Welcome back to Inside Survivor’s 50 For 50, a semi-regular feature highlighting 50 former castaways who we think should be considered for a spot on Survivor 50. In a snake draft, the Inside Survivor team selected ten players each, with the only rule being they couldn’t have played more than twice.
PROFILE
Name: Gervase Peterson
Age: 54
Season: Borneo, 2000, and Blood vs. Water, 2013
Finish: 7th Place, 3rd Place
HIGHLIGHTS
An OG player on the show’s first season, Gervase was a pioneer of not just Survivor but reality TV in general. That alone is iconic, but let’s not sell his showing on Borneo short here. Gervase, like most of Pagong, was not a strategic force. Instead, he was a force of personality. His poor work ethic around camp and overall immaturity earned him some ire, and some sexist comments got him even more of it from the women. He wasn’t amazing in challenges, but it’s hard to forget him freaking out about eating bugs or beating professional river rafter Kelly Wiglesworth in a rowing challenge despite being the worst swimmer on the cast.
But Gervase was still a complex human, and the show didn’t really give him his dues in that regard. Instead, his edit was a product of the time, characterizing him with racial stereotypes as the lazy, deadbeat father who couldn’t swim and talked trash about women. There were inklings of his humanity shown, particularly when it came to his relationships with his child, but the Gervase we saw in season one was played for laughs more than anything.
Gervase would lose Borneo at the final seven, but that wouldn’t be the end of his Survivor story. Returning over a decade later for Blood vs. Water with his niece Marissa, Gervase would quickly prove he hadn’t learned much in those 13 years. Talking trash at the early challenges rubbed the loved ones the wrong way, and out of spite, they voted Marissa out to punish him. Faced with the exact same gross food challenge a second time, he struggled again and couldn’t redeem himself. And even late in the game, he was leaking the pecking order and insulting the underdogs as they went to suffer on Redemption Island.
But Gervase 2.0 had some new tricks up his sleeve though, working closely with eventual winner Tyson Apostol as The Coconut Bandits alliance to dominate the season from start to finish. Though he’d ultimately finish with no jury votes on account of his brash personality and playing in Tyson’s shadow, Gervase proved he could hold his own in a modern season and play strategically despite his many faux pas.
WHY HE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED
Straight up, there needs to be a Borneo representative on Survivor 50. It just feels appropriate. And going through the contenders from that season who are still willing to play, are in production’s good graces, and have kept up with the show through the years, Gervase is the top candidate if you want someone who can also stand a chance of doing well while offering a compelling narrative.
The one counterpoint to a Gervase return is that we’ve milked Gervase for all he’s worth, that we’ve seen all there is to see with the guy. The show rarely gives another chance to zero-vote finalists for many reasons, but it’s largely because that’s usually a dead-end story-wise unless they’re massive characters whose personalities eclipse their gameplay. I’d argue Gervase is a great personality for any season though, and him being from Borneo is basically a hard counter to any arguments against him because, well, it’s Borneo, the most iconic season where anyone on that cast returning is headline-worthy news!
And to be fair to Gervase as a player, he played when the show was far less diverse than it was now, being one of only two Black players on both of his seasons, so his Survivor experience always came with that unfortunate asterisk that definitely wouldn’t be there in Survivor 50. Would he still be his same old self, spouting off insults and talking trash as he struggles to win social favor? Maybe. But in a cast where he’s not immediately seen as The Other, perhaps he could find his footing and put over 50 years of life experience and community connections to good use.
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