Free Fallin' Physical Race

Survivor: One World is a season that has maintained a pretty icy reception over the years, and with the first Immunity Challenge, we watch the season have a rocky start right out of the gate. The rules are very straightforward— members of each tribe have to jump from a tall tower onto a net. Once everyone has completed the jump, all tribe members have to make their way across a balance beam and a rope bridge, and the first tribe to conquer all 3 of these obstacles and raise their flag is the winner. The only obstacle here that's really noteworthy is the jump, and that's just due to the sheer height from which each player has to leap. Jeff notes that the tower is 25 feet tall, and the net seems to be about 10 feet off the ground, so all things considered, it's a pretty hefty jump these One World players are having to make. Before the challenge begins, Jeff emphasizes the importance of players landing on their backs and keeping their arms to their chests in order to ensure there are no injuries... **Words spoken moments before disaster.** As the challenge begins, it becomes quickly apparent that a lot of the people on this cast aren't particularly interested in taking Jeff's advice. But the thing is, I don't really blame them. For a lot of people in this situation, landing on their back probably just seems really unnatural, and even if you earnestly intend on landing on your back, it wouldn't surprise me to see fight-or-flight kick in mid-jump and suddenly you are landing on your feet or butt, and not even thinking about what your arms are doing. Throughout the jumping portion, quite a handful of people have rough landings, but none quite as harrowing, and infamous, at Kourtney Moon. She hits her hands hard on the net as she lands, and it's later revealed that this fractured her wrist in multiple places. Man, that's just awful; I've never had a fractured wrist but I cringe just thinking about how painful that must be. Kourtney is clearly in agony from the moment she gets up off the net, but she nonetheless continues to play in the challenge for a little while. Eventually, both tribes complete the jumping section and begin the balance beam obstacle. I think with this part, the producers may have been trying to recreate a little balance beam magic from the last time they divided the tribes by gender, the first Immunity Challenge from Survivor: Vanuatu where Chris famously squandered the challenge for his tribe. It's impossible to say if a similar thing would have happened in this season, because we only get to see about 15 seconds of this obstacle; the camera pans to Kourtney who is basically just collapsed on the ground, holding onto her wrist and clearly suffering, and Jeff immediately takes note. He asks her if she's alright, and she replies that she's "really dizzy" and that she doesn't think she can finish the challenge. This prompts Jeff to call in medical, and Kourtney is escorted away for an X-ray. I always felt so bad for Kourtney on this season.

Then, Jeff announces that because "technically" this challenge requires 9 people to start and 9 people to finish, the challenge is over by default, and the men have won the challenge. I always thought this was strange; I don't necessarily disagree with the decision, but I'm surprised to see the producers adopt such a pedantic interpretation of the rules. I mean, is this really that different from what happened in Survivor: Samoa with Schmergen Brawl? In that challenge, they carried on even after someone was ejected, despite what the initial rules may have been. I guess the difference is that here, the women would've had an advantage, since they now had one less person who needed to cross the balance beam and rope bridge. But if we want to be annoyingly technical, the men really shouldn't have won the challenge by default— they should've still had to complete the full course. Silly as it sounds, there was no guarantee that all of the men would have been able to finish; for all we knew, Colton's appendix could have ruptured right there on the course a few minutes later, and then I guess no one would have won the challenge. There is a catch to all of this however, which is that Jeff actually gives the men the option of making a "gesture of good will," and continuing the challenge anyway even though they could walk away now with a free win. Unsurprisingly, they decide not to do this, and can you blame them? Nobody wants to be the first person voted out; sure it's incredibly cheap, but if you're on Survivor, you need to take what you can get. They make this decision in spite of Jeff Probst practically begging them to finish the challenge, even giving this eerie warning: "Just remember guys, the biggest mistake in this game is doing decisions early on that nobody will forgive you for in the end." (Nudge nudge, wink wink. Please don't ruin this premiere episode, PLEASEEEE.) Again, if the producers so obviously didn't want the challenge to end this way, I don't understand why they even gave the men the option. They could have easily just said "Listen, we're the producers, it's a reality TV show, we can do whatever we want. Guys, choose someone to sit out and we are going to finish this challenge." Hardly anyone would have complained. When 2 people outlast the tide in Survivor 43's Last Gasp challenge, Jeff's not like "Well TECHNICALLY, the rules are 'last person under the grate wins,' so buckle up everyone, you're waiting 12 more hours for the next high tide—" it's like no, the producers just made an "executive decision" to handle things differently given the unique circumstance. But alas, the challenge is left unfinished, in what ends up feeling like one of the most anticlimactic scenes in the history of the show.

