Survivor 42 is the New Era's Gold Standard

I was pretty critical of season 41's twists and editing. Survivor 42 in theory is a repeat of 41, but the execution blows it out of the water. Production must have listened to feedback because it's night and day. And honestly, I can live with this new twisty era of Survivor if they keep these fantastic characters in the spotlight.

Casting is still hitting home runs. 42's cast is just banger after banger. Zach burned bright and fast, Daniel was a sloppy trainwreck, the entire pre-merge was iconic. The merge saw so many huge players in Hai, Drea, and Omar, and then seeing their hubris get punished was poetic. My boy Omar was maybe the most fun I've ever had rooting for someone, and I was truly upset with his exit. Mike might be the best casting choice since Angelina, the guy is a quote machine. Who knew the 57 year old would be the fan favourite.

Maryanne is a great winner. I'm all for unique play styles and personalities winning. To me, Maryanne was the epitome of the "too likeable" person that gets sniped near the end as a final tribal threat. Of course she gets to the end and has one of the best speeches in Survivor history. It's just a testament to her game with how well she downplayed that.

The twists remain egregious. Do or Die and the hourglass need to go. Keep the others if you must. The amulets were fun, but it's still clear production doesn't understand their show. I don't want to retread what I said in my 41 review, but adding more uncertainties to a social game only serves to make the game more stagnant.

Where 42 thrives is the edits focus on characters and relationships. Thankfully 41 explained how the new advantages worked, so we didn't need much rule reading. Instead, we got actual camp life and character development. Clips of them goofing around or having heartfelt conversations are always going to be my favourite. Episode 2 was a great example of this. It had nearly no gameplay but we got the Omar/Jonathon bromance, Hai's veganism, Maryanne being a gem and Mike losing his idol. This is what Survivor is about. Please, more of this CBS.

I'm having a hard time thinking of anything bad to say. Maybe there was a lack of iconic moments? The Jenny tribal was at least great. It's hard to say with recency bias, but 42 has to be at least top ten for me. It's consistently entertaining, with genuinely no bad episodes. But it's missing that X-factor that would put it up there with the likes of Cagayan and DvG.

I guess the worst parts of Survivor 42 for me were my terrible predictions. I'm honestly just bad at them. Lindsay and Hai were the only ones I got remotely close. It only proves that seasons exist in a vacuum and basing predictions off of history is foolish.

Jeff said the goal for 41 and 42 was to emphasize "fun", and 42 definitely achieved this. It's clear that the twists, the 26 days, and the advantages are all here to stay. This is a hard pill to swallow, but 42 is proof that Survivor can still work in the new era. Now the big question is whether 42 was lightning in a bottle, or will 43 and 44 be able to continue the trend. Either way, the obsessed fanboy in me is gonna watch it.