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This reliance on audience memory and the heavily serialised
nature of the American 2TQUHUNQ speaks to Mittell’s view that
narrative complexity avoids reductive and simplistic storytelling:

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narration m MNS MDBDRR@QHKX @ BNLOKDSD LDQFDQ NE DOHRNCHB @MC
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Indeed, each season of 2TQUHUNQ consists of several ongoing
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narrative. While game show–like events are always involved,
it is this narrative complexity that sustains audience atten
tion and remembrance. The demands of an audience having
a memory are also what separates a show like 2TQUHUNQ from
franchises like the 3NO ,NCDK series, which regularly replay
key events to aid viewer recollection. When former 2TQUHUNQ
contestants return on the show, viewers need to have watched
their previous seasons in order to grasp the changing dynam
ics between contestants. For instance, when Cirie Fields,
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%@MR UR %@UNQHSDR season, only minimal narrative exposition
was given to the audience as to their relationship dynamics.
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can be excluded without rendering the narrative incomprehen

sible. <HW WKH WHQVLRQV EHWZHHQ UHDOLW\ VKRZ FRQWHVWDQWV SUR The narrative complexity of Survivor
vide texture, tone and character depth for dedicated viewers.
Pleasure, writes Mittell, can be derived from deciding ‘whether LEW VIHIÁRIH XLI ITMWSHMG JSVQEX
a given event might be a kernel or a satellite in the larger arc of competitive reality television.
of a plotline or series as a whole’. 16 Dedicated fans of the American
The narrative complexity of 2TQUHUNQ KDV UHGHĺQHG WKH
HSLVRGLF IRUPDW RI FRPSHWLWLYH UHDOLW\ WHOHYLVLRQ 'HGLFDWHG series, I posit, are similar to fans
fans of the American series, I posit, are similar to fans of other of other complex, quality drama
complex, quality drama productions, who have a heightened productions, who have a heightened
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on (MRHCD 2TQUHUNQ, in which commentator Martin Holmes
compares the visibility of each contestant on the show and
whether they are receiving a ‘winner’s edit’. 17

Australian Survivor

An analysis of the adaptation of 2TQUHUNQ for an Australian con
text allows us to identify whether negative audience reactions
are the result of cultural cringe, or whether there were major
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2TQUHUNQ has been to maintain the diegetic pleasure and formal
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the demands of the Australian televisual landscape. While
the American series would generally produce fourteen weekly
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LQJ WKH WUDGLWLRQDOO\ ORQJHU ĺQDOH HSLVRGH WKH $XVWUDOLDQ VHULHV
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minutes, occasionally airing three times weekly. The American
version would feature a cast of sixteen to twenty, with at
tention paid to racial diversity, while the Australian iteration
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majority were white and of a similar appearance. The prize
pool is smaller, too, with the winner of TRSQ@KH@M 2TQUHUNQ
UHFHLYLQJ MXVW $

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