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Guest Column:
S8 Guest Column: "The Evolution"
By
5/6/2004
Tedhighway presents a look at the game of Survivor, from past to present. Part 1 of 2.
I’m going to do things a little different this time. It’s finals time for those of us in college, and I thought I’d share my English paper with all of you. Why? Because I’m a hip guy like that. As you can guess, it’s about "Survivor". So here it is.
I happen to be a fanatic of the show "Survivor". I’ve followed all eight seasons extensively as I have experienced this television show become a phenomenon. One thing is very apparent though; the attitudes and tendencies of the contestants have changed over time.
"Survivor" is a game unlike any other. Sixteen Americans are stranded in a remote part of the world and left to fend for themselves. They are divided in two tribes of eight. Every three days, the tribe that loses the immunity challenge must trek through the jungle and enter Tribal Council.
Tribal Council is the place where they will vote one member of their tribe out of the game. Midway through the course of the game, the two tribes merge and form the final tribe.
Immunity is then given to a single individual. Contestants continue to be voted out until we are left with the Sole
Survivor. The game obviously requires athletic skills as well as outdoor skills.
For thirty-nine days, they must be able to build a society where they can live relatively well while battling hunger, stress, and hardships. The main ingredient of the game is social politics. How are you viewed by your peers? Your actions in the game may help or hinder the way you are
viewed by your fellow contestants and how far you advance.
Season one was set off the coast of Borneo on the tiny island known as Pulau Tiga. Richard Hatch, a gay corporate trainer from Rhode Island, outlasted fifteen other survivors as he claimed victory. "Survivor" exploded
onto the scene in the summer of 2000 as the contestants became household names.
Everyone knew Rudy Boesch, the 72 year old Navy SEAL, Sue Hawk, the truck driver with a wicked tongue, Colleen Haskell, the sweet young girl that became America’s Sweetheart, Sean Kenniff, the doctor with arguable
intelligence, Gervase Peterson, the lazy basketball coach, Jenna Lewis, the cheerleader that would not shut up, Greg Buis, the slightly psychotic young man that talked into a coconut, and of course Richard Hatch, the Master of
Evil.
Why was Richard evil? Because he had a plan.
Richard Hatch planned out everything that needed to be done in order for him to win the game of "Survivor". This is a game of numbers, and he was intelligent enough to realize that he needed the numbers on his side. In order to succeed, Richard decided that he must build an alliance. He would confide in a handful of his teammates and they would vote for the same person at every Tribal Council.
The game of "Survivor" had never been played before, thus most of the castaways went in with a false sense of dynamics. Some felt that the strongest person with the best survival skills would rise to the top and claim victory.
In their minds, building alliances and picking people off one by one was against morals and just plain wrong. Richard Hatch did not feel this way. To him, "Survivor" was just a game like any other, just much more grand in scale.
Many contestants became emotionally attached to others, yet
Richard did not. He was able to separate his life from the game. To him, friends came later. One million dollars, the prize money for the winner, came first.
Richard scoped out his tribe mates and envisioned who would be best for his alliance. He approached Sue, Rudy, and Kelly Wigglesworth, a rafting guide from Nevada. Sue had the same drive to win that Richard did. Rudy felt
powerless as the oldest contestant and joined out of desperation. Kelly was friends with Sue, and she joined in order to stick it out with her buddy.
One by one, the alliance of four took out the competition. The other contestants did not realize what was happening until it was too late.Things became interesting when the alliance of four were the only ones left. Sue was the first to leave. Kelly had won immunity while everyone ganged up on the truck driver.
The final immunity challenge is the biggest challenge in the entire game. If you win, you gain enormous power. You get to decide who you take to the final two.
The final two is the kicker. The last seven tribe members voted out of the game return and they vote on a winner. It’s quite a delicate process. How can you balance your relationships while voting someone out, and then ask that person to vote for you to win the game? It’s something that Richard Hatch managed to pull off.
In the final immunity challenge, Richard made his biggest move yet. The object was to stand on a pole, hold onto another pole, and whoever stood the longest without letting go, won. Richard was competing against Kelly and Rudy. He and Rudy had formed an alliance to get to the end. Richard knew Rudy would take him to the end if he won.
Rudy was a war veteran that was a man of his word, and although he was in an alliance with a large gay man, he
would most definitely honor his allegiance because he respected him, and Rich knew this. Richard also knew Kelly would take him to the end. Kelly new she had a better shot at winning a jury vote against Richard than she did against Rudy. All of the jury would vote for Rudy to win out of respect and Kelly knew this. So did Rich.
So, Richard Hatch stepped off of the pole just an hour into the contest. The snake had made his final move of the game.
Kelly eventually won, which Rich had predicted, and the final two was set. Rich ended up defeating Kelly in a close four to three vote. Rudy had voted out of loyalty to Rich. Sue had voted for Rich because she had a fight with her friend Kelly.
Sean voted for Rich because he considered him more of
a friend than Kelly. And, Greg voted for Rich out of respect for his gameplay. Richard had hoped that people would realize that they were just playing a game, and he played it better than everyone else. For the most
part, the jury did see that Richard had played the best game. His plan had succeeded.
Throughout the course of the game, the media had labeled Richard as the villain of the show. His cocky interviews in which he said his win was guaranteed only added fuel to the fire. "The check’s already written for me," is just one of the many cocky statements made by Richard during the
course of the game.
He had lied to people on the island in order to progress
farther, thus he was an evil person. To him, he just played the game. Arguments arose during the course of the show over whether or not an alliance was fair.
In the game of "Survivor", there are only two rules; No
throwing punches, and you can not conspire to share the prize money. So, everything Rich did was legal.
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