No one is voted out that night anyway, because Kourtney ultimately does have to be medically evacuated to get surgery for her wrist, and that really taints the challenge for me, because it was kind of a dumb obstacle to begin with. Sure, we've seen challenges cause medevacs before; there was Russell Swan in Samoa, but in that season, the issue seemed to be Russell over-exerting himself at camp, not the challenge itself. We saw what happened to Jonathon in Micronesia, and that's probably the best comparison, but even then, at least there was some time removed from the challenge and his eventual evacuation; it didn't seem like they killed someone in the middle of the challenge, as it took a few days for the consequences to fester. Here in One World, I just don't understand what the point of the net obstacle even was to begin with. It's very dangerous but also hardly exciting and completely linear; the only chance it had at being memorable was if someone got hurt, and lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. The Survivor Wiki apparently considers this to be a "recurring challenge," the second appearance of "Butch Cassidy" from The Australian Outback, which I think is an outrageous leap to make (no pun intended). I mean... really? I'm supposed to believe this is a variation of Butch Cassidy? And on that note, you could argue that Butch Cassidy was worth the safety risk because it was so epic in scale— a 35 foot jump from the top of a stunning waterfall. It's not even comparable to the pointlessly reckless net obstacle in this challenge. In the universe where Kourtney's injury never occurs, this challenge is pretty unmemorable. Kourtney's injury certainly made it memorable, but for all the wrong reasons, culminating arguably the worst first challenge of any season... On a more positive note, throughout this series, I've been trying to take special note of challenges that are named after real world songs; it's been a pretty long time since we've had one, but this challenge is named after Free Fallin' by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It's a pretty iconic song— nice to see it referenced by Survivor!

1/5

By the Numbers Micellaneous Challenge

Hooray, I love this challenge! You may remember seeing this one back in Survivor: Vanuatu, and again a few seasons later in Survivor: Fiji. It's definitely been a while, but it has returned for one final appearance in Survivor: One World. The rules are deliciously simple— every member of the tribe has to stand on a narrow balance beam over the water. The objective is to transport all members of the tribe from one side of the beam to the other, without anyone falling into the water. Only one person is allowed to move at a time, and they are not allowed to touch more than one person at any given moment. The result is a devilishly tricky test of balance and tribe coordination, and I've always found it fascinating to watch play out. In this season, the challenge ends up being a bit of a steamroll, but it's the fun kind of steamroll— The kind where we get to see the tribe of women absolutely blow it in comic fashion. I'm not even going to talk about the men in this write-up— all you need to know is that, while they struggle every now and then, they ultimately work together very well and easily win the challenge. The women on the other hand— they are a fantastic trainwreck. Most of their troubles can be traced back to Christina and Kat, the latter of whom having a particularly difficult time with this challenge, which is what makes her tribe's decision to have her go first— the most difficult position to be in— so hilariously unfortunate. From the very start of the challenge, Kat has problems. The first woman she has to get past is Monica, who is a particularly tough obstacle on this beam, because as Kat puts it, ever so bluntly— "She's got these big 'old boobs I can't get past." Alas, Kat is eventually able to make it by, and even makes it past the second person, Chelsea, but she loses her balance trying to pass Kim, causing Christina to grab onto her out of instinct, but of course, that's against the rules of the challenge, so Kat has to start over. On Kat's second attempt across the beam, she is able to make it back to Christina, but Christina once again ruins everything by touching Nina to her left, which means Kat has to start over again. At this point, the men have already gotten 2 people across the beam, and the women may as well have not even started yet. On Kat's third attempt, she once again fails to get past Christina, who loses her balance and falls into the water. At this point, Kat could have stayed on the beam and allowed Christina to become the first trying to get across the beam, but instead, Kat also jumps into the water, which is bad because it costs her tribe valuable time. Jeff sarcastically shouts that he's "not sure why" Kat jumped back into the water, and meanwhile, the men get their third person across. Keep in mind, this challenge gets easier the less people you have left on the beam, so not only have the men already transferred 3 people, but the 3 hardest people to transfer. Now it's Christina who is trying to be the first person to make it across the beam for the women, but she also fails, so Monica jumps in and gives it a go. Monica seems to be doing an okay job, but then Kat pulls a Christina by grabbing onto Christina's arm while she's holding onto Monica, once again breaking the rules. Christina loses her balance and falls into the water, Monica is forced to jump into the water and restart, and then, Kat jumps into the water, AGAIN, for no reason whatsoever. It's SO funny. Jeff shakes his head disappointedly, and Nina bitterly remarks "Ugh Kat, you know, you're about dumb as a rock." Jeff narrates "Once again, Kat jumped in for no reason," and meanwhile, the men are about 3 people away from winning this challenge. On Monica's second attempt, she is successful, so the woman finally get their first member across, but it doesn't take long at all for the men to get their last couple tribe members across (the easiest stage of the challenge), and it ends up being too little, WAY too late for the women. My gosh, what an event this challenge ended up being this season. It's such a simplistic yet creative challenge, it really makes me sad it hasn't been seen since. My guess is that's simply due to this being the final gender divide season, but of course, we did see this challenge pop up in Fiji, so we know this challenge doesn't have to be exclusive to gender divide seasons... But my guess is, especially in a post-Island of the Idols world, we aren't seeing this challenge again unless Battle of the Sexes 4.0 happens one day.

