Stephen Thompson

Well, I didn't intend the ranking to work this way, but it has worked this way.

That in fifth place is a season where I think if you were Survivor curious, but maybe you haven't watched Survivor since that first season, maybe the first couple of seasons,

The first episode of this season, I think, is a perfect place to start.

In fifth place, I picked Survivor Pearl Islands, which is the seventh season of the show.

It is, I think, the best of the kind of early iterations of Survivor, kind of old school Survivor.

You get several iconic scenes.

Yeah, absolutely.

You have a kind of all-time survivor villain in this guy who calls himself Johnny Fairplay and envisions himself as kind of a pro-wrestling style heel.

Some very notorious gameplay.

One of the first major season-altering twists happens in this season, so it's kind of setting the table for a lot of Survivor to come.

And it really does kick off with, I think, one of the best individual episodes of Survivor ever.

The stage setting that goes on in this season, I think, is really excellent.

Well, I think this one is one of the most polarizing seasons because of its very unfortunate core concept.

But I think it is an all-time great season.

It is Survivor Cook Islands, which is the 13th season of the show.

This is famously known as the season of Survivor in which tribes were divided by race.

Now...

The notion of a season of Survivor where the core concept is essentially Survivor race wars does not seem like it would lend itself to particularly enjoyable television.

But the effect of it, first of all, they shuffle the tribes after two episodes.

So they kind of abandon that concept right away.