Survivor: 7 reasons why Edge of Extinction twist is an institutional failure

Juries are woefully uninformed of all the active players’ games at Final Tribal Council

What sets Redemption Island and Edge of Extinction apart, besides the players knowing the twist ahead of time, is that there are two clear breaks in the action. Redemption Island consisted of a series of duels, with these challenges testing the mettle of those on the outs.

At the merge, one would come back and everyone else becomes members of the pre-jury group. After that, the post-merge Redemption Island players compete to stay for the next challenge, with those that fall becoming members of the jury. Everyone in the post-merge was once part of the same tribe; everyone lived together on the same beach.

With Edge of Extinction, we saw in the finale two odd scenarios occur. First, we saw two players introduce themselves on Day 39 to someone who would become the winner on Day 39. By that happening, the inverse became an odd scenario; a member of the jury had no idea what was going on with players he had never met before.

Sure, he knew that Victoria was a jury threat, but that’s imperfect information based on numbers. How could members on the jury understand how well Gavin or Victoria were playing if they were never on a tribe with them? The only thing they might see of some players is what happens at Tribal Council where idol necklaces and idol plays reign supreme, which mitigates the social experiment at the core of Survivor.