It has been years since we’ve seen a Survivor season without a casting theme or special season-wide twist. It feels like we won’t get another while in Fiji.
Though it feels like just yesterday since the end of Survivor: Edge of Extinction, in reality, it’s been more than two months. As we await further official details on Island of the Idols, including the extent of Boston Rob Mariano and Sandra Diaz-Twine’s role in the gameplay throughout the season, you can’t help but wonder when, if ever, we’ll get a reset.
For decades, Survivor has evolved its format, its rules, its game mechanics, and even how many days you can play the game and win. The most popular among the ways to keep things fresh is by going through season themes, whether it be in casting or the framework of gameplay. Having mentors tough it out on an island adds another layer of gameplay and perspective for viewers.
Not only that, but production has added layers upon layers of advantages and powers onto the game, introducing advantage menus, idol nullifiers, inactive players sending active players advantages and players living on the Edge of Extinction being jury members from Day 3 onward. Amazingly, all those things happened within the last year of television.
More and more, the blurring of lines between Survivor’s social experiment and Big Brother’s motto of “Expect the unexpected,” which introduces a brand new theme and major twist every year. To be fair, they only air traditional play once a year during the summer, with shortened celeb seasons during the winter. Survivor airs 39-day play twice as often.
The more this show tries to “change things up” and “keep things fresh,” the more and more it begins to resemble a Frankenshow rather than the competition that changed the television landscape forever. Some argue it’s been like that since the single-digit seasons, but now with the compounding changes to the game we’ve seen lately, it’s hard to ignore.
Just look back at the past few seasons, and you’ll see Edge of Extinction, David vs. Goliath, Ghost Island, Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, Game Changers, Millennials vs. Gen X, Kaoh Rong (Brains vs. Braun vs. Beauty casting), Second Chances, Worlds Apart, San Juan del Sur (Blood vs. Water), Cagayan (BvBvB), the original Blood vs. Water and Caramoan (Fans vs. Favorites)
All these seasons either cast for a specific type of people or involve a significant gameplay twist stacked on top of new advantages or powers. Even Philippines cast for captains who were medically evacuated previously, while South Pacific brought back Redemption Island and captains, as well. The last time there was a “standard” Survivor season was back to season 19’s Samoa.
Precisely the last half of the show’s history has been trying to change things around, afraid to stick to a regular gameplay season. It’s a shame, because “going back to basics” seasons have worked out well. Tocantins was the last season to feature both 16 castaways and a Final Two, and that felt like a breath of fresh air after Gabon and held its own among seasons like Micronesia and Heroes vs. Villains around it.
Even a show like Big Brother, which is known for mixing things up each year, tried to go back to basics with season 10 and produced not only one of the show’s most excellent casts but greatest winners. It would be great to see that happen with Survivor to see what it would feel like, even for just one season.
Unfortunately, the longer the show stays in Fiji for its ridiculous filming rebates, the less likely this will happen. The show has filmed in the country for four straight years, and each year, Survivor strays further from the light it once brought. When people are given idols after being voted out on Day 8 and still can win, a bunch of former idols and advantages are given to players in games of chances, and middling returning players are called game-changers, something has gone astray.
It’s part of the peril for staying in one place; you have to change things up dramatically if you’re going to play on the same beaches and same islands year after year. Survivor even screwed up by giving Game Changers the Mamanuca Islands subtitle, as they can’t even use that to name a game reset to basics.
We have to accept that no matter what happens in the future, Survivor will no longer be a show about people honoring the fallen players through rites of passage, balancing character development with strategy, or about pure showcases of social and strategic gameplay not driven by trinkets. This is what the legacy of the show has become.