4/5

Ow Pairs Physical Race / Mental

After a rough start as far as challenges are concerned, Survivor: One World continues its upward trajectory with a very above-average rendition of Blind Leading the Blind that manages to feel both fresh and very exciting. You may recall that I was also really high on last season's aquatic, Jack and Jill-inspired take on this Survivor classic, so it's awesome that One World gives us two satisfying versions in a row, thanks in part to a very impressive set. Just one glance at the challenge and it's obvious that more work was put into constructing this one than your typical blindfolded Survivor challenge; the course is quite large, and it's filled to the brim with obstacles; fences that have to be climbed over, tangled webs of ropes, zigzagging paths, bollards popping out of the ground— overall it's really cool. Instead of the typical "find bags of puzzle pieces scattered around the field," this version requires the caller to direct pairs of blindfolded tribe members through what are essentially mini-obstacle courses to retrieve bags of puzzle pieces from 5 different stations. At each station, the blindfolded tribe members have to pull a rope, spilling a bucket containing the puzzle pieces, as well as a bunch of water, colored to match its respective tribe. I love unnecessary little details like that. Each station is locked behind its own unique set of obstacles, so the caller constantly has to adapt to the wide variety of roadblocks laid out on the course. Once all 5 bags of puzzle pieces are collected, the caller is responsible for putting together the puzzle, a fun little twist on the usual format that doubly puts the pressure on whoever volunteers to be the caller for their tribe. The puzzle for this challenge is new and ends up becoming something of a classic— the vertical tree-shaped puzzle, a challenging puzzle where each piece fits onto a specific branch; it's pretty cool! And wow, this challenge really couldn't have possibly played out in a more exciting way. This ends up being one of those truly insane comeback challenges that we only really get once every few seasons. For the majority of the challenge, it seems like, for the 3rd time in a row, it's going to be a steamroll. The women fall behind very early, with caller Sabrina having a pretty difficult time communicating with her blindfolded tribemates. The men collect all their puzzle pieces rather quickly giving Bill a huge lead on the puzzle. And as the women continue to lag, it seems like Bill is doing a pretty good job piecing his tree together. But then, Bill reaches a standstill, the speed of his progress screeching to a halt. This allows the women to finish collecting their bags, and then, Sabrina does an absolutely phenomenal job putting together her tribe's puzzle. It's legitimately insane how quickly she catches up to Bill, despite his massive time advantage, and the challenge continues to be neck-and-neck all the way till the end, where both players have just one final piece to slot into their puzzle. One unique aspect to the tree puzzle is that, unlike in most puzzles, it doesn't necessarily get easier as you get down to your final few pieces. It's such an abstract-looking puzzle that you can get down to your last piece and still have no idea where it's supposed to fit, and that's exactly what happens to Bill, allowing Sabrina to complete her puzzle, pulling off an incredible victory for the Salani tribe.

4/5

Puzzle Relay Physical Race / Skill

This next challenge is way more entertaining than it had any right to be, thanks to One World's... special cast of characters. Normally my enjoyment of this season is actively ruined by the cast, but somehow in this challenge, they really manage to shine, especially Tarzan, who does an incredible job at annoying everyone, including the people on his own tribe, which is hilarious to watch. As the name suggests, this challenge is essentially just a relay race, where each leg requires a unique puzzle to be solved. Two tribe members at a time, tied together, have to race out, cross over a teeter tower, and complete a puzzle. Once they complete it, they grab a key, race back, and then the next pair goes. This continues until all 3 puzzles have been completed, at which point the 3 keys are used to unlock 3 locks, raising a flag and winning the challenge for the first tribe to do it. The first puzzle doesn't seem too difficult, it just involves fitting some log pieces together so that everything perfectly matches up. The second puzzle is the debut of one we will see decently often in the future— a deceivingly tricky 4-piece puzzle that fits together to create a triangular prism. The final puzzle is a straightforward slide puzzle that reveals the season's logo when correctly assembled. All things considered, it's a very basic challenge that doesn't seem like it will be too exciting, but again, the ridiculousness of the cast makes it completely worthwhile.

