Dropout Expedition Robinson takes candidates and viewers in the foot | show

Hungry
How do you win Expedition Robinson? Last year I asked former winners who participated in a All Starsedition, to the secret of their victory. What did they do differently? Prepare even better, they said. Knots, puzzles, making fire, learning to dissect fish, it can all be learned. Farmer Bertie, who spent 24 days on Afvallerseiland for her first edition, now ate a spare tummy full beforehand. “Candy, chocolate, an extra potato. I built up reserves, I traveled with a tripe. If you become bone-thin, you will have a very hard time.” You must, said Niels Oosthoek, ‘not only be physically and mentally intelligent, but also socially’. But how social are you when you’re starving? You get cranky. After her win in 2016, Bertie finished tenth last year. “Bonding and scheming, that’s not quite my thing,” she explained. Oh yes, I almost forgot: you also have to play a game.

Hero
Dennis Wilt had just left all ‘young dogs’ such as Thijs, Dzifa, April, Niek and Niels behind and won the test. The question from presenter Rick Brandsteder was not the most original: how welcome was this profit? I always hope that such a candidate will answer something like: “Well, not like that. I actually would have preferred to lose. Finished last and caught that black voice, wonderful!” But the weatherman said blissfully that this was ‘a big icing on the cake’. “I said from the start: I want to sit on the couch at home and my children say: you did a good job, Dad.” And he has. Wilt makes something of this expedition, just like Vincent Vianen. On his own on Afvallerseiland, but in a good mood. His green fingers chopped up some cassava, mixed it with a pepper and he will soon add some feelings of revenge: Vincent Crusoe is coming!

heartache
“Nooooo”, my daughter and youngest son shouted in unison when Niels Oosthoek cautiously suggested to go home. What a heartache in the Jansen house, with many viewers and certainly with Thijs Boermans, with whom Niels built up a close friendship that (after the program) resulted in the entertaining podcast Drink talk. I don’t like to give up, but Niels quickly got this expedition in my heart. He said he lost his father two years ago. That he played the expedition with a sense of making his father proud. That he thought about him a lot. “From that thought came one wish: that I really want to become the father of my son Charley, who he was to me.” I’m going to miss him, Niels. What a pure guy, what a fat, contagious laugh and what a sense of humour. He proved this by presenting Iliass Ojja’s immunity coin to the Island Council. Splendid. Did he have the viewer and some fellow islanders (Niek!) Still a bit sleepy.

Watch all our Show & Entertainment videos here: