Survivor

We have watched Survivor since the first season. It’s always interesting to see how people think and scheme – it’s like watching a Diplomacy LARP. The only other “reality shows” (which we used to call “game shows”) that we regularly follow are the Amazing Race and the Last Comic Standing (stupid Dat Phan). We used to follow Celebrity The Mole because Corbin and Stephen were hilarious. The wife also follows Big Brother but I usually try to avoid getting sucked into it as it takes up three nights a week.

At work, for the last several seasons, I have run a fun pool as well. Basically, you pick 5 Survivors following a basic guideline and get points based on what they do and how long they last. We’ve modified it a bit from the original to include being exiled or captured and the extra hidden immunity idol. The other big change is that we don’t take picks until after the first show – so no-one gets the person who was first voted out. Plus this gives you a small chance to see if any of the Survivors make an impression on you.

The rules for picking your team vary depending on how they split up the Survivors in the first show. Usually they have two distinct teams so you would pick two Survivors from each team and then pick an extra Survivor who would be your “wild card”. The wild card would count as part of your team and would be used to break ties if the players otherwise had the same scores. When they have done three teams, you would pick one Survivor from each team, plus two extra players – one of which would be your wild card.

The points accrue each episode as follows:
- Survival = 5 points per episode / tribal council
- Being on a team that wins a Reward Challenge = 1 point
- Being on a team that wins an Immunity Challenge = 2 points
- Winning individual Reward Challenge = 2 points
- Winning individual Immunity Challenge = 3 points
- Being the Ultimate Survivor = 20 points
- Coming in second place = 10 points
- Being sent to Exile Island = 1 point
- Being kidnapped = 1 point
- Finding the Individual Immunity Idol = 3 points
- Using the Individual Immunity Idol = 2 points