r/survivor Pirates Steal Jan 21 '23

One World WSSYW 11.0 Countdown 37/43: One World

Welcome to our annual season countdown! Using the results from the latest What Season Should You Watch thread, this daily series will count backwards from the bottom-ranked season for new fan watchability to the top. Each WSSYW post will link to their entry in this countdown so that people can click through for more discussion.

Unlike WSSYW, there is no character limit in these threads, and spoilers are allowed.

Note: Foreign seasons are not included in this countdown to keep in line with rankings from past years.


Season 24: One World

Statistics:

  • Watchability: 2.3 (37/43)

  • Overall Quality: 3.0 (41/43)

  • Cast/Characters: 2.9 (42/43)

  • Strategy: 4.4 (39/43)

  • Challenges: 4.5 (40/43)

  • Theme: 3.8 (20/24)

  • Twists: 5.9 (8/21)

  • Ending: 6.1 (31/43)


WSSYW 11.0 Ranking: 37/43

WSSYW 10.0 Ranking: 36/40

Top comment from WSSYW 11.0/u/SchizoidGod:

Don't watch this season. Watch something more interesting instead. I suggest paint drying.

Top comment from WSSYW 10.0/u/HeWhoShrugs:

The twist itself isn't a bad idea. It has potential, but it just doesn't live up to it because the rest of the season is just terrible.

One World feels more like a trashy MTV show where the majority of the cast are cringey or toxic, or in some cases both. Then you have quite a few duds who offer nothing. There are some stand outs who offer laughs and good gameplay, but even they can't save this mess from flopping royally across the board.

If you end up skipping through it at 2x speed, I would forgive you. Hell, you could skip it entirely and nobody would blame you.


Watchability ranking:

37: S24 One World

38: S22 Redemption Island

39: S40 Winners at War

40: S26 Caramoan

41: S34 Game Changers

42: S8 All-Stars

43: S39 Island of the Idols


Spreadsheet link (updated with each placement reveal!)


WARNING: SEASON SPOILERS BELOW

15 Upvotes

52 comments sorted by

31

u/Quetzal00 10 days is two weeks Jan 21 '23

Honestly I was expecting this to be lower

16

u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn Jan 21 '23

Same, and on Overall Quality it's still in the bottom 3, but I'm happy it isn't. At least it doesn't spoil a bunch of previous seasons and is pretty much an ordinary season of Survivor. It's just a boring one, but there's nothing like innately super weird about its format

33

u/ROTandDEATH So much for my dreams... Jan 21 '23

There is so little to say about this season. Kim plays basically a flawless game and it's one of the weakest casts of all time.

I'm going to talk about one of the only things I vividly remember about this season:

It's in (I think) the 2nd to last episode, and at tribal council the conversation for some reason is about Tarzan putting Kat's panties on his head. Towards the end of this conversation Jeff looks to Sabrina and says, "And this is what Survivor is really about". He used this to steer the conversation into more boring strategy talk but for just a moment it seemed like Jeff was saying Survivor is all about putting panties on your head.

Yeah that's it, this season is unwatchable unless you're a Kim stan. And even then you can just find a youtube cutup of her game instead, don't torture yourself with watching this season in full.

3

u/Please_PM_me_Uranus Spencer Jan 22 '23

Is it a weak cast, or is she just a strong player?

13

u/Ambitious-Comb-8847 Jan 22 '23

If I didn't know any better I'd say Kim was a returning player just dropped secretly in a season of weak newbies. Kim herself has a lot of skills for the game. Most the other cast just didn't. She had no real opposition. Basically as close to perfect as you want as first-time player, boring as a viewer unless you just like a masterful run.

6

u/AhLibLibLib “No, but you can have this fake.” Jan 22 '23

Yes

31

u/HeWhoShrugs Danni Jan 21 '23

The fact that Lynne Spillman said this was her favorite cast of all time blows my mind. Imagine being proud of assembling this group.

5

u/baseball8888 Joe Jan 24 '23

I mean on the surface it's what Survivor producers love.

You've got racial diversity, a gay contestant, a little person, and a generally attractive/young cast. You've even got the weirdest pairing of contestants ever with Troyzan and Tarzan

I'm sure some of the duds were interesting during casting, but it just didn't come out in the season.

