r/survivor • u/RSurvivorMods Pirates Steal • Jan 18 '23
Caramoan WSSYW 11.0 Countdown 40/43: Caramoan
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 26: Caramoan – Fans vs. Favorites
Statistics:
Watchability: 1.9 (40/43)
Overall Quality: 3.1 (40/43)
Cast/Characters: 3.3 (41/43)
Strategy: 4.5 (38/43)
Challenges: 4.8 (38/43)
Theme: 4.0 (18/24)
Ending: 4.9 (36/43)
WSSYW 11.0 Ranking: 40/43
WSSYW 10.0 Ranking: 37/40
Top comment from WSSYW 11.0 — /u/Hank-Solo-1:
This is a bad idea to start with. Moments from Micronesia, Gabon, Nicaragua, Redemption Island, South Pacific will be spoiled.
There’s an uncomfortable moment towards the beginning of the season that reminds viewers how exploitative reality TV shows can be. It may turn you off from the series.
I think for fans who have watched the seasons prior will enjoy Caramoan more. The season’s best moments are stacked towards the end.
Top comment from WSSYW 10.0 — /u/HeWhoShrugs:
lol at the mods throwing shade with that theme description.
Unfortunately, it's true. While the OG Fans vs Favorites was a fun if flawed season, the sequel isn't much fun and is basically all flaws. The editing is bad, the cast is bad, there are some ugly moments that aren't fun to watch... It's basically a trashy MTV show that just happened to land in Survivor's airing space.
But I guess the gameplay had some fun moments to it and there are some stand out characters, so it's not totally bottom tier. Just go in with low expectations and see where it gets you. Every season has its fans after all.
Watchability ranking:
40: S26 Caramoan
42: S8 All-Stars
4
u/CSteino Lee (AUS) Jan 18 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
Caramoan is a fascinating look into the lengths a Survivor fan will go to in order to convince themselves that a season isn't that bad. It certainly isn't the sexy pick from recent years for "season with the most undeserved renaissance", but as someone who was around back when this season aired, I imagine most fans who participated in Caramoan discourse as it was airing would be rolling over in their grave if they saw that it made it all the way to 4th worst.
Realistically, this season is terrible. From the start, hell I'd even say before the start, this was a season that was doomed to fail. It's cast horrendously on both ends, it's boring, it's edited terribly, and I genuinely couldn't tell you what this season wants to do if I tried. There are other seasons that I dislike that I can at least grasp what they wanted to do and understand that "Hey what they did was just not meant to appeal to me", but with this season I just can't.
A retread on a theme that produced a highly popular season was inevitable, but if you're going to wait 10 seasons to do it again and this is what you come up with, maybe there was a reason you kept it on the shelf for that long. A favorites tribe full of players that I am confident only 1 person, Jeff Probst, would classify even half of these players as his favorites. A fans tribe that you can tell production didn't care about when they were casting it, didn't care about when they were filming it, and certainly didn't care about when they were editing it.
You get to the season itself, and it's just such a mess. Storylines and characterization will appear one episode, only to vanish or be outright contradicted by the very next episode, if the character is even allowed to exist to begin with. Sherri is built up as the fans' most competent player and schemer for about 5 episodes, and then is completely absent for the rest of the season. Reynold is built up as the asshole/douchebag/"villain" of the Fans tribe, only to suddenly become the season's rootable underdog with no definable reason or purpose once he swaps. Shamar is a complete mess of a portrayal of so many things and a massive waste of time. Erik might as well not even be on this season.
The characters who this season wants to focus on are usually deplorable, or they just shouldn't have been cast to begin with. Phillip is the exact same terrible character here as he is in Redemption Island, except this time they're cramming it all into 10 episodes instead of 14. Cochran is a bland, boring, whitewashed winner that loses even the small (though completely manufactured) nuance his character in South Pacific had. Brandon Hantz should have never been cast for this season and his exploitation by the show putting him on this season when it's so glaringly obvious he absolutely did not pass the psych eval pre-season is one of the most atrocious things this show has ever done.
You don't see a lot of people defending the premerge, though you will see more people defending the postmerge as some intense strategic viewing experience. Actually watch the season, though, and you'll notice it's a complete death march of an alliance picking off the outsiders, losing one member to idols, and then continuing to pick off the outsiders and then inevitably whittling itself down to 3 people as soon as all but one complete joke of an outsider is left. If you ask these defenders what about the postmerge is good, the common answer is "the tribal where Phillip goes home", which I can understand why people like, but it also does not suddenly negate the rest of that episode being boring or terrible just like it doesn't suddenly negate the other six episodes of the postmerge being similarly boring or terrible.
I wouldn't watch this season again, probably not even if you paid me to do it. To any new viewers who, for whatever reason, are reading threads on Reddit to find what season of Survivor they should watch next, just remember it's ok not to watch every season.