I Lost My Mind Watching (Almost) All Of ‘Survivor’ In A Year

Conventional wisdom states that no one really cares about another person's dreams unless they're been paid to care, but humor me. Over the last year or so, I have had a recurring dream in which I am a player on Survivor. It's not always the same dream, exactly, but the format generally holds: I have made it to the final seven or so, and I am fighting for my life. I don't think I would be good at Survivor, and that's how I always know it's a dream; I wouldn't sniff final seven. That doesn't matter, though; the dream returns repeatedly, and it always ends with me winning an immunity challenge. Then, I vomit.

Welcome to my brain on Survivor. Over the last year, I watched almost all of the show: 44 out of 49 available seasons, mostly but not entirely in order, while skipping only five seasons that I was told were either not all that important to the meta-narrative of the show (Palau, Guatemala, Fiji) or straight up bad (Thailand, Nicaragua). Other than starting with 2018's David vs. Goliath, generally considered the best standalone season for a beginner, and moving Cagayan, which is generally considered a top three non-returning player season, up in the order, I have powered through the whole show since January of 2025. That date is important in this demented journey: The urge to watch Survivor came from watching Boston Rob Mariano on the third season of The Traitors. In a lifetime of highly questionable television decisions, this is a rare conclusive answer. For your good and mine, I won't be delving too deeply into that.

But seeing the way that everyone revered Boston Rob on that show, and the aggressive way he played, plus the blind spot I've had for this authentic cultural juggernaut for most of my life—I turned 11 during the first Survivor season, Borneo—finally made me take the plunge. I asked my Survivor fan coworkers for advice on what seasons to watch—Kelsey sent me an iPhone note with a guide, and Giri passed along this Reddit thread—before promptly ignoring them and just saying "Fuck it, let's do it all." (I did listen to their advice about starting with David vs. Goliath rather than the much slower first season, which helped; I think I can pinpoint the moment I got hooked as Episode 8, when the undermanned Davids pulled off a great idol-vote split play to eliminate pro wrestler John Hennigan.) Since then, I have thought about Survivor more than almost anything else in my life. There is no denying that the highs and lows of a show that has about 15 great seasons and a whole lot of garbage have, due to repeated exposure over this last year, shaped my days and now my dreams as well. I know that I am not the same person I was before I did this.

What has this taught me? Honestly, just one thing: I love reality competition shows. Really, The Traitors taught me that, but 44 seasons of Survivor sealed the deal. While I do care about the tribe dynamics in a normal season of Survivor, and loved when the show would travel the world and show off some incredible locations—Season 15 in China isn't my favorite for the gameplay, but it has the top location and location-based challenges of any season for my money—I watched for the strategy, the blindsides, the alliances, and the Final Tribal Council speeches and votes. I remember strategic moments better than anything else: Kelley Wentworth negating nine votes with an idol in Cambodia — Second Chance, Season 47's Operation Italy, and, most of all, Parvati Shallow's double idol play in Heroes vs. Villains.

(For the record, the moment I think about most was strategic at its core but fundamentally social in the execution: The Black Widow Brigade's thievery of Erik Reichenbach's immunity necklace during Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites. It's the best Survivor gameplay moment, by far.)

I also remember a lot of the bad in Survivor, a show that has always been a product of its era and as such always produced a lot of bad stuff. There's Richard Hatch, the first winner in the show's history, rubbing his penis on Sue Hawk in All-Stars and the subsequent (terrible) reaction by almost everyone involved; the entire "race wars" premise of Season 13 (Cook Islands); Brandon Hantz's frankly terrifying meltdown in Caramoan; the entire Dan Spilo sexual harassment situation in Island of the Idols; Jeff Varner outing Zeke Smith in Game Changers; everything Colton Cumbie did on One World. This is just a sampling of when Survivor got it wrong, an easy outcome to predict given the show's premise and its long-running history.

This is why I can't say Survivor is unequivocally a great show. But each season makes for a fantastic time capsule of whatever year it aired, and that's part of the appeal of watching so much Survivor in a row. What was deemed okay enough to be laughed at in 2005, such as Survivor 50 contestant Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick's many homophobic and ableist slurs during her first two seasons, is glaring in retrospect as a huge miss from both player and production. (LaGrossa Kendrick's inclusion on 50 is controversial not just for that, but also for her staunch support of Donald Trump and her antisemitic rant against fellow player Eliza Orlins just last year; it's a whole thing, and there's no reason to assume she's learned anything at all from it.) But Survivor has always been a nasty social experiment at heart, and as such even the worst parts illuminate something about the eras it has traversed.

It's here that we have to talk about Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor and the show's one true constant across its quarter-century. Some people love Probst's enthusiasm for the show, some people hate how much his role as a producer has changed the show for the worse, with twists that make no sense and safe casting slowly but surely robbing the show of drama and strategic play. Also, a lot of people just find him annoying, which is fair. His desire to coin a new catchphrase seemingly every season began to wear on me by the 20s and never let up.

