‘Survivor: Cambodia’ preview series: Who should return? (Part 1, pre-All-Stars men)

Hopefully at some point next month, we’ll get some of the on-location coverage for “Survivor: Cambodia” a.k.a. “Survivor: Second Chance” — we’re honestly not sure what to call it yet. But, we’re impatient, and since we do like to think about possible new seasons and players all the time, why not start up a new recurring series? What we’re going to do over the next couple of weeks is share some ideas for returning players from various eras of history. We’ll start today with the men from what we consider the first era, and then we’ll pick up next time with the women.

The real caveat to this series is that we’re not so much looking at this as who would or could actually return if asked. Instead, these are merely people who we think there’s a natural curiosity to see play again for one reason or another. Sure, we could add some more-forgotten players to this list like Greg Buis, John Carroll, or Hunter Ellis, but their odds of even being asked are astronomically low at this point and the narrative isn’t as strong. Much like Jonathan Penner, we’re all about the story here.

Richard Hatch (Borneo, All-Stars) – How do you not want the original winner back? Sure, there have been several headlines away from “Survivor” when it comes to Richard, but the truth is that it is hard to imagine the show being what it is today without him. In “All-Stars,” part of Richard’s biggest problem was that everyone wanted to take the original winner down a notch, and he really had no chance from the start thanks to that target on him. Wouldn’t that be different now more than a decade after the fact?

Ethan Zohn (Africa, All-Stars) – We’re not sure after two cancer battles if this is something Ethan would want or even be able to do, but of course the inspiration angle to it would be tremendous. Plus, we still want to really assess how good of a player he is. Ethan was able to win in Africa without too much trouble, and he did actually make it further than any other winner on All-Stars, when they all were basically waiting to be taken out. Could a winner of this show actually be underrated? (Also, congrats to Ethan on his recent engagement! We had no idea until we were researching for this article.)

Sean Rector (Marquesas) – Shirin Oskooi openly lobbied and claimed that she would give up her spot on “Second Chance” if it meant that Sean got it (personally, we wanted both of them.) We have no clue why Sean hasn’t been brought back. Even if you haven’t gone back to watch any early season of the show in a while you probably still remember him. One of the biggest personalities to ever play the game, and we think that more than a decade removed from the show he could still come back, perform well in the challenges, and make it really far. He’s the sort of guy you want to have around just because he livens things up.

Brian Heidik (Thailand) – Apparently, he was at least considered for All-Stars, and who wouldn’t be intrigued to see Brian get his skates on one more time? The curiosity around Brian is that so much of his game the first time relied on deceit, and making people believe in him only to stab them in the back later. How would he play now that everyone knows he is a snake in the grass? He’s not completely similar to Russell Hantz, but you wonder if it would be like “Redemption Island,” his first season where players got to watch him before going out.

Rob Cesternino (Amazon, All-Stars) – Obviously, we’re biased somewhat given that we’ve listened to his podcast over the years, appeared on it twice, and he is a personal favorite, but we’re trying to not approach this with those blinders on; even if we didn’t appreciate his game as much as we do, there’s something inherently intriguing about seeing how someone so well-known in the “Survivor” community would do going back on the show. Would he return? He doesn’t really need to, and who would podcast while he’s gone? This article is primarily a curiosity list, and we’d be lying if we said that we weren’t at least curious to see if he could replicate his “Amazon” finish or be out early as in “All-Stars.”

You’ll be able to check out all of these at the link here, where you can also see some other “Survivor” news. (We are creating a more advancing “Survivor” home page in time for the season this fall, so be on the lookout.) Also, you can sign up to get some other TV updates on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)