Hey, everyone!

Well, what can I say? It’s been another crazy week on Survivor Philippines.

We have been running for only three weeks and yet so much has happened on the show.

Let me take this opportunity to personally thank you all for tuning in. We are performing pretty well despite the late night timeslot.

Okay, in this blog we will be talking about TWISTS.

A twist on Survivor is something that will do one or two of several things to a tribe or an individual. I’ll explain this without giving too many concrete examples since we would want you all to be on the edge of your seats, paying attention during every episode.

A twist could either make camp life easier or harder for a tribe. Jace winning the first swim challenge gave his tribe the bigger campsite. Naak losing the first reward challenge got them “chained together” by pairs till noon the next day making it difficult to maneuver much less build a shelter at their campsite.

A twist could create early bonds based on a commonality that another twist would try to break. We saw this in the first division into tribes when Survivor Philippines had the males separated from the females on Day 1.



Many thought this was an unfair mismatch since the girls were perceived to be the physically weaker tribe but the ladies put up a great fight and it was really close till the end with the two puzzlemakers – Charisse and Marlon – battling it out for the first victory.

More important than the challenge at this point was having the tribes create bonds with their tribemates based on gender and loyalty. A bond that will be immediately tested when the buffs were finally given before the first immunity challenge and the men and women were assigned to their respective new tribes with one having women outnumbering the men and another with more men than women.

A twist could make tribal council more interesting by trying to flush out and expose the schemers and the alliances while each of the tribe members take turns standing helplessly outside the tribal council area as the ones inside talk about them.

This could sway a vote or it could solidify an alliance. We termed this twist, “Backstabbing.” On a side note, I am very proud to say that “Backstabbing” is an innovation by the Survivor Philippines team which Castaway Productions would one day want to adapt for their other franchises worldwide.

A twist could also drastically level the playing field or put a tribe at a terrible disadvantage through what we call a pre-determined double elimination.

Just a quick back story of how this came about.

Many months ago when I was doing promos for the auditions of Survivor Philippines I mentioned that we were looking for 16 Castaways. However because of the great number of potential survivors as well as the overwhelming 40,000 or so who auditioned, we decided to have 18 Castaways for our first ever season of Survivor Philippines.

If one were to do the simple math – (math!? I thought this was a reality show!) – it will be evident that if we are to have 39 days on an island with a 3-day cycle of reward, immunity and tribal councils, we would come up with 13 tribal councils with the same number of individuals being voted off. (At this point I am sure you know what I am getting at.) That would leave us with 5 castaways – a bit much for the ideal Final Two.

Therefore a pre-determined double elimination is called for.

Question: what if Naak lost the immunity challenge?

The double elimination will still push through. Then by Monday Naak would have just five members left compared to Jarakay’s 9 an absolute and true mismatch.

Are there more twists in the future?

Let’s just say you better hang on to your seats.

As the song goes…”We’ve only just begun…”

Survivors, ready?