Natalie Anderson was meant to be on ‘Survivor: Game Changers’
It’s interesting sometimes how these things work. Earlier this month, we named Natalie Anderson of “Survivor: San Juan del Sur” one of the biggest casting snubs for “Survivor: Game Changers,” and the reason for that is simple: She legitimately made some awesome, game-changing moves, and the season would’ve had that much more fire in the event that she was there for it.
However, she’s not, but it just so turns out that her being a part of the season was originally the plan. Months ago, we first heard a rumor that Natalie was supposed to be a part of the season, but this was just confirmed by Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly in his spotlight interview with Sierra Dawn Thomas, the contestant on this season who was a last-minute replacement. She was an alternate who got the call to come and be a part of the show.
As for why Natalie’s not a part of the show, all Ross says on the subject is that she “backed out at the last minute,” and that’s probably a story more for her to tell than something to speculate over. What we will say is that we do hope that she does come back to be a part of a future season down the line. Not only is she a really excellent player of the game, but she’s great TV and has been ever since “The Amazing Race.” There’s a reason production wanted her back so soon after her first time in the game.
Without Natalie, there are still three other winners out there in Tony Vlachos, JT Thomas, and two-time champion Sandra Diaz-Twine. While we’ll get to this further down the road in our contestant spotlight series, personally we feel like JT is probably the one of these three winners in the best position to go the distance again. Natalie also probably has that two-time-winner upside just because her season isn’t viewed all that favorably by some, and that may have diminished her threat level as a winner in comparison to someone like Tony or someone who’s won the game twice. (Personally, the final four or five episodes of “San Juan del Sur” do elevate the overall game somewhat, and Natalie’s a big part of that. Otherwise, Jeremy and Josh left too soon and the pre-merge was a hot mess.)
As for Sierra’s odds this season, we do think that she could ironically go from an alternate to a winner of the game provided she makes a few adjustments and wins challenges at the right time — though, as we’ve mentioned, we’ll get to that further in the spotlights. Her biggest asset is that she had a Casper the Ghost / Purple Kelly edit most of her first time out in “Worlds Apart” and nobody may think of her as someone who was a serious game-player. In other words, she could Amber or Parvati the heck out of this.
If Natalie had been a part of this season, how well do you think she would have done? Share in the comments below! (Photo: CBS.)