I don't know what to think about US Survivor leading up to DvG but the show in general is trending downward for me. I remain hopeful that next season can change that but I don't know.
I stand by what I said at the end of last season because it ended on such a dour note for me. I know Survivor can be good and the international editions reinforced that for me. So, I did not have high hopes for this season. Seven months later, I've been blown away by DvG.
Part of my love of this season comes down to casting. Listening to preseason interviews, I really liked this cast, and they're really weren't any people I thought could be non-entities. Compare that to last season where I pretty much predicted the non-entities before the season began. If Survivor is going to stay in Fiji, then it will live and die on its cast not some twist. The cast should always be the stars of a season, and this cast was phenomenal. Everyone contributed to the show, and no one was really pushed into the background to the point where they were invisible. It's a shame Lynne is no longer casting for Survivor because she and her team did a terrific job. Another praise with this season comes down to editing. The editing on this season was so much better than it has been in recent years. This season wasn't the Nick show. They made sure to show multiple perspectives from the cast and why they were making the moves that they did. They also did not sugarcoat anything to make their winner look perfect. Up until this finale, I also was never certain over who could be the winner.
My one complaint is the finale. This finale was good. I loved moments like Angelina's idol search, Mike searching for a clue with a glass of wine, the 100 ft lie. The character moments were great, and they highlighted how great this cast was. The problems lie with the game mechanics. Six people is too much for a finale. Every tribal cycle goes by too fast that we have no time to take in what happened. Also, I still hate the fire making twist. Kara got zero votes all season and was still eliminated. The automatic fire making twist removes the aspect of the social game on Day 38. These problems made it very apparent for me that Nick would win and we've seen his character type win before. That being said, when the finale is the weakest episode (again, I'm not calling it bad), that only shows how great the season was.