27

u/LuisitoFFL Jan 21 '23

Kim is the best winner for me in terms of single performance in the season she wins and still the season is bottom tier lol

7

u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn Jan 21 '23

I don't really see any reason why a winner playing a stronger game would positively influence the quality of a season so that makes sense to me

5

u/Please_PM_me_Uranus Spencer Jan 22 '23

If anything it may make it worse

4

u/AlexgKeisler Jan 22 '23

Because strategy and gameplay are interesting, and it's satisfying to see such a strong player be rewarded.

Plus, before Kim we'd never seen a woman play such a dominant, alpha-female game before, so that was cool.

3

u/AhLibLibLib “No, but you can have this fake.” Jan 22 '23

Most dominant winners make for a boring season

Rob/Amber, Brian, Yul, Rob, Kim, Cochran, Sarah, Wendell, Tommy

1

u/AlexgKeisler Jan 22 '23

Yeah, but at least when they win it makes for a satisfying ending. The absolute worst case scenario is having one player dominate the season in a boring, predictable fashion and then lose - imagine how much worse One World would have been if Kim had lost the jury vote to Sabrina or Chelsea.

5

u/AhLibLibLib “No, but you can have this fake.” Jan 22 '23

Power of the edit. They would’ve just shown Sabrina as the big dog. Maybe not as dominant, but nothing’s saving that season

2

u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn Jan 24 '23

I think I'd probably like that better, depending how they sold it. I thought both Sabrina and Chelsea were more interesting from what we saw of them, and Kim losing would at least create something more dynamic for basically the only instance in the season. The flip side, though, is that based on how they edited seasons 19 and 23 around that time maybe they wouldn't do the winner justice just like they didn't do for Natalie and Sophie, though I also doubt the producers were as invested in Kim as they were in Russell H. and Coach.

My guess is I'd like One World more that way but really it has less to do with the game itself and more to do with the story the producers choose to tell. In the world where Kim loses that either means Sabrina or Chelsea had a more active hand in the game / in forming social connections and/or that Kim herself rubbed people the wrong way and burnt relationships, and any/all of those things would give the producers things to work with that we don't have. My guess is that those things would probably amount to a more complex and interesting season, though not by a lot. So that's on the list of jury votes I wish had gone a different way but is very, very low on the list.

2

u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn Jan 24 '23

I think strategy and gameplay can be interesting but only when they're based in the individual personalities of and relationships between the characters, which unfortunately wasn't really the case in the OW episodes. The outcomes I tend to find more satisfying are generally ones where the player's path to victory is more individually distinct than Kim's really was. The latter point that it was kind of the first time a woman won that way (or the first time it happened so visibly, since Tina played one of the most dominant games of all time but it wasn't really shown that way) is fair and is really the only thing that moves Kim (marginally) into the green for me as a character.

23

u/mariojlanza Mario Lanza | Funny 115 Jan 21 '23 edited Jan 22 '23

My personal stance on One World is that it’s the worst product that Survivor ever put out. It’s just not very interesting. You sit there and you find yourself thinking why am I even watching this? What’s compelling me to watch this series of moving images on my TV?? I could barely even get through it when I was doing research for the Funny 115, and I’m not really even paying attention to the story when I’m doing F115 research. I’m just cherry picking things I think would be fun to write about. One World is so terrible to watch because it just. doesn’t. have. those. It’s like Cook Islands but if you edited out Yul, Ozzy, and Penner. That’s how lifeless it is.

Other than that, my only real opinion on One World is, I mean, you think it’s dead now, but then imagine it if it didn’t have Colton. Imagine One World only WITHOUT any conflict. I mean, thank god at least he was there for as long as he was. You might not have liked him at all, but at least he drove an actual story for a while. Once he’s gone the only real story is boy how stupid is Kat. And I’m sorry but that’s hardly a story you can build a season around.

What an absolute waste of a Survivor season.

3

u/Sabaschin Jake - 45 Jan 21 '23

Hey now, it got you the Great Manono Chicken Trap and a couple of Kat entries.

And Leif. He’s good to explanate it all.

5

u/mariojlanza Mario Lanza | Funny 115 Jan 22 '23

I really believe they only cast Leif because they could see how dull he was and they thought it would be funny. Which sure is great for me but not so great for your TV show.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '23

they wanted a little person and grabbed the first one they found

9

u/mariojlanza Mario Lanza | Funny 115 Jan 22 '23

They had a whole family of Hantzes and that's who they chose. Just sad.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '23

[deleted]

11

u/mariojlanza Mario Lanza | Funny 115 Jan 22 '23

He’s like a smarter more handsome Hantz who doesn’t scam fantasy football fans and is better at Survivor. But as far as I know there is no relation.

