Survivor: Ghost Island cast revealed; more on central twist

Almost a month before its two-hour premiere on Wednesday, February 28, CBS has now made its Survivor: Ghost Island cast official. The network announced the news in an official release, which also helped to describe more what is one of the strangest twists in the history of the series.

Per CBS, at some point during the game “players may be sent to a separate haunted island filled with SURVIVOR relics from the previous 35 seasons of the show. The question is: will these new players be able to learn from the past mistakes of others and ‘reverse the curse,’ or will the past come back to haunt them? Showcasing the series’ extensive history, Ghost Island is filled with real idols and advantages from previous seasons, including from Brazil, China, Africa and Australia, serving as a haunted graveyard of unfortunate choices made by former players.”

In one way, this is a really cool way in which to honor the history of the game without us having to sit through the same players that we’ve seen compete three or four times already — at a certain point, we really don’t need to see many of these same people again. The question that we wonder is if this ends up throwing in so many different idols, twists, and advantages into the game that things get a little bit tricky to follow. We do think that, at a certain point, winning the show should be about being able to navigate the different social dynamics of the game. That’s where we were somewhat torn over Ben’s win last season — we loved the guy, but at the same time he mostly made it to end on the virtual of immunity idol after immunity idol.

Below (per CBS), you can see some of the first details on the cast. We’ll save some of the in-depth analysis for the spotlights, which we will do once we get a little bit closer to the premiere. There are twenty cast members, which is better than 16 but absolutely a lot. We suppose that part of the reason for that is because we’re doing two tribes as opposed to three; having two tribes of nine leads inevitably to a gender imbalance.

“NAVITI” TRIBE (Purple)

Angela Perkins, 42

Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio

Army veteran

Chelsea Townsend, 24

Hometown: Salt Lake City, Utah

EMT

Desiree Afuye, 21

Hometown: Newark, N.J.

Student

Kellyn Bechtold, 31

Hometown: North Manchester, Ind.

Career vounselor

Morgan Ricke, 29

Hometown: New Albany, Ind.

Marine animal trainer

Bradley Kleihege, 26

Hometown: Haslett, Mich.

Law student

Chris Noble, 27

Hometown: Florida Keys, Fla.

Male model

Domenick Abbate, 38

Hometown: Nesconset, N.Y.

Construction supervisor

Sebastian Noel, 22

Hometown: Melbourne, Fla.

Fishing guide

Wendell Holland, 33

Hometown: Philadelphia, Pa.

Furniture designer

“MALOLO” TRIBE (Orange)

Jenna Bowman, 23

Hometown: Detroit, Mich.

Account executive

Laurel Johnson, 29

Hometown: Philadelphia, Pa.

Financial consultant

Libby Vincek, 24

Hometown: Houston, Texas

Social media strategist

Stephanie Gonzalez, 26

Hometown: Ocala, Fla. via Puerto Rico

Graphic sales

Stephanie Johnson, 34

Hometown: Boise, Idaho

Yoga instructor

Brendan Shapiro, 41

Hometown: Herndon, Va.

Physical education teacher

Donathan Hurley, 26

Hometown: Phelps, Ky.

Caretaker

Jacob Derwin, 22

Hometown: Merrick, N.Y.

Music teacher

What do you want to see on Survivor: Ghost Island, and how excited are you for this season? Share in the comments! Meanwhile, you can like CarterMatt on Facebook to get some more insight regarding the show. (Photo: CBS.)