The first people to race out are Colton and Tarzan for the men, and Alicia and Chelsea for the women, and the main storyline of the challenge is going to revolve around how horrendously awful Alicia and Chelsea are at putting together this simple log puzzle— they will be here for a while. Meanwhile, what I find entertaining about Colton and Tarzan is how outwardly rude Colton is to his partner, truly making no attempt to hide how much he dislikes his eldest tribemate. Once the duo finishes their puzzle, Tarzan celebrates their quick victory and preemptively tries to run back to the start, forgetting to grab the key. Colton is especially annoyed by this mistake that cost them no more than 2 seconds, reminding Tarzan about the key with disdain in his voice. When they finally get back to the mat, he exclaims "Goddddd!" in his distinct whiny tone. Jay and Mike are the next pair out for the men, and Tarzan tries his best to cheer his tribemates on, shouting "Go! Go! Go!" and yelling advice for the triangle puzzle. For whatever reason, Colton is furiously bothered by this, seen eye-rolling and making other gestures of disapproval. Jay and Mike manage to finish the puzzle and the third pair of men start racing out, all while Alicia and Chelsea are still working on their log puzzle. At this point, Kim yells to her tribemates that they should just look at the men's puzzle and copy what they did. Tarzan hears about this scheme and immediately rejects the idea. "No. No. Do NOT do that." Shockingly, the women ignore Tarzan's opinion and start studying the men's log puzzle, annoying all of the men, but especially Tarzan, who melodramatically shouts "NOOOOO!" And angrily points his finger as if they are his dog. Then, while continuing to point his finger, Tarzan begins slinging accusations: "CHEAT! CHEATER!!! CHEAT!" Who knew Terry Deitz was on this season? Chelsea snaps back, "kiss my ass." This scene is so over the top that I can't help but to laugh— rarely do challenges become this childish. As the final pair of men work on the slide puzzle, Alicia and Chelsea continue to struggle at the log puzzle, and Jeff proceeds to rip into them: "This is hard to believe. The women have checked the men's puzzle— they've gone over and looked at it— and STILL can't get it together." Then on the guy's mat, Jay randomly decides to be toxic as well, yelling over to the women "You guys suck, do you know that?" Alicia and Chelsea finally manage to complete the first puzzle, and the next pair of women race out to begin the triangle. They also employ the strategy of looking at the men's already complete version, and Tarzan once again calls them cheaters— again and again and again. Kat yells back at him, "Tarzan, you're about to get slapped dude." The men finish their last puzzle, and Leif begins opening the locks. At this point, the men are no more than 15 seconds away from winning the challenge, but Christina continues to root on her tribe: "Come on, don't give up girls, we got it!" This leads to— and this is incredible— Bill laughing out loud at her, because the women are so obviously out of contention at this point. There is just so much petty little drama in what should have been one of the most forgettable challenges of the season. The end result? A very funny challenge.

3/5

Basket Brawl Physical Race

Next up, it's the return of one of the greatest Survivor challenges of all time, Basket Brawl. If you've read my past entries, you already know how much I absolutely adore these types of "physical contact" challenges. They are always so cartoonish and barbaric, and watching these Survivor contestants literally fight each other never fails to get my heart pumping. Between Survivor: Palau and Survivor: Heroes vs Villains, every season seemed to make a point to include at least one per season, but that all changed when the "Dark Age" kicked off with Nicaragua. Interestingly enough, this is the first physical contact challenge we've gotten on Survivor since the previous appearance of Basket Brawl, back in Heroes vs Villains. I am thrilled that the hiatus is finally over, and we all once again get to sit back and enjoy some classic Survivor challenge savagery. This was always one of my favorite physical contact challenges in general, I just love the simplistic but brutal nature of the game— work together with your team to throw a ball into a hoop while the other tribe attempts to stop you "any way they can." First tribe to score 3 points wins. We get the standard fare— shoving, splashing, dunking, players getting slammed into the water— and it's awesome. This version of the challenge is admittedly more lopsided than what we are used to, what with the physical ineptitude of the new Manono tribe, but they do still manage to put up a decent fight; it's not a complete blowout as one may have expected, as Monica is at least able to score one point for her tribe. For me, the highlight of this challenge is the second round, which just goes on for a really long time, and we get a lot great showdowns between the players, especially Michael and Leif who really go at it; Michael is right next to the hoop but misses like 5 times in a row, allowing the opposing Manono tribe some extra chances to score, but after some more back-and-forth, Michael manages to redeem himself and land the second point for Salani. I'm not going to go on and on about every fun little conflict and interaction of the challenge, because there are too many and stuff like that doesn't translate well to text. Do yourself a favor and go rewatch the challenge for yourself, it's a ton of fun, as Basket Brawl always is.

