In the hype leading up to the last season of Survivor, there was so much celebration and moments of looking back that it made perfect sense when Jeff Probst finally announced at the Survivor 50 finale that the new era was over and the gameplay of season 50 will lead us in an even newer era, the “open era.”
And now the intense, all-returnee player season seems to be acting as a bridge between the two eras, but which one does it better represent? While we still don’t know much about the open era, we do know that everything is on the table. But is that what happened in Survivor 50?
It’s definitely clear that Survivor 50 broke the template for the new era; increasing the number of players, updating the standard advantage structure, and bringing back returning players not only from the new era, but across all seasons. And the fan vote element also meant we saw some shifts in game elements that removed the pattern of predictability we’ve been seeing in the new era.
And where there were new twists and advantages in Survivor 50, like the Blood Moon twist, the Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol, the Power Broker advantage, the MrBeast Super Beware Advantage and Jimmy Fallon’s (cough…terrible…) One in the Urn twist, the open era is said to not necessarily be inviting new advantages in, but is definitely putting old twists and advantages into play.
Game elements like standard hidden immunity idols, exile island, two starting tribes, themes, could now enter play at any time over the next ten (possibly more…) seasons. After the success of Survivor 50—specficially the unknown elements—the open era seems to be attempting to cure fans of their fatigue from a formulaic format. In fact, Jeff explicitly has stated that they’re making “permanent uncertainty” the core foundation of the open era.
In the end, I believe the planning stages for season 50 exposed the limitations of the new era and forced production to think outside of the box and incorporate both new and old gameplay. With the fans voting in dynamic twists, we saw that castaways thrive much better in the game—and play much harder—when there’s more uncertainty.
So yes, Survivor 50 ended the new era, but it’s also acting as the foundation for the open era. It wasn’t just a celebration of 25 years of Survivor, it was a test to see how fans would respond to a hard pivot for the series. Because the last time fans experienced a massive change without warning, it did not go well (cough…Survivor 41…).
But by destroying the rigid mold the last nine seasons had more or less fit into, Survivor 50 provides us some reassurance that the open era will keep the show flexible season-to-season, which I think fans are really going to enjoy when the time comes.
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