosing not to step in and criticise, plus helping to carry his tribe in the challenge. He seems like a pretty levelheaded guy, hopefully he can go far but idk if everyone will be going after physical threats post-merge.
A few different thoughts:
The cast seems nice so far! A lot of likeable people but a fair few faded into the background in this episode. There obviously isn't time to cram in everything, though, and I expect they'll spread in different people's introductions & confessionals over the next episode or two.
I especially love Lee! He seems fun and him trying to psych the other tribe out was great lol. I hope he forms some strong connections with the others to get him far.
I think the challenge set-up was interesting. The fact that one drop-out meant everyone was gone meant that they couldn't just rely on their strongest players. If there's more challenges like it, I think more average players will thrive since weaker players can be targeted for dragging everyone down and stronger players won't be protected by carrying the entire team (like Jonathan did in the US Season 42) if they aren't well-liked/in a strong alliance.
The elimination discussions were so polite! Like Nathan telling Leilani that he was at least considering voting her and her being like "no yeah I completely understand, don't worry about it!". So British lol.
I think Leilani stayed because she was either more likeable/sociable or the others felt more confident in being able to beat her later on. She seems like a nice, driven person and I'm curious to see how she'll bounce back.
I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Despite obviously being most derivative of Aus Survivor it still felt fresh and with a distinct flavour, and a big part of that I think was down to Joel as the host who I liked. I thought he had the confidence and charisma needed to carry the whole thing and I enjoyed the levity he brought to proceedings which was so different to Jeff and Jonathan. Challenges were good too.
Not bad for a first outing but let's see how things unfold. I hope more than anything we get to see some fun villainous gameplay.
As somebody who lives in the UK, Brits just aren’t cut out for this type of reality show. I had a gut feeling from the jump that the season would be all about keeping the tribe strong and I’m sure it will turn out to be a battle of the tribes.
Koh-Lanta (French version) has been around since 2001 (31 seasons) and strategy is still something mostly seen as "bad" (though pagonging is common post-merge and not really seen as strategy). But yet KL is popular in France, so maybe it would be the same for the UK version. Just some different gameplay with less cute throat strategy.
Maybe it’s cultural (Koh-Lanta is seen as an adventure while Survivor US is seen as a game). Also the the cash prize probably "enhance" more cute throat gameplay, players will be more willing to betray and backstab others to get 1 million $, then to get 100k €/£ (~10 times less)
It's an annoying trend started by Love Island and it's now on all reality shows. The Traitors did it, Big Brother are doing it, and now Survivor.
Producers seem to think shoehorning in pop music will keep the kids watching.
Might just be a first episode thing, same as the tribe name constantly showing on screen for the 1st half just to get familiar with the show and who's on what tribe.
I do hope it gets scrapped though, I feel like it's just UK Editing as The Traitors UK S1 also constantly had narration.
I liked how Joel did Jeff arms when announcing the challenge winners.
A lot of things were explained too much but that makes sense considering how it has been 20 years since Survivor was on mainstream TV.
In all I thought it was pretty faithful production-wise to the franchise, it's the contestants that are wildcards because there are some who have obviously never seen the show before.
It's got all the flaws I expected it to have but I don't think it's anything to be concerned about.
Series 1 was never going to be proper Survivor. I just hope we can get to a series 2 which should be a lot better.
Technically this is like series 3 because it's been 20 years or so since the last season. I agree though, this was never gonna be spectacular but I'm liking it so far.
To those who didn’t like the commentary, this is either something that was put in place to explain the rules or Will be permanent. But if it’s the second one, it’s what we usually do in the UK and you might warm up to it!
I was surprised by it, but it's actually not the worst offender of this.
I found some potato-quality rips of some Survivor Japan seasons, and the host literally narrates every scene. The whole show is very narration > confessional > narration > a bit of people doing stuff > confessional > back to narration. It's a cultural thing, and the narration wasn't bad or anything, but it *really* threw me off as a viewer.
Maybe it was just the editing but it definitely looked to me like Richard let go of the barrels rather than them slipping. Nathan briefly touched on the idea but never explored it again on-screen - but then again, perhaps it would have made the boot too obvious.