5/5

Rollerballs Endurance

The first individual Immunity Challenge of the season is unfortunately one of my least favorites: Roller Ball, which was introduced just two seasons ago in Redemption Island, where it was also the first Immunity Challenge of the Merge. The reason I don't like it is pretty straightforward— I think it's dreadfully boring and also comes across as particularly lazy and cheap on the part of the producers. Jeff notes how it's a challenge "so simple you could do it in your backyard," and I do appreciate that there is a little bit of simplistic beauty in that, but that doesn't how this challenge usually makes me want to fall asleep. In my Redemption Island entry I went into more detail about why I don't like this challenge very much and how to me, it is symbolic of a much larger issue in modern challenge design, so I don't want to keep beating a dead horse. The one thing I'll give this challenge is that it usually gives us our best Jeff Probst innuendos, and there's an especially great one here as Jeff notes that "Troyzan's balls haven't moved in a long time." His balls will continue to stand the test of time, as he ultimately goes on to win the challenge, his first of several Immunity wins in this Post-Merge.

1/5

Odd Shaped Bottoms Physical Race / Mental

This is an elimination-style challenge with 2 parts. Neither part is particularly great, but together, I think they form a nice little product. In the first part, each player has to make their way across a ladder bridge, while maneuvering bags of puzzle pieces along a rope that are twisted around each rung of the bridge. In a sense, this is kind of similar to Strung Out, a challenge I've always really liked, albeit this is on land instead of water. You have to be careful not to fall off the bridge while maneuvering the bags, or else you have to go back to the beginning, which is basically a death sentence in a sequence as short as this and with so many people in contention. Only the first 4 players to complete this phase of the challenge get to move on to the second, which is a fairly unique puzzle that appears to be quite difficult. Essentially, within the bags of puzzle pieces the players collected, they'll each have a total of 60 puzzle planks. Each of those planks have differently shaped bottoms (hence the challenge's name), as does the puzzle station. Each piece has to be placed in the correct spot so that it perfectly fits in the puzzle. In the end, the puzzle should be completely flat, with no pieces awkwardly sticking out above the rest; it's kind of similar to Domino Effect, in the sense that some of the dominos have differently sloped bottoms than need to be placed at specific points along the beam. What makes this puzzle deceptively tricky is that it's easy to think you have a piece in the correct place, because it fits well enough, only to find out at the very end of the challenge that you made a mistake somewhere along the road, at the realization that your final puzzle piece very obviously doesn't fit in the one remaining slot. While the challenge goes by pretty quickly and it isn't that memorable, I think it gets the job done as an early Post-Merge challenge. I can appreciate that we aren't quite to the point in Survivor history yet where nearly every early Post-Merge challenge is some kind of endurance test, since not only are they often stale, but a long stretch of them can really make the show feel like it's lacking in challenge variety. Hence, it's good to throw in an Odd Shaped Bottoms here and there, even if it's not the greatest of challenges when viewed in a vacuum.

2/5

When It Rains, It Pours Endurance

Now it's time for a classic— I don't need to explain how this challenge works, everyone knows the legendary When It Rains, It Pours. Over the years, it has given us such iconic moments as T-Bird's rendition of Tomorrow, Shii Ann's massive upset, and one of the greatest, most comical showdowns of all time in Micronesia. It also popped up in Heroes vs Villains, and while still enjoyable, I noted that it felt like a serious step down from its previous 3 appearances— it just didn't have any of those fun, iconic moments, nor did it go on for hours upon hours like in its past renditions. I pretty much feel the exact same way about its appearance here in One World— A worthy, classic endurance challenge that's always fun to see, but not really something I would consider an amazing challenge the same way it was in its first 3 seasons. Unsurprisingly, this version of the challenge is the same version they used in Heroes vs Villains— players forced to stand on narrow balance beams making the game more difficult. As always, Jeff tries to tempt players down from the challenge by periodically offering food items, a feature I always love to see. I know a lot of viewers like to grandstand about how they would never step down for food in a challenge like this, but I think this is the kind of situation where, unless you personally know what it's like to starve on an island for 25 days, you don't really have the authority to claim, with such certainty, what you would do. It's the same thing with people who say they don't understand why the contestants get so emotional at the Loved Ones Visits— Survivor is hard you guys! I feel like no matter how much the editors try to stress the difficulty of the survival aspect of the game, there is simply no way to truly appreciate it without playing Survivor for yourself.

