‘Australian Survivor’: First impressions of new preview
Come Sunday night, Australia’s Channel 10 is going to debut something that we’re extremely excited to check out in the premiere of “Australian Survivor.” As someone who has seen both every season of the U.S. and also enjoyed Australian versions of “The Mole” and “The Amazing Race,” we’re fairly confident that the country can churn out some excellent reality programming.
For the record, this is not the first time that the country has attempted to adapt the “Survivor” format, but it is the first time in a good decade. There are some key differences in the two shows that are apparent pretty early on, whether it be by watching the latest preview video here or even just looking at the cast photo above.
More cultural awareness – Over the years, it has felt as though “Survivor” exists within a vacuum in America, and we’ve come to see less and less of the culture. This feels like a throwback to an earlier season of the show with the people and geography of Samoa taking center stage. Granted, what is likely helping that is the fact that this is a show airing twice and week, and it has a little bit more time to show off the elements and parts of the game beyond the players.
More players – There are 24 castaways split across three tribes of eight. This is four more people than have ever appeared in the American version of the show.
A longer game – There are 55 days in this season, which is pretty incredible given the conditions. It’s almost like a full season of old-school CBS “Big Brother” at that length. Then again, with more players and episodes, it all makes some sense.
We’re sure a few other twists and turns will come to the surface over time, but we’re excited to see how this show adapts American convention for the show. After all, we’ve certainly seen other countries come up with cool ideas — the Salvage Pass on “The Amazing Race Canada” was an awesome concept. Then again, there’s also many failures such as the mass freebie parade on this past season of “The Mole.”
We’ll have more on this show in due time, so stay tuned! For now, be sure to sign up here to get some further TV news on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Channel 10.)