During Survivor’s first season in 2000, contestant Kelly Wiglesworth (arms raised) told her rivals she wasn’t there to make friends.Montry Brinton/CBS/Paramount+/Supplied
“I’m not here to make friends.”
It was Survivor contestant Kelly Wiglesworth who popularized this reality-television riposte in the very first season of the show back in 2000.
The phrase has since been so often repeated on TV (supercuts abound on YouTube) that it’s come to feel representative of the knotty appeal of unscripted television in general.
But with Survivor kicking off its 50th season on Feb. 25, with great and memorable contestants from the past returning to compete, I think it’s also worth reflecting on the friendships that have been made – and maintained – along the way.
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Host Jeff Probst during Survivor’s 28th season.CBS/Paramount+/Supplied
Many real relationships have been forged and fixed between viewers watching all those castaways betray and blindside each other over 49 seasons to win the US$1-million prize – as I’ve rediscovered since returning to the fold of Survivor fandom during season 37. (I was lured back in by the participation of screenwriter Mike White, then still pre-White Lotus.)
Lisa Lambert, the Tony Award-winning co-creator of Canada’s first hit Broadway musical The Drowsy Chaperone, runs a long-running Survivor pool and e-mail thread. My wife and I were inducted into the group after a session of talking gameplay and Jeff Probst fashion sense at a party.
Lisa Lambert watching Survivor in 2022 with her friends John Mitchell, Christopher Richards and Scott Anderson.Lisa Lambert/Supplied
The 18-member pool has made me watch and stay invested, and has reminded me of the enduring power of a show to bring people together, week after week, season after season, through changing lives and times.
It can make a silly show with tribal councils and immunity idols gain a power and poignancy that goes beyond what’s on screen.
Survivor has been a social lubricant for Lambert’s community, mostly from the Canadian comedy scene, since it debuted and inaugural winner Richard Hatch captivated millions by cavorting naked in Borneo.
“I’ve watched all the seasons,” says Lambert, who has a standing Wednesday date to watch the show with friends. “I wouldn’t even like the idea of missing one.”
The pool Lambert runs involves no money. She supplies the prize for picking the sole survivor each season (or coming closest) – a surprisingly large shipment of candy. “After an episode, I want people to discuss it,” she explains. “So really, everybody’s indulging me and the reward is candy at the end.”
Richard Hatch, the winner of Survivor season 1.MONTY BRINTON/CBS/Paramount+/Supplied
But the social rewards of being up-to-date on who’s still on the island go beyond the pool.
Sandy Balcovske, a theatre director and Second City veteran who views Survivor as “long-form improv,” attests to the power of Canada’s highest-rated reality show as an icebreaker when she’s feeling socially awkward at gatherings.
“You don’t run out of things to say within a minute,” she says. “You’ve got 25 years of material to work with.”
If you’ve been watching Survivor that long, you’ve got a quarter-century of personal history attached to it as well.
With two seasons per year for 25 years, Survivor leaves fans with plenty to discuss.Robert Voets/CBS/Paramount+/Supplied
Lambert’s begins, fittingly, with a 25th birthday party.
Matt Watts, the Canadian comedy writer and actor, turned that age on May 31, 2000, the day of the show’s premiere.
Watts met Lambert, actor Jonathan Crombie and other friends at a pool hall in Toronto after the first episode aired – his celebration was delayed so he could tune in.
“I was a big Gilligan’s Island fan as a kid. And I was like, ‘They’re doing Gilligan’s Island as a reality show?’” recalls Watts, known for writing and acting in CBC’s The Newsroom and Michael: Every Day.
Lambert was more skeptical of the premise when she was first told about it. “I thought it would be sort of a Jerry Springer type-thing on a field trip,” she recalls.
But Watts’s rave review led to her tuning in to the third instalment – ironically, the iconic Wiglesworth “not here to make friends” episode marking the start of a new friendship ritual. Soon enough, there were weekly group viewings at a Manning Avenue house that Lambert then shared with Jennifer Whalen (later of Baroness von Sketch Show) and artist John Webster.
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As that Survivor-watching community grew older, however, lives and careers got more complicated and dispersed, and the concept of appointment viewing was blasted away by the streaming revolution.
And so in the early 2010s, superfans Lambert and Crombie, who was best known for playing Gilbert Blythe in the 1985 TV iteration of Anne of Green of Gables, started a Survivor pool and e-mail thread at a time when so many social interactions were shifting online.
Season 17 Survivor contestants attempt to complete a reward challenge.Monty Brinton/CBS/Paramount+/Supplied
Tragedy struck a few years later, however, when Crombie died in 2015 from a brain aneurysm at 48.
The Survivor pool he had co-founded survived and became something to remember him by, in a way. “I kept the thing going because he loved it so much,” says Lambert.
Indeed, Lambert even picked a contender on behalf of Crombie in the pool for Season 31, the first after he passed away. “I drew a card and it was for Jeremy,” she recalls.
Week after week, that contestant – a firefighter from Massachusetts – kept making it through tribal councils and eventually, he won.
“It gives me a chill remembering that,” says Greg Morrison, another Survivor pool member, who wrote the lyrics and music to The Drowsy Chaperone with Lambert.
Survivor has adapted to survive over 25 years, of course – and complaints abound among long-time pool participants about some of the changes.
In the show’s so-called new era, the filming period has been shortened by 13 days.Robert Voets/CBS/Paramount+/Supplied
The shortening of the competition’s filming period by 13 days in the “new era” that began in season 41 is something both Balcovske and Watts believe has diluted the central survival aspect.
“They don’t fish any more because they realize the amount of energy required to fish,” notes Watts. “They do as little as possible and ride out the game.”
Lambert herself has mixed feelings about all the superfans who play now – and isn’t wild about episodes expanding to 90 minutes.
But she’s still all-in for Survivor 50; she’s prepping for her pool pick and is thinking of selecting one for Crombie, too, for this anniversary season.
“Survivor is such a good game,” Lambert says. “There’s no way to wreck it.”