Survivor: Don’t bring back the Edge of Extinction twist again

While Survivor has to try new things from time to time, Edge of Extinction was not enjoyable as a twist. Don’t bring it back ever again.

Let’s just come out and say it; there was a lot wrong with Survivor: Edge of Extinction.

For one, the winner only played 12 days after being voted out on Day 8. He then spent 27 days on the Edge of Extinction where he didn’t have to worry about being voted out or really even have to play the game.

Yes, the people on Edge of Extinction were technically still in the game, but when there’s not a vote and your butt isn’t on the line, the game doesn’t seem to really have the same meaning. Chris winning season 38 is going to be the biggest reason why this season was such a flop. He was voted out barely a week into the game and wound up winning it all.

Typically, we get to know the winner at some point in the season. Whether it’s a key confessional early on or just a really sweet moment with that player, we have a sense of who they are. It never felt like that with Chris because he was only truly in the game for 12 days. It just doesn’t work well in Survivor.

The Edge of Extinction twist, in general, was a terrible one. It was nice that it allowed fan favorite Aubry and some other interesting characters to stick around for longer than usual, but the season became cluttered with too many people. Those players on the Edge of Extinction took air time away from the contestants who were still in the game.

Not only that, but the jury clocked in at 13 people, and that’s way too many jurors. Maybe this twist was invented so that we had an excuse to keep everybody around for the duration of the season, but that goes against tradition, too. A lot of players’ goals is to make it to the jury and in this case, you made it as a first boot. Again, it doesn’t work for Survivor traditionalists.

Survivor has been on for nearly 19 years, so I understand that it needs to try new things to stay fresh. There’s a reason it’s still one of the best reality shows on television and that’s because they’re not afraid to try new things.

Edge of Extinction, hopefully, goes in the “DO NOT USE AGAIN” basket moving forward. They tried it once and it gave us not only one of the worst seasons ever but the worst winner ever.