Survivor

Even though I watch too much television, it's rare for me to become addicted to any show. This is a rare exception. Season one is now over, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. It's already one of my favorite programs of all-time, and even though I have doubts about how much I will like the next "Survivor" season, I'll always remember the first season as genuinely entertaining (and at times, riveting) television.

Oh, and the right person won, too!

This is simply one of the big landmarks of TV history for better or worst. The first season was addictive and insanely entertaining. It took awhile to figure it out but as one of the contestant soon realized, this is a simple game show at its core. Everything else is a matter of set dressing. It is however one of the most original game show ever. The best thing about the first few shows is that the contestants were still figuring out how to play the game. As the years have gone by, the contestants have settled on strategies and the game has become repetitive. No matter how many changes to the game, the shock of originality has been lost. But this show will always have its place in TV history. It signaled the start of a whole new genre and that doesn't happen every day.

For some reason it seems that the odd numbered survivor seasons aren't as good (Except for Season 1 of course). Example: Africa- The scenery was boring and some of the cast was interesting but overall it wasn't anything great. Thailand- Probably the worst ever. The location was good but the cast was the worst yet. But FINALLY that curse has ended because PEARL ISLANDS is Great.

First off- the location is perfect. I really like the pirate theme, its one that hasn't been used yet and it works.

Secondly the cast is awesome. Rupert is one of my all-time favorite Survivors. He's Richard Hatch with a heart. Osten is something else, a lazy guy with a good personality. Jon is a pain-in-the-ass and probably the most annoying Survivor since Lindsey on Survivor 3. Jon is so smug, but he does make the game interesting, even though you want to strangle him.

Overall- This is the only really watchable Reality Show in my opinion and Mark Burnett is really talented. He changes things every week so people don't get sick of it. Can't wait for season 8!! ALL STARS!

Thanks For Reading-

Survivor was my favorite show for years for these reasons:

• A clever social game: Vote people out and somehow still convince them to give you a million dollars, how do you do that.

• The survival elements: How do modern-world people deal with lack of food and sleep deprivation, and hard physical labor.

• The challenges: Throughout the years they introduced many great challenges that require a diverse skill set. Sometimes it's physical strength, sometimes it's ingenuity or remembrence, sometimes pure willpower. Among my favorites were when players had to build a shelter and a local juror decided which was best (Boston Rob won I think), or one time they had to build a raft that could float on water.

Also, it's family-friendly and my wife and I were looking forward to sharing the Survivor experience with our kids.

But now I'm watching season 41 and there's hardly anything left of the trademark elements that made Survivor this great show:

• Challenges: All are now basically "some parcours with a puzzle at the end" (for teams) and "stand on a platform and balance stuff" (for individual immunity). No diversity, none of the great challenges from previous seasons. Extremely boring to the point where I just fast-forward to see who won.

• Survival: You hardly see players search for food or build shelters anymore. They keep saying they're food-deprevated but somehow it doesn't show. Either the new players are all Bear Gryllz or it has gotten softer as compared with previous seasons where players lost dozens of pounds and sometimes quit because they couldn't take it.

• Social game: It's still the same game but the original strategies that used to be played are now buried under a pile of advantages and idols and idol-nullifiers and super-idols and what not. On top of that, everything now centers around race and identity in Season 41 to the point where players cry about voting someone else out because they have the same racial background, really? It's the 21st century and we're going back to using race and ethnicity as the primal characteristic to judge people? I'm not from the US and I could relate to all sorts of players of different backgrounds throughout the years but this is the exact opposite of inclusiveness that we're seeing right now.

Such a shame that it came to this, they should have canceled after season 40 and be done with it. I won't watch season 42.

I'm disgusted that I've just watched 2 seasons where all of a sudden race is an issue. I've watched it from the beginning and now will never watch it again. It's a game. It doesn't matter your ethnicity. And Jeff just allowed it to be about racism. I hope it gets cancelled. All we wanted to do was watch a great show with people from every race that come and work together. And yes people get voted out. Get over it.