'What If' Discussion: Survivor Couples

[DigificWriter]

Hi, all. A recently posted article on E!Online.Com has gotten me thinking about an interesting idea for a possible future season of Survivor: a 'couples' edition, and I thought I'd start a discussion to gauge other people's thoughts on this idea.

I personally think it's a neat and awesome idea, and think the best way to do it would be to pair existing 'Survivor couples' with brand-new player pairings (married couples or people who are dating one another). The main reason I think it would be an interesting concept to play with is because it would, by its very nature, put even more emphasis on the social aspects of the game than there already are. You could also pair the concept with the Redemption Island concept to create even more interesting dramatic twists and turns.

Do you think a 'couples' edition of Survivor would work? Which pre-existing 'survivor couples' would you want to see return?

 

[Roger Wilco]

Hm, I don't know. I'm not seeing what additional value there is to the viewer instead of the usual singles or all-star editions (if you want returning players). It would be different, but different for difference's sake is not necessarily good.

And there's one obvious problem from the start: How do you split up the players? If the couples are all on the same tribe, and you have two tribes with the usual 20 players that would mean 5 couples/tribe, that's tricky. But if you don't split them up into tribes there's not enough suspense if just 1 out of 20 gets voted out. On the other hand splitting up the couples themselves and making them compete against each other doesn't make much sense either, although there could be some interesting dynamics there.

 

[DigificWriter]

There are actually several ways that the 'couples' concept could work in terms of altering the pre-existing strategic formula for the game, but here are the ones that I thought of immediately:
1) Split the couples between tribes
2) Drop both tribes in a specific area with pre-determined boundaries, but let them pick their own individual campsites
3) Use Redemption Island, a 'centralized meeting area', and an early merge to keep the possibility of couples being reunited with each other 'in play' throughout the game

Edit: The concept's already been done in 'virtual' form via the Survivor Fan Wiki, and you can see the entry for it here.