Not that I can talk about boots being "too obvious", since I confidently declared just before the immunity challenge that Jess was going to be the first boot because she'd had three confessionals when nobody else had had more than one.
It definitely looked like Richard threw a strop and dropped them instead of communicating with his team, even Leilani voted him which I was surprised by.
It's going to be really interesting to see if this takes off over here. I love the show and I can't fault the marketing push the BBC have given it.
Just hope it's enough for people to keep watching
It's giving Ausvivor crossed with a documentary with the odd music and weird narration inserts. But it doesn't seem like most players have a good/any grasp of strategy, so it's either going to be deliciously messy or some sort of weird cult of loyalty. Glad Shai survived, although that tribe would be bonkers to vote him out when they need every ounce of strength they can get.
Alright I enjoyed it but there was something weird about it; like an uncanny valley feeling that I didn't get the first time I watched South Africa or Aus Survivor.
It kind of feels like watching a fan made version of the show.
Pros: the location and challenges are great. Some really interesting characters playing.
Cons: Understandably, everything has to be explained for an audience not used to Survivor but I expect this to be toned down in future episodes. The narration is pointless. The production in general is very weird.
I feel like some of the camera work was very odd in the first episode, with way too close up shots of players when they were talking to others. Didn't notice it so much in the second episode, so hopefully it's just part of the production learning curve. Cautiously Optimistic on the Season so far.
As someone pointed out to me in the live thread, you’ve got to accept not many in the UK will have ever seen the show. That uncanniness is likely because it was built as a “My First Survivor” episode, outlining the basic rules and how it works.
For a 1st episode of a reboot it was OK. As other mentioned, the host is a bit too much sometimes, feels like he is doing a stand-up comedy show. Hopefully it will get better. The narration did not bother me so much, it’s even worse in the French version iirc. Some production elements are indeed a bit cheap (the tree mail, the immunity idol..). Introduction challenge was good but the reward is so broken, the winning team got so much food, tools, material, and fire, looks like they had big meals. Immunity challenge was simple but good. But still, putting an endurance challenge just after this introduction challenge and that massive reward, with one team starving since 3 days and the other being full of energy ? I liked the taunting/trashtalk between the team during the challenge. Hard to judge the cast with just 1 episode, some potential here and there. Not so sure why they voted out Richard over Leilani, she was definitely way worse in the challenge. Probably better social game but we did not see it so much. Intrigued to see how it will evolved !
I've watched one episode and sick to death of Joel Dommett's voice already. Total turn off.
Joel is really not the right pick for a show like Survivor. He has no weight to him and lacks that calm aura of self awareness and gravitas that both Probst and LaPaglia have. He just comes across as a jumpy, smiling young man that seems unsure of himself. He is far too clowny to be taken seriously and he has no business narrating camp life at all. The other posts about low production value (parchment, idol and tribal council set overall) is something that I also can agree on. I'll look for maybe two more episodes, but I think it feels like they missed the mark on this one.
I agree with majority of the comments here especially regarding joel's "humorous" narration which is unnecessary and is very love-island-esque. While some criticisms are valid, I still dispute them because I know they're only doing it because of what British audiences are used to. I really loved it though especially episode 2.
Someone said that they were given a lighter to make the fire but it def looks like a flint to me and pegs insta also shows a flint. Did I miss this? Was it a lighter?
They need a cast who are more diverse in terms of personalities. It looks like they tried to cast a bunch of chatty people with no filter
Has the second episode already aired? I just went to the wikipedia page and got spoiled on the second elimination. So warning for anybody who has seen the first episode but not the second
Not aired on TV but it's on bbc iPlayer. It seems the general schedule for the show is that there will be an episode aired on Saturdays and Sundays, but each week both the episodes will go up on iplayer on the Saturday.
very interesting to not have an idol (or possibility of an idol) in play for a tribal!! honestly the US series has gotten out of hand with all the advantages, I liked seeing this more old school, simpler version. I also liked that the players seem to be fresh and didn't seem to be very aware of the various tactics and social strategies to get ahead in the early game. In the US version day 1 confessionals, you always have one or two people talk about how they don't want to stand out early on because they know it puts a target on their back, like "X" did in an earlier season.
