“Survivor” is a competition-based reality TV show that has been running for 40 seasons. Each season, a group of contestants is flown to a remote location where they must provide food, shelter, and other basic necessities for themselves.
Garret Pearce and Amanda Rosland, both third-year music-technology majors, are avid fans of “Survivor” and had the ingenious idea of bringing the game to Capital.
Pearce and Rosland began recruiting contestants for Capital’s Survivor through social media. The game is now an official club on campus. Potential cast members also contacted their friends telling them to join the game.
As host, Pearce and Rosland have been rewatching seasons of “Survivor” to gain inspiration for the challenges they create. Pearce has also participated in online versions of “Survivor” and watched videos on YouTube of other colleges playing similar games.
He said, “In general, I am a big fan of the show. I was looking through the [university’s] clubs and I was like ‘We don’t have anything that’s competitive or reality show-esq.’ ”
Thus, Capital Survivor was born.
Every Sunday, the Shaf and Loman tribes compete against each other in Immunity Challenges; the losing tribe having Tribal Council in the evening. As of week 5, Shaf has won every immunity challenge, forcing Loman to send home a tribe member and the game host to reorganize the tribes.
Blind Faith, the most current challenge, was a fan and contestant favorite. During this challenge, each tribe was assigned a caller; every other member of the tribe was blind-folded. The caller had to verbally guide their tribemates to nine different bags. Once all the bags were collected, each tribe had to unscramble the letters in the bag and organize the corresponding blocks to decode a four-word phrase.
Again, Shaf Tribe won the challenge, sending Loman to Tribal Council. When asked, the participating contestant said Blind Faith was the challenge that felt most like the show.
Treston Haines, a member of Loman Tribe, was disheartened by “Loman’s continued struggles” but is looking forward to finishing the game strong and potentially winning the prize at the end.
Pearce said, “I think it is going very well. I am really excited to see how it all shapes up. There’s a lot of interesting dynamics going on between the cast and the tribes. I think as the game keeps progressing, it will only get more dramatic, more interesting.”
Capital Survivor has an Instagram page where the hosts live stream the challenges and keeps viewers updated with the status of the game.
The introductory season to Capital Survivor is quickly approaching its end, but the hosts and current contestants are excited for the seasons to come. Pearce and Rosland do plan on hosting a season of “Survivor” during the fall 2023 semester.
They said that in the future they may have options for shorter games to accommodate those who cannot participate in the semester-long seasons.
Looking ahead, the hosts also want to engage more campus organizations to help with the production of the show. They said that a collaboration with film and media production students would be helpful because of their access to the necessary equipment and skills to edit footage to make it look like an actual TV show.
“There is definitely the option to get more people involved and make it really cool,” Rosland said.
The Chimes was unable to get any insight into next season’s theme, but the hosts ensured that they have already begun working on the logos, challenges and twists for next season.
Pearce and Rosland agree that their potential for growth is limitless and hope that the future for Capital Survivor is bigger and better than it currently is.
If you think you can outwit, outplay and outlast to become the sole survivor of Capital, Pearce and Rosland invite you to visit @capitalsurvivor on Instagram to receive updates about the competition.
