Wait, who is this George guy?  Maybe he can shed some light on... himself.  George?

Some intro commentary about my whole deal! You make one too, and then people will know what our whole deals are. 

Who am I? Why am I here?

A twenty-something grad student, aspiring librarian, and Survivor fanatic.

I loved the first two seasons of Survivor; stopped watching in Season 3 when my pre-game pick to win got voted out; and then came back in the winter of 2009 when I caught some of Thailand in reruns and fell in love with Brian Heidik. Over the next few years, I gradually caught up on all the seasons I'd missed. Eager to discuss what I was watching but knowing relatively few people in real life who'd want to talk about (say) Silas in 2010, I became a member of various internet Survivor communities---first the Television Without Pity Survivor forum, then the Facebook groups "Previously on...Survivor!" and "Addicted to Survivor". In PoS, I even had the pleasure of chatting with the Africa player whose boot turned me off Survivor for so many years. You'll always have a special place in my heart, Carl "Doc" Bilancione.

What do I like about Survivor?

I like dispassionate, borderline-robotic strategists---people who are out there to play the game. I think Brian Heidik may be better at Survivor than anyone else in the world has ever been at anything. Others in this category include Richard Hatch, Kim Spradlin, Yul Kwon. That's what I watch Survivor for: to learn from and be inspired by people who can focus on achieving their goals and never forget what they're there to do. Not many are in the league of those I've mentioned, but what I love about this show is, you can find those qualities in (almost) any season, if you look hard enough.

So why in the hell are you rewatching South Pacific, of all seasons?

On first watch, I hated South Pacific. It embodies the opposite of everything I like about Survivor: a bunch of emotional, irrational people either complaining about missing their families (Dawn) or reliving a bunch of high school crap ("Cochran") or playing a wacky character just to get airtime ("Coach") or dominating physical challenges while being totally inept at the social game (Ozzy) or being straight-up batshit crazy (Brandon) or...being completely invisible (everyone else). In the end, one of the invisible people makes an awesome jury speech about how, "Hey, I wasn't invisible! I was actually running this game!"; the other invisible people buy this, and give that person a million dollars. Ultimately, I like the preceding Redemption Island season less than I like South Pacific just because Boston Rob might be my least-favourite fictional character in the universe, but more things bother me about South Pacific than about any other season - than *every* preceding Survivor season combined, maybe.

But a funny thing happened: everyone in the "Survivor community" except for me seems to believe that Sophie's jury speech reflects what actually happened on South Pacific. Many of them even consider her the sort of ice-cold mastermind I love. If just a few people thought that, I'd laugh them off and never worry my pretty little head about South Pacific again, but respect for Sophie seems just about unanimous. So I decided I owe her another chance...and owe *myself* another chance to see the great Survivor player everybody else saw, and not just a rerun of "Redemption Island" in which the jury gives the million dollars to Natalie T. for some reason.

Watching a season knowing who wins is a different experience from watching it cold. It's probably not a coincidence that my three least-favourite winners (Sophie, Cochran, Fabio) played in seasons I watched live. Conversely, I can put together airtight arguments for why Jenna, Aras, Vecepia, and other underrespected winners are actually great. You watch differently when you're watching the season as the story of the winner. I hope to end this summer at least understanding how Sophie won, which, as of today, I do not.

The great mystery of my life...

I remember, clear as day, circa spring 2007, my old friend Mark Kalzer always trying to talk to me about the currently-airing season: Fiji. Yau-Man would do something, Mark would talk to me about Yau-Man. I'd say, "Survivor? Really? That show I used to watch when I was fifteen? I no longer care about, nor will I ever again care about, Survivor! Stop bothering me about Survivor! I'll get a restraining order, I swear I will!" Several years later, once I'd gotten back into Survivor and Mark and I started talking about it, he would tell me he'd seen all of the seasons...*except for Fiji*.

- George Hawtin