Survivor 44: The Tika Show

Survivor 44 was the Tika Three's season. Carson, Carolyn and Yam Yam were the main characters, deservedly so. Their alliance is the most compelling of the new era, and they displayed a masterclass in strategy. Carson brought the brains, Yam Yam brought the charm, and Carolyn brought the levity. What a wild combination of three people that theoretically should never work. I had an incredibly fun time rooting for them, but these are only three people out of an 18 person cast. What about the rest of the season?

Okay let me start off by saying I loved Survivor 44. It was a refreshingly old school season, at least in the perspective of the new era. Post-merge production took their hands off the wheel and finally just let the players play. Pre-merge we had the usual fuckery with the journeys, but the cage twist was genuinely great.

Criticisms now. The gameplay this season was at the worst of the new era seasons. Tika's dominance gives me One World or Redemption Island vibes, where everyone else seemingly lays over. Did they dominate because they were that good? Or is it because everyone else sucked? Probably a mix, but right now I'm leaning towards the suck side. Nobody ever woke up and turned on Tika, and that's disappointing.

I've praised Survivor casting on every season recently. The casting in general is really, really good. We get so many unique and compelling characters. But this season may be the first miss for me. First of all, of course the Tika are all top tier casting choices. But who else stood out? Maybe Danny and Frannie I guess. But for the first time, I'm not going to blame the edit. The edit was super Tika heavy, because that was the story of the season. There's no other way to tell it.

The biggest epidemic new era Survivor faces is overly passive gameplay. Everyone wants to barely skate by to the end, then underdog the victory. But when there's ten people playing under the radar, only the most cunning invisible player actually makes it a good strategy. Everyone else is just sitting, twiddling their thumbs, hoping the threats lob eachothers heads off. Heidi, Lauren, Frannie, Kane, Jaime, all of these people didn't play poorly, just too passively. It's unfortunate casting selected so many people with this mindset.

This is the genius of the Tika Three. They expertly abuse this passiveness. Their alliance is formed of the three most exuberant personalities on the cast. Especially Yam Yam and Carolyn, who are literally incapable of hiding under the radar. So these three transcend the radar, exist in a different plane, and orchestrate Ratu and Soka to destroy eachother. And this is why Yam Yam is the best winner of the new era. He was targeted aggressively, never played passively, and had an insane amount of social influence. Take notes future players, you don't have to be invisible to win.

Overall Survivor 44 was a super unique season that only mattered because of three people. Every once in a while Survivor needs that examination of what happens when an alliance completely steamrolls its competition. But please don't let this be the new standard. I prefer seasons with shifting power dynamics and complex gameplay. But the personalities we got are the peak of the new era, it's hard to dislike the season with how endearing the players are.