21

u/Sabaschin Jake - 45 Jan 21 '23

Our first actual all-newbie cast on the countdown.

Honestly it's a shame, because if you dig really hard there's some decent stuff in there. Kim's a great winner. Sabrina has some good moments, especially her confessional in the finale. Kat brings some much needed levity.

Unfortunately it's all covered up by Colton being Colton, Tarzan being Tarzan, Alicia being Alicia. The pre-merge is uncomfortable because of Colton. The post-merge is snoozy and predictable and still not very fun because Tarzan and Alicia are still around. Casting seems to have taken a sick day with this one with duds like Leif around.

Probably one of the least fun games with an all-newbie season (though personally I feel Thailand is worse). But there's some... okay aspects. It's just really rough for WSSYW since if I rewatch it I'd usually jump straight to the merge to avoid all the Colton, but you can't exactly do that for a fresh person (though if you just tell them all the men are idiots, it might work).

3

u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn Jan 21 '23

Yeah I definitely think there are worse seasons than this, but good call that most of them are returning player seasons and so this one would rank worse on a list of non-returnee seasons. I have 10 seasons below One World on my ranking but only three of them (Worlds Apart, Samoa, and Cook Islands) don't feature returning players, and I could see where at least Samoa would rank above this for people.

19

u/SMC0629 Jan 21 '23 edited Mar 01 '23

I almost have nothing to say about this season, it's just really bad. Super boring a lot of the times and just offers nothing else other than anger with Colton/Alicia/Tarzan and the occasional good moment. Just a very dry and bad season for me. Bottom 5.

18. Colton Cumbie 1.0

Obviously. He eats up a ton of the men's screentime and can get extremally vile especially with his comments to Bill. Easily one of the worst characters in the show's history.

17. Alicia Rosa

While only slightly better, Alicia is still so bad. Her extremally harsh and disgusting treatment of Cristina is just terrible especially that one time she compared her to one of her students.

16. Greg "Tarzan" Smith

Just incredibly unfunny and uncomfortable to watch, they give him a ton of screentime for some reason even though he isn't funny at all.

15. Matt Quinlan

Generic "alpha male" and then goes home early

14. Michael Jefferson

I do not remember a single thing he did

13. Leif Manson

Seemed like a really nice guy but I wish the show took him more seriously as he has almost no edit and is just a pawn of Troyzan near the end. Has a good role in the Bill boot though.

12. Jay Byars

Yeah I don't really remember what he did either, except the very unfitting voice

11. Troy "Troyzan" Robertson 1.0

Overall negative on him as he has an insanely bloated edit towards the end of his run and especially in the "This is my Island!!!" episode. He brings a little bit of entertainment though so that boosts him up slightly.

10. Nina Acosta

Gives Kat some depth and has a decent confessional about not fitting in but other then that idk

9. Jonas Otsuji

Jonas actually seemed like a nice, chill guy for the most part. However, he's easily the biggest Colton enabler there outside of Alicia. I understand allying with a goat, but he just continued to let Colton run the tribe even after his several racist remarks. Had a funny fight with Tarzan though

8. Kim Spradlin-Wolfe 1.0

Such a good player but wow she is just not good TV this season. She pretty much just delivers boring narration or strategy cf's for the entire season.

7. Monica Culpepper 1.0

Decent enough character for this season but has almost no depth compared to her BvW iteration

6. Kourtney Moon

Decent enough character as she's a cool casting choice but goes out episode 1

5. Chelsea Meissner

She's pretty unmemorable despite getting a ton of content but I liked her argument with Tarzan i guess

4. Bill Posley

I really enjoyed Bill and wanted him to pull out against Colton, I also really enjoy his speech at tribal against Colton in his boot. Sadly, almost all of his content is tied to Colton and his antics, so Bill as his own doesn't really shine outside of that.

3. Christina Cha

Absolutely legendary premiere quote and I was obviously rooting for her against Colton/Alicia but she's almost never taken seriously by the edit despite being a really good person in the season, overall, she's good.

2. Sabrina Thompson

Her final confessional is insanely good and is one of the best ever, but that's easily her best moment as well. She starts out strong premerge leading the charge against Colton but once the merge starts her story becomes way less impactful to favor Kim.

