Was there ever a more complete and total display of dominance in Survivor history? This guy had the physical component of Australia’s legendary Colby Donaldson by winning five out of seven individual immunity challenges, the charisma of Africa winner Ethan Zohn and unbelievable leadership in carrying his tribe to an unprecedented clean sweep of the tribal immunity. In other words, he is the best Survivor champ ever, hands down. There were only two times in the entire game where anyone could even vote for him. The first was when Stephenie, the final Ulong member, was voted out. The other was the following week when Gregg’s flip on the five person alliance was smoked out and he bit the dust. I have to say that overall this had to be the third best season behind the first two. To see a tribe comprised of seemingly outmatched, older people totally humiliate another group of younger competitors was amazing. The only knock is probably that alliances were never really flipped upside down after that took place in just about every other season. Sure, Gregg made his play and Ian threatened to vote out Tom had he not won immunity but once Coby was shown the door it became apparent who was in charge.

Still, drama was high as effectively three people quit the game. First was Jeff who had to take a tinkle in the middle of the night while battling for a million dollars, turning his ankle in the process. Instead of gutting it out he asked to be voted out. That move certainly helped Koror continue their dominance. Next was Janu, who refused to be used as a pawn by the bigger alliance and simply bowed out. Finally, and most shockingly, Ian gave up a promised $100,000 payday by stepping down from the final three immunity challenge, telling Tom to take Katie into the finals. He can have lunch with Marcellus Roberts sometime. You might remember him as the one who gave up immunity and was subsequently voted out of Big Brother.

This season gave us fierce competitors like Bobby Jon and the aforementioned Stephenie, whose competitive fire couldn’t keep their pathetic tribe alive. It also gave us the weakest strong man since Osten in the form of Ibrehem. I liked the twists and turns, starting with tribes being chosen in alternating fashion with two people going home immediately. There was no merge or tribe shuffle, a move that will keep the next batch of survivors guessing, but here is how I would run the game.

First of all, let’s up it to 21 survivors and split them into three tribes the way All-Stars was run. Instead of giving two tribes immunity, however, only the winning one gets it. The other two then face an individual immunity challenge where the top finisher from each tribe is safe. After two rounds of this, the next round only the bottom finishing team faces tribal council. With 16 left, it reverts to the original Survivor formula with a random shuffling of the players into two new tribes.

At that point, the losing tribe’s individual immunity winner will be able to protect another member of the tribe from elimination. Giving immunity away is pointless because no one will ever do it. This way a player can keep a strong ally alive. After four more eliminations, the tribes are shuffled a second time to form two groups of six. This time, the individual immunity winners will not be allowed to protect another player. When it drops to nine, the tribes merge and for the first two elimination rounds the immunity winner will again be able to save another player.

This system will protect some of the players who are strong, but aren’t necessarily on the right side of the numbers game. The shuffling would also make it harder to form alliances and more important for players to be politically adept.

Another curveball could be that (in the current format) when a tribe wins immunity they will be able to vote a player out of the opposing tribe. To make this interesting, and prevent them from simply voting the best player out, there will be an individual immunity challenge for the losing tribe. Should the player who was voted out (in a secret vote) win that challenge, that player will instead vote someone out of the winning tribe. The winning tribe will know this, but the losing tribe won’t.

At some point I think players who are voted out early in the game should have some sort of say. Perhaps when for example there are six out of the game with two tribes of six there could be a three-way immunity challenge. If the former players win, instead of getting back into the game they can vote out any of the twelve remaining players. This twist would cause players to think twice about treating others cruelly early in the game with the assumption that they won’t be on the jury.

There are a lot of other things they could do, and if anyone has suggestions please post them