Family | Arts & Culture | Television

The ‘Survivor’ Notebook

I remember the day Mom said “stage IV metastatic,” so now I need a show with forty seasons.

1.

He crows from the top of an island surrounded by blue. He yells from the door of a helicopter peeling into the horizon. He shouts from a boat, Americans scrambling for supplies and jumping into the sea. This number of days, this many people, one Survivor.

2.

Tell me what you would do for “a million bucks.” Does “bucks” focus-test better than “dollars”? What has happened so far for the winners? One gets busted for tax evasion. One says she still shops at Walmart. One abused people and bought sports cars. One bit a police officer after getting pulled over while driving an SUV with the vanity plate SURVIVOR. One bought a Harley. One sells insurance. One became friends with Damien Rice. One opened fro-yo shops. A few traveled. Many of them have children. One planned to start a production company, and wrote like sixty poems. One paid for medical school. One bought a pink chandelier for his wife. They paid off debt.

3.

There has been a generation of Survivor seasons. A few months ago, I made myself giggly asking, What do you think it’s like to be the winner of season 38 of Survivor? Most people: That show still on? Season 40 started on February 12, 2020, with double the prize and twenty people who’ve gotten the million-dollar check (one twice). “Winners at War.” What a title.

4.

Survivor season 33 winner Adam Klein returned home, and his mother died two hours later. He had found out from his brother during the family visit that Mom had stopped treatment for stage IV metastatic lung cancer. He donated $100,000 of his prize to the Stand Up the Cancer— American Cancer Society Lung Cancer Dream Team.

5.

Phrases like “stage IV metastatic” are useful. It is good to avoid the word “dying.”

6.

I would never describe the doctors as a “dream team,” even if I put my mother’s life in their hands. Dream teams belong in movies. (References removed because they are all owned by the Disney Company.)

7.

Two years ago, when the diagnosis leiomyosarcoma came with the phrase “six in a million,” I watched all seven seasons of Scandal. I was learning how to take care of myself. If I noticed sadness, I stopped drinking. And I recognized that bars are generally sad places, if you’re looking. So I would announce to my buddies, I need to check on Olivia Pope! She was in such trouble when I left her.

8.

I remember the day Mom said “stage IV metastatic,” so now I need a show with forty seasons.

9.

I watch Survivor in a time of no-time, the weeks before Mom’s surgery. In season thirty-two, I’m moved by Tai’s final address at tribal council (he got no votes), how he describes a Vietnamese saying that we are plants that float on water. Sometimes, you have to say goodbye. I think about how he modeled a good goodbye to Mark, the chicken, left on the island.

10.

Once, the survivors were working on a puzzle for more than an hour. They couldn’t get it: “a reward with all the fixins.” Jeff said, “Think Survivor. Thirty seasons. I say the same two hundred words over and over and over. I’m in therapy, I say the words so often.”

11.

Survivor wisdom: Perception is reality.

12.

One season, on the final day, the survivors receive a gift: a mirror and a scale. How do you begin to measure the changes in a body? Try to imagine what 200 calories a day might look like. How do you understand yourself as wasting away? But, also, this is Survivor, so the scale is covered in rattan. Something to make it look primal. Producers place clean water in a production-installed well every few days. The Survivor simulacrum of life, featuring the Survivor Café, Survivor Outback Steakhouse, Survivor Spa. Survivor as a way to tell your personal story to millions, and Survivor as understanding of the word “Americans” as a marketable concept.

13.

Jenna, winner of The Amazon, played while her mom had cancer. She came back in All-Stars and quit before the third immunity challenge. She told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “I immediately didn’t feel right. It was like a disconnection where I was. I felt like my body was there, but my heart and soul was somewhere else. I never felt that, ever. That made me realize this had to be a sign of something.” Her mom died eight days after her return.

He describes a Vietnamese saying that we are plants that float on water. Sometimes, you have to say goodbye.

14.

Survivor interview with an injured veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Survivor moment of silence for the victims of Newtown. Survivor Tribal Council where one contestant outs another as transgender. Survivor’s #MeToo moment.

15.

What I understand is that the goal of life is coping skills. We are just looking for grace. Did you see Cirie get “voted out” of Game Changers? Her standing ovation at the finale? Cirie Fields. Jeff Probst had to speak on her grace. It moved him. You could see that. Yes, he is a TV host. (And showrunner. Clever.) But as he watched Cirie deal with plain bad luck—being the only person of six without immunity, and therefore out of the game—he applauded her grace. Some people are like that. They salute you when you fold. But still, oh, grace. There but for it. Hail Mary, full of it.

16.

One of the words is “covet.” When Jeff introduces the switch from tribal immunity (a statue, or idol) to individual immunity (a necklace), he says, “This is now what you covet.”

17.

“Medevac” is short for medical evacuation. A survivor falls in the fire. Stomach pain. Infection. Injury. Plummeting blood pressure. An injured wrist requiring surgery. Faked appendicitis. Corneal abrasion. His body giving up. Heat stroke. More injury.

18.

Voluntary departures: A family emergency. His son. Her mother. His pregnant girlfriend. And some quitters.

19.

I used to hope that there was a season of Survivor that I still hadn’t seen, but now I have seen them all. There are no more surprises in the back catalog, except the ones which I forget, and I don’t typically remember Survivors unless I remember them for being particularly cute. Did you know Elisabeth Hasselbeck was on season two? Trivia.

20.

We invoke the Survivor gods. For good weather. For security (an idol, an advantage, a secret, a diversion). For grace.

21.

Two years ago, I asked my mom what she did when she was scared. I asked her if she prayed, but I don’t think I knew enough to use those words. And she said, yes, she prays to Mary. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. She also prays to her grandmother in heaven. This is how people try to survive.

22.

