*WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD*
The season premiere of Survivor aired on CBS Wednesday, September 27th with a 90 minute episode. There were the usual three tribes, super-fan contestants, and of course, Jeff Probst. But I’m here to talk about the more unique aspects of this season thus far.
This new era of Survivor, which started in season 41, features 26 days (as opposed to the original 39), far less food and resources, and far more advantages. Emphasis on the advantages. This season, this new era is already affecting gameplay, making castaways overthink every move for fear there is an advantage at play. Most notably this episode, Emily assumed that her two tribemates who lost the Smart vs Savvy challenge (another aspect of the new era, where tribes must compete to earn a machete, pot, and flint), forewent the challenge to gain an advantage for themselves. In actuality, they just failed the challenge and returned empty-handed. But her confidence sparked from the ‘new era’ mindset, that anything and everything has the capacity to be an advantage. Now, Emily is already proving to be kind of an unbearable character, as those who watched will probably agree. But I do kind of appreciate her thinking multiple steps ahead. I just don’t really like that this is the direction Survivor is headed. Castaways have no choice to overthink everything, there are advantages linked to every aspect of the game, even seemingly innocent ones.
One of my favorite aspects of this season is the 90 minute episodes, as a result of the ongoing writer’s strike that is leaving gaps in the CBS lineup, allowing for more time to show the interactions between castaways. It reminded me fondly of old-school Survivor, where we actually got to see some strong personalities as opposed to just game play. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that recent years of Survivor have been strictly game-play. With more and more advantages, but still the hour-long episodes, there was not really any time to get to know who the players were outside of the game. With the exception of last season, we haven’t had a Cirie Fields or Boston Rob personality in quite some time. We also haven’t seen someone quit in the new era, but right away in the first episode, someone left the game on their own terms. Not saying I love seeing people quit, but it reminded me of how I felt watching people leave the game frequently in old-school seasons.
So my overall opinion of the new season? Well, I definitely think they colored these tribes correctly, with the blue tribe being my favorites, red coming in second, and yellow so far behind they might as well still be hoisting Brandon up that ladder. I like the aspects of the old-school season that are unintentionally being implemented into this season. But Jeff, please get rid of some of these advantages before all future players turn into Emily.
