Against All Odds, Survivor 41 Didn't Suck

Survivor 41 has drawn to a close and was a surprisingly great season to revive Survivor after the hiatus. It was far from perfect, sometimes feeling like a shell of its former self, but there was a lot to love. In this blog I'll be talking about how the season was doomed from the start and the unlikely story of how it was salvaged.

The worst parts of the season were the twists and the edit. At this point Jeff is obsessed with ruining the show. Fans for years have been begging for a basic Survivor format. And yet, like a broken record, Jeff can't stop rambling about keeping the show fresh and "dangerous". Except the "danger" isn't from the survival or from the elements. The "danger" is that you could be eliminated by the Monty Hall problem.

And then there's the edit. The bad edit is a consequence of the twists. I remember episode three had 10 minutes of just explaining the rules of the "Beware" advantage. That sucks. That is not Survivor. If the advantages need an IKEA manual to explain them, they are bad. Episodes that heavily focused on the twists were the worst of the season.

Unrelated to the twists, but the edit also shafted Erika's story. The edit did a great job of explaining why she won, but it did a terrible job of helping us root for her. Why was she so invisible pre-merge? Why were key aspects of her gameplay intentionally hidden? The answer is the producers wanted her win to be a surprise. The winner doesn't have to be a surprise, it just shouldn't be obvious. There's a difference.

The strongest part of the season was the cast. Even though modern survivor is devolving into a heap of twists and advantages, the casting directors are hitting home runs. The pre-merge boots were honestly my favourite. Voce, Brad, JD, Sydney are all people that I'd love to see play again. Post merge we had powerhouse threats in Shan and Evvie. And then the late-gamers like Deshawn, Ricard and Xander were all exciting to watch.

If I had any complaint about the cast, the boot order got rid of all the exuberant personalities early. By the end we were left with a lot of soft-spoken, thoughtful players. A couple of Brad, Sydneys or Tiffanys going deep would have been fun.

Erika is a great winner. She 100% deserved her win and played the best game out there, even better than Ricard. Her old school gameplay showed the audience that Survivor isn't about "big moves". She perfectly positioned herself in the middle of the pecking order and hand picked her final three. She was never perceived as a threat (due to good social gameplay on her part) but was still able to convince the jury. Erika's cold and calculated strategy was an awesome middle finger to the bullshit production tried to throw at her.

The bottom line is that production doesn't trust their cast. The quality of a season is always dictated by its cast. Good casts will create drama and intrigue amongst themselves. These storylines will grow organically. Beware advantages, prisoner dilemmas and Mickey Mouse games don't encourage dynamic gameplay. These twists actively stifle gameplay.

When everyone has a 'shot in the dark', an extra vote, and an immunity idol, players are instinctively going to play safer. The twists create uncertainty, uncertainty breeds panic, and panic discourages risk. Votes get more straightforward as production tries to make the game more complex.

There's a reason the most memorable and exciting episodes are ones like JD's boot, Shan's boot and Sydney's boot. These episodes always focused on the players. Loyal allies turning on each other, power shifts in majority alliances, the scramble of a merge. Xander denying Liana's 'Knowledge is Power' is my favourite Survivor moment in years because the players outsmarted the twist. Everyone wants more moments of them surviving on the island, not prisoners dilemma island for the third time.

This season should have been bad. Production did everything they could to sabotage it. But the cast was so good. We got great heroes, a great villain, and tons of memorable moments. Most importantly, the cast handled the twists with grace, and most of the time were able to completely defunct them. Survivor 41 comes out pretty average. And while I hated the twists, I'll always come back to Survivor if they keep up the great casting.