Egg on the Face of ‘Survivor: Australia V The World’

I will not spoil this season of Survivor: Australia V The World for anyone who may want to watch it eventually, but I will say it’s been a blast. It’s a supercharged all-star season with 14 players competing over 16 days. It eliminates the early-season get-to-know-the-cast filler episodes, and the game begins almost immediately. This is a Survivor season that grabs you by the lapels and shakes you. There’s no lollygagging. Alliances shift multiple times per episode, and there are no weak players (well, except Lisa, the sole winner of Survivor New Zealand, who seems to want Cirie to win more than herself).

Early on, I worried they might vote out all the best players quickly, but that was mostly eased by the fact that they’re all great. Still, a few players who dominated in their own seasons were clearly outmatched when confronted by a group of all-stars. A few big fish from little ponds tried to swim in the ocean and got eaten by the great whites.

And you can’t talk about Survivor: Australia V The World without mentioning Parvati and Cirie, working together again for the first time since the Black Widow Brigade in Survivor: Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites. They both know exactly how good they are, and there’s something about their presence that’s so disarming to the other players that those players barely seem to have a chance. For some, it’s almost a bigger honor to play with Cirie and Parvati than it would be to win.

And yet, above it all stands Jonathan LaPaglia, the longtime host of Australian Survivor, who continues to be every bit as good here as he is in a typical Australian Survivor season. He’s not starstruck by anyone, and this season is introducing him to a much wider audience. I know because Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang were yapping about it on the *Las Culturistas* podcast this morning. Everyone knows Cirie and Parvati. Everyone has YouTube (you don’t have to subscribe to a particular streamer). And now they all know Jonathan LaPaglia, too.

What they may not know, now that they’re hooked — and this is the one spoiler I will give — is that LaPaglia is going to be replaced in the next season of Australian Survivor by David Genat, the second guy voted out this season. The second. That’s going to leave a lot of new fans wondering why the guy who expertly oversaw tribal councils with some of the most recognizable faces in the Survivor universe is getting pushed out for that guy.

It’s mind-boggling, like replacing Chris Hemsworth after his breakout as Thor with the fourth brother, Larry Hemsworth. There have been instances of a television series winning an Emmy after being canceled, but how many shows have fired their lead — for no reason — after their most popular season to date? This is world-class idiocy. At least wait until after a less successful season. What are we doing here?

Maybe LaPaglia botches something in the finale that will justify the decision. I doubt it, which is going to make the next season of Australian Survivor super weird when they replace a beloved host with the guy who finished 13th out of 14 in the series’ most-watched season globally.