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The Ratings:

1. Pearl Islands
2. Guatemala
3. Borneo
4. Micronesia
5. Amazon
6. Cook Islands
7. Africa
8. Exile Island
9. Gabon
10. China
11. Marquesas
12. Palau
13. Outback
14. Fiji
15. Thailand
16. Vanuatu
17. All-Stars


The Incredibly Long-Winded Explanations (As If You Care):


1. Pearl Islands (Season 7)
Great editing, great character development, great first episode. And really great visual iconography as well: Lil in her scout uniform; Rupert in his tie-dye; Fairplay in his ridiculous hair; and Andrew Savage in the tattered remains of his expensive suit, looking for all the world like a New Yorker cartoon of "man stranded on desert island." I wouldn't say that I found the characters all that likeable per se, but I did find every one of them interesting and memorable and enjoyable to watch. There really weren't any duds in this cast. Even minor characters like Nichole and Trish had strong personalities and a fair degree of charisma. I loved the incredibly chaotic and unpredictable post-merge, and although I know it's controversial, I also loved the Outcast Twist, which I found utterly hilarious and which led to one of the best Nemesis plotlines Survivor has ever done. Rupert was supremely irritating, but that made his boot episode (one of the best-edited episodes of Survivor ever, IMO) all the more gratifying to watch, and I have to admit that I found there to be something morbidly fascinating about his childish narcissism. Also, Best.Final.IC.Ever.


2. Guatemala (Season 11)
I'm always a little bit disappointed that this season isn't better liked. I thought it had terrific iconography, a great cast -- only a handful of duds, lots of strong personalities -- and a really powerful (if admittedly dark) storyline. I loved the brooding atmosphere -- some of those post-merge episodes were positively oppressive in tone -- and I think that it's thematically the strongest of all the seasons. Power corrupts. The vain and entitled are most vulnerable to those who are willing to assume the role of their "underlings." You are your own worst enemy. The establishment rots from within. Watch the Mayan Empire fall!


3. Borneo (The Original)
I find it hard to rate the original along with its sequels because it's really got a wholly different premise. The original Survivor was a show about a group of people who were thrown into this totally weird situation and then gradually had to learn to come to terms with the fact that at heart, they were playing a strategy game. Subsequent seasons, on the other hand, all start from the premise that the story is fundamentally about a group of people who are playing a strategy game in a wilderness milieu. So that makes it really hard to compare them. But I guess if I have to, I'd put it here.

I like the original season a lot. It's strategically dull -- frustrating, even -- now, but I enjoy the slower, documentary style of the editing, and the emphasis on camp life and character over challenges. The characters seem more nuanced and three-dimensional to me than they do in many of the later seasons. Nobody's really edited as a hero or a villain quite as starkly as they will be later on. Everyone I knew who watched this show in 2000 was rooting hard for "Villain" Hatch, because he seemed smart and compassionate and likable, and they wanted to see him rewarded for his good sense in forming a voting block. Meanwhile, "Sweetheart" Colleen came across as kind of bitchy to most of the people I know. Now, maybe this just means that I have a weird group of friends, but the point is that it was possible to have those opinions about the characters without feeling like you were being some sort of crazy rebel, or feeling pissed off at the editors for trying so hard to bias you the other way. The roles weren't outrageously forced, the way they would be in the show's nasty first sequel. (Yes, that's right. I am one of those n00bs who gives Outback a low rating. So sue me.)


4. Amazon (Season 6)
A dark comedy on the theme of "You Can Never Escape Junior High." I found the characters nearly all despicable, and their interpersonal dynamics perfectly loathsome -- which would have made this an awful season for me if it hadn't been cleverly edited as a farce. I thought this was a brilliant choice on the part of the editors: as black comedy, it's actually quite funny and makes for an enjoyable season. (Rob and Matt's weird little "Doctor Frankenstein and his creation" plotline was particularly nicely done, I thought.) The constantly shifting alliances only enhance the chaotic sense of farce, and the entire story ends, as all proper dark comedies must, on a cynical note: the shallow, spoilt, narcissistic sorority girl takes it all.


5. Micronesia (Season 16)
(Have you noticed yet that I like unpredictable post-merges much better than straight pagongs?) The funniest season yet, and the only one that has literally made me laugh out loud on numerous occasions. I mean, sure, the season's weak in terms of storyline, and it was a total bummer that Cirie got shafted with the return to an F2, but the laugh factor made up for that for me. Arrogant Ozzie's much deserved comeuppance! Clever Tracy actually mooing as she manipulated that Neanderthal Joel! "It's a fucking stick!"And a surprisingly satisfying winner in Parvati. If only there hadn't been so many unfortunate medical issues, I might have rated this one even higher. (To be fair, though, I haven't rewatched it yet. I have a suspicion that it might not be nearly so much fun the second time around, and that it could therefore well drop in my ratings over time.)


