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Survivor season 35 features one-hour episodes into November

By Daniel George

"My Kisses Are Very Private" - Lauren Rimmer and Patrick Bolton on the third episode of SURVIVOR 35, themed Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, airing Wednesday, October 11 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Photo: Robert Voets/CBS ©2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved
"My Kisses Are Very Private" - Lauren Rimmer and Patrick Bolton on the third episode of SURVIVOR 35, themed Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, airing Wednesday, October 11 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Photo: Robert Voets/CBS ©2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved /
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It could be the merge (or later) before Survivor season 35, Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, will see an extended or double-length episode of this game.

So far, Survivor season 35, Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, has been pretty great. In addition to early-game strategy, we’ve been learning a lot about the motivations, lives and personalities of the 16 remaining players, as of the first two episodes. The one-hour premiere, however, left us with an under-edited, poorly-explained example of why Olympian Katrina Radke had been sent home.

For those hoping that we would start to see longer episodes in order to fully flesh out these players, I’m sad to report that it may be some time before we see something like that. According to the upcoming schedule for CBS (as of October 9, 3 p.m. ET), there will only be one-hour episodes of Survivor season 35 up through to episode 6.

Future episodes “My Kisses Are Very Private” (episode 3), “I Don’t Like Having Snakes Around” (episode 4), “The Past Will Eat You Alive” (episode 5) and the unnamed episode 6 on November 1 will have a one-hour runtime each. Without a title for that sixth episode, it remains unclear if it will be a merge episode, as with 13 players left in the game it could set up a 10-person jury once more.

This isn’t an entirely unprecedented scenario for Survivor, regardless of when the jury begins. Survivor One World saw a similar one-hour premiere and one-hour episodes all the way through to the finale. That season, if you were paying attention to edgic, clearly paved a path for victory to Kim Spradlin since the first episode, and is generally considered one of the lower-tier seasons of the show (even though it gave perhaps the best winner).

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The reason why we’re getting one-hour episodes now is a little bit different this time around. Criminal Minds has followed Survivor ever since its debut in 2005, except for this year. The debut of SEAL Team has had a profound effect on the CBS Fall schedule because CBS needs for it to be a hit.

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The costs of running a drama with high production values don’t come cheap. The SEAL Team pilot set CBS back a reported ~$9 million in bottom line costs, which comes just a few million dollars shy of the ridiculous mark set by the LOST pilot between $10 – $14 million. The network has been advertising the show like crazy and needs a show with a proven track record of ratings and viewership performance as an excellent lead-in show.

As great as Survivor season 35 has been so far, CBS needs their big, expensive drama to work in order to make money on their big investment. Plus, with Jeff Probst promising “one of the best finishes” in the show’s history, we could start seeing some double-length episodes in the final third of Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers.

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Until the quality of gameplay or storylines starts to take a dip, don’t be too concerned about the lack of Survivor airtime this season.

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