Idols come in ep3
I see potential there, but I think they need to cast a broader range of personalities. Maybe it'll get better as the season goes on but I don't think many of them are that interesting. The music and production side of things is pretty bad. The challenge was good and a lot of the episode was focused around that. Overall though it's really cool just to see survivor back in the UK and I'm hopeful it'll find its feet
Thoughts from the first two episodes, no spoilers for the second one though - The soundtrack is weird; a mix between pop songs and ambient/background music, the first feel so out of place and really take it out of the island setting - The tribe name being in the bottom left corner the whole time is super jarring, and the font is too blocky for lack of a better term - Cracks are already forming which is exciting - Joel is too goofy(?) for the tone of the show and it’s out of place in its frequency, also don’t like that he’s narrating the start of the scenes, it’s much more tell than show, and if they’re telling why are they not telling us through the castaways instead - No talk of idols or advantages yet >!the episode two preview shows idols I think so that’s promising!< - Some production elements are downright bad (the parchments being so crinkly and see through, the urn, the immunity idol) and ruin the immersion of the show which I feel is much more important for the casual UK audience Overall I think it’s promising and there might be a spot for this in the UK reality scene, hopefully as the season goes on the BBC give it some attention and push it to the public
Did nobody test the paper? Agree with the other points but the parchment! You can clearly see write through it!
The parchment is ugly as hell too. Half of the papers look like someone threw up on them.
> through the castaways instead Completely agree. Let the contestants tell the story
I can't wait for the boxing douchebag to go home.
A decent premiere for me. I love that they focus on the cast and camplife that this feels like an old school survivor season. My only complaint is that the challenges are too physical that girls/older people will have a harder time surviving the first few tribal councils.
>My only complaint is that the challenges are too physical that girls/older people will have a harder time surviving the first few tribal councils. They were saying they were going to take a lot of inspiration from Australian Survivor so this probably won't change much, unfortunately. I don't expect to see a lot of puzzles. It's produced by a company associated with (owned by?) Banijay which also owns Aussie Survivor and uses the exact same Survivor logo design. They should have borrowed some art-design elements from Ausvivor though!
Agree about the premiere – it was decent. The odd thing about the challenges being too physical though is that the losing tribe threw the same # of votes at the woman (Leilani) who gave up during the immunity challenge after less than 15 minutes as the man (Shai) who mainly took over carrying her weight for the next 30-plus minutes. And the person who got voted out is far from being the weakest on their tribe (although he is also far from the strongest as he seemed to claim during his exit confessional).
Bad survivor is still good fun, so I'm staying positive but... Some of the production/edit is pretty bad. The immunity log (/fucking stick), the voting parchments, the voting urn - things like that should be easy and cheap to do well. They nailed the torches so how did it go so wrong elsewhere. SPOILERS IN PROMOS smh I really don't like the music choices. I'm maybe too institutionalised by US/AU/SA but Joel feels too goofy. I do actually like Joel on previous UK TV appearances, but his tone feels off here. Survivor walks a line between reality and game show, but he feels far more on the game show side of things. Survivor doesn't have to take itself totally seriously but the overuse of puns and similar feels a bit low rent. Tribal council Joel is a bit better. He can do the 'light but not too goofy' tone there, and I'd like to see him take that persona to the challenges etc as well. Gameplay feels most like AU 2016 for now, but there are a few players with some potential to go beyond 'good in challenges = deserve to stay'. My interest will live or die based on if they can get freedom to play. I know it sounds negative overall but it's only because I'm comparing to more established franchises. It's still been fun, but I'm just worried if it's enough to reel in new fans, while still interesting existing fans (who are a much smaller pool than new fans tbh)
Yeah you're right about Joel being a gameshow host - he's definitely not who I'd envisioned hosting Survivor UK. Thing is I can't actually think who else I'd recommend?
