Top Ten Maroonings

At the beginning of the game, people are marooned at the start and there are always memorable ways of doing that. You are basically starting the game off and the next season in an interesting way of some sort. The way they begin is pivotal to how the game will work so I might as well mention what I think the best ten maroonings are.

Honorable mentions: I remember liking Australia’s marooning, but I didn’t like it enough to put it on the list as I felt that it was too much like others. They did something interesting and different for Thailand’s marooning by using fake tribes before they learn that there aren’t any preselected tribes. But I’m not sure that I felt that it had much else to offer besides that. The Vanuatu marooning was interesting, but it doesn’t quite make the cut on my list. Cook Islands was slightly interesting, but I didn’t like it enough to find it worthy of the top ten. Nicaragua also had the fake tribe premise which is interesting, but I also don’t feel it worthy of the top ten. I might include South Pacific if the marooning was more interesting than just the returning players doing a challenge. That’s all I can think of for honorable mentions.

#10 One World: This game had quite an interesting lead-in to it. First, we learn that the tribes will be separated by gender and they are given a quick grab from the truck. To make things interesting, a man steals stuff from the women’s pile, which isn’t actually against the rules. Then they are both sent off in separate ways when they eventually learn that they are living at the same beach. It may not have been the most interesting marooning, but it is good enough in my mind to make the top ten.

#9 Guatemala: Few seasons begin in such a harsh way like Guatemala did. First, the new contestants learn that there will be two returning players joining them in the game. Then they have to do a hike against each other through tough terrain. Now my sister who has hiked the same trail has said that Jeff was probably exaggerating how rough the road really was. But this is the first challenge of the tribes and the winner gets a better camp. Pretty good reward challenge, right? The game starts out in a very interesting way, the likes of which we don’t typically see that much.

#8 Samoa: A lot of seasons rely on some sort of first impressions twist at the beginning. This one actually has a good way of doing that by first getting all the people to vote for a leader among their members. That leader then has to decide who among his contestants will do what in the challenge. You are starting the game with a lot of unknown things being brought forth and it all plays out from there.

#7 Marquesas: In this season, contestants started without any major supplies of any kind starting out. That alone has to be a pretty hard thing. The game can only get harsher from there and it does. This was certainly one of the more physically demanding seasons in the show’s history. It starts out pretty tough and doesn’t get much easier.

#6 Micronesia: First, you get a tribe of new players who wonder who they will be facing against in the game. That’s when the favorites tribe is introduced, one by one. We get a special challenge at the beginning where one player from each tribe gets to be immune at their first tribal council. It’s interesting seeing the dynamics of the game come across the way that they do.

#5 All-Stars: This season was different than any that had come before it. And, you have an interesting new way of doing the tribes and the whole start of the game. In order to hide the fact that there were three tribes in the game, each tribe of six was separated from the others at the start of the game and they didn’t even know who else might have been on other tribes. It wasn’t until the first immunity challenge that they finally learned of the competition that they would be facing in the game. The three tribes twist worked well, which made it weird that they didn’t use it again until Philippines. They might have started overusing it from there, but that doesn’t matter much. The fact that they kept it a secret who all was playing from the other tribes was quite interesting.

#4 Blood versus Water: Let’s start with day 0. We have the pairs of loved ones each by themselves in ten different places before the game actually begins for real, but on an overnight experience that will test the people in the game. Then, they learn that the new players are on one tribe against the returning players and they will have to defeat their loved ones in challenges to stay safe in the game. Any challenge that you win could put your own loved one in danger so the game takes an interesting turn all starting with the idea that you were actually playing with your loved one.

#3 Borneo: To not include the very first marooning on this list would have been a travesty. In the very first season, the very first episode has to include some sort of interesting way of bringing forth the show. A lot of series premieres can be make or break. Unlike a scripted show which typically does just the pilot before they decide whether or not they want more, with Survivor, they had to do a whole season. They have the contestants on a boat and they suddenly have to jump ship with Jeff Probst in the middle of the chaos trying to keep track of everything. It is an interesting and great way to start the show.

#2 Pearl Islands: We start with the fact that the contestants just thought that they were taking publicity pictures for the season. They didn’t know that the game was starting. Then, we have them bartering in a local town for supplies. Members of Morgan foolishly leave their boat of supplies next to Rupert and he takes everything from the boat. The pirate theme is on and we have a great beginning to the season second only to number one.

What season do I have listed as best marooning? Well, not everything about it was perfect, to say the least. It’s hard to come up with something that’s absolute perfect. But the season is very good in my mind and even though there were some parts of it that was bad (mostly a very bad twist), I still have it as the best marooning in Survivor’s history.

#1 Palau: Sometimes a surprise start is the best type of start. You have a bunch of confused contestants trying to race to the beach as quickly as possible. It’s a shame that two of them wouldn’t even get to play the game. Later seasons would do the race to the beach challenge better by making it immunity at their tribe’s first tribal council. Anyways, after the strange challenge, all of the contestants got to live on one beach together at the start of the game. So we are off to a great start that’s sadly affected by a bad twist. But I still list it as the best marooning in Survivor history.

That’s all for this blog post of mine. I wonder if you agree with this post of mine at all. I wish that I had a better memory. Mine is so weird. I just wish that it was better. I actually thought that I knew a good joke about memory, but I forgot it. So, hopefully, I’m not missing any good maroonings. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.