Now for the highlights of the challenge: First, Tarzan might have broken the record for "least time lasted in an endurance challenge." I'm not exaggerating when I say he survived maybe a quarter of a second after Jeff announced the challenge was "officially on." His bucket starts to tip before Jeff even finishes his monologue! Later in the challenge, we get to see Alicia make a fool of herself by making a selfish decision and trying to spin it to her alliance like she's doing them a favor. Essentially, she claims that she could last a long time in the challenge, but she is going to generously opt out at the next food offer and allow her tribemate Chelsea to win the challenge. Jeff is incredulous at this statement and it seems that Chelsea is too. It's not like this is Big Brother where the winner of the challenge gets photos from home and other sentimental goodies— the only benefit to winning Immunity here is keeping it away from the men. In Alicia's defense, some of the other women also stepped down for food, but at least they didn't try and insult Chelsea's intelligence by making it seem like it was some altruistic sacrifice. Anyway, it comes down to a showdown between Chelsea and Leif. Chelsea convinces Leif that it's in his best interest to lower his threat level by stepping down and accepting Jeff's offer of burgers, chips, and beer. I kind of wish Leif had refused the offer and we got a true battle of endurance; we don't get to see exactly how long this challenge lasted, but the final "Time Elapsed" chyron appears 45 minutes in when there were 4 people left, and I can't imagine it went on for too much longer than that. Sidenote: The editors should always tell us the exact duration an endurance challenge lasts— it's fun for challenge nerds like me!

3/5

Return From The Dead Miscellaneous Challenge / Skill

Alright here we go, as I foreshadowed in my previous entry, One World is the season with the final appearance of an all-time classic challenge, the Survivor Pentathlon— elements of past challenges strung together to form a nostalgic gauntlet. To be frank, the last few appearances of this challenge have been quite underwhelming, especially South Pacific's version, which was a particular dud. But thankfully, for this 17th and last ever Survivor Pentathlon, the challenge designers have stepped up their game, at least in part. At least this time, there are 3 rounds that are all quite different from each other, as opposed to last season where there were only 2 rounds and both were very similar. Still not as good as the Survivor Pentathlons of the single-digit seasons, but I'll take what I can get at this point. The first stage is a throwback to D.I.Y. Knots, which actually works a lot better in this setting than it did in its original form. Only the first 3 players to finish move on to the second round, which is a throwback to one of my favorites, Coco Pops. Each player is responsible for shattering 3 targets, and the first 2 to succeed move on to the final round. The final round is a throwback to Coco Connection. Here, the win conditions are the same as before, but the grid has been shrunken down to only 3 by 3 instead of 5 by 5, a more appropriate size for a Survivor Pentathlon. Jeff reveals that Troyzan's advantage he won in the Auction is that he gets to skip right to the second round; a decent advantage, but in my opinion, significantly weaker than past challenge advantages that were awarded in the Auction. I think that's a good thing though, as some of those advantages were a bit too OP.

Speaking of Troyzan, he's an absolute legend in this challenge— an obnoxious legend, but a legend nonetheless. He knows that he's on the outs and that if he doesn't win this challenge, there's nothing he can do to avoid being voted out tonight. So, he's a bit fired up, to put it lightly... Kim, Christina, and Tarzan advance from the first round and join Troyzan in the Coco Pops stage. This round is pretty intense, with all 4 competitors making steady progress and remaining evenly matched. Nevertheless, Troyzan is the first person to knock out all his targets, and he isn't exactly modest in his celebration; first, he loudly shouts "COME ON!" Then, he leaps off this platform onto the ground and exclaims "THIS IS MY ISLAND! YOU CAN'T BEAT ME!" That's right, the island of Upolu belongs to Troyzan now. Hopefully the Samoan government doesn't mind. Troyzan's reaction greatly annoys everyone on the sit-out bench who were knocked out in the first round. Each of them grumble and complain in their own way, but Sabrina is the funniest: "Oh please. Oh, OH MY GOD. PLEASE knock this fool out." It's hilarious. The final round ends up being Troyzan vs Tarzan, and while it's a real nail-biter, Troyzan is the first to shatter 3 tiles in a row. He revels in his win exactly how you'd expect him to— shouting in glory, pumping his chest, and best of all— pointing to everyone who lost and yelling "Don't F*** with me!" His tribemates aren't impressed; Chelsea tells him that he just lost all 9 of their jury votes, and Sabrina reminds him he only bought himself one round, that's it. But Troyzan is a bit more optimistic: "I'm gonna continue like that, I'm competitive. You guys are scared to death. I've been going 50%, so now I'm like... let's go." Again, Troyzan excels at being a cringeworthy underdog, and I love him for it. On its own, this challenge is probably a 3/5, but Troyzan's antics are one of my favorite things that happen in this season, so it gets a boost for that.

