Saturday Night Live spoofs Survivor with Backstab Island
It is honestly a surprise that Saturday Night Live has had more than a few big Survivor spoofs given how long it has been around! Yet, they attempted to rectify that when it comes to Backstab Island, a fake show based in part on the CBS reality hit.
So what was the premise of the sketch? It’s simple — a series of competitive people being out on an island ready to betray each other left and right. However, there was one person who was not like the others — Teyana Taylor’s character, who was actually there to make friends and get along with almost everyone. She had a few funny lines in here, including how she had plenty of money and wanted to orchestrate hang-outs in Los Angeles.
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Yet, by the time we got to the end here, we started to think that this was a wasted opportunity to not feature scenes with multiple cast members together — beyond just throwing drinks at one another. Having them all narrate their games in a confessional made things feel a bit more wooden and disjointed.
What other recent parodies have we had?
They have admittedly been a bit more frequent in recent years. Jeff Probst actually made a cameo back in a wedding sketch about whether or not the Joker could be present for the ceremony. Meanwhile, earlier this season there was actually a cut sketch that featured the all-female final 3 from this past season. All of this makes us think that there is someone on staff now who is a big Survivor fan and trying to include it more. (Going far into the past, there was a family-visit spoof in a 2016 episode hosted by Russell Crowe.)
Unfortunately, we think that Backstab Island, despite a few moments of laughter, was the weakest of the pieces mentioned here. The Probst cameo had the surprise factor, whereas the cut sketch actually felt like a real gift for people watching the reality show.
What did you think about Saturday Night Live spoofing Survivor with Backstab Island?
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