Survivor: Cook Islands

Grade: A

It’s Survivor, therefore it’s good.

Survivor rocks. I know that historically perhaps Real World was the true launching point for reality television, but it was merely the warm-up act. Survivor is what ushered the age of reality and can really be pointed to as the death of the bad sitcom (thank goodness). Not only did it have a fun concept and something new to watch, but Mark Burnett the creator also realized something that few other reality producers grasp today: it’s all about the story.

Burnett knows that just because you’re showing reality doesn’t mean you have to portray it realistically. In fact, he has a whole staff of writers who simply work with the footage they have to craft storylines and arcs rather than inventing them from scratch. Most other reality shows just cut to exciting or tantalizing footage without trying to set up any kind of story (case in point: any season of The Surreal Life). But setting up a story is what makes it interesting, what makes it compelling. Amazing Race knows how to do this. So too did Breaking Bonaduce.

But nobody does it better than Burnett. And it’s quite obvious. After watching every Survivor episode since season 1, episode 2 (I missed the very first one, oh well), I now know how Burnett and his team work. Watching last night’s finale, as with most other episodes, I can tell you which team is going to lose and who is going to be voted out just by watching the footage. Because Burnett wants you to either a) understand the conflict between some of the tribemates so you can get behind the vote out, or b) be surprised that a twist in allegiance voted out someone you thought was safe. His team uses different shots and story points to set these up, but they are consistent from season to season and still a lot of fun to watch.

As for this latest season, the big change is the ethnic tribes. Yawn. Last year divided by gender and age for a few days. Didn’t matter. Never does. May be amusing for the first few days, but the most uninteresting seasons have been the ones where an initial tribe gathered an alliance that held to the end. Season 1 only worked because it was the first–if that had come in later years first it wouldn’t have worked because people other than Richard Hatch would have known the strategy and second it would have been boring as hell. These days the alliances all flip-flop, and Burnett designs in twists and turns and competitions and rewards specifically geared towards making that happen. That’s what makes conflict, which creates drama, which results in good TV (if crafted properly).

Bringing back Exile Island was a great move–that was a fantastic invention last season. Same with the hidden immunity idol, which played a big part in last year’s final group even though it was never used. It will be fun to see if it is ever given away or if that just becomes a shadow promise like when they first started making immunity transferrable.

But a great start to the latest season. Yay for Fall!