Survivor Africa Season Review

So I had an idea. Now that it is summer, and we are deep in the Survivor off-season, why not watch and rewatch some older seasons and write reviews of them? We gotta get some Survivor talk on here. Since the summer has begun for me, I quickly rewatched season one (Borneo). The last time I had watched Borneo was five years ago. I will write a review for that, but first I wanted to talk about the season I most recently watched, and that is Survivor: Africa (season three).

Africa is probably the least fresh season in my memory. It aired in the fall of 2001, when I was just 7 years-old and in second grade. I have often talked about how Survivor was a big part of my childhood (see my article entitled, "Why Survivor?"), but this was a season that over the years I've had trouble remembering. This is a combination of a few things. The first is that I wasn't as glued to the show as I would later be. It was still early in the show's history, and making it a point to watch it every single week wasn't that big to me. My mom watched every week, and I would check in and out. I remember highlights, and I remember my favorite character was Clarence. The next reason is that I was only 7 years-old, so I didn't understand every aspect of the game. I didn't understand everything that was going on. And the other reason is well, it was twelve years ago. I can't believe it's been that long, but still. If you weren't a super-fan at the time, it can be difficult to remember what happened twelve years later.

So basically, I hadn't really watched and enjoyed this season yet. Well, I finally got around to that this summer. Over the years, Africa has gotten a bad rep and many have called it boring and dull. Well, after watching this season, I can tell you those that say that are very wrong. Africa truly is an underrated season. And I will tell you why.

Africa is a very different season. They don't have any real body of water. Something that is clear from the early seasons, is each time it seems they wanted to up the ante. The first time was good and all, but then things got tougher in the second season. They brought Survivor to the Australian Outback, and added three days to the game. Now in season three, they are deep in the heart of Kenya, surrounded by treacherous wildlife and unforgiving heat. The locale alone makes this a season to watch. Seriously, where else are you going to see real people, staying up all night watching for lions, only being protected by a small fence of thorns? At one point during the season, a lion comes up and is no more than three feet away from that fence. Very real.

The survival elements are interesting on their own, but even better are this season's characters. As I rewatched this season, Clarence was once again my favorite character. It truly is too bad that he screwed things up in the first episode with beangate, because after that he can never recover. He has no chance after that. But as I was saying, there were great characters on this season. Clarence was absolutely hilarious. Another great and underrated character: Frank. I did not expect him to be anywhere near as unintentionally funny as he was. Check out the video below:

Frank was like a younger version of Rudy. And I loved him. He seemed like a good guy and he meant well, he was just misunderstood and had trouble connecting with the people he was living with. His allies Carl and Linda were good at the start of the season. Carl had some good confessionals, and Linda's obsession with "Mother Africa" was comical. And who can forget the fall of Silas Gaither? Never had we seen someone go from being so powerful, to being so vulnerable in the very next episode! T-Bird was a great character too. It's a shame she never got a spot on an all-stars season. She was a good player, and if she had landed on Boran instead of Samburu, she could have been the winner of Survivor: Africa. I liked Kim Powers and Kelly too. Both were cute, and Kelly had some good confessionals. It's unfortunate that she went out the way she did; she is someone else that should have been brought back by now. So these were all good or likable characters, and we haven't even gotten to the stars yet!

What can you say about Big Tom Buchanan? Big Tom was great entertainment. He provided some of the funniest scenes in the show's history. Lex dominated this game. He was winning every challenge there was and he was thriving strategically. If he had gotten to go up against Mama Kim in the final two, he'd be the champ. But instead, this season is all about Ethan Zohn, and how he proved that good guys can win. He might be the most popular and well-liked winner we've ever had. This was something we needed after our beloved Colby had lost Australia by doing the honorable thing.

This season also provided many great and memorable moments. There were great rewards for the reward challenges, and some had very touching moments. When Ethan and Lex went to visit the village, Ethan tossed a kid his hackey sack and let him keep it. This was a very heartwarming moment, and the visit to the village was also very comical. Like I said, Lex was winning everything. The other two big rewards that he went on, were also great scenes. His visit to the hospital to deliver supplies to help protect people from the HIV virus was great, and his balloon ride safari with Big Tom was excellent as well. These were the types of scenes we rarely ever get on Survivor nowadays. The show has become all about the game, and in these earlier seasons it's awesome to get to see the little things at camp.

Survivor: Africa was very significant to the series. It was the first season to have a real twist. Never before had they switched up the tribes. We are pretty used to that nowadays, but at the time this was a huge deal. So I really liked to see that. After seeing this season's fantastic episodes, one of a kind challenges, larger than life characters, and harsh but fascinating conditions (think of the wildlife!), I will say that Survivor: Africa is a great season, and a must-watch for any Survivor fan.