‘Survivor: Cambodia’ preview series: Who should return? (Part 5, men from recent seasons)
We’ve made it to the fifth part now of our “Survivor: Cambodia” preview series, where we are taking some time looking at forgotten players worthy of a second chance by era, and also by gender. What’s interesting about this is that starting this series, we wondered if there was even a pool of worthy contestants out there at the moment for the show to choose from if they wanted to do this again. What we’ve realized for now is that this answer is clearly yes. There are many great or at least interesting players, and for us this series is all about finding the people whose “Survivor” stories (to frame this in a Jonathan Penner) sense have not been fully told yet.
Today, the focus is on the most recent era of the game, which we consider “Survivor: Nicaragua” until now, and also the men. In the final part, we’ll talk about the women. Let’s go ahead and add in here a few honorable mentions, since there are some interesting players who we just couldn’t crack our top five at the moment: Chase Rice (it’d be fascinating), Jeff Kent, Hayden Moss, Josh Canfield, and the reigning champ Mike Holloway. We’d be thrilled to see any of them come back at some point.
Marty Piombo (Nicaragua) – Mary was great. He had great confessionals, he loved the game, and you could tell that he was one of the smartest guys out there. At times Marty was a little bit of a victim of his own hubris, and he also wasn’t helped by an inopportune tribe swap and just originating from a weak tribe in general. We’re curious what would happen with Marty if he was on a season where the tribes were not divided up by age, and if he could improve his social game a little, given that this was probably his weakest component the first time around.
David Murphy (Redemption Island) – We feel bad almost that David’s signature move from his season was that terribly awkward proposal to Carolina at the finale, because we actually liked him a good bit as a player. He was smart, strategic, but basically just found himself in a terrible situation for a number of reasons. He was stuck in an alliance of non-strategic people, he was on a season with Boston Rob, and in turn Boston Rob had brainwashed most of his own alliance to render it almost impossible for him to make any headway with any of them.
Jim Rice (South Pacific) – Man, did we ever miss out thanks to Jim not making it onto this upcoming season. We’re not entirely sure he would have fared extremely well, but he would’ve stirred the pot and created some pretty great drama along the way. What we like about Jim as a player is that there’s a part of him that is very strategic, but there are also moments where he wears his heart on his sleeve. That’s a combination that you don’t get very often from many other people.
Michael Snow (Caramoan) – We went back and forth on this one for a little while. Should we include someone like Reynold here so that this list has a little more variety in terms of gameplay type? We thought about it, but the reality here is that we like people who are play the game strategically, and we like people who love “Survivor.” Michael is one of these such people, and we feel like he was on such a dud tribe in an unbalanced season that it is almost impossible to think the he got a fair shake.
Tony Vlachos (Cagayan) – One of our favorite players of all time. He was incredible entertainment, and rarely do you have that in someone who is also a very smart strategist and can read people incredible well. He did so many things in a way that have not been quite done before. Our curiosity here is born out of one simple thing: Can he do the same thing twice? This time around, everyone would know what he is capable of, and they would know to look for spy shacks and for someone running around trying to find immunity idols. He was at a different speed than everyone, and we assume that for a returning-player season everyone plays at his original speed.
If you’ve missed the other parts of this series, check them out now over at the link here! Also, be sure to sign up here to get some more news on everything we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)