Survivor 50 is an entertaining season so far. We've had a lot of drama in the early stages of the game with Kyle Fraser's medical evacuation, frustrated players and feuds (Coach vs. Ozzy, Joe vs. Devens), and more. Outside of those bits of drama, Survivor 50 has been boring so far, and there's an easy explanation why.
Quite simply, there are too many players in Survivor 50. Starting the season with 24 players, there were three tribes of eight players. For me, those tribes are just too big to start the game.
The Survivor 50 cast size makes it hard for the players to make big moves
When you have big tribes, it takes so much more work to make big moves and rally votes. It's so much easier, especially as the bonds are being formed, to get the vote moving one or two directions and just staying on the path. Almost every player is happy they aren't the target, and they just go with the flow, ride the wave, and live to see another day.
That's exactly what I was worried about heading into the season. I was worried the big cast would stop fans from seeing certain players, but I was also worried that the gameplay would suffer from too many players.
That's basically what we've seen so far. In the first vote, it seemed like very few players wanted to vote out Jenna Lewis-Dougherty, but Cirie Fields and Ozzy Lusth were basically off limits, so Savannah and others just went along with the Jenna vote. In the second vote, it was more of the same. Savannah was the odd person out on the Cila tribe, and she came back with an advantage and lied about it. They didn't know her or her game, and the tribe chose to keep the known (Joe) rather than continue to play with the unknown player.
Then, after the tribe swap in episode 3, Q Burdette joined the tribe with no allies and no vote. He did his best to try to cause some chaos and shake things up, but there was no way he could break up Ozzy, Christian Hubicki, Mike White, and Angelina Keeley on such short notice.
And, that's what happened with the tribe swap this early. While juicy for entertainment purposes, it just shuffles the deck a little too much when the foundations are not stable. When you don't let the players build relationships, it's much harder to make big moves. When you have big tribes, it's nearly impossible to pull off a big move at this stage of the game.
For instance, imagine you're Q. You're heading to a new tribe without a vote. Of the seven available votes, you have to swing four votes off of you to stay in the game. That's a nearly impossible task in Survivor. No one is going to put their life on the line for Q and draw a line in the sand at this phase of the game.
The new era solves this issue with six players split across three tribes
The new era of Survivor basically fixed this issue at the start of each game. We saw three tribes of six players before the new era, but every season of new era Survivor starts the same way with three tribes of six players.
In that scenario, a group of four is the majority needed, but when you get into tribes of four or five players, it only takes one person flipping to make things very interesting at Tribal Council. A lost vote tips the scales toward chaos even further. It's a fine line to walk, but there's no debate that fewer players on a tribe, especially early in the season, often results in incredible fireworks.
Think about Survivor 47 when you had Genevieve Mushaluk, who is back for Survivor 50, pull off an epic blindside of Kishan Patel on the Lavu tribe. Basically, Genevieve saw the game slipping out of her fingers with Kishan, and she flipped a vote to keep Rome Cooney in the game. It was epic.
Later than season but before the merge, you had Sam Phalen, Sierra Wright, and Andy Rueda team up to blindside Anika Dhar in one of the most stunning blindsides in new era history. With such small numbers, you take an alliance of four players, Sam, Sierra, Anika, and Rachel LaMont, and you can flip the game by two players in that alliance pulling in a third.
On top of that, the smaller tribe eliminates the possibilities of split votes, which makes things more exciting. In Survivor 48, you had a tribe swap that brought Kyle Fraser and Kamilla Karthigesu from one tribe to a tribe with the California Girls Alliance of Joe Hunter, Thomas Krottinger, and Shauhin Davari. The trio tried to vote Kyle out, but he played an immunity idol that saved his life in the game. Because you had an alliance of three players on a five-player tribe, there was no way they could split a vote to eliminate an idol play and keep the alliance safe.
The game is much more interesting when you have smaller tribes and more advantages. It's going to take a long time to achieve that in Survivor 50. Three tribes of seven, which is where we were in episode 3, is still too many players for anyone to get any footing.
And, that's why it's such a bummer that they chose to include so many players in season 50. There's no doubt in my mind that we'd see much better gameplay so far with smaller tribes. The opportunities for players to actually play would open up. Right now, it's far too crowded.
Obviously, a smaller cast means that we'd have to lose a few players. I don't want that job to cut six players, but if you had to twist my arm, I'd take out the three winners. Sorry, Kyle, Savannah, and Dee. Then, I'd have three tough decisions.
Overall, I'm still enjoying Survivor 50, but I was hoping to see groundbreaking strategy; the season has not reached that yet. It still can, of course, but so far, it's been a bit disappointing.