Day 16: Best Face of Survivor
Survivor 39-Day Challenge
Jeff Probst should be the correct answer here. But, there’s a whole different topic with Jeff at the center of it so I have to exclude him on this one. And I think the category is asking for a castaway anyway.
If having a gigantic statue built to your name does not count as being the face of Survivor, I don’t know what will. That said, on a rare occasion for this challenge, I have a tie. Rob Mariano and Sandra Diaz-Twine are undoubtedly the idols of the island, the faces of Survivor.
Since I have discussed The Queen™ in length on an earlier category, this will be a Boston Rob-heavy text.
Having a total of nine seasons under their belt, Boston Rob who started in 2002 and Sandra in 2003, they most definitely have the most colorful Survivor career than anybody else has. Rob and Sandra have been relevant within and beyond the community the entire history of Survivor.
Boston Rob played the game five times now, almost winning twice – a vote short in All Stars and a dominant performance in Redemption Island. We were first introduced to Rob in Marquesas, the fourth season.
While most fans would joke around Probst having a humongous man-crush on Rob, I do understand why the former is, for the lack of better word, smitten by the latter. It has nothing to do with sexuality, of course. It’s just Boston Rob embodied a Survivor archetype that only he could fill at the time. Young guy in his 20s, looking to stir up drama and conflict in the game. Whether you like to admit it or not, Boston Rob makes good TV, and Probst likes him a lot for that (it’s show business after all).
Rob pretty much was one of the few, if not at all the central character of Season 4’s pre-merge. His move to take out Hunter was unprecedented at the time – taking out an absolute challenge asset, when the era was pretty much about survival first, strategy second. Rob showed everyone that there’s more to Survivor strategy than winning challenges and keeping the tribe strong. He was out of luck by the time they hit the merge. Being the troublemaker that he was, the other castaways had no choice but to get him out and not deal with him.
Because of how great of a television he was in Marquesas, he was chosen as one of the 18 castaways from the first seven seasons to play one more time in All Stars (2004) where he dominated the entire season physically, strategically, and, well, romantically. This was the season where we saw Rob and Amber met, made an alliance, and inexplicably fell in love with each other. In the middle of the most cut-throat game in television history, we were witnessing a love story.
I’m sure it was a hundred percent unintentional on Rob and Amber’s part, but they just made good TV and the unfolding of their romance. Couple that with the fact that Rob and Amber as a unit played a strong strategic game from start to finish, winning challenges, blindsiding Cesternino and Alicia, and betraying Lex and Tom in the process; the last two items being the downfall of one Boston Rob.
I’m not going to discuss all the ugliness and bitterness the whole thing had going on, from which, I’m pretty sure, everyone has moved on anyway. But his betrayal of Lex, with all the underlying issues of preexisting relationships and pregame alliances and outside-the-game friendships, was one of the most cold-blooded betrayals in Survivor, nay humankind, history. And why did Rob do such things? To save Amber. A man doing anything just to save the love of his life — it sounds cliché for a scripted romcom movie or a drama series. But this is a reality competition. It was magic and tragic at the same time.
In the end, whether we admit it or not, regardless of how dominant Boston Rob was all season long or how he should have won All Stars or how bitter that jury was, Amber outwitted him. Ahh, love is the death of duty kind of a deal, eh? Until, of course, Rob proposed in the finale and it all just became conjugal. Ugh, that guy from Boston, amirite?
And now, they’re married for 15 or so years and they’ve got four daughters! Unbelievable, Survivor gods, unbelievable.
Side note: Amber returned for Winners at War alongside Rob, and their reunion on the edge of extinction after a few weeks in the game was the sweetest. And you can see in their eyes that they’re still madly in love with each other. The way Amber looks at Rob and him embracing her, ah! I mean, I’m not a love nut myself but Romber is making me realize the whole love extravaganza is real.
Following his cutthroat game in All Stars, Boston Rob returned for the third time as a Villain on the twentieth season of Survivor, Heroes vs. Villains (2010). He played together with his co-island idol Sandra who was also a Villain. They formed an alliance alongside four other people, but their common nemesis in Russell obliterated the tribe and formed his own empire.
I never thought Rob had a major blunder this season, except for the fact that he was a huge target from the get-go. He aligned himself with the people with perceived less target in Sandra and Courtney, and perceived goofballs in Coach and Tyson, which made him stood out even more. Him leading the charge in challenges and in camp life made Russell very jealous of him. Although Rob and Russell were not the exact antithesis of each other, their games were just so different. Rob was controlling his tribe’s perception of him by being useful in challenges and in camp, which was a legitimate strategy for a big threat like him. Russell, on the other hand, wanted a psychological manipulation to control how his tribe thinks, which kind of worked in Samoa with new players, but barely had an effect in Heroes vs. Villains with all the returnees (making him looked like a fool instead).
