The Model for Future Survivors: Richard Hatch

When Survivor first aired, people didn’t really know what to make of it. Richard Hatch walked onto our screens and we really didn’t know what to make of him. Here was this guy who declared early on that he already had the million dollars. Ha! Even Mark Burnett thought this guy would be the first one voted off. Instead, he was the first winner of Survivor, and he truly laid down the path that would be followed by many others for seasons to come.

Rich Hatch started to play the game of Survivor before he ever arrived in Borneo. He thought out strategies ahead of time. He was flexible enough to change strategies when his first attempt of telling people what to do from the top of a log wasn’t working. He knew that providing food to the tribe would make his position even more secure.

But most importantly, Rich knew how to pull people together into an alliance that he directed without necessarily letting others know he was directing. He brought together three other people who probably wouldn’t have teamed up otherwise and got them to all vote as a unit. Meanwhile, other players were randomly shooting their votes this way and that, depending on their whims or emotions at the time.

Some of those who were there thought that the game of Survivor would truly be about survival. Gretchen, for example, would have been very useful if a group really were stranded on an island. Rich definitely had this aspect covered as well – he was, after all, feeding his tribe – but that was but one small part of his overall game plan.

Some of the others in the first game had also thought of an alliance strategy. Indeed, the first alliance that we saw did not involve Rich, but rather Kelly, Stacey, and Sue. However, that alliance didn’t hold together while Rich was able to form one that lasted the entire game, even through some rough spots.

That alliance controlled the game through most of the days they spent on the beach. Survivor fans now know the word “Pagong” as a verb meaning the way one tribal alliance votes off another one by one without any chance of the other alliance getting out of it – we know that term because that is precisely what Rich and his alliance did to the Pagong tribe in the first edition of Survivor.

Most of the others thought of the game as more of a lark. They voted off the people who annoyed them, or the people they didn’t like. Rich played it like a game of chess, always moving pieces around and keeping an eye out to make sure he wasn’t put in check. He needed to deceive people in order to get further? No problem, this was a game, not real life. He understood that and used it to his advantage.

Rich capped off his strategy by purposely abandoning the final immunity challenge. He had put himself into the position that no matter which of the other two won, they would take him into the Final 2. Others had fought hard for immunity, but Rich knew that he didn’t even need it.

What made it even better was that as Rich was playing the game the way he knew it should be played, we were watching and being pulled in. Many viewers were rooting against him – they didn’t want the villain to win, and Rich was definitely the villain. He was arrogant, smug, and confident he’d walk away with a million dollars. He rubbed people the wrong way. Those who didn’t like him wanted to see somebody nice come away with the big prize. Others enjoyed his strategy and wanted him become the Sole Survivor, but feared he couldn’t do it because his mindset was so different from those in the jury.

Rich helped his cause with perhaps the best ever, even to this day, performance in front of the jury. He calmly explained his strategy. He didn’t apologize or claim that he didn’t mean to lie to people, or any of the many other excuses we’ve seen in more recent editions of the show. He simply told them that the was the best strategist.

In the end, of course, the jury agreed. They supported the idea that Survivor is about strategy, not about being nice. Sure, challenges are important, as Kelly showed, but they did not prove you to be worthy of winning the overall game. That prize was given to the player with the best skills in dealing with people and manipulating them to do what he wanted them to do while they didn’t even realize they were being used as pawns.

In an interview with RealityNewsOnline, host Jeff Probst noted that, “The first season was absolute purity. They had no idea what was going to happen.” Indeed, they didn’t. But one of them planned ahead to do what he could to be ready for whatever it was that would happen. And that person also became a model for future players.

Probst also said, “the ‘flavor’ of a season is really determined by the 16 people we choose and, most importantly, by the six or seven strong characters and how long they stay in the game.” Rich Hatch was perhaps the strongest character to play; you either loved his game play or hated his personality – or both.

Indeed, Rich Hatch can be credited with a great deal of the success not only for his season of Survivor, but for its continuation. Not only that, but he should also be granted some credit for the other reality TV shows created in Survivor’s wake. Certainly, executive producer Mark Burnett could have woven together a good show in Hatch’s absence, but it is hard to believe that it would have had quite the drama, the intrigue, and the impact.

Richard Hatch taught us all the true meaning of the Survivor catchphrase: Outwit, Outplay, Outlast. Because he played such an influential role in the first Survivor, because his strategy would be used as a roadmap for years to come, and for all of the other reasons already listed, the Reality TV Hall of Fame is proud to make him the very first inductee.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of the Reality TV Hall of Fame, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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