I think Probst is the perfect host for Survivor, though, because he, like the show's mission statement, means well even when he delivers poorly. Probst grew into his job as a host through the controversies and thrills of 49 seasons, and during my long watch I found it fascinating to see how he went from ruthlessly bullying anyone who he felt was not giving 100 percent to trying to learn to be inclusive and, for lack of a better word, unproblematic. It's now mocked as the moment "Survivor went woke," but I found his open contemplation and subsequent dropping of his trademark "Come on in, guys" before challenges to be honest and thoughtful. (He now just says "Come on in," after Season 41 contestant Ricard Foyé, whose now ex-husband is transgender, said that he felt "guys" was too gendered and insufficiently inclusive.)

At the end of the day, though, Probst cares a great deal about making Survivor a huge success, and he and the show have succeeded wildly at that. Survivor, even at its current low point, is an institution of not just reality television, but television as a whole, and the ability to draw from so much history makes every new season a must-watch in the same sort of value-neutral way that, say, the Super Bowl is. The quality of it matters less than the massive cultural fact of it; I only started watching in real time with Season 48, but I could not be more excited for 50, even if it looks like a real shitshow. Dropping into Survivor in 2025 is like picking up Game of Thrones in its entirety: Not only is there so much to consume, but there's also the promise of a next thing. (Unlike Game of Thrones, Survivor does actually deliver on what comes next, even when it's underwhelming; sorry to GRRM.) Even beyond my decision to subject myself to it in a one-year binge, there were drawbacks to coming to the show so late; I had plenty of things spoiled for me, both by general cultural knowledge and by other shows.

For example, I knew going into this that Survivor legend Cirie Fields never wins a season, because that was one of her big talking points on the first season of The Traitors, which she won in dominant fashion. I also knew Sandra Diaz-Twine won twice, due to that same show. Similarly, I figured Boston Rob would win at least once, given how much hype his inclusion on The Traitors generated. Outside of that show, I figured that Tony Vlachos would win the all-winners 40th season, given that he is generally considered to be on the Mount Rushmore of Survivor with Boston Rob, Sandra, and Parvati. More specifically, I also got spoiled about Dee Valladares winning Season 45 due to a damn Reddit post, which certainly dampened my excitement for what, in retrospect, was a pretty flawless winning game. (Dee is back for 50, and I will be infinitely more locked in to see how she navigates that.)

Even with those spoilers and the plentiful dud seasons, I still broadly enjoyed most of my Survivor watch, and not just because it was an easy thing to throw on the TV over many days, weeks, and months during a year in which I desperately wanted to be distracted. Even when the seasons start to blend together, such as the middle of the 20s and the middling back half of the 30s, there were always moments or performances from some of the 751 players to keep me hooked. Take Season 47, the last season I watched before 50: I was enthralled by Genevieve Mushaluk's rise from non-entity to main antagonist, and Rachel LaMont's challenge dominance to secure the win. As in any season of any competition, there's something fascinating to find.

There's just nothing quite like Survivor, at least that I've watched. I'm sure people who love Big Brother feel similarly about that show's own long history, but that is quite frankly their business. Every moment can be connected to something else in the show's past, and built upon to create a new interconnected legacy; if Survivor is sometimes guilty of overindulging in that, it is a rare thing for even the longest-running show to be able to do. I'm so Survivor-pilled that I even have plans to watch all of Australian Survivor, just to get more immunity challenges, idol plays, blindsides, the works. (It helps that I've heard Australian Survivor is better than modern American Survivor.) Whether I follow through on that or not, though, I'll always look back at 2025 fondly as the year that I gained a new obsession, and wrecked my own dreams in the process.

I'll leave you with my full rankings of the seasons I watched, because my brain works in stupid ways, and I kept a running score for every season as I watched:

1. Season 20 - Heroes vs. Villains
2. Season 16 - Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites
3. Season 31 - Cambodia — Second Chance
4. Season 37 - David vs. Goliath
5. Season 28 - Cagayan
6. Season 40 - Winners at War
7. Season 18 - Tocantins
8. Season 33 - Millennials vs. Gen X
9. Season 7 - Pearl Islands
10. Season 13 - Cook Islands
11. Season 44
12. Season 25 - Philippines
13. Season 47
14. Season 8 - All-Stars
15. Season 46
16. Season 12 - Panama
17. Season 6 - Amazon
18. Season 34 - Game Changers
19. Season 3 - Africa
20. Season 27 - Blood and Water
21. Season 2 - Australian Outback
22. Season 17 - Gabon
23. Season 42
24. Season 15 - China
25. Season 19 - Samoa
26. Season 49
27. Season 32 - Kaoh Rong
28. Season 4 - Marquesas
29. Season 9 - Vanuatu
30. Season 38 - Edge of Extinction
31. Season 1 - Borneo
32. Season 29 - San Juan Del Sur
33. Season 45
34. Season 23 - South Pacific
35. Season 36 - Ghost Island
36. Season 41
37. Season 26 - Caramoan
38. Season 48
39. Season 43
40. Season 35 - Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers
41. Season 39 - Island of the Idols
42. Season 24 - One World
43. Season 22 - Redemption Island
44. Getting blindsided by the Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol
45. Season 30 - Worlds Apart