6. Cook Islands (Season 13)
Jonathan really made this season for me. Best.Narrator/Protagonist.Ever. A bit fluffy and feel-good, this season, but I enjoyed it for all that. The islands were really pretty, and so were the people; and oh good lord, Yul was smoking hot. (Yes, I can be shallow. Then, so was this season.) I think of this one as kind of the Hollywood Blockbuster of Survivor seasons. It's got lots of cheap thrills, and pretty things to look at, and plenty of emotional manipulation aimed at making you cheer for the Designated Good Guys and boo for the Designated Bad Guys; and then you're rewarded at the end with a great big Happy Ending, so you leave the theater with a smile on your face. Often, I find myself reacting to that kind of thing by taking a contrarian position, just out of sort of instinctive knee-jerk resistance, but in this case? Oh, hell no! Bring it on! Kick their asses, plucky little Aitu4! Sometimes you just gotta kick back and enjoy things from the cheap seats, you know?


7. Africa (Season 3)
I'm not sure why I like this season so much, honestly. It's a strategic wash, to be sure. And yet, it holds my interest far better than many more strategically-interesting seasons. Mainly, I think I just loved the locale: I was really into the harshness of the conditions, and the glorious scenery, and all the wild animals. I also liked watching many of the character interactions. I enjoyed weird Frank and wiley T-Bird and snarky Kelly, and I loved watching Lex grow increasingly strung-out and intense and scary-paranoid as the season progressed.


8. Exile Island (Season 12)
Captain America went down in Panama! This season got off to a slow start for me, but once the Casaya vs. La Mina battle lines were drawn, I really started enjoying it. Watching the freaky Casayans kick all manner of bland all-American ass was somehow a very cathartic experience for me, and Terry served quite nicely as that proverbial "villain you love to hate." I loved Cirie and her sneaky ways, and may in fact be the only Courtney Marit fan in the entire universe.


9. Gabon (Season 17)
The weaker tribe flips the script and sends the smug, arrogant, entitled Onion alliance packing. And I cheered. Good casting this season -- some of the characters may have been extremely abrasive, but nearly all of them were interesting -- and a cool location with very neat wildlife. I also liked the challenges, which seemed a more equitable mix than usual, adding to the usual tests of pure athleticism a lot of challenges that relied more on hand-eye coordination, or on actual survival skills. Nobody played at all a good game in Gabon, which only proves to my mind that poor game-play does not necessarily equal a bad season. This season would have rated higher with me, I think, if only the ending hadn't been so horribly disappointing.


10. China (Season 15)
Meh. I guess it was a solid enough season, but overall I found it kind of a bore, and it was seriously marred for me by the editing, which regularly conflicted so strongly with my own take on events that it gave me cognitive whiplash. The nasty edit they gave the Zhan Hu women left a really bad taste in my mouth, and Todd's utter lack of strategic opposition was seriously annoying. The location, about which I was initially excited, turned out to be very disappointing in execution: it was all just brown and muddy and dull. Thank God for Courtney, who kept things entertaining when all else seemed drab and foregone, and for Peigh-Gee, whose unexpected emergence as an immunity monster gave me someone to root for towards the end of the game.


11. Marquesas (Season 4)
I loved the location, with all of that blue, blue water and the awesome waterfall, and I also liked the early season editing, with the stronger focus on camp life and character than challenges. But the season as a whole still just didn't do much for me. Yeah, there's a power-shift. One. Which is then followed by three episodes of incredibly boring Pagonging. There's also the problem that I find it hard to enjoy anything before the merge, because Mariano's still there, and whenever Rob Mariano's on my screen, I have to resist this powerful urge to claw my eyes out and puncture my own eardrums. Seriously, I don't know what it is about that guy, but I simply cannot stand him. And not in the "love to hate him" sort of way, either. Just in the "hate him" way. And then after the merge, there's the problem that I...didn't really like anyone else much, either. Really, thinking about it, my problems with this season all come down to my feelings for the characters. I found Sean supremely annoying, Kathy never stopped making me want to punch her in the face, Neleh gagged me, and her relationship with that nasty racist Paschal genuinely gave me the creeps. These were supposed to be the "plucky, loveable underdogs," but I found them decidedly unloveable. On the whole, I far preferred the arrogant Rotu Four (especially Tammy, who was the only contestant this season I actually LIKED), which makes this kind of the anti-Gabon for me: an 'underdogs flip the script' scenario which totally failed to inspire in me the intended emotional response, and which therefore left me cold. Oh well. You can't enjoy 'em all. Great location, though.


12. Outback (Season 2)
The things I liked about this season were the big physical hardships and disasters -- Mike falling into the fire, the tribe running out of food, the camp getting flooded, Elisabeth's hair falling out from malnutrition. That stuff was all great. The rest of it, however, bored and irritated me by turns. I didn't really like any of the characters, most of whom struck me as infuriatingly moralistic and self-aggrandizing, and the grotesquely forced editing of Villain!Jerri and Hero!Colby annoyed the shit out of me. I could never understand why I was supposed to side with anyone the editing wanted me to side with, which made the entire experience feel kind of like watching a piece of wartime propaganda from an alien planet. "Huh? I'm supposed to think what about what you just showed me? Really? I, um...but why?" Or maybe it was just like watching Fox News. At any rate, it was both surreal and infuriating. And good God, some of those episodes were dull. Did the Finale really run five hours long, or did it just feel that way? Bleh.


