After so much publicity with Survivor 50, it’s safe to say being in the dark with Survivor 51 has not been fun for fans. But the wait doesn’t feel so long now that we have an official premiere date!
The 51st season of the show is introducing a new “open era” that is inviting back potential from all previous seasons of Survivor. While we’ve spent the weeks since season 50’s finale sharing everything we know about the upcoming season, CBS has now released a new commercial highlighting clips from the original teaser trailer (below) to excite fans about the show returning this fall.
Survivor 51 premieres Wednesday, September 23
With this new information, we are officially in countdown mode with 10 weeks until the new season begins. We can guess that the first episode will be extended beyond the usual 90-minute format as that’s what we’ve seen over the last ten seasons. Most new era seasons premiered with kick-off episodes ranging anywhere from 2-4 hours. The only season that doesn’t fall into those timelines is Survivor 45 as it was the beginning of the 90-minute spot, so the premiere was 90 minutes.
We can also anticipate that we will likely see 13 episodes again since Survivor 49 premiered last on September 24 last fall and ran for 13 weeks in order to get a finale around the winter holidays. The only seasons that moved away from the 13 episode format were Survivor 42, which had 12 episodes, and Survivor 47, which had 14 episodes.
And like I said, with the new idea of an “open era,” we need to be prepared for anything to happen. Jeff Probst has said that the production learned a lot in the new era, and especially with the milestone Survivor 50. After incorporating an at-home vote to determine elements of the anniversary season, fans have been more vocal than ever about what they like—and don’t like—about the game.
I’m personally hoping to see a bit of a return to the less twist-y gameplay. We love watching the chaos at camp before a vote and it’s much more entertaining to see people actually strategizing over who should go home rather than counting their hidden immunity idols. And—while this isn’t technically a part of the game—I would truly love nothing more than to see the return of the Ponderosa jury vlogs. I loved jumping over to YouTube after seeing a player get voted off and getting a behind-the-scenes look at their exit from the game.
Here’s hoping we get the very best of all eras of Survivor when Survivor 51 premiere Wednesday, September 23.
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