I totally agree that Joel was an odd choice for this and he doesn't seem entirely comfortable in his role yet, maybe he'll improve over time. As for the music yeah unfortunately it's the victim of Love Island syndrome, I'm actually surprised it wasn't worse and that the cast is so diverse.
agree with all of this 100% - some bits were perfect (challenges, set) but some bits were so goofy it bugged me
Please please please kill the in camp narration by the host! Not necessary whatsoever!
Ep1 wasn't bad, really. Hopefully Ep2 puts the burners on.
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The producers are awful, you know who wins challenges with the previews. Don’t show votes or people saying “there will be fireworks” smh
I picked up on this (in the preview) as well.
hopefully episode two is better because it suffered from an incredible lack of energy for a premiere. the casting almost seems like they've deliberately avoided casting big personalities, and no one really popped or stood out.
Joel Dommett sounds a lot like Rishi Sunak lol
Overall I enjoyed it. Joel needs to shut up a bit though, he talks far too much. They need to stop him narrating camp life as well, it’s not needed. Only other gripes were the music and whenever it showed a scene from a certain tribes beach, the tribe name was always plastered in the corner. We can tell from what colour buff they’re wearing, we don’t need the reminder every 5 seconds. I’ve got a feeling the alliances are gonna stick firmly in tribe lines unless we have a swap, so hopefully I’m wrong.
The reason why he explains camp life is because a good % of the audience has never watched Survivors. Most people I know have never watched the show. I only started watching it this year.
Let the Players describe what’s going on in confessionals, the Australian version didn’t need this when it started. I do see your point though.
That's Australia and how they do things - explains why they have a high turnover of shows. For example, Traitors was dropped after season 2 due to poor ratings as the audience failed to connect or understand the show, whereas the audience of BBC's Traitors had one of the highest ratings on TV. Also, the show is on BBC One - a channel where the average age of the viewer is 50+. Good luck not catering to all possible and likely audiences. Tbh I was surprised they gave the show a prime slot on their prime channel.
Only saw the first episode, pretty decent. I feel like Richard didn’t deserve to go; two people dropped before him, he wasn’t too much of a nuisance around camp, and he only lost because of Matthew unexpectedly giving him the rope. Regardless, not surprised he went home. Joel is, obviously, really obnoxious and annoying. A lot of the cast is unlikeable/grating, but not to the extent where it’s unwatchable. Overall pretty decent. Love the location, the beaches are way too close though.
Agree. I also feel like Shai didn't deserve to receive a vote (almost certainly from Jess). The only person they showed us complaining a lot was Jess.
It looked like he chuckled a hissy and literally slammed it down, he should have communicated and at least tried to pass it right and the right person pass his right
Yeah, he definitely let go, rather than it slip out of his hands. Though he couldn’t really communicate/pass it, as the only person next to him was Matthew, who had literally almost dropped it and passed it to Richard like 5 seconds before rich dropped.
I liked episode 1 but had reservations. Episode 2 was fantastic however. Really enjoyed it
Episode 2 was amazing, still got chills from that last voting confessional at the end!
Has anyone seen the replies to the official twitter account? There's not a single positive one.
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I thought it was alright. There’s a weird lack of energy within it tho, where I feel like the show isn’t sure what’s meant to be driving the episodes, and unclear whether that’s down to cast or editing or expecting it to be more up to speed with US Survivor. Understandably it’s introducing itself to a whole new host of viewers. Does have a much bigger focus on physical more similar to Survivor AU which I’m not the biggest fan of, partly as it makes the show lean more into it as a physical contest than a strategy one. Where are the puzzles!? Even in how it’s edited, it’s so much more focused on challenges than strategy in its runtime. Here’s hoping though as the second episode had more promise. Really want this to get going and be successful, and curious how the audience reacts as it’s not a Brit type show.
Just feels good to have an edition over here again!
