Survivors, Ready?

I used to be a huge fan of Survivor. I can remember first hearing about it in upfronts the year it was going to come out. (Upfronts are previews of new television given to ad agencies to let us see where we might want to spend our client's dollars)

Anyway... for Survivor they gave a sneak idea announcement in the invitation for Upfronts. Taking people to an island and leaving them to figure it out for themselves. We had no idea if they would have shelter, or food, or what the actual gameplay would consist of. I was getting ready to leave the agency at the time and move to Colorado Springs. We were sitting around the conference table eating my goodbye cake and talking about what the show might be.

I was already hooked.

And I watched for years and years. Right up until it got boring, which is the death knell for any sort of competition show. They got busy casting archetypes instead of people. And the people that came on weren't there to play a game, they were there to start a career. It was just meh. So I stopped watching.

Which was tricky at first, breaking any habit is tricky. I watch Survivor. It's what I do. But then it wasn't. And I didn't miss it.

But the next season is the 50th Season. They do multiple seasons in a year so though it has been on a long time, it's not 50 years, it's 25. Which is still a wow moment to think about. And to celebrate the 50th they are doing an All Stars edition. So I thought about watching. Just for the nostalgia kick. I mean Deal or No Deal Island has sucked me in by casting former Survivor and Big Brother players (another show I used to watch faithfully) so of course I would go back to Survivor for a season right?

Then I saw they cast Mike White.

Now, I get it, he was a fan favorite and made it to the finale on his season. He's a hot property right now with White Lotus. He's a friend of Jeff Probst. He casts former Survivor players in his TV shows. Lots of reasons for them to cast him.

For me? Well, let's see...

I don't watch White Lotus. Brent and I watched the first season and I tried to watch the second when people told me it was EVEN BETTER and SO GOOD. Which, maybe it would have been better but considering I didn't like season one it was a fool's errand to try out season two, I made it a few episodes and gave up again. My summation of the show is terrible people being terrible to each other. It's not my thing. I don't like to spend time with terrible people in my real life, why would I want to watch them for entertainment?

And, yes, I know, some of you are saying, wait a second you love villains, and I do. It's true. I love an over the top villain who is a villain for the pure joy of being evil. Or a villain who is only a villain if you meet them second. Their reasoning for what they do is sound. You can see where they are coming from, even if you might not agree with their methods. But they aren't terrible people in that selfish little whiney ass way that White Lotus people were.

And then I felt justified this last season of White Lotus (which a lot of people again loved) had a whole monologue about how trans women are just men with a fetish. And also had a nonbinary character dropped from the story because Trump was elected and politically it just wasn't the "right vibe." So it was the right vibe to spew bullshit autogynephilic nonsense not only on the show but on a podcast run by a guy who believes and wrote a whole book about how some races are just smarter than others. Gotcha.

He's not my favorite person, as you can see. He doesn't have the right vibe.

He's a gay man who has no allyship to spare I guess.

He's a terrible person being terrible to other people.

I don't hang out with people like that in real life, I'm not going to watch him on TV.

I've voted myself off the island.