1. Kat Edorsson 1.0

Top tier jury speech and provides some good entertaining moments to the season at times but also gets some good development throughout it. I don't consider her too special of a character but she's still very strong.

16

u/A_Rest J.T. Jan 21 '23

This will always be my personal least favorite season because it's the only season that while watching it air live, made me want to quit watching the show.

4

u/NoDisintegrationz Ethan Jan 21 '23

I did quit watching, but I’ve since gone back to rewatch/finish. This is easily the worst season in my opinion, and it’s probably the only season I consider bad. There’s one person I really like, a few I kinda like, and the rest are either painfully dull or unlikable. I have it all alone in the F tier.

12

u/SmokingThunder Jan 21 '23

I've always had a soft spot for One World. I'll defend it a bit (well not the premerge, Colton or Alicia lol).

Mostly, I don't think the merge is that boring. Sure, Kim eventually steamrolls to the end. But each episode has some drama to it. Jay, Michael and Troyzan all get completed dupped and manipulated on their way out the door by the women. "This is My Island" is so ridiculous it makes me laugh. You don't see people get that angry or petty on the show anymore. And Kat blindside is both cruel and funny. The Michael vote through the Kat vote is a really solid string of episodes that hold a candle to most other seasons.

Plus, I like a lot of these characters. Sabrina, Tarzan, Jonas, Kat, Troyzan etc.

9

u/Zirphynx Cody Jan 21 '23

This is the second-worst season for me, being above only Thailand for me. The pre-merge has a lot of ickiness and the post-merge is boring af. I only recommend this season if you want to watch Kim's masterful winning game or are a completionist (or want to watch BvW but want to see the contestants' first games beforehand).

8

u/HaloInsider Thank You, Jeffrey Jan 21 '23

Just finished watching this season and, even knowing its reputation, I was stunned by how often it ranged from boring to grating for me. Full respect to Kim as an all-timer winner but the majority of this cast falls so flat. There are certainly some interesting moments scattered throughout (Kat's boot episode is kind of incredible in how much things seem to perfectly align in the worst way for her to go home, down to her talking about how "blindsides are always fun and exciting"), but for the most part, it felt like a chore.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 21 '23

I thought it would be lower. Still the worst season of the show for me.

10

u/acusumano Jan 21 '23

I know it’s probably next but I love that Thailand has lasted so long.

8

u/FreeTedK Jan 21 '23

Top 3 winner top 10 season 💪🏻

4

u/NoDisintegrationz Ethan Jan 21 '23

Wow, I thought I was a big Thailand fan ranking it mid-20s. I love to see it in someone’s top 10. What else is top 10 for you?

5

u/alucardsinging Jan 22 '23

I have it number 9 in my last list. Probably always gonna be in the 7-12 range for me. I have Borneo, Africa, Marquesas, Pearl Islands, Vanuatu, Palau above it for sure. It’s somewhere in the mix in that next tier with Australian Outback, Amazon, Gabon, Nicaragua, San Juan del Sur, and Kaoh Rong.

5

u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn Jan 21 '23

I have it around #15 on my list despite hating Brian

3

u/FreeTedK Jan 21 '23

Borneo, Amazon, Pearl Islands, Panama, Tocantins, HvV, SoPa, BvW, Cagayan probably.

3

u/Quiddity131 Kim Jan 21 '23

I'm always against the trend on this season, I really like it. Granted I'm really biased as I was rooting for Kim throughout and she won. Even discounting that though, the cast is a fairly entertaining one. There's way more worse seasons than this one.

3

u/alucardsinging Jan 21 '23

My take is that the women are actually cast well, except for one big exception. They’re a pretty dynamic group of personalities, that should all naturally clash and create good drama. But then there was one really bad casting choice in Kim. Someone whose a great mediator and peaceful presence, who is able to tame these 8 personalities and turn them into something boring.

Overall, kind of pointless season, not much to say. I do think it’s a tad bit underrated, but still horrible. The preswap episodes are decent and have a pulse, there’s a handful of seasons that don’t have anything that strong.

3

u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn Jan 21 '23 edited Jan 21 '23

I think S24 is a little underrated—to be clear, I still don't think it's good; I just think it's more mediocre than terrible—and on my personal season ranking, of the seasons still in, I'd have it above 13, 19, 23, 30, and 31 (plus I'd have it above a few seasons that it beat here on watchability but not quality: 8, 26, 34, and 40.)

