Amanda Simpson

Adapted from a failed, almost tragic, 1973 social experiment where a global crew with a diversity of ideals, trained to sail a raft across the ocean, Survive the Raft, sunk a chance for real, entertaining anthropology 50 years later. I thought episodes would feature heated debates about hotly contested American socio-economic-political ideals. Drama! However after the first two people left, this was not shown. Guess who? Honestly though, so much more could be said about those first two losses. Trauma! However, I doubt many more people will watch the show...leaving me no one to dialogue with. Lol. The show quickly became a challenge show. The challenges were kinda of boring/uninspired. Evictions were added seemingly haphazardly for both cast members and the audience. I enjoyed the series of new cast members added to the raft for a 24 hour trial, prior to a vote to swap them with an existing member. However with the lack of structure the reasons became more about popularity, greed and fear of being swapped out, strategizing was limited. Additionally I enjoyed the many opportunities for individuals to take money separately or away from the group as this played on individualistic vs collective cultural values as well as shame. If there is a season 2, I'd enjoy more structure as social experiment, looking for evidence to support a hypothesis. Lastly, I am not sure this raft really traveled that far? It seems like it stayed put/local in Panama for the 18 days.