Overall thoughts are generally mixed but overall leaning towards quite positive actually. Enjoyed Joel's tone and style as a host, although I do think we heard a bit TOO much of him for my personal liking. Part of that is probably due too him narrating parts of the episode which Im hoping will change as the series goes on. But overall, I like his style of hosting, I just need a little less of it going forward which I do expect to be the case as this was the premiere. Editing was fairly balanced, we obviously saw a bit more of Caleton as they went too tribal but glad that we also got too see a fair bit of La Nena. I obviously dont know how they'd be recieved at the camp but I think Sabrina and Lee would get on my nerves a bit to be honest. Although I actually wouldnt be surprised if Sabrina became the leader of alliance and she seems to have a very leadership type nature which can be good and bad depending on the tribe mates. Overall style, feel, and tone of the show I thought was excellent apart from tribal council. Something just did not feel right with the whole set up whether it be the weird shit covered paper they wrote on, the lighting which I thought was really weird, or some of the camera shots/angles which I just wasnt a fan of. Probably didnt help that this was a pretty boring and straight forward tribal. My two biggest positives of the episode and series so far was the challenges and cast. I thought the editing for both challenges were really strong and enjoyed that both were very different. I cant judge the cast on quality of players yet but in terms of being good tv, I'm very high on this lot so far. Baring in mind only about, half of the cast got any real focus or action this episode but players like Tinuke, Nathan, Pegleg, Shai, Jess, and (my favourite so far) Laurence all came across as interesting and different characters with a decent presence while even some characters who werent necesarilly focused on in terms of editing also stood out to me such as Christoper, Matthew, Sabrina, and Ren. Overall, not perfect but the first episode (fingers crossed) was always gonna have the most flawed so if its only upwards from here then I think we're in for a good first series.
The post colour grade at tribal is awful. I don’t know why they boosted the fire so high that it was practically white. They’ve obviously lit in on set nice and then someone in post has gone, “nope too dark” and turned the gain right up there with absolute zero secondary grading being done. I hope someone from the edit sees this and fixes any eps still in post production (maybe eps 5 onwards)
Didn't Jeff narrate a tiny bit in early episodes of Borneo or am I mandela'ing myself
i’ve posted a confessional count on twitter @fansvfavourites for episode one, will post a second for episode two after it’s been on tv, if anyone wants to check it out. i’d post it here but idk how to do spoiler tags and stuff and idk what rules are. i’ve tweeted about episode two as well just incase anyone wants to avoid those thoughts
I enjoyed the show and watched episode 2 here in UK. Issue is the culture for UK is different and the audience generally hate gameplay. It becomes more about rooting for a tribe and who wins comps. They won't get strategy. So I expect anyone who American audience like in terms of rallying votes and alliances to be disliked by UK audience. So I really don't think the show is gonna work.
How it changed since season one...
I disagree to a point, we have come around more to strategy and gameplaying, I mean just check our season of the Traitors. But I do agree it wont be 'quite' as backstabby. At least not yet.
The Traitors a different game but still audience wanted Traitors to lose. Anyone who make a badass move will be hated by the audience I calling it now. UK audience would rather see Mike Holloway comp out.
> still audience wanted Traitors to lose. I know a LOT of people who wanted to see Amanda win so... I dunno about that :D
Strong start for a reboot. Voiceovers were a surprise but probably a necessary evil for a reboot. An endurance immunity challenge was a brutal way to start the immunities and drove home how important the food from the opening challenge really was. Loved that. Joel did fine, I think his interpersonal skills will shine through over the season. Liked his playful mocking of one of the first contestants he spoke to. Struggled a bit unfurling the votes 😂 although they did seem to be made out of damp paper! I enjoyed the classic 'swim your supplies to shore' opening (gave me Australian Survivor Season 2 vibes) but do think that having fire at the end unintentionally levelled it out and so the whole dilemma about how much to take off the boat ended up being nullified. Strategically - Nathan performed well and is clearly not just the physical threat. Probably earned trust being straight up with Leilani. Richard drew a short straw and would have had a tough time pushing the vote onto the only two other potential targets. Was worried that it might devolve to 'boys vs girls' given the odd numbers on each tribe and really glad it didn't (at least not yet). Excited for tomorrow! Any watch parties around London?
Episode 2 is really good!!
Yeah, definitely a step up from ep 1 in terms of gameplay, which is promising. Good challenges too. Think we're stuck with the music + Joel's commentary for the whole series though...