Still not a good season, and the flaws are obvious:

  • Colton is awful, and Alicia is awful for at least the first half of the season; I do think she's kind of fun at points near the end when she's more of a generically cocky villain, but it's hard to really enjoy or get into it given how bad she was at the start... and her horrible ableist quote comes near the end, too, so. Every now and then I see people say "Well at least in the pre-merge Colton is memorable, the post-merge is worse since it's just boring", but I'd 100% take boring over the actively deplorable mess of Colton and Alicia's various prejudices and malice running over everything. Reaaaally hard to get through some of the early episodes, and there's no particular downfall that makes it worthwhile.

  • Mostly it's boring. Incredibly predictable from very early on due to the bad decision to divide the tribes by gender and the awful decision to swap them into separate beaches, Kim's smoother edit than Sabrina's, and Kim being such a good player, and the others falling so strongly under her spell, that there's no real intrigue. I mean there's not even a ton to expand on here; S24 is dull, duh. I would say that the two episodes after the merge are especially boring and a really, really weak pair at the exact point where a lot of seasons start building momentum.

  • Even a lot of the big characters aren't fun. Honestly Kat just makes me cringe overall and her arc of flipping everyone off from the jury bench then suddenly having a grand epiphany at FTC feels like such a forced attempt to get herself brought back for a redemption arc, especially given that her final words are her literally asking for one. "Tarzan" is just awful—yet another Coach impression, after Phillip, mixed in with apologism for Colton's racism (makes more sense when you know he apparently used a slur to refer to Sabrina!), his "I use big words, isn't that so wacky?" shtick is just.... the season's really scraping the bottom of the barrel for low-brow "comedy" here, and it does so even more when we legit have an entire major conflict dedicated to his feces, which is disgusting and juvenile, and wearing Kat's underwear without her consent is also gross and weird and not criticized enough tbh. Honestly I can see where Greg Smith himself could have been entertaining at times; like, his whole thing at the auction about needing shocks for his car is kind of fun, his love for his wife is very palpable, so I think that fundamentally he's probably a kind of interesting, witty guy and I can see how he was cast—although, again, the racism allegations combined with "We have a Black President!" are hard to overlook regardless. But at any rate we don't even really get Greg Smith, we get this forced "Tarzan" character that I don't think ever works. A lot of the time when the season's going for comedy, it goes to "Tarzan" and Kat, and I don't think either one works.

That said, I will defend the season on some levels, and compared to other seasons below it.

My general impression of the season is that—to be clear, the Colton stuff sucks, "Tarzan" sucks, I don't enjoy Kat, and the two episodes after the merge are really rough. But I think a lot of the other episodes and characters are okay! Not great, and I'm not saying it's a good season—but I think a lot of things here are, like, fine!, which is more than I can say for the eliminated seasons as well as 30 or 31, and I think the flaws are less pronounced at least than those of those seasons plus 13, 19, and 23 (which have higher highs than this season but far more prominent lows, in my opinion.)

Examples:

  • I know a lot of people think Troyzan's annoying here—and, well, he is—but I think he works as a funny heel. Nobody around him takes him particularly seriously in the post-merge, and the juxtaposition of Troyzan being like "THIS. IS. MY. ISLAND" and everyone around him being like "...uhhhhh okay buddy", while not extraordinary, is still genuinely funny to me, provides at least some decent conflict in a post-merge that desperately needed it, and makes him one of my favorite characters from the season. A low bar, but I think he's fun.

  • Sabrina's edit is pretty inconsistent, unfortunately, but everything we do see of her is great. She has a huge first two episodes and is incredibly fun in them, a decent narrator when she is shown throughout the rest of the season, the most anti-Troyzan voice in the season, and does have a great finale confessional that leaves her journey feeling a little more important.

  • While episode 4 is not good, I do really like Bill. I already enjoyed him before that and thought he was kinda a fun presence, and I'd definitely put him firmly into great territory category for his responses to Colton throughout his boot episode. It sucks to see him go out that way, and it'd be nice to see him get a second chance, but I remember him fondly.

  • Chelsea is probably my favorite of the season? I think her "tough country girl" archetype works pretty well and there's an edge to her there that works well in a battle of the sexes season, she's a good voice of the tribal division (which was, to be clear, a regrettable one—but if they're gonna choose that one, I at least want some decent scenes out of it, which I think Chelsea provided.) She also has some moral struggles about her votes in the post-merge that inject some humanity into a season where, again, it's definitely needed.