Rob’s virtual preexisting relationship with Jerri (who initially was aligned with him), coupled with his reputation preceding him and, of course, Coach being “a little man” that he was, led to his flameout. Whether it was Jerri avenging her vote-out in All Stars or not, we’ll never know.
Everyone was wiped out of that alliance except Sandra who made the merge. In retrospect, while Sandra was in anyway an under-the-radar player to begin with, Sandra had done something right which Boston Rob had not: not to be too much of a threat, especially in Russell’s perception. She was able to minimize herself to a powerless follower to make Russell feel comfortable, which Rob failed to do so because it was a full-blown power struggle between them.
Sandra played the ‘I hate Russell’ card perfectly and narrated the story of her wanting to be heroic and save the Heroes from the sandpit that was Hantz. Her pitch had basically gone “I’m with you, guys, I don’t like the guy, but you don’t want to make a move with me. It’s not my problem.” Sandra playing the hero card stroke a lot of the Heroes ego that ultimately gave her two-for-two championships; a mixture of luck and strategy, but a whole lot of getting a great read of the room and then navigating that to her advantage.
In the end, Sandra won the season and became then the only two-time winner. That in itself is a proof that Sandra is one of the best players, and faces, of Survivor. But still, to this very day, Sandra is quite underrated.
On the flip side, Boston Rob is a tad overrated. Before his fourth appearance, which would eventually be his winning performance, Boston Rob was celebrated more as a castaway than Sandra was, who just had a two-game winning streak. If it has something to do with sexism, I don’t know. I don’t even think it’s about showmanship, because Sandra is as colorful a character as Rob is.
And while Boston Rob indeed won Redemption Island, the season was such a dud because of how naive and clueless the other players were portrayed. In Boston Rob’s defense though, he was truly dominant that season that nobody could ever hold a candle next to him. He was able to pick off those who would show even the smallest sign of brilliance, Francesca and Kristina to name a few, so no one would ever truly be a competition. It looked like he ransacked the season by the brilliant moves and memorable moments he’s made, one of which is throwing an idol clue down a volcano crater; plus blindsiding Matt to keep Andrea in check, blindsiding Matt cold-heartedly a second time, implementing the ‘buddy system’ to keep everyone from strategizing with the opposing alliance, taking Phillip to the end as a goat which looked easy, but with a wildcard like Phillip, it was a lot of work and Rob kept him under his Godfather spell perfectly. It was a spectacular showing and a culmination of everything Rob had learned from his past three seasons.
Outside looking in, it seemed that the season was created for Boston Rob, and the casting was designed for an easy Mariano win. But lest we forget (if my memory serves me right), Rob was just a replacement to Richard Hatch who was supposed to be the returnee that season. Throw those conspiracy theories out the window, it was truly a deserving win for the Godfather of Survivor.
Side note: Rob won Redemption Island, but his best game, I believe, is All Stars.
In Winners at War (2020), Rob and Sandra started on different tribes and were not able to play together. (They were able to interact within those five minutes before Sandra left the edge of extinction.) It would have been interesting to see.
As it played out though, Sandra was not interested in playing with the Marianos after “feeling betrayed”. Rob said not a single word to Sandra about coming back again when they spent more than a month together on Island of the Idols (2019). Petty, not petty, it wasn’t at all interesting. It may be The Queen’s strategy to shift the target elsewhere because of how huge of a target she was (and will be forever). They were both voted out pre-merge and everything pretty much has to do with their reputations as Survivor winners; not to mention the symbols of their targets sitting on an island as 20-plus-foot statues for everyone on Season 40 cast to see.
Rob and Sandra have played Survivor for 152 and 110 days, respectively. One month average per season for both, it’s not a surprise that these two Survivor legends have become the face of Survivor over the past two decades.
Their gameplays transcend Survivor eras. Rob almost won back in All Stars, Sandra won Pearl Islands (2003); both truly are old school seasons of Survivor. And then Rob won Redemption Island, and Sandra had her community-acclaimed best game in Game Changers (2017), albeit not winning the season; two new school Survivor seasons. Their strategies, one under-the-radar social and the other balls-to-the-wall dominant, differ from each other by lightyears, but both are effective in winning the game. Boston Rob and Sandra have set the blueprint on how to play a good Survivor game. Creating chaos, pitting people against each other, deflecting targets in anyway possible, ride-or-die alliances; name it, they’ve done it. They influenced how the players on succeeding seasons navigated the game, and will continue to influence the next generations of Survivor castaways. It’s fascinating.
As characters, you could not ask for more from these two. They are engaging narrators and energetic confessionalists, speaking their minds out loud, often insightful, sometimes sharp. They bring their strong personalities every time they are on air, nothing’s off the table, bringing memorable moments after memorable moments.
I still hope Winners at War is not the last time we see them play the greatest social game on television; they need to be in the inevitable All Legends season of Survivor.
Runners-up: (to complete the Survivor Mt. Rushmore) Tony Vlachos, Winner, Survivor: Cagayan & Survivor: Winners at War, & Parvati Shallow, Winner, Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites
