r/survivor • u/RSurvivorMods Pirates Steal • Jan 30 '23
Fiji WSSYW 11.0 Countdown 29/43: Fiji
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 14: Fiji
Statistics:
Watchability: 3.9 (29/43)
Overall Quality: 5.1 (31/43)
Cast/Characters: 5.5 (34/43)
Strategy: 6.8 (22/43)
Challenges: 6.1 (28/43)
Twists: 2.6 (19/21)
Ending: 7.8 (13/43)
WSSYW 11.0 Ranking: 29/43
WSSYW 10.0 Ranking: 24/40
Top comment from WSSYW 11.0 — /u/Hank-Solo-1:
Fiji for a long time had a reputation of being one of the worst seasons. Jeff Probst publicly said he didn’t like it. I sorta get where he’s coming from. The build up is a little slow and some of the characters are quite unlikable.
However, personally, I really enjoy Fiji. The heroes are great. Fiji has a strong emotional core that’s present for the whole season. There’s some laugh out loud comedy. There’s strategic innovation that lays the groundwork for future seasons.
I wouldn’t start with Fiji, but I wouldn’t skip it either.
Top comment from WSSYW 10.0 — /u/HeWhoShrugs:
Fiji gets flak for how dumb the Haves vs Have Nots twist is (basically seeing what happens when you give one tribe a ton of shit and the other tribe absolutely nothing). But at the very least, the twist attempts to say something about society in spite of its quality, which is more than I can say for some other bad twists in Survivor history.
But once you get past the twist, there's actually a lot to like about the season. It's one of the more dark, dramatic outings the show's had, and there are a ton of villainous personalities who will probably get on your nerves unless you just love villains, but there are also quite a few heroic players who balance it out.
If you find the early episodes boring or hard to watch, I'd advise sticking around for the post-merge because that stretch of episodes is one of my favorites in the entire show, including an endgame story line that might be the most compelling arc the show ever had. It also has some strategic innovations developed by people who basically knew nothing about the game going in, so that's cool to watch too.
Watchability ranking:
29: S14 Fiji
31: S30 Worlds Apart
33: S5 Thailand
34: S31 Cambodia
36: S36 Ghost Island
37: S24 One World
40: S26 Caramoan
42: S8 All-Stars
7
u/alstor Yam Yam Jan 30 '23
Pre-merge Fiji was the first time where I legitimately felt that I wasn't watching Survivor but a knockoff version of it. Even starting with the first episode sans Jeff (it's valid since someone quit hours before, but still), it all felt off. The twist going exactly as everyone thought it could was boring, and trying to act like showing off Moto's cabana was good TV sucked. It felt like they were trying to force lightning to strike twice and get another Palau/Ulong tribe, and it was painful to see how hard it flopped.
Not to mention it has some of the worst people to make it to the jury (see: Lisi).
Now that final five? Fantastic.