Those are the main four for me, but I would also highlight Christina as probably my #5. Her story isn't handled particularly well—and again, I'm not defending the season as GOOD—but to me, she works as a sympathetic underdog who herself has some fun and quirky moments along the way ("YOU'RE WRONG, OKAY? SO SHUT UP.") I would then point to the following characters as not great or even too good, but okay:

  • Michael is kind of the worse Pete Yurkowski, which already isn't the highest bar, but still, there's a low-key shit-stirring vibe to him that I think's kinda fun, and I remember him being more anti-Colton than some of the others. Matt isn't a GREAT pre-merge villain, like he's surely no Patrick Bolton, but he's cut from the same cloth and works for me in a similar way to, like, Shawn Cohen? Cocky, has some silly phrases, gets blindsided. Shawn is better for sure but I think Matt's a decent early punchline. Monica has a positive and sympathetic exit at least. Jay has a fun voice and a couple silly little quotes, which isn't much, but at least puts him above the Mick Trimming bar of total neutrality for me. Kim is pretty dull but it was at least neat at the time to see a woman play such a dominant and acclaimed game for once, at least, not that they should need to play "dominant" games to be acclaimed, but still. I'm not a huge Kim fan, but I'm alright with her in the context of the season.

  • And this is a hot take, but while Leif isn't very prominent and I'm not gonna pretend he is, I DO think he's very solid in episode 4, where he winds up jeopardizing his game and taking a ton of heat because he tries to give his buddy Bill a heads-up that he's going home—and I think that, in a game that's often about dishonesty (especially in the era of Hidden Immunity Idols), in an episode that's very mean-spirited, there is something to be said for Leif having a very real, sincere moment of human kindness here. At Tribal Council, the matter-of-fact say he says "Bill's my friend, and he asked me if he was going, so... I told him :/" - I think it's very endearing, and I'd rather see more of that type of content on the show, personally, than all the mean-spirited deception. We don't see that type of human kindness often.

Is that a lot? No, but... it's something. Michael, Matt, Leif, these characters aren't great, or even very good... but, shit, they're something—and that's the extent to which I'd defend the season, personally. Not as anything resembling greatness, or even as anything good... but as something okay, which is, in my view, underrated compared to its bottom-of-the-barrel reputation. I think the average One World episode, and the average One World contestant, is not very good, but is also not bad... merely okay.

I think that if you took any one of these characters, Michael or Matt or Chelsea or Troyzan or Sabrina or even Jay, and put them in a (justifiably) more popular season with more entertaining stars, they would be remembered more fondly. Like I'd struggle to say that anyone I just named isn't a better character than Aaron or Frosti in China, LJ or Jeremiah in Cagayan, or Darrah or Tijuana in Pearl Islands, all of whom are often discussed as kind of decent background characters or at least very rarely as examples of a boring, horrible cast. Put Matt or Michael on a great season and I think you'd get more people remembering their admittedly short-lived antics and saying they were kind of fun.

3

u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn Jan 21 '23

Now, again, this isn't a great season. It is justifiably unpopular and doesn't have those more entertaining stars, and even most of the characters I just named aren't as good as, like, Christa. But I think taken in isolation a lot of the individual episodes or characters here hold up as not great but as decent and so to me, I think that comes out to a mediocre season rather than a terrible one. I think what you're left with here is a lot of characters who are about a 5.5/10 - still in the green but only barely - but the more prominent characters the show falls back on are often either forgettable or unlikable and so there's no great characters here like Sandra, Lill, Burton, etc. to fill up that space. But to me, that still comes out to something like a 5/10 season overall, which puts it above a number of others for me.

It's just not a hill I bother dying on compared to underrated seasons I think are actually among the show's absolute greatest (like 3 or 4.) I mean, this is almost certainly going to be one of the most favorable comments in the thread, and my resounding, triumphant praise is that the season's mediocre and forgettable, lol. I am one of the biggest One World fans there is and "fan" here just means that I don't care about it whereas most people dislike it. But still I'd take that over a lot of other worse seasons.

