Welcome to the coverage of Survivor UK. We are back after 21 year break and are hosted by a far too cheerful Joel Drummett. Let’s see what this season has for us. Today it is me Kemperboyd. After 21 years of being a British Survivor fan watching on the internet they finally made us our own version and then put it on the week before I go on holiday to Mexico for three weeks. So you’ll have either just a discussion post of Assistant Dragon Slayer in the next couple of weeks. Sorry about that but I can’t write this from my phone while on a beach (even if the forecasts say it will rain every day).

Episode 1

• We start of with the interviews and then a proper marooning. The only things that stuck out to me were that Sabrina said “alliances” very early. What we need to remember early on is that a good number of these people have never seen Survivor. Many will be learning as we go. Expect more mateship than a strategic master class.
• The first challenge is a marooning, the first tribe to get their raft and supplies to land then build a fire that can burn their rope will win all the supplies brought by both tribes and a flint and tarp. La Nena (Blue) win.
• Small note, as it’s 18 Survivors in two tribes La Nena has 5 women and 4 men and Caleton have 5 men and 4 women.
• We get to camp and La Nena make fire, the beginnings of a shelter and a make a big meal. At Caleton (orange) things are not as good. Jess is asking Laurence if she can call him Laurie and Nathan is annoyed because people aren’t pulling their weight.
• Noticeably there is narration from Joel and I don’t really like it because it’s not really Survivor. Although I guess it is very British reality tv.
• Tree mail! It’s an immunity challenge. At the challenge Joel asks about La Nena and Sabrina says they are full of food and nice and warm. But Caleton admit they haven’t made fire. The immunity idol is shows and it’s a bit blah, like a crown on an old tree.
• The challenge is the classic hold up barrel, you can hand off your barrel, first one to drop loses. On Caleton Leilani can’t even pull it back without Nathan’s help. Laurence is posh and annoying. La Nena keep talking about how much food they have eaten. Caleton do amazingly, passing the second barrels back and forth but in the end Richard drops his two. The food really was a huge help. I suspect that the tribe with 5 men will be getting rid of a woman.
• Leilani floats out that they should vote for Shai, apparently he’s just very annoying but she smashed the challenge. Nathan wants Richard because he didn’t communicate, he just dropped both his barrels.
• Jess keeps whispering in her confessionals.
• Tinuke thinks the person knows who voted for them.
• At Tribal Council. Leilani agrees her inability to perform at the challenge definitely affected the team and left her vulnerable. Tinuke says she is voting to keep the tribe strong. Jess thinks it needs to be a good mix and people need to look at the bigger picture. Richard said the barrels just slipped.
• We are shown Shai voting for Richard, and Jess whispers her vote for Shai. Richard votes for Leilani.
• In the end it is Richard who is voted out first, he gets 7 of the 9 votes.  The voting paper is very thin and Joel is having to put his hand behind it to stop it being seen as he reveals them.
• I am surprised to be honest, had he held his second barrel a split second longer and not seemed to drop two at once Leilani probably goes home but there is a narrative of giving up that people seem not to like. I am also surprised as this was the tribe with a male majority and I sort of assumed they would vote out the “weak” woman.
• So far I will say, this appears to be Survivor.

Episode 2

• On Caleton Tinuke and Nathan realise they have power. Then they make fire and eat some rice and beans but at La Nena they are eating lots of fruit and other food.
• Ashleigh injured her hand in the first challenge.
• Joel does more narration, it really is unneeded.
• The reward challenge is the classic down a slide wrestle challenge. La Nena win! We get some nice stuff, including mixed gender wrestling.  But again the tribe with food, heat and shelter win, the marooning was probably over powered.
• Christopher, Ren, Ashleigh and other man talk about the fact Hannah brought up Ashleigh’s injury.
• Oh no, Rachel got something in her eye and Pegleg says she’s a whinger. Lee talks about the vote being all about performance. I am exhausted already.
• There is too much narration and it’s aiming for irreverent like Bake Off or Traitors and it’s just not the Survivor vibe for me.
• The Immunity Challenge is to use a raft, retrieve some keys, dive and get some crates and build a tower to the line. 4 Challenges and no puzzles. In the challenge Sabrina and Rach have to swap out on the swim for La Nena. Caleton get a huge lead on the swimming section and nearly lose it on tower but they pull it out. Caleton win immunity.
• Back at camp Sabrina apologised to the tribe on her and Rach. Rachel was not happy. Ashleigh, Rachel, Christopher, Doug and Ren agree together that they are an alliance and voting out Sabrina but Ren and Doug both say in confessional that if Ashleigh can’t get her hand wet. Doug is also in an alliance with Pegleg, Hannah, Boxing Fella and Sabrina.
• At Tribal Council, Ashleigh talks about her issues with her injury “in a sports team when someone is injured you protect them you don’t just chuck them out”. Lee says there was an issue with the swimmers, but Rachel says she didn’t want to swim but did it because no one else wanted to do it more. Sabrina says she did volunteer and Rachel told her she was a trained vocalised and could have done more than one knot at a time.
• It is time to vote, Pegleg votes for Rachel, Hannah votes for Ashleigh (spelt wrong),
• The votes are read: 4 votes Sabrina 2 votes Ashleigh, 2 votes Rachel.  In the end Doug did vote for Sabrina so it didn’t matter that his alliance split their vote but yikes that was bad play from that side. In the end over the two episodes both tribes voted out one of their majority gender.

 

• Overall after the first weekend of Survivor UK it is very much season 1 Survivor vibes. We have had a “weakest player” vote out and one side splitting votes and making their initial alliance pointless. We have people talking tribe strength and such but there are kernels of strategy here. Let’s hope it improves. It is beautifully shot so there is that.