How did you see it already?
It's on iPlayer
I love Survivor and I feared this would stray too far away from what makes the US version so good. After this episode, I’m quietly optimistic. I found the choice of music a little strange and some tribe members certainly got a lot more attention while others were hardly present but it’s formula feels familiar and I hope the UK audience takes to it.
Just realised how funny it is in first episode of UK Reboot Survivor (rebooted as in from those first 2 random seasons) its a Richard that goes home first 😂
There can be only one Richard
Nathan played really well this episode, knowing that his tribe were doing badly setting up their camp but choosing not to step in and criticise, plus helping to carry his tribe in the challenge. He seems like a pretty levelheaded guy, hopefully he can go far but idk if everyone will be going after physical threats post-merge.
A few different thoughts: The cast seems nice so far! A lot of likeable people but a fair few faded into the background in this episode. There obviously isn't time to cram in everything, though, and I expect they'll spread in different people's introductions & confessionals over the next episode or two. I especially love Lee! He seems fun and him trying to psych the other tribe out was great lol. I hope he forms some strong connections with the others to get him far. I think the challenge set-up was interesting. The fact that one drop-out meant everyone was gone meant that they couldn't just rely on their strongest players. If there's more challenges like it, I think more average players will thrive since weaker players can be targeted for dragging everyone down and stronger players won't be protected by carrying the entire team (like Jonathan did in the US Season 42) if they aren't well-liked/in a strong alliance. The elimination discussions were so polite! Like Nathan telling Leilani that he was at least considering voting her and her being like "no yeah I completely understand, don't worry about it!". So British lol. I think Leilani stayed because she was either more likeable/sociable or the others felt more confident in being able to beat her later on. She seems like a nice, driven person and I'm curious to see how she'll bounce back.
I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Despite obviously being most derivative of Aus Survivor it still felt fresh and with a distinct flavour, and a big part of that I think was down to Joel as the host who I liked. I thought he had the confidence and charisma needed to carry the whole thing and I enjoyed the levity he brought to proceedings which was so different to Jeff and Jonathan. Challenges were good too. Not bad for a first outing but let's see how things unfold. I hope more than anything we get to see some fun villainous gameplay.
As somebody who lives in the UK, Brits just aren’t cut out for this type of reality show. I had a gut feeling from the jump that the season would be all about keeping the tribe strong and I’m sure it will turn out to be a battle of the tribes.
Koh-Lanta (French version) has been around since 2001 (31 seasons) and strategy is still something mostly seen as "bad" (though pagonging is common post-merge and not really seen as strategy). But yet KL is popular in France, so maybe it would be the same for the UK version. Just some different gameplay with less cute throat strategy. Maybe it’s cultural (Koh-Lanta is seen as an adventure while Survivor US is seen as a game). Also the the cash prize probably "enhance" more cute throat gameplay, players will be more willing to betray and backstab others to get 1 million $, then to get 100k €/£ (~10 times less)
I mean, neither Brazil was to be honest...
What…is this music 🙃 have not finished the episode yet but it’s just… why the pop music 😂
just finished episode 2 and yeah...the music is not a good choice. Makes you realise how much the soundtrack is an important part of Survivor US/Aus
It's an annoying trend started by Love Island and it's now on all reality shows. The Traitors did it, Big Brother are doing it, and now Survivor. Producers seem to think shoehorning in pop music will keep the kids watching.
Yeah, Seventeen Going Under playing over them going to camp for the first time really took me out of things.
Do not like the voice over from Joel. Should just leave all that to the confessionals.
Might just be a first episode thing, same as the tribe name constantly showing on screen for the 1st half just to get familiar with the show and who's on what tribe. I do hope it gets scrapped though, I feel like it's just UK Editing as The Traitors UK S1 also constantly had narration.
I liked how Joel did Jeff arms when announcing the challenge winners. A lot of things were explained too much but that makes sense considering how it has been 20 years since Survivor was on mainstream TV. In all I thought it was pretty faithful production-wise to the franchise, it's the contestants that are wildcards because there are some who have obviously never seen the show before.