Love as something that can be won. Trust as something that usually gets broken. Surviving as the goal. A million bucks to make it worth it. Something to bring back to your love.

23.

In season two, Survivor: The Australian Outback, there is a wildfire. A report on season two’s production conditions notes, “the ozone level is somewhat depleted above much of Australia.” In the past twenty years or so, we have stopped using “ozone level” in mainstream speech.

24.

Producers pulled out of a planned season four Survivor: Arabia because of 9/11. In “A Tribe of One,” Ianic Roy Richard writes, “Knowing we came so close to seeing a season where players would be given camels and asked to sleep out in the Arabian desert but didn’t get to see it is unfortunate. It would have truly been a time capsule to a completely different world.” I wonder less about the camels and more about the Arabs. What does it mean to be the background of Survivor?

25.

There is a division between “old-school” players who want to help out around camp, make a good shelter, tend the fire, go fish, and “new-school” players who just hang out on the beach, or sleep all day. Anyone can win.

26.

Sometimes on the weekends, I wake up and turn on the TV before I do anything else. I watch Survivor and drink water or coffee. I write in my journal and have a snack. After a few hours, I curl up and take a nap. Sometimes I leave Survivor on in the background while I sleep. Sometimes I go back and re-watch the episodes I slept through. Sometimes I wake up just to go back to sleep.

27.

I ask Mom if she has any relief. She says sleep. I ask if she wakes up feeling better, or if it is just being unconscious. The second one. I ask her why she doesn’t sleep more. She starts to cry. She says that you can’t sleep more than twelve hours a day, because that would be choosing to not survive.

28.

These are the words: “In this game, fire represents your life. When your fire’s gone, so are you.” One day you will be gone from the game. We are reminded all the time.

29.

Survivors grieving: Rupert for Balboa the snake. Kimmi for the chickens. Tai for the trees he had to fell.

30.

Yes, in some respects, the game has gotten easier over the years. By going “back to the beach” for season four, Survivor found a motif: Attractive people, skimpy clothes, coconut and other fruit to eat. And they didn’t even have hidden immunity idols until Guatemala. Now, contestants might be sent to Exile Island or Redemption Island or Ghost Island or the Edge of Extinction. It is a series of gimmes and steals; advantages, disadvantages. Who is to say what is fair? What if none of it is fair? No matter. This is a game.

One day you will be gone from the game. We are reminded all the time.

31.

“This is how we do it on Survivor!” Jeff likes to shout, especially when the challenges are hard. “You are gonna have to dig deep!” Survivors fall in the water. They run into obstacles. They struggle to make it through the go-unders, or the high-steps, or the balance beam. They run into trouble on the puzzle. A face full of sawdust. A mouth of grub. Jeff narrates. He tells you when a castaway doesn’t know what to do. When she is throwing herself through this course. When he is hobbling. When the tribes are dead even. When someone has no shot. When someone is back in it. What we can count on: There will be challenges. We will tell the story while it happens.

32.

In 1997’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Dr. Evil has a nefarious plan to hold the world ransom for one million dollars. His senior adviser informs him that it isn’t really much money, and Evil reconfigures: We hold the world ransom for—looking to his adviser for backup—one hundred billion dollars.

33.

According to Credit Suisse’s 2019 global wealth review, there are forty-seven million millionaires worldwide. The 2017 report included this insight: “While the global population of millionaires has grown considerably, the number of ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs)—those with a net worth of $50m or more—has increased even faster. ‘The number of millionaires has increased by 170% [since 2000], while the number of UHNWIs has risen five-fold, making them by far the fastest-growing group of wealth-holders.’”

34.

How long could you live off a million dollars? Up to twenty-five years in Oklahoma (Natalie, season nineteen) or Tennessee (Tina, season two). Around twenty-four years in Alabama (J.T., season eighteen), Idaho (Ben, season thirty-five), Iowa (Sarah, season thirty-four, and Denise, twenty-five), South Carolina (Chris, season thirty-eight), Ohio (Chris, season nine). Twenty-three years in Kentucky (Nick, season thirty-seven) and North Carolina (Sandra, seasons seven and twenty). Just nineteen years in Maine (Bob, season seventeen), eighteen in New Jersey (Tony, season twenty-eight), and seventeen in Massachusetts (Jeremy, season thirty-one). Most Survivors still work.

35.

“Survivor is a morality play. And the morality is, how you treat others will result in how you fare,” Mark Burnett said in a 2010 interview.

36.

“There’s also an underlying sense of death and rebirth in Survivor,” he says, talking about the amber-lit warm tones of life during tribal council, and the cobalt-blue sendoff of the extinguished castaway. “And then there’s a moment of vacuum, of emotional vacuum, before Jeff will turn back, and we’re back on the orange set—”

37.

Life goes on.

38.

Jeff Probst was driving on the 405 when he heard Burnett on the radio and called his agent immediately to get a meeting. After a couple of hours, Burnett said to Probst, I don’t think you can handle it. Being crawled on by rats. Sleeping in a tent. And Probst rips up his resume and says, “This is not me. I’m not a studio guy. I’m a writer. I’ve been in therapy. I get this show. I’m the guy.”

39.

I watch Survivor. Mom survives. I survive. Two years ago, when her cancer knocked me into crisis, I white-knuckled just one imperative: I need to outlive my mother. The survival instinct is as sharp as it needs to be. Crisis can be grief or depression or trauma or illness or dislocation or loneliness. It can be nearly all of them. Adjust the aperture to keep yourself surviving. Hunger, things crawling on you, the heat, the wet, the discomfort, the isolation, the doubts. We scale and crop endlessly, but always keep something with us, a scrap of story to pin up in our chests. I will outlast my mother, and it will be a good game. I might stay sleeping too much, but every time I wake, I’m born anew.