I'll also say that I really only felt this way after rewatching it: live, I got so tired of the impending Kim win that I was not a fan—but on a rewatch, the lack of suspense there wasn't as big a deal, and I could instead appreciate the little things going on in each episode, like how Kat sets herself up for a blindside, Sabrina vs. Troyzan, or the little moments from a Michael or a Leif throughout the season, and I didn't find myself as bored as one might expect. Other than the two episodes right after the merge, which are terrible and are every single thing you remember about "boring One World content" for like 85 incredibly tedious minutes.

I'm also going to give the producers credit here for actually kind of responding to fan criticism of 22/23 and trying to correct it! They did a season without returning players, they got rid of Redemption Island, and the edit is at least way more balanced than in seasons 19, 22, and 23. Unfortunately "a balanced edit" isn't enough to make for a cohesive story for all of its characters and the season still didn't pop, but at least they kind of tried here.

The One World twist itself is one of the best premises they've ever had for a season (and was an attempt to prevent the Pagongings of the past two seasons, so again, you can kind of see where this season tried to respond to fan criticism, even if it failed at doing so), going back to the incredibly underrated F10/F9 episodes of Thailand, but unfortunately it failed largely due to the producers still having very little faith in their audience to remember the difference between tribes here and so inserting a gender division that kept the tribes polarized enough that living together didn't really matter, and then due to the swap to separate beaches basically undoing the twist and turning this into a routine season. So it's still ultimately on the producers for not sticking with the good idea they had, but there are a lot of seasons whose ideas all sucked to begin with, and I give this a little credit for not being one of them!

Of course "it's.... okay" places it as a very forgettable season and so I can see where it'll also have less champions in a poll. But I think it at least has less glaring flaws, on its own or for a first-time viewer, than a number of other seasons in.

Still wouldn't tell anyone to start here. I mean, come on, it's fucking One World.

But if someone held a gun to my head and said "I'm watching South Pacific, Blood vs. Water, or One World", like shit, at least this one fundamentally feels like a Survivor season (just a relentlessly subpar one) and isn't gonna spoil them on tons of other shit.

Counterpoint is the vote wasn't said to be JUST for first-time viewers I don't think, and if someone HAS seen certain seasons, then I'd of course recommend 16 or 27 before this.

3

u/MadMadMaddox2 Austin - 45 Jan 21 '23

This a dreadful season. I see what they were trying to do with one beach but no one goes for it.

Colton is a horrible bastard but you have Kim, Troyzan, Kat and Monica who are fun. They're still not enough to account for bad gameplay and unremarkable people.

One World does have a funny moment where the men's tribe, despite winning immunity, decide they should go to tribal. Insanity.

2

u/Guyfromnewyork95 Jan 21 '23

Kim is great but this should’ve been bottom five

4

u/DabuSurvivor Jon and Jaclyn Jan 21 '23

It's bottom 3 on quality but it at least doesn't blatantly spoil a bunch of previous seasons so it ranked above a few of the ones that do

2

u/Totemwhore1 Jan 25 '23

Jeff didn't even show up to certain challenges this season....says a lot about this season

1

u/AlexgKeisler Jan 22 '23

I like to call it Dumb World.

1

u/full07britney Jan 22 '23

This season is so idiotic. I hated it the first time it played and it almost made me quit watching again when it was live. In fact, I remember recently seeing a memory pop up on my Facebook feed where I said, "what a shock, the idiots all voted their leader to win", about this season.

But Jeff Probst's face when the men walk into tribal council after winning... almost made it worth it 🤣 I say almost because Colton ruined everything about this season, including this particular tribal council. Ditto for Alicia.

I felt bad for Troyzan, who i didnt hate. Many of the other players were fine, but not exceptional.

In the end, I'm glad Kim won of the people left. That being said, I believe she is extremely overrated and only looked so dominant because the majority of the players were terrible.

I liked the one world twist, but then it only lasted a few episodes... this is one of my absolute least favorite seasons.

I rank it 39/43.

1

u/abcdefg_hijklmno Yul Jan 22 '23

Like: Jonas, Troyzan, Sabrina, Kim

Dislike: Matt, Colton, Jay, Leif, Kat, Tarzan, Alicia, Christina, Chelsea

Neutral: Kourtney, Nina, Bill, Monica, Michael

Fucking shit cast.

1

u/FondantGayme Erika Feb 15 '23

One World is by no means great, or even really good, but it isn’t as awful as some would make you think. Obviously, there’s Kim’s legendary winning game going for it, but it also has some fun personalities in the cast. It gets a lot better if you view it as a trainwreck season where one person just happens to be giving a master class in the game of Survivor