We may be living in the first decent era for reality TV in some time. From The Traitors to the revived Big Brother to the juggernaut that is Married at First Sight, reality shows have become talking points again. Survivor has long been a titan of the genre in the US, though its first attempt at a UK version, which appeared on ITV in the early 00s, lasted only two series. Now, the BBC has revived it, with a confident Saturday/Sunday double bill, featuring hosting duties from The Masked Singer’s Joel Dommett, here more rugged and windswept than in his usual Saturday night suit.
The theme tune sounds more like the sort of track you would find over the credits of a gloomy Scandi-noir drama such as The Killing or The Bridge, which is even funnier when coupled with Dommett’s grave explanations of how it all works. As he talks of “a dramatic sunset showdown where they must sacrifice one of their own”, you start to wonder if it’s all going to go a bit Squid Game.
This is “an intense game of trust and betrayal”, for sure, but it’s not that intense. Actually, it’s all rather familiar, even if you haven’t seen the US series. A big group of strangers gets shipped off to deserted beaches in the Dominican Republic. There, the group is split into two teams, or “tribes” – in this case, called Caletón and La Nena – and they must compete in various tasks and challenges, in order to win things such as tarpaulins, food, or immunity from eviction. It’s a sports day for adults, with extra rope, wood and hessian.
Naturally, as happens on all these shows, there are problems from the off. Some contestants cannot get a fire going. Some are left hungry and grumpy, after being reduced to basic rations. Some are dominant, some are passive, some are seen as lazy. There are complaints about critters that make you wonder if they expected to spend 34 days at Center Parcs, rather than roughing it outdoors in the Caribbean.
The recent Alone, on Channel 4, tasked contestants with surviving in the Canadian wilderness, with minimal provisions and without another human being in sight. Survivor, meanwhile, is much more about people than the environment. It is Alone-ish, but with a hefty does of early-00s Big Brother tacked on. First, the contestants have their tribal loyalties, but then they form alliances within their tribes. Putting them under the pressure of not having a fire, for example, is really only a way of turning the screws and testing their relationships with each other.
At the end of each episode, a Tribal Council is convened to send one of them home. As in The Traitors, these are hilariously serious and straight-faced discussions, which are fascinating to witness, if only to see how people can perform spectacular contortions to avoid saying that they simply don’t like someone else. Once the fire has been “snuffed out, so are you,” says Dommett, as he prepares to send someone home.
All this portentous language doesn’t really fit the spirit of Survivor, which is largely quite cheerful and energetic, at least to start with. In the opening pair of episodes, there are clearly some characters with a capital C. There is Pegleg, who owns a surf school and has one leg (Dommett double-checks that it’s OK to call him that, only to be told that Pegleg has changed his name by deed poll, so it’s absolutely fine.) He thinks the others might underestimate him, which should help him to get further in the competition. There is Laurence, who is half-Austrian, studies AI at Cambridge and loves polo. There is Jess, from London, who reminds me a little of Maddy from The Traitors, and there’s Lee, the pro boxer, who looks as if he is competing with fitness instructor Nathan to be the muscles of the show.
After the first challenge – which Dommett narrates with a bit too much gusto, describing every single thing that happens as if it’s not playing out right in front of us – things settle down. The episodes are a bit baggy, but that can happen early on, when there are a lot of new people to get to know. It’s well cast, with that crucial variety of competitors, who are not all just gym bods or wannabe Bear Grylls types. It may be the first time Survivor has aired on British TV in 20 years, but it feels like something you know already, partly because there are elements of so many other shows in there. It isn’t a reinvention of the wheel, then, but it is an enjoyable and comfortingly recognisable trip to the beach.
Survivor aired on BBC One and is available on iPlayer.
