Why
Heroes Vs Villain’s isn’t an amazing season
(A.K.A Heather’s HvV rant)
For two
years straight in the Survivor Oz poll of “Greatest Season” Heroes Vs Villains
has walked away with the award. This
gets me confused. I have always wondered
what is the aspect of HvV that appeals to a lot of fans. It’s not the case of the returning player
aspect (reminding that my favorite season is Guatemala, a season which features
returning players) but rather what happened and the edit of the season in general. I’ve had a long standing HvV rant that I
would happily speak had anyone asked, although this is the first time I’ll post
it in its entirety, rather than speak it.
The first
part of what is wrong with Heroes Vs Villains started before the season even
aired. The season meant to represent
that tenth anniversary of the long standing series only used players that were
seen in thirteen seasons. This is
without considering that no original players from Guatemala nor Micronesia was
present and completely disregarding the full returning player cast of All Stars
this is only ten seasons out of eighteen.
If I convert this into percentage only 55% of the seasons of Survivor
were represented by an original castaway from their season. Among these seasons with no representatives
include the very first season of Borneo.
Heroes Vs Villains was set up as the big season celebrating “every” year
it’s been on the air, unfortunately HvV failed what it was set out to do before
it even aired.
The second
part is the castaways themselves. Nine
of the twenty players had already received their second chance on another
season. While many a people complained
about the inclusion of Danielle (runner up of Panama) and Candice (best known
for being the first contestant to willing switch tribes) I was complaining
about seeing Parvati, James, Amanda, Rob, Rupert, Stephenie, and Cirie
again. I usually give a free pass to
Colby and Jerri because of the format and they are the original Hero and
Villain respectively of Survivor, however that is still seven people who I
believe had no business being there and whose spots could have easily have been
filled by players that we have yet seen again, perhaps from seasons that
weren’t even invited to the tenth anniversary season of Survivor. So far, this is two points of facts against
the season in the casting alone and we are just getting started.
Heroes Vs
Villains failed in being a tenth anniversary season before it even aired. However it could be a great season even
without that fact looming over it right?
Wrong. I have the confessional
count of HvV and it isn’t good. (Special thanks to my friend SleepTight from
SurvivorSucks for Confessional data.)
 |
Confessional
counts are handy in getting a rough idea on the edit each player got for that
episode. Let me point out some
surprising facts on the confessional data of this season. Let’s start with Sandra and the fact that she
spent six episodes in a row without a single confessional, or how about the
fact that Courtney’s confessionals per episode average is .44 which is because
she only had four confessionals despite on being the second jury member. How about Russell getting 68 confessionals
for the total of all of the season, with the second highest being Rupert’s
38? How can this be a true All Star
season when we see someone get a single digit confessional despite making the
merge? You get a sense of a balanced
edited season if the confessional per episodes are around the same number, but
Heroes Vs Villains was anything but a well edited season.
Now let’s
get a look at each contestant who participated in this season. For one, the “epic” characters in this season
can be counted on one hand. The Heroes
tribe overall had the personality of a wet piece of cardboard and the Villains
tribe had a few good characters, but are also overshadowed by wet pieces of
cardboard. I’d like to believe that
casting was a huge factor in this, but the edit sure didn’t help with this
either. Also I’d like to point out that
nearly every player had their reputation take a giant nose dive, this is
completely ignoring the fact that no one but Jerri even improved on a past
finish this season, discounting Candice and Sandra who finished in the same
placing. Let’s go through them all shall
we?
Sugar- The
“robbed” fan favorite from Gabon finally seen as annoying and grating and
booted first
Stephenie-
The underdog of Palau and played a strong game in Guatemala showed her
self-centered Guatemala self and was second voted out.
Randy-
Strong challenge performer in Gabon who was voted out third for being a
challenge liability.
Cirie- Seen
as a robbed mastermind from Micro and Panama but was idol’d out by Tom for
being a threat.
Tom- The
beloved winner and leader of the unstoppable Koror in Palau to the person on
the outs and was voted out
Tyson- a
lovable goofball in Tocantins who “voted himself out” by swapping his vote from
Russell to Parvati (which by the way that choice had nothing to do with Russell. From an interview (here) he pretty much had
said that he wanted Parvati gone over Russell and switched his vote based on
his own choice. It was only edited the
way it was to trick people into thinking that Russell influenced anyone out
there.)
James- Does
this need explaining? Okay, the fan favorite from two different seasons becomes
a giant bully and gets voted out because of an injury in the only season were
he didn’t make the merge.
Rob- Even
though he did grow from his ASS expectance and became a father since then, he
was voted out by the people he thought he could trust the most just before the
jury.
Coach-
While he was still the same old goofy Coach from Tocantins, he was thrown under
the bus for screwing with the villains order of how they sit people out and had
he was voted out in the same spot Tocantins he wouldn’t have made the jury.
Courtney-
The main comic relief from China who was almost completely ignored and had a
grand total of 4 confessionals
JT- The
lovable fan favorite and winner from Tocantins to Dumbest Survivor ever. Does this need explaining?
Amanda-
While I’m not sure if Amanda had much of a legacy or exactly why she’s a hero,
but this is the first season she gets voted out in. Amanda is pretty unimportant in the long run.
:/
Candice-
While people wonder why she is included, she was a record breaker in her
original season for multiple reasons, but in HvV she pretty much did the same
thing with flipping and didn’t improve in standing.
Danielle-
Panama’s runner up that backstabbed Terry who got into an alliance out of
desperation with Russell, left in tears because of Russell deciding to vote her
out. Also got a whopping eight
confessionals despite being a huge part of the reason why Russell lost again.
Rupert- Not
as big nor epic as he was in past seasons.
Colby-
Probably took the biggest hit out of everyone in this season, the challenge dominator
of the second season to “superman in a fatsuit”.
Jerri-
Okay, Jerri is the biggest expectation to this list as she was widely loathed
by everyone but really came together as someone who we can root for and love.
Russell-
Lost the exact same way as he did in Samoa.
See Russell is probably the polar opposite of a great player. All he did in both of his seasons was flash
around idols like crazy and that never impresses me because any idiot can play
an idol to get out someone like Tyson or Kelly.
He didn’t know how to play Survivor as he voted out his own allies
(Daneille) and made fake promises to those that weren’t his allies (Colby,
Rupert) just to add the sting to it all.
How anyone can say that he was robbed is beyond me, except for the fact
that HvV was just Samoa part two.
Parvati- I
think this was the best showing of Parvati, who had a personality aside from
one dimensional flirt. However like
Russell I have to point out that her double idol play was really overrated and
could have played by any idiot who realized that their friends were in
trouble. Also just like Russell she wasn’t
robbed.
Sandra- I
hate that it was only her second win that won her the respect that she deserved
in Pearl Islands. She won using the
exact same strategy in Pearl Island and Sandra finally getting the respect that
she deserves is easily the best thing about this trash season.
Tl:dr this
season was full off underwhelming characters completely ran on Idol Shenanigans. If someone wants to point out a reason why
this season is better than the 17 other seasons that I placed above it in my
personal season rankings go right ahead and E-mail me. (HeatherNS17@ymail.com) However a lot of seasons are better than the
Russell show 2.0 and the season of character suicides. Not to mention that Heroes Vs Villains was a
flop of an anniversary season that only included reps from 55% of Survivor
Seasons.
Thank you
for your attention. Hope you enjoyed the truth tea. :)
Heather
