“Whole episode had me kicking my feet and twirling my hair.”

The hotly anticipated Survivor: Australia v The World premiere aired on Sunday, August 17, and, with a blindside taking place during the very first tribal, viewers certainly weren’t left disappointed.

The premiere ep saw Australia win the first immunity challenge, which meant that the World tribe was sent to Tribal Council, where one of them would be eliminated.

The World tribe is made up of three Americans, Tony Vlachos, Parvati Shallow and Cirie Field, as well as Survivor South Africa’s Rob Bentele, New Zealand’s Lisa Stanger, Quebec’s Kassandre Bastarache and Finland’s Tommi Manninen.

During the first post-elimination challenge scramble, it looked as though the other international players were banding against the US, with Rob leading the charge and Cirie and Parvati on the chopping block. However, Parvati used her well-documented powers of persuasion to convince the international players to target Rob, and he was sent home in a blind side.

While the Australian team has considerably less screentime due to winning the elimination challenge, they still have some killer moments aired; namely when George Mladenov tried to team up with Shonee Bowtell, and George, David Genat and Luke Toki’s questionable alliance.

 

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Fans gush about the first Survivor: Australia v The World episode

After the premiere, fans took to social media to gush about the “epic first episode”.

“What an episode is all I can say, man. Shit had me giddy,” one Reddit user wrote, while another said, “Whole episode had me kicking my feet and twirling my hair.”

“This was pure Survivor porn. I haven’t been this happy watching an episode in forever,” a third wrote.

Another user pointed out that while they’re sad that’s it’s Jonathan LaPaglia‘s last season of Australian Survivor, they’re glad he’s hosting the blockbuster instalment.

“This episode was so good, and even though I’m sad that we don’t get to see JLP after this, what a season to end on. I am so hyped seeing all these players together, I wasn’t familiar with Rob, but he brought amazing TV. Hope the other non-Aussies and non-Americans get their moment to shine as well.”

One fan weighed in that they think the current Australian Survivor season will be better than the highly anticipated 50th season of Survivor US, which will also feature returning players.

“What an amazing premiere! 😝 I have a feeling this will be better than whatever Survivor 50 is going to be.”

Bring on Episode 2 of Survivor: Australia v The World!