Survivor

It’s Wednesday, September 23rd and Survivor is BACK!

I started watching Survivor in May of 2020 and it quickly became my “retreat inward to escape the realities of the pandemic” show. I watched all 40 seasons over the following few months, with Taylor starting shortly after. We were both caught up and ready to start watching live when season 41 started in September of 2021. Since then, I can count on one hand the number of episodes we haven’t been able to watch when they aired. We’ve watched in hotel rooms while traveling and we’ve synced up and watched together when we’re in different parts of the country. And we’ve been doing this for 10 seasons now! It takes a lot for us to miss an episode live.

We use a VPN to watch in Eastern time

Beyond just watching the show, we now have a ritual that we like to call Survivor Pizza Wednesday. If you’re unfamiliar with the show, pizza is often a food reward given to the contestants for winning a challenge. At some point, we made a habit of getting pizza every week when we watched, partly as a reference to the show and partly because we like pizza. Then we started calling it Survivor Pizza Wednesday. I like to mix up a Mai Tai for Taylor, too. I love sharing Survivor Pizza Wednesday with Taylor a whole lot.

The Mai Tai I made for Taylor tonight (pizza not pictured)

I’m always trying to get more people into Survivor. We’ve gotten some friends to watch a handful of seasons (including showing our good friends some of Heroes vs. Villains while on vacation earlier this summer). My dad, and more recently my mom, have started watching too. I would love it if you, dear reader, would also watch all 50 seasons of Survivor and then talk to me about them! It’s always nice to have more people to talk about Survivor with. And yes, there are 50 seasons and the 51st is what premiered tonight. They do two seasons every year, and once you get into Survivor you will be thankful for this.

Survivor almost getting the best of Boston Rob in Heroes vs. Villains

There is just such a great feeling about finding out someone is also a Survivor fan. Part of that is that if someone is still watching Survivor in 2026, you automatically know they are a pretty big fan of the show. And what’s better than being excited about something you enjoy and getting to share that with others? I truly love that I have so many friends that I can chat with about Survivor in Discord or Instagram or wherever.

There are certain things going on in my brain that would make actually being on Survivor particularly challenging for me, but I would absolutely love to be on the show. There’s a growing part of me that thinks I could do it as I make progress working on the aforementioned things going on in my brain. Taylor and I have joked about starting our “Survivor training regimen”, which would consist of practicing making fire, opening coconuts, untying knots, working on our balance, and doing various spatial puzzles with large wooden blocks. Maybe it’s finally time to start.