Who ends up as heroes or villains will probably be the most fun for the audience.Survivor: Heroes vs. When you’re playing in that world, a hero can easily make what appears to be a villainous move to stay in the game. Now you’re in a game of heroes and villains, and they’re the best. “The way you play is determined by who you’re playing with. Players have pretended to have dead relatives to gain sympathy the winner of “Gabon” created his own Immunity Idols, and Russell took it to a new level by finding three Immunity Idols without any clues. That means that viewers will probably get a double dose of Russell’s fun-to-watch bravado, since he clearly was convinced he had won it all and calls himself “ The Sole Survivor.”īut, as Probst well knows, “Survivor” has evolved from the game Richard Hatch won in the summer of 2000. Producers opted to stay in the South Pacific and film back-to-back seasons last summer to take advantage of the infrastructure that was already in place. In a “Survivor” first, Russell returned to Samoa 20 days after the last tribal council to be in “Heroes vs. But the jury gave the cash prize to Natalie White, who was smart enough to align herself with Russell, performed well physically and never rocked the boat. Russell Hantz, a Texas oil company owner, dominated the game, using every dirty trick in the book as well as his street smarts. No season of “Survivor” asked and answered that question more dramatically than “Samoa,” which concluded last month. It’s just that they’re starting off in the role that they were known for, and will they change that? Can people who are out for themselves in a very dynamic way actually win the game? Or is it like we all want to believe - that being a hero comes through in the end?” “What they’re there for is not to live in a role,” Burnett said. “One question was, how many times can you see someone play? Some of them have already played twice so we had to think about the ones that played it differently the second time, and could they tweak it again for a third time? There were definitely other people that we would have liked to see but it was all about finding the combinations that people would want to watch.”įor instance, who wouldn’t want to see “Coach,” Russell, Parvati and Courtney on the same villainous team or Colby, “JT,” “Sugar” and Cirie as heroes together? “I had a really hard time,” Spillman said. They saved one spot in case someone from “Survivor: Samoa,” which had not aired yet, broke out. And sometimes people would argue one or the other.”Īfter months of reviewing possible groupings, the “Survivor” team decided on 50 players, and then the hard work of selecting 20 began. So in a sense ‘Survivor’ as a celebration of 20 seasons is a celebration of what our show really is - either people who are heroic or people who are villains. “There’s nobody that you remember that you just go ‘eh’. “All of the memorable players are either a hero or a villain,” said Probst, who is also an executive producer. Favorites”), Benjamin “Coach” Wade (“Tocantins”), Courtney Yates (“China”) and, of course, Russell Hantz (“Samoa”). The “Villains” are: Tyson Apostol (“Tocantins”), Randy Bailey (“Gabon”), Sandra Diaz-Twine (“Pearl Islands”), Danielle DiLorenzo (“Panama”), Jerri Manthey (“Australia” and “All-Stars”), Rob Mariano (“Marquesas” and “All-Stars”), Parvati Shallow (“Cook Islands” and “Fans vs. (“Tocantins”), Tom Westman (“Palau”) and Candice Woodcock (“Cook Islands”). Favorites”), Jessica “Sugar” Kiper (“Gabon”), Stephenie LaGrossa (“Palau” and “Guatemala”), James “JT” Thomas Jr. Favorites”), Amanda Kimmel (“China” and “Fans vs. Favorites”), Colby Donaldson (“Australia” and “All-Stars”), Cirie Fields (“Panama” and “Fans vs.
On the “Heroes” tribe are Rupert Boneham (“Pearl Islands” and “All-Stars”), James Clement (“China” and “Fans vs. Will they stay in those roles? Or will they change?” So this became the best way for us to celebrate a decade - 20 seasons - with these people coming back in the groupings in which they played the game. Villains’ is a one-sentence sell because there are people who played the game in very different ways. “We all agreed we couldn’t do ‘All-Stars 2,’ ” Burnett said. Burnett liked to think of his castaways in terms of good guys and bad guys, so they lined up the cards to see the possibilities. There had already been an “All-Stars” season, and the 16th iteration pit some of the CBS show’s biggest fans against favorite players. After 10 years and 19 cycles, they knew they wanted to celebrate the show’s 20th season by inviting former castaways to compete again, but how could they make it distinct? “Survivor” creator Mark Burnett, Emmy-winning host Jeff Probst and casting director Lynne Spillman stared at the 301 past “Survivor” cast cards in front of them.