4/5

Slip Slidin' Away Skill / Physical Race

Our next Immunity Challenge is a reimagining of an old classic, and I think the result is awesome. It's named after this Paul Simon song of the same name; challenges named after popular music will only become more common as we continue our journey through the Survivor catalogue. This is a brand new variation of Slip, Slide & Score, which first appeared in Survivor: Fiji and made a second appearance a few seasons back in Heroes vs Villains. Back then it was a tribal challenge where members from each tribe faced off 1-on-1 to try and score a point for their tribe. Even though it's now an individual challenge, it still uses a 1-on-1 format, which is quite unique; this isn't the type of challenge we would typically get in a Survivor Post-Merge. Each round, 2 players are randomly selected to square off with each other. The winner moves on to the semi-finals, and the loser is eliminated. In the original version of this challenge, players had to grab a numbered ball as they sped down the slip and slide, and then attempt to land that ball in a basket. This version is similar in a lot of ways— you still have the giant slip and slide, you still have the entire cast covered in oil, redefining what it means to be "island hot—" but now, instead of a numbered ball, you have to pick up one or more rings placed along the slide. The final test of skill is now a ring toss; the first to land a ring on one of three pegs moves on. The quarter-finals demand only 1 ring to be landed, the semi-finals demand 2, and the final round requires 3 rings to be landed in order to win the challenge. The stakes are high going into this challenge, but it doesn't take long for them to come crashing down; we're thick in the middle of One World's Pagonging, and Troyzan still has to win this challenge in order to survive. Unfortunately for him, he forgets to unleash the other 50% of his true power and is knocked out by Tarzan in his very first match-up. After that, the episode is pretty much over if you only care about who gets voted out each night, but there's still fun to be had with the rest of this challenge. It's just one of those really fun ones, you know?

3/5

I Hold On Endurance

As we near the end of Survivor: One World (for better or for worse), it's time for one last endurance challenge, and I have to say, this one is pretty cool. It's essentially a new variation of Splash Back, the challenge from Nicaragua that Jane completely dominated where you have to hold onto a rope to avoid falling into the water. Two big changes in this version though: First, instead of holding onto the rope with their backs facing away from the water, now every player has to reach backwards to grab onto the rope, with their bodies oriented towards the water. Second, instead of the players having to move their arms down a knot every few minutes to make the challenge more difficult, Jeff takes matters into his own hands— he has access to this giant wheel that he cranks every so often, which gradually increases the slack on each player's rope. The result is effectively the same, but this is way cooler. I freaking love the sound the crank makes as Jeff turns it; it feels like the type of thing you'd expect to hear and see in some sort of torture dungeon. If anything, the design of this challenge harkens back to the final Immunity Challenge of Survivor: Fiji, where Jeff had a similar instrument he used to make the competition more grueling over time. Most of the players fall out of this challenge pretty early, but Kim and Kat last for at least an hour. Kat knows that she doesn't have much strength left, and whines for a bit about how she really wants to win and how Kim "wins all of them." That's a bit of a stretch— Kim has won one of them. A few moments later, and now Kim has won two of them, after a great performance but nothing as exciting as what we saw in Nicaragua. Still, this version impresses me in its own way with its fancy crank mechanics, so that's why I'm giving it the same score.

3/5

Bone to Pick Skill / Mental

Speaking of Redemption Island, this next challenge is ripped directly from that season. In fact, it's happening at the exact same point in the game, the Final 6 Immunity Challenge. This was the one where each player had one arm tied behind their backs, and they had to use fish hooks to grab bags of puzzle pieces. The puzzle pieces were in the form of little fish bones which had to be carefully placed in their corresponding places on the hanging fish puzzle frame. Everything is exactly the same in this reappearance of the challenge, including my feelings on it; it's a fine little challenge that has some interesting elements, but it doesn't really stand very much. It's pretty much the embodiment of "good enough." Good enough to not get the lowest score, that is. The challenge ends up being a showdown between Kim and Alicia; at some point, Kim secures a pretty big lead over everyone else, but she loses a ton of time trying to hook her last bag of puzzle pieces, and pretty much everyone catches up to her. From there, Alicia and Kim get back to the puzzle station at about the exact same time to begin inserting the final few pieces. It's a very exciting last few seconds of the challenge, if only undermined a little by the fact that the audience knows that it essentially makes no difference who wins the challenge between these two ladies. And that's the last time we ever see Bone to Pick... Listen, it's not the best challenge of all time, but I kind of feel bad for it— Imagine only getting to appear in 2 Survivor seasons, and the two seasons you are chosen for are Redemption Island and One World. Oof. That might be the most depressing life ever lived by a Survivor challenge.

2/5

Balance Beam Maze Physical Race / Skill

I think at this point, it's a pretty safe assumption that the finale episode of a Survivor season will contain at least one truly massive challenge— One that kind of blows you away with just how much time and effort must have went into its construction. (I guess Samoa and Nicaragua are recent exceptions.) So to no one's surprise, Survivor: One World keeps the tradition going with a challenge that is simply fantastic in scale. In most recent seasons, the big finale challenge has either been a giant maze (with or without blindfolds), or some variation of Out on a Limb. One World is a little bit different though; there certainly is a maze, but it only makes up half of the challenge, and it's not really your typical Survivor finale maze. In that sense, I sort of view this challenge as a sort of potpourri of various roadblocks that come together to form one of the greatest obstacle courses to ever appear on the show.

