Survivor 44 starts off Strong

Three episodes of Survivor 44 have aired, and so far I'm loving it. I wish I made a blog post earlier, but I just haven't had the time recently. Now I'm here to gush about what's making 44 so great, and my hopes for how it'll continue this trajectory.

One of my largest Survivor critiques in the new era is the editing. It often feels disjointed, incoherent, and relies too heavily on confessionals. 44 has steered clear of these missteps so far. The episodes feel structured and we're getting opinions from everyone, on every tribe. We're seeing camp life and we're seeing character moments. Finally Survivor isn't forcing strategy down our throats.

That being said there's still a crazy amount of idols. Like a quarter of these episodes are revolving around the cage idols, getting the keys, hiding the fake idols, etc. But at least the players are having fun with it. Watching Danny screw around and sewer Matt is great TV.

The keyword from that paragraph was "fun". Season 42 was really good to me because it was just a fun season, where the players clearly had fun. Survivor 44 is following closer to 42's footsteps than 43's. This cast is really out there. Like a lot of them definitely aren't good players, but it's great seeing them all swing for the fences anyways. We aren't seeing anybody just lean back and die.

I think the biggest problem with 43 was the staleness of the strategy. Nobody really did anything in 43 except for Jesse and Cody. It looks like 44 has a lot more proactive players, players that aren't willing to take a backseat. Players that are willing to play sub-optimally if it means they aren't second fiddle. And this is reflected in the eliminations we've had. Maddy's vote was bonkers, Helens was more predictable (made bonkers by Carolyn), and Claire's vote was pure vintage Survivor.

In terms of my winner picks, I still feel really good. I'm feeling like a genius predicting Danny so high, because he's doing great. Danny is gonna be the fan favourite of this season, but he probably won't win. I predicted both sides of the Frannie/Matt showmance to do well, and I'm adjusting my prediction to say only Frannie is gonna do well. Matt's being setup to fail, Frannie might salvage it. Otherwise, Sarah stands out to me as someone I didn't give enough credit. And Yam Yam's got some game in him, he could win to be honest.

All in all, Survivor 44 could be a top tier season, there's still so much time left and I can't wait to see what happens next.