The Strategic Camping Game Show Part 1!

As promised last week, I will begin to discuss Survivor's first era, "The Strategic Camping Game Show" today

Before I dive into the meat of this era, let me ask you a question. If I told you what Survivor entailed, without you seeing a single episode, what might you picture? A brutal, harsh test of the will, akin to Castaway? A test of mental fortitude? A cutthroat game show?

There are no wrong answers, but you'd be hard pressed to see much of the latter in the Spring of 2000. When Survivor's first season, Borneo, premiered, viewers and contestants alike expected something more akin to a camping trip.

It may seem silly to think that a game such as Survivor was considered risky business at the time of its launch, but America had a much different mentality to the types of strategies that would become commonplace in the show's later years.

Two tribes battled each other on Borneo; the laid-back, carefree Pagong tribe in yellow and the wily, scheming Tagi tribe in orange. At first, the two tribes were evenly matched in the immunity challenges that occurred each round, but when they reached the merge, which is the period in which all contestants from every tribe come together as one, Pagong was in for a rude awakening, as it lost its five members one by one to Tagi's five. How did such an event occur? On Tagi, systems of voting blocs called alliances were formed. The first alliance was built by contestants Susan Hawk and Stacy Stillman, but fell apart after Stillman was voted out in the third episode. Hawk then recruited Richard Hatch, Kelly Wigglesworth and Rudy Boesch and the alliance dominated the game. The other contestants disapproved of this type of behavior, but they were unable to thwart the four.

In the season's final 2, Richard Hatch narrowly defeated Kelly Wigglesworth to become the show's first Sole Survivor, in a 4-3 vote.

Why is this important? Simple. Alliances drastically affected how the game of Survivor would form. While I will not discuss every season on this blog, don't think that means it didn't have alliances. Without the four on Tagi, Survivor may not have survived.

Join me next week as we discuss the next two seasons; The Australian Outback and Africa! DocumentBlock No block selected. Open publish panel

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