With the current global pandemic bringing our most precious resource (production on Survivor) to a screaming bloody halt, the good folk at 10 have decided to give unto us a true blessing: More batshit seasons of Survivor from across the globe.
Come Friday, 10Play is adding four new seasons of the highly beloved human chess game to its streaming platform – two seasons from South Africa, and two from New Zealand.
If you’re anything like me and you’ve already bashed every US and Australian season of the incredibly good show into your skull, the arrival of both Survivor South Africa and Survivor NZ will provide some welcome bridge-gapping until such time as people can once again be abandoned on an untouched stretch of private estate beach in Fiji.
And with those two new versions of the show comes something else equally as important: Two new Survivor hosts to fawn over.
The Survivor formula works as well as it does largely because it shoulders the show on the beefy shoulders of a tropical unit. Anyone who hosts the show has to look like they can construct a bamboo crossbow with little more than a length of string and pure determination.
So with the imminent arrival of two more sunny lads to Australian screens, here’s a quick ranking of every host of a currently airing (or soon-to-be airing) version of Survivor from across the globe. Wanna know what you’re playing for? Give this a squizz.
17) Acun Ilıcalı – Survivor: Ünlüler vs. Gönüllüler (Turkey)
Full power to Acun here, I’m sure he’s a perfectly capable Survivor host – he once helmed an inter-country season subtitled Greece vs Turkey which I’m frankly staggered didn’t start an actual war – but wearing a plain off-the-rack t-shirt to host Survivor is peasant-tier shit. Get outta here.
16) Juuso Mäkilähde – Selviytyjät Suomi (Finland)
I would trust this man to deliver me a wistful Finnish pop song. I would not trust him to ably steer an idol-fuelled Tribal Council blindside. It’s the eyes. They’re too kind.
15) Alberto ‘Alvin’ Bonato & Ilary Blasi – L’Isola dei Famosi (Italy)
As in most things, Italy does things a little differently in that they have two hosts for their Survivor – one on the island, and one in-studio. It’s hard to pin down exactly who is hosting it at this current point in time (it’s chopped and changed quite a bit in recent years due to what the translated Wikipedia page calls “a heavy controversy”) but the latest two are the team of Alvin Bonato and Ilary Blasi. Neither of whom look like they know the first thing about hidden idols.
14) Miklós Varga – Survivor: A Sziget (Hungary)
I refuse to say anything ill of this man as he looks like the kinda dude that Googles his own name and physically hunts down anyone who does in order to make them “say it to my face.”
13) Guy Zu-Aretz – הישרדות (Israel)
Israel really went to air with this Third Prize In A Jeff Probst Lookalike Contest mfer as their Survivor host. Whatever gets it done, I guess.
12) Lara Álvarez – Supervivientes (Spain)
Spain is a little hard to pin down given the show has a truly psychopathic four hosts – one on the island, one in-studio, one hosting something called “Debates,” and one in charge of the ominous sounding No Man’s Land. But for the purposes of this we’ll go with the closest “true” Survivor host, the on-island Lara Álvarez, who is significantly more Daddy than quite a few others on this list.
11) Matt Chisholm – Survivor NZ (New Zealand)
With apologies to all my Kiwi friends, where the fuck did you find this man. This man is a fishing show host at best. This man is the MC at a local primary school fair. This man calls bingo at his local footy club. This absolute sack of dag does not, under any circumstances, host Survivor. I simply refuse to believe it. This is someone’s Dad playing dress-up for Halloween.
10) Sakis Tanimanidis – Survivor (Greece)
Just a good looking dude. Nothing more, nothing less. He may enjoy the sun and the sand. He may enjoy the competition. But is Sakis Tanimanidis, as he stands before you above, the living vision of the ideal Survivor host? My take is no, and a strong one at that.
9) Denis Broginart – Koh-Lanta (France)
Now we’re getting somewhere. Despite looking a little bit like every “cool” English Lit high school teacher on earth squished together, Denis Broginart embodies at least the bare building blocks of a good Survivor host: rolled up sleeves, a mischievous grin, and several basal cell carcinomas lurking mere millimetres beneath the surface of his forehead skin.
8) Anders Öfvergård – Expedition Robinson (Sweden)
Perhaps more than anyone else on this list, I fully believe that Anders here wasn’t so much cast as the current host of the OG Swedish Expedition Robinson as he did wander in from the scrub where he’d been living for six years prior.
7) Jakob Kjeldbjerg – Robinson Ekspeditionen (Denmark)
Not necessarily the best looking bloke in today’s bunch, but absolutely the one that I fully believe could rip my still-beating heart out of my chest and show it to me before I keeled over. If you told me that was a photo from recruiting material for a private jungle-based mercenary force, I would believe you 100%. That dude collects skulls. In my bloody I know it to be true.
6) Nicolette Kluijver & Kaj Gorgels – Expeditie Robinson (Netherlands)
Another dual-host scenario, the incredibly severe double team of Nicolette Kluijver and Kaj Gorgels look like they evict people from the show by throwing them off a cliff. And for that, I can only commend the fine nation of the Netherlands.
5) Yana Troyanova – Последний герой (Russia)
Notable as the only solo female to be currently hosting a Survivor series, Russia’s Yana Troyanova almost certainly hides poison darts in her hair. I have absolutely nothing to base that on, but try and tell me it’s not true.
4) Christer Falck – Robinsonekspedisjonen (Norway)
The only host on this list that has actually been a contestant – and won – the show as well. Also the only host on this list who would make a fantastic private eye who investigates unsolved murders in his fanboat while running a failing Florida Everglades bait shop during the day.
3) Nico Panagio – Survivor South Africa (South Africa)
Sweet merciful crap that’s the good stuff. Look at that smouldering gaze. The half-cocked smile. The truly massive yet proportionate shoulders. Nico Panagio is a Survivor host through and through. The man looks like he can unstitch a feeble Tribal Council plan with a simple look. He looks like he’d confidently pause for 20 seconds plus before confirming that this….. is a hidden immunity idol. Snuff my torch, South African Survivor Daddy.
2) Jonathan LaPaglia – Australian Survivor (Australia)
Despite the fact that it’s an incredibly good show in general, Australian Survivor got doubly lucky by casting JLP, almost inarguably the only Survivor host worldwide that comes close to comparing to number one. Combining two fantastic traits of being an absolute behemoth and a very sassy binch, JLP is as good as it gets in the annals of Survivor hosting lore.
1) Jeff Probst – Survivor (USA)
Come on. As if it was gonna be anyone else.
It’s Jeff Probst.
Jeff Probst.
It’s Probst, then daylight, then everyone else.
No one does it better.
No one ever will.
The best. The GOAT. The King.
End of discussion.