Let's walk through each section; it begins with a simple knot-untying obstacle; players have to reach their arms behind a wooden fence to access the knots and ultimately open their gate; it's a simple little obstacle, and really just an hors d'oeuvre compared to what's coming next, the maze. As Survivor mazes always are, it's a really cool maze that makes me feel jealous since I know I'll never get to try it. Still, it isn't quite one of the all-time spectacular mazes we've seen on this show, but I think that is a fair trade off given there is still so much more challenge to come afterwards. This maze is unique because the whole thing is in the form of a balance beam, making the navigation aspect a lot trickier than your standard maze. One detail I really appreciate is how all the beams are sloped to varying degrees. It would have been so much easier for the challenge team to just keep everything at the same elevation, but they went the extra mile to not only make the challenge more visually appealing, but undoubtedly more difficult. The objective is simply to get from one side of the maze to the other; unlike most Survivor mazes, you don't have to visit stations or anything like that. Once a player completes the maze, they get to run up some stairs and onto a giant rope net. There, they need to run around to five groups of bags, untying the bag that matches their color from each group. While the rope net doesn't add that much from a gameplay perspective, it's just another thing that's aesthetically really awesome. Once all 5 bags are collected, the players then have to use the puzzle pieces inside to put together a fairly tricky jigsaw puzzle; the pieces have strange shapes and there are a lot of them, so it's definitely a bit harder than your average Survivor puzzle— and you'd expect nothing less for a puzzle in the finale. That's still not the end of the challenge though— when successfully put together, the puzzle reveals text that gives them clues to 3 numbers they need to unlock a combination lock. And get this, it's a counting challenge– awesome right?! The first line tells them to count the number of skulls on the puzzle. The second line tells them to count the number of puzzle pieces (probably the most challenging task on paper), and the third line tells them to count the number of words on the puzzle (this is getting meta...) Once a player thinks they have all the right numbers, they have to scale a rope wall and then climb up a bridge to the combination lock— in other words, there is a penalty if you're incorrect, because it's quite the hassle to go all the way back down and recount. Kim is in the lead for most of the challenge and is the first to make it to her combination lock, but one of her numbers is incorrect. You see, the challenge team was very sneaky with the skull question— while there are a bunch of human skulls on the puzzle, there is also a single cow skull, which looks totally out of place and is very easy to disregard while counting. It was clearly an intentional pitfall the producers set up and Kim fell right into it. By this point in the challenge, the rest of the players are catching up, but in an exciting finish, Kim manages to recount, realize her mistake, and enter the correct combination before anyone manages to beat her.

5/5

Operation Balance Build Dexterity

The final Immunity Challenge of the season is exactly what it's supposed to be— An extremely nerve-racking, punishing, and equal-opportunity dexterity challenge that is anxiety incarnate. Right now we're still sort of in the golden age of Survivor dexterity challenges; they were only really invented a few seasons ago, the first being Domino Effect in Survivor: Gabon, and since then, we've been blessed with a whole bunch of really cool ideas in the span of only a couple years of the show. Survivor: One World wraps up with yet another brand new dexterity challenge for the series, and it's another excellent one: Operation Balance Build. It continues to appear on the show every few years, which I think is perfect; it's not overused and its not underused, to me it feels just right. It's another challenge that subscribes to the simple but effective design philosophy; the objective is to stack 10 small bowls on top of a structure. Each bowl has to be transported one at a time using an oversized prong; essentially, you have to take each bowl on its own little journey through a metal structure, and once you make it through, you can stack the bowl on top. The catch is that the entire structure is mounted on a spring, making it very wobbling and extremely sensitive to sudden collisions— get the issue? Every single time you transport the next bowl through the structure, you run the risk of accidentally banging the prong against the structure too hard, which could easily reset your progress in the challenge back to zero. Like most dexterity challenges, success demands on having an exquisite balance between patience and urgency. There is virtually no room for error; if you go too slow, someone who is faster than you will beat you. If you get too fast, you will cause your stack to collapse. It's that beautiful dexterity dilemma that I love so much. It's a tense struggle to 1st place, but in the end, Kim wins the final challenge of the season, tying the female record for most individual Immunity wins in a season with Kelly Wiglesworth and Jenna Morasca, two legends in their own rights. If this was the challenge where Kat had complained that Kim was winning all the Immunity Challenges, then I'd see where she was coming from!

4/5