Survivor Winners at War: Editing has blindsided viewers this season

Survivor: Winners at War, along with a few of the other recent seasons, has taken a different approach with editing, and it’s thrown the viewers off a little more.

For years and years, it was usually pretty easy to figure out who was going home or at least who was going to be in jeopardy of being sent home each week on Survivor. That hasn’t been the case as much the past few seasons, but this season, in particular, has really thrown viewers for a loop when it comes to trying to guess who the boot might be.

Take this past episode, for example. From the early minutes of Survivor: Winners at War episode 3, viewers were led to believe that it’d be Parvati getting the heave-ho, and that seemed to be the consensus until later in the episode when it appeared things were going to be flipped to Adam.

Late in the game, a third option popped up for about half a second, and that ended up being what happened at Tribal Council. In case you forgot, that was Ethan, becoming the fourth person voted off Winners at War and being sent to the Edge of the Extinction.

The conversation of voting Ethan out was a short one, and casual viewers or those who are prone to checking their phone during the episode might have missed out on it and been really confused when the votes were read.

Normally, it’s pretty easy to tell who’s in danger of getting the axe because that person will get a sudden bump in screentime. Ethan had one confessional in his boot episode, and that was perplexing, to say the least.

In episode 2, Danni didn’t have a single confessional until right before Tribal Council when she sunk her own ship by wanting Parvati out. Her getting voted out wasn’t as odd because at least we saw her ruin her own game, but the Ethan vote was a curveball from the editors.

This doesn’t necessarily apply to just Tribal Council either, as it feels like the editors are throwing us off the scent when it comes to the challenges too. In episode two, after fixating on the Dakal tribe for what seemed like most of the episode, they actually won the challenge, and Sele went to Tribal Council once again.

Perhaps this was just so we got to see more of the Dakal tribe early on since the second half of the episode would be dedicated to the losing tribe, but it threw me for a loop. Nothing is the norm for the show’s biggest season, but even the diehard fans are having a tough time predicting who will get voted off on a week to week basis.