Survivor Season One Box Set

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: A-     Show: B+

 

 

When Survivor aired on Television in the spring of 2000, it was immediately a hit TV show that offered something that no one had seen before.  A new type of reality game show was created and it would test the limits of people on their quest for the million-dollar reward.  It was not survival of the fittest, or the strongest, or the smartest, but rather a test of a new type of strength.  The ability to endure and to understand the game, which would become such an important factor as alliances were formed and broken, that caught viewer's attention. 

 

The show begins when sixteen hand-picked Americans from all aspects of life are thrown together for 39 days on an Island competing against one another.  At first they are broken into two tribes, in which they must work together in order to beat the other team, once the tribes become small enough they then merge into one tribe and each person must fend for themselves.  What becomes difficult with this game is that you must make decisions and vote off people that you have worked with and become friends with in order to advance yourself in the game, but you must also play the game well enough to survive the elements of nature as the game is on the Island known as Borneo.  Putting these strangers together on an Island almost goes back to some of the elements in Lord of the Flies, which looks at how a hierarchy of order is formed even when no class structure is set. 

 

From the beginning of the show we learn about these people and we do this as they learn about each other.  Not only do they learn about each other, but through competition they learn each others strengths and weaknesses.  The game is not all about their physical and mental abilities, but it goes beyond that.  These people must endure in ways that very few people are put into, but also keep in mind that there is a certain strategy and code of ethics that must be maintained.  Through Paramount, the first season of Survivor is released as it was shown on CBS and is now broken down by episode.

 

The following is the order of the shows, their title, and who was voted off…

 

Disc One

The Marooning (voted off Sonja)

The Generation Gap (voted off BB)

Quest For Food (voted off Stacey)

Too Little Too Late? (voted off Ramona)

 

Disc Two

Pulling Your Own Weight (voted off Dirk)

Udder Revenge (voted off Joel)

The Merger (voted off Gretchen)

Thy Name is Duplicity (voted off Greg)

 

Disc Three

Old and New Bonds (voted off Jenna)

Crack in the Alliance (voted off Gervase)

Long Hard Days (voted off Colleen)

Death of an Alliance (voted off Sean)

 

Disc Four

Season Finale (voted off Sue, Rudy, and Kelly)

 

Disc Four also contains the Reunion, which aired shortly after the show ended and is hosted by Bryant Gumble with an hour long special that features all the cast reunited for the first time together since the first few days of the show.  This is where most of their reflections of the show are present, but for an even more up-to-date version, there is commentary provided for the first and last episode by Jeff, Richard, Gervase, and Rudy.  The fourth disc also contains a few featurettes including footage of each of the members before they met up on the island and is a nice behind the scenes look at each of them before they go into competition with one another and themselves.  There are also two fun features including David Letterman’s Top Ten featuring some of the cast and a really outrageous segment in which the Millionaire Rich recollects the time spent on the island with Rudy and Gervase. 

 

Since Survivor’s first year there have been many follow ups and even more recently an All Star season, which puts some of the best members from previous shows together.  It is fair to say that the first show will always have something better over the others because it was fresh, fun, exciting, and set a new standard among reality shows.  Since its first airing other people on Survivor have learned to play the game by watching how others did it so the element of surprise is no longer in tact.  The show is still popular, but as they go on there is only so much creativeness that can be administered to keep people watching and the ideas are starting to dry up. 

 

Thrown into the box set is another disc, which was previously available as a single disc and it includes all the never before seen footage of some of the greatest moments from season one.  This is a nice little addition because it allows for quick access to some of the highlight parts rather than trying to go through the entire season, plus there is a lot of stuff that never made it on screen that is quite interesting and provides more depth to everyone’s life and their decisions. 

 

From a presentations standpoint Survivor is displayed in its original TV aspect ratio of 1.33 X 1, which looks really good on DVD.  Survivor also set some standards with its creative visual style and some of the B-roll footage on the island is simply stunning.  Since a lot of the show is up-close interviews or edited versions of the everyday life that they live on the island, the secondary footage is very important in giving the viewer and understanding for what life would be like on an island as well as the many dangers that apply.  While it would have been nice for the show to be letterboxed, which it might be shot in High Definition in the future anyway, the show still has really nice colors and definition with only a small amount of grain and softness.

 

The audio is Dolby Digital Stereo, which is odd because on the greatest hits disc, the show is in Dolby Digital 5.1.  This is bizarre, but both sound similar anyway since the show was not really designed, nor would it be feasible to create a surround mix since the show takes place on an island.  The important part here is that the audio is clear and dynamic, which it is.

 

The first season of Survivor is still the most memorable and even those that have seen the show and remember it, will want to check out all the goodies on this DVD.  I thought at first that it might not be that interesting to go back and watch something that I already knew what would end up happening, but this stuff is really fascinating and once you start watching it, you don’t want to stop.  The climatic season finale still has one of the most talked about scenarios in all of Television as Sue spills her guts towards Kelly and demonstrates what a cold person she can be.  This box set is a superb collection that fans will certainly want to go back and watch again and again, plus this is something that in many years from now will be looked back upon for some of its groundbreaking fundamentals and originality, which has been copied ever since.

 

 

-   Nate Goss