‘Survivor’ finale week: Ten forgotten one-time players who really need to return
Odds are, you’ve probably heard the rumors out there that the 34th season of “Survivor” airing in the spring is going to be one featuring returning players, and it’s pretty easy to be excited about that. “Heroes vs. Villains” and “Second Chance” were both really great seasons, and while “All-Stars” wasn’t amazing, at least it had its compelling moments.
With this particular article, we’re going to go ahead and make an assumption that many of the returning players next season are people with a recent history of playing in the game — it’s either that or that they are players who are impossible to forget. (We know there are names out there, but we’ll wait until CBS confirms them.) For the sake of this article, we’re focusing on ten people who we really want to see back on the show again at some point, but have either fallen off the casting radar, have said no to appearing, or simply made it far into the process before getting cut in the final stages. While some of these people could be good players, at the same time we’re thinking here in terms of notable characters.
Greg Buis (season 1) – Incredibly entertaining, and you’d think that with the show’s early popularity in mind, he’d be someone producers would want back. At this point, a Greg return has to be far more likely than Colleen, right? Greg is the sort of guy who we think after so many years could emerge as a pretty good player.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck (season 2) – Go with us for a minute here. For the longest time, she wasn’t available because of “The View” or “Fox & Friends.” Now, she seems to be doing more of her own enterprise — what better way to promote herself than by going back on the show? We may not agree with all of her political views, but it’s hard to imagine that putting her back out there at this point would be boring television.
Sean Rector (season 4) – There’s a reason Shirin wanted to see him back on the show so badly during “Second Chance” — he’s fantastic. If you haven’t seen “Marquesas” recently, go back and watch some of the footage of him around camp. While we don’t know how he would fare as a player, like Greg we do think with more years comes more wisdom.
Heidi Hamels (season 6) – Back when she played, she was Heidi Strobel, and she was thought of as one of the more dangerous players out in “The Amazon.” She was also a part of at least one notorious “Survivor” moment that probably wouldn’t be viewed nearly the same way in 2016. We would imagine that she’d play a very different game now if she was to come back, and that intrigues us like it does with someone like Elisabeth who’s in a very different place in life. We also think the “The Amazon” in general is severely under-represented in returning-player seasons, given that Rob and Jenna were both early exits in “All-Stars.”
Twila Tanner (season 9) – She’s been in the mix before, and she’s one of our favorite archetypes that doesn’t always get explored too much in the modern-day game: The surly, older female castaway who takes no prisoners and holds nothing back. There’s probably a reasonably good chance that she’s an early boot because of it, but it’d be fun while it lasts.
Judd Sergeant (season 11) – By far one of the greatest characters to ever be on the show. He’s remarkably entertaining, perfectly surly in his own right, and he almost reminds us of Tony if Tony was a worse liar and if many of his crazy schemes didn’t work out. Plus, if we didn’t have him back we’d be worried that he’d make a freakin’ crocodile come and eat us alive. (“Guatemala” overall is painfully under-represented — we don’t think it was a top-ten season by any means, but there were characters with a ton of potential in there.)
Michelle Yi (season 14) – She was really fun in the time that she was around, and there is a part of us that remains perpetually sympathetic towards players who ended up getting sent home because of some sort of terrible twist. While we don’t think she would have won, her enthusiasm makes her a player who could get a vote or two on social game alone — plus, there are a lot of cranky people on this list and someone needs to cheer things up.
Kenny Hoang (season 17) – We are a noted “Survivor: Gabon” apologist, and also a noted Kenny fan — it was watching his and Stephen’s games back to back that really got us into writing about the show. While he certainly made some mistakes, we like the he played hard and he’s had some time to reflect and realize some of what went wrong. If he was a little more cool and calculated this next time, he could have a good shot.
Shannon “Shambo” Waters (season 19) – We’ve got it on good authority (i.e. from Shambo herself before the “Samoa” finale) that she’d probably never play again, even if she was offered millions of dollars to do so. Think of this list as us throwing a hope out into the universe that she changed her mind. She’s such a fun and unique character that it’d be nice to see how she fared in a season that wasn’t as negative.
Marty Piombo (season 21) – We think he’s probably been in the mix here and there, but we wonder if “Nicaragua” is too far into the rear-view mirror that he wouldn’t be asked back again. Still, we like the idea of having an older gamer like him out there, given that the majority of the men over 40 tend to be a little more old-school in their approach. Can you imagine what it would look like with him and Kenny on the same tribe? That may be fun in itself.
For those wondering, we almost put Shane Powers on the list, but given that he was just in the mix for “Second Chance” we don’t really consider him to be someone completely off the radar.
Want more of our “Survivor” finale week coverage? Then head over here, since that is where you can see our picks for likely all-star candidates from “Millennials vs. Gen X.” (Photo: CBS.)