It’s been almost five years since Survivor gave us a season with a majority of returning players, but that doesn’t mean former castaways aren’t getting together on their own. In fact, if you follow a lot of ex-players on social media, you’ll likely notice some of them seem to hang out with other former Survivor players all the time. A lot of times they’re not even from the same season, like, for example, Survivor finalist Ben Katzman and legend of the game Coach Wade.
Katzman is a musician with the band DeGreaser, and Benjamin Coach Wade is a skilled trumpet player who belted out the National Anthem at the Bills game earlier this year. They’ve gotten together to play music before, and this week, they apparently got together to share Thanksgiving dinner. Check out this delightful madness…
Given how much Survivor players hang out with each other and the fact that we’ve had reunion seasons before, it seems likely we are going to get plenty of castaways on Season 50, which will feature all returning players, who have preexisting relationships. In fact, Boston Rob, arguably the most famous Survivor player of all time, has already said people are going to form alliances before the game even begins. Exactly who will be chosen, however, is still a matter of very fierce debate, and it likely depends on what host Jeff Probst’s philosophy is going to be.
The longtime face of Survivor recently said publicly that he’s looking for positive players and will stay away from people who have an axe to grind. He later clarified that doesn’t mean he won’t be casting people who play hard or villains. It just means he won’t be casting people who have bad attitudes. That helps explain a little bit, but the bigger question is whether he’s looking to cast legends of the game.
There are ten or so Survivor players that have made numerous appearances on the show and are widely considered Survivor royalty. Coach is definitely among them, but that list would also include people like Boston Rob, Sandra, Parvati, Cirie, Tony, Rupert and Tyson, among many others. There are some fans who feel strongly they should be on Survivor 50 because it’s a landmark season and they are the landmark players. There are others, however, who feel we have watched these people play a ton of different times, and the better call is to cast people like Ben who had a delightful one season run and would be enjoyable to watch play again.
Personally, I’m hoping Survivor gives us a combination of the two. I’d love to see three tribes of 8 people, one of which has all legends, one of which has one season players that did really well and one of which has one season players who seemed a lot better than where they finished. That would offer a nice bit of balance, and it would also allow us to see a bunch of fun and unexpected connections– like say Coach and Ben.
We’ve still got a few more seasons before we get to Survivor 50 though. We’re near the end of Season 47 right now, and it’s a pretty fantastic season filled with some very memorable players, some big meltdowns and a lot of blindsiding. You can check it out on CBS on Wednesday nights or you can catch up via Paramount +.