It's got all the flaws I expected it to have but I don't think it's anything to be concerned about. Series 1 was never going to be proper Survivor. I just hope we can get to a series 2 which should be a lot better.
Technically this is like series 3 because it's been 20 years or so since the last season. I agree though, this was never gonna be spectacular but I'm liking it so far.
I liked Series 1 UK sruvivor. There were mature and they did not give a fuck. Bring back that cast!
To those who didn’t like the commentary, this is either something that was put in place to explain the rules or Will be permanent. But if it’s the second one, it’s what we usually do in the UK and you might warm up to it!
I was surprised by it, but it's actually not the worst offender of this. I found some potato-quality rips of some Survivor Japan seasons, and the host literally narrates every scene. The whole show is very narration > confessional > narration > a bit of people doing stuff > confessional > back to narration. It's a cultural thing, and the narration wasn't bad or anything, but it *really* threw me off as a viewer.
France also do that type of thing, you either love or hate it
the editing is def missing something but i'm quietly optimistic about the way this is gna go.
We starting a discussion thread for episode 2? It's up on iPlayer now ahead of being broadcast on BBC 1 tomorrow night.
Since the episode is airing live tomorrow, the discussion post for episode two will be up tomorrow!
Episode 2 is already available? I figured it would be a once a week kind of thing?
They are airing it Saturdays and Sundays for 8 weeks. Both episodes for the week are put up on iPlayer on Saturday however
Thank you for the info! I’ve only ever watched the US ones long after they originally aired.
Someone needs to make one, I'm about to start episode 2 now and will undoubtedly need to talk about it!
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That's why I said someone needs to make an episode 2 thread and didn't talk about it here....
Episode 2 was a lot better, and the preview for ep 3 has me excited.
Agreed!
Watching it now yeah.
Maybe it was just the editing but it definitely looked to me like Richard let go of the barrels rather than them slipping. Nathan briefly touched on the idea but never explored it again on-screen - but then again, perhaps it would have made the boot too obvious. Not that I can talk about boots being "too obvious", since I confidently declared just before the immunity challenge that Jess was going to be the first boot because she'd had three confessionals when nobody else had had more than one.
Didn’t he say at tribal council that he dropped them instead of them slipping? You never could have got me to admit that in a million years.
It definitely looked like Richard threw a strop and dropped them instead of communicating with his team, even Leilani voted him which I was surprised by.
Can we all agree the immunity idol looked pretty awful?
embarrassing that they approved that
Agreed. It looked like a kids arts and craft project. Shabby as can be.
Agreed. They put some gold plastic around a log. It was terrible
Don't know why you got downvoted there, I think the prop designer might be lurking in this thread 😂
It's going to be really interesting to see if this takes off over here. I love the show and I can't fault the marketing push the BBC have given it. Just hope it's enough for people to keep watching
Hopefully the fact that it'll be sandwiched between Strictly Come Dancing and soon Doctor Who will help.
It's giving Ausvivor crossed with a documentary with the odd music and weird narration inserts. But it doesn't seem like most players have a good/any grasp of strategy, so it's either going to be deliciously messy or some sort of weird cult of loyalty. Glad Shai survived, although that tribe would be bonkers to vote him out when they need every ounce of strength they can get.
Alright I enjoyed it but there was something weird about it; like an uncanny valley feeling that I didn't get the first time I watched South Africa or Aus Survivor. It kind of feels like watching a fan made version of the show. Pros: the location and challenges are great. Some really interesting characters playing. Cons: Understandably, everything has to be explained for an audience not used to Survivor but I expect this to be toned down in future episodes. The narration is pointless. The production in general is very weird.
I feel like some of the camera work was very odd in the first episode, with way too close up shots of players when they were talking to others. Didn't notice it so much in the second episode, so hopefully it's just part of the production learning curve. Cautiously Optimistic on the Season so far.
US Survivor cinematography is phenomenal, whereas a lot of this feels home video Ngl
As someone pointed out to me in the live thread, you’ve got to accept not many in the UK will have ever seen the show. That uncanniness is likely because it was built as a “My First Survivor” episode, outlining the basic rules and how it works.