‘Survivor: Cambodia’ preview series: Who should return? (Part 3, men from middle seasons)

We’re back with another entry in our “Survivor: Cambodia” preview series! If you missed the memo in previous articles, we’re periodically over the next couple of weeks taking a look at some contestants who we would love to see come back into the game once more. This is hopefully a way to get producers to notice them once more, and our criteria for this is ultimately rather simple: We’re really just looking for people who still have a story left to tell with the show. We don’t necessarily care if you’ve played multiple times, but there has to be some sort of interesting reason to bring you back.

Today, it just so happens that we are looking at five one-time players as we start our look at the middle seasons, which to us spans from Vanuatu up to Samoa. That’s a longer span than we covered when we did our first two articles, but there were also more returning players already in that span, and then also a few seasons that have been heavily cherry-picked already. (There’s nobody left from Cook Islands or Tocantins, for example, we want to see back now that Stephen Fishbach is returning.) There was a part of us who considered including villains like Judd and Jean-Robert on here, but we’re not sure what other story they have left to tell with this show. We’re also not entirely convinced that either were great players, even if they made the merge.

Chris Daugherty (Vanuatu) – The real narrative question with Chris is this: Is there a way he can return and play a similar game? He’s not perceived as evil like Brian Heidik, but his biggest skill especially late in the game was lying on his way to winning the season. He managed to convince everyone that he was loyal. Is there any way that he would be able to do that again successfully? We’re not entirely sure, and figuring that out is part of the fun with him.

Ian Rosenberger (Palau)  – Maybe some out there will consider him a quitter and therefore not consider him the right choice for this list. We would disagree in a sense, because we don’t think he quite because he was tired of the game. He did so to prove a point to Tom Westman that he cared more about a certain value system than winning the game, and this still remains to us one of our favorite all-time final three immunity challenges. We want to see what that experience taught Ian so many years ago; he feels if nothing else like a player who could still go very far.

Shane Powers (Panama: Exile Island) – It feels almost assured that it will never happen at this point, since he wasn’t chosen by the viewers for “Second Chance” despite us and many others considering him a near-lock to go back on. He’s considered a villain but ironically played a very straight-up game, and has to be one of our favorite personalities in the history of the show just in terms of his passion and the way he communicates.

Earl Cole (Fiji) – To us a pretty underrated player, even if his victory was pretty reliant on Dreamz not giving his immunity necklace to Yau-Man at the final four that season. Mostly at this point, we’d like to see Earl return and remind people why he won the first time. He’s not the flashiest player out there, but he’s got charisma and he know how to forge alliances and social relationships. Since he’s not the most obvious physical threat, he wouldn’t be an immediate post-merge target.

Kenny Hoang (Gabon) – Anyone who reads this knows we’re a little biased, since we consider Ken one of our favorite all-time players. Yet beyond that, we do still think there is value in having him return. He was a strong strategist who became a little big-headed at the end, but as a whole he is probably one of the most overlooked of a casting archetype that probably includes winners like Cochran and Todd.

Who do you want to see back from this particular span of seasons? Let us know, and take a look at some of our other recent “Survivor” articles on this subject! Also, sign up here to get some other TV news on everything we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)