Survivor’s New Era Hits Rock Bottom in Season 48

There are very few shows that I’ve watched for years that I have yet to write about here. Survivor is one of them. It’s just one of those shows that I sort of watch because it’s on and I always watch it, but I don’t really care too much about it either positively or negatively to write about it.

But there was a time that wasn’t the case. There was a time (long ago) when I was very invested in Survivor. I think many people are the same way. Judging by the ratings, a good deal of people who once watched Survivor have stopped. Many of those who do still watch, do it for almost old time’s sake. Well, for those good ol’ days, when Survivor was great (or at least better than it is currently), I’m going to break down a few of my thoughts on the current iteration of the show. This is mainly inspired by the fact that I think the Survivor “New Era” (AKA the last eight seasons which have all followed the same basic format) really hit a new low last Wednesday night.

This picture Youtube TV has for Survivor is quite the image.

The Luck Factor

There has always been a luck factor to Survivor, even going all the way back to the show’s early seasons. You could be lucky and be on a dominant tribe of all people you get along with or have a particular challenge match up perfectly with your skills – that’s one sort of luck.

Another type of luck is total random chance – like picking marbles from bag and hoping you get a certain color. This random chance luck is a lot less entertaining to watch, and also, a lot less “fair” if you want to consider Survivor to be primarily a game of skill. Lately though, these New Era seasons have veered way more into the Survivor being a game of fortune more so than valuing contestant ability. 

Nowhere has this been more evident than the show’s most recent episode. In said episode, a contestant named Justin was sent on a journey in which he had an opportunity to get an advantage in the game. It should be noted that Justin didn’t choose to go on the journey, nor did he decide with his tribe he should; another tribe decided to send him.

The game Justin had to play (he wasn’t offered a choice to participate) was simply rolling a bunch of dice. If Justin rolled the dice and got four fire symbols before getting four skull symbols, then he’d receive an extra vote at tribal council. If he got four skull symbols first, he’d lose his vote. It was a complete 50/50 chance and a complete game of luck. Justin ended up losing his vote. Since there were only four people total on his tribe, this was a big deal.

At tribal council, the woman who was going to be voted off played her Shot in the Dark, another gimmick created by the show. The Shot in the Dark allows contestants a chance to stay in the game if they think they’re going to be voted out. Basically, a contestant gives up his or her right to vote at tribal council and can instead then draw a parchment that has a one in six chance of offering up safety. In this case, the woman who would’ve been voted out was lucky and became safe.

Since that contestant was immune and none of the other three contestants received any votes, the tribe went to re-vote. The woman who played the Shot in the Dark still had no vote (since she sacrificed it to activate said gimmick). Justin, who would’ve helped vote off another contestant 2-1 with another person on his tribe in the re-vote, could not vote because of losing the dice game. After another couple rounds of voting ties, Jusitn went home.

If this sounds confusing and convoluted, don’t worry, that’s because it is. The bottom line is Justin went home 100% because of bad luck. He had a 50/50 chance to win the dice game and not even be in this situation since he’d have a vote to break the tie. Also, the woman who would’ve been voted out only had a one in six chance of being safe. If you take both things needing to go wrong for Justin to go home into consideration, he had a 1/12 chance of being super unlucky and having his torch snuffed. And that’s exactly what happened.

Survivor is supposed to be a game built on the pillars of Outwit, Outlast, Outplay. There may be a place for some small luck elements in seasons, but the show has fallen into the problem of having too many advantages, hidden idols, and disadvantages, all of which make luck become the major driving factor in how the season plays out.

In an attempt to add more excitement, the show has added these sorts of luck variables instead of concentrating on getting quality contestants whose interactions with one another create compelling plot lines. 

The Contestants

This last bit leads into another problem with modern Survivor – for the most part, the show gets the same type of contestants season after season. Jeff Probst has explained in interviews that he’s not interested in casting people he’d label as “villains” on the show anymore, and that he wants to focus on a more positive feel overall for Survivor. 

Looks like Russell won’t be returning anytime soon. Or ever.

I understand the desire to cast likeable people, but one of the most entertaining and interesting parts of Survivor was the diversity of its contestant pool. I’m not saying that Survivor needs to go out of its way to cast truly horrible individuals, but at this point the cast, which skews towards liberal, younger contestants from either the East Coast or California, feels boring. A third of the contestants for this current season are from California, with all the men on one tribe from the state – how is that diverse or interesting? Positive vibes all around the campfire doesn’t exactly make for compelling TV. 

The Season 50 Cop-Out

Survivor’s next big season will be Season 50. It’s a big accomplishment for a reality TV show that executives didn’t have too much faith in when the show initially premiered. The show’s producers seem to have acknowledged, at least slightly, that people aren’t as thrilled with Survivor as they once were. Their way to remedy this is to put some of the show’s decisions in the hands of the viewers. This decision manages to be both a major cop-out and a half-measure at the same time.

It's a cop-out because the show’s producers should decide what direction the show should go in themselves. They see the numbers. The last non-New Era season (which was the all-winners season, Season 40) often garnered over 8 million viewers per episode. For this current season, no episode has had more than 4.6 million viewers.

Producers should analyze why this is and come up with exciting ways to fix it. Personally, I think a back-to-basics approach would work best. Somehow, Survivor episodes have gotten 50% longer, though the game itself is nearly two weeks shorter for participants. Reward challenges are usually combined with immunity challenges. There are fewer challenges and interesting tribe dynamics (since contestants aren’t varied) and just more twists and advantages. 

At the same time the idea of a fan vote impacting anything isn’t something the producers were clearly comfortable with since they are totally limiting what fans can vote on. So far, the following four things have been revealed as what’ll be left to fan votes:

Tribe colors (Who really cares?)

Whether there will be a live vote reveal in LA (Who really cares?)

Whether to give players rice (Doesn’t really matter from a TV watching perspective. Might impact the contestants on the show, but as viewers, who cares?)

If there should be a Final Four fire making to get to the final three. (There shouldn’t. It was a bad decision to have fire making to begin with – the producers could’ve just done away with it.)

Jeff Probst and the other producers don’t seem keen on the idea of actually letting fans impact the overall course of the game in a truly meaningful way, only in making it seem like they are. 

In Conclusion

I’ll still continue to watch Survivor, but it’s definitely not the same it once was (either to me, personally, or to the majority of people who watch it. What was once a cultural TV phenomenon is now a shadow of itself. It’s still watchable, but more as a background show while you’re doing something else. It’s no longer compelling TV, and I don’t have faith that CBS will be able to transform it back into a more exciting show anytime soon.

If I had to give a grade to Survivor overall for this season so far and basically all of the New Era seasons, it would average out to:

Grade: 5.5/10