13. Palau (Season 10)
Again, gorgeous location, but I didn't care for the characters, and the utter conquest of Ulong, while it was admittedly pretty funny at first, got boring long before it was over. Koror's tribal dynamics struck me as every bit as obnoxiously Mean Girls and junior high as Amazon's, but instead of inviting us to laugh at it, as they did in the Amazon season, I felt as if the editors were instead trying to obscure it so that we would like the "heroes" better, which I found annoying.


14. Fiji (Season 14)
Predictable, unpleasant and dull. The Haves vs. Have Nots gimmick sucked. There were too many deeply unpleasant characters to begin with, and far too many of them stayed around for what seemed like forever (and in some cases, seemed inexplicably favored by the host, as well). I don't find misogyny in the least bit entertaining, and this season was filled to the brim with it. And who would have guessed that Fiji would look so drab and dingy and brown? God, even the palatte was dull. Earl was the King of Fiji, and he got helicopter shots and soaring music, and a ridiculously obvious winner's edit. Yawn. The Eduardo boot episode was indeed a whole lot of fun, and Earl seemed a likeable enough fellow, but that's about all this season had going for it.


15. Thailand (Season 5)
A boring season with dull and unpleasant characters, rendered even more unpalatable by the Ghandia/Ted thing, which I found highly uncomfortable to watch. The only season where I honestly find it hard even to remember the characters on the losing tribe, with the exception of Shii-Ann and that dickwad with the skateboard. Strategically it was also a wash, with Brian coasting to the end after what seemed like a never-ending Pagonging. I kinda dug Chuay Gahn's camp, though. The cave was neat, as was the need to boat or swim around the cove to fetch water, and some of those sunrise shots were just plain beautiful.


16. Vanuatu (Season 9)
Another boring season with unsympathetic characters, but without even Thailand's cool location to hold my interest. Although it was more strategically interesting than Thailand, I found the characters and the story that the editing was trying to tell so profoundly unappealing that I really just didn't care. This and All-Stars are the only two seasons that I wouldn't have watched all the way through to the end if I weren't burdened with that weird fannish mindset that insists on seeing every last episode of a thing, whether one is really enjoying oneself or not.


17. All-Stars (Season 8)
This season was utterly repugnant to me. Watching a woman break down emotionally because she feels she has been violated is not my idea of entertainment. Rob Mariano, a man I simply cannot stand, was on-screen every single episode, and since nobody else seemed to be playing the game, there was no hope of that situation ever ending. There had obviously been a bunch of pre-game deals struck among various contestants, which meant that everyone ended up pissed off at each other for reasons that they couldn't very well articulate without 'fessing up to cheating, so instead they all just spluttered and snarled incoherently at each other. And the Romber romance was just plain gross. The whole ordeal was just...ugh. I honestly can't think of a single redeeming moment this season held for me. I found it thoroughly unpleasant from start to finish.

Thanks, panurge. From what I've read of your posts here, it seems that you value story coherence far above all else. That's a preference that I understand and respect, but I think that I may be too emotional a viewer to adhere to it as strictly myself. I need not only to recognize and appreciate, but also to like the story being told to me, and that usually requires that I feel some degree of investment in the characters.

Vanuatu, for example, is a season that I can recognize as having a well-crafted story, but which I absolutely can't stand, both because I felt no investment in the characters and because the story itself ("Last Man Standing Gets His Revenge On All Those Man-Hating Bitches!") is one that I find intrinsically and uncomfortably misogynist. (I didn't like the "Stir the Pot!" crap at the end of Micronesia either, and for much the same reasons: I'm just really not appreciative of gender war stories. Fortunately, Micronesia didn't harp on that theme until the very end, otherwise I doubt I'd have enjoyed it as much.)

Similarly, I think that "objectively" (if it even makes sense to use that term when evaluating seasons) Marquesas deserves a higher rating than it gets from me. I do recognize the craft in its construction. But my aversion to both Rob and Kathy as characters rendered the season unenjoyable to me, and so I rated it accordingly.

menelaus, I liked your advocacy and analysis of Marquesas. As I just said, I do think that it's a well-crafted season. I just personally couldn't enjoy it, mainly because of this:

There were really four characters that this season was about, and who made the season really great: Sarah, Rob, John, and Kathy.

Yeah, good analysis. The problem for me was that two of those four characters -- and arguably the most important ones, Kathy and Rob -- rubbed me so much the wrong way that I actively disliked having them on my screen. That's a really tough hurdle for a season to overcome. And of course it's completely subjective. I mean, I don't even really know myself why those two characters make me want to scream and rip my hair out so much. A matter for my therapist, perhaps. (Actually, come to think of it, Kathy does somewhat remind me of my mother. Hmmm...) But for whatever reason, there it is, and I couldn't not take that into account when ranking the seasons. I think that people's personal feelings about the characters largely determine most of these rankings, and I guess I'm no exception.