Let’s clear up one thing right off the bat. I love this TV show. I didn’t grow up watching it like all the young contestants are throwing in Jeff Probst’s face right now, but I fell for Survivor hard around 2019 and relentlessly worked to catch up on the years of greatness I missed since then. My first season was Pearl Islands, an excellent suggestion by my partner, which is full of memorable moments, like the intro where the tribes barter for supplies in a small fishing village, and the iconic TV villain Jonny Fairplay’s lie about his grandmother’s death.

I loved those early, chaotic seasons that barely stayed on the rails, and introduced us to foundational figures we still see pop up around the reality tv multiverse to this day. I’m not just an old-school purist, though. I think Survivor‘s 30s were pretty incredible, and I still had fun tuning in weekly for the past crop of seasons dubbed the “New Era.” I feel similarly about Survivor season 50, or In the Hands of the Fans which had some fun highs, but the edits for many great castaways were lackluster, the flood of (unfortunately fan-requested) twists did the castaways few favors, and I just didn’t give a shit about watching Zac Brown spear fish and snorkel with manta rays. Did we really need to see him play two songs??

Just being an all-star season sets a ridiculously high bar of expectation that In the Hands of the Fans didn’t always hit. Seasons like Micronesia, Heroes vs. Villains, Blood vs. Water, even the more controversial Game Changers, had an electric feeling with castaways hitting the beach with delicious baggage affecting their games this time around. We got a little of that in season 50, like when Ozzy and Coach butted heads almost immediately after the season kicked off, or how Aubry and Charlie openly discussed how their previous final tribal council experiences are affecting their games in confessionals. But even as the players were shrinking, we were inundated with so many elements that the season couldn’t escape feeling bloated and rushed.

There are a lot of ways that the New Era adjusted the game, like the shift from 39 to 26 days, and the addition of twists like beware advantages, journeys that give players on opposing tribes a chance to talk and do challenges, and the shot in the dark. I think one less-discussed change has made the New Era feel a lot more repetitive, and that’s the tribe split. All New Era seasons had three tribes of six players, while In the Hands of the Fans had three tribes of eight players.

This split seems to have caused more frequent challenge snowball scenarios in the New Era, where one tribe loses most of the early immunity challenges, getting whittled to just a few people left to play the middle in the merge. I don’t think going with two tribes is an automatic solution going forward, but switching between the two lends some variety to the seasons, and could let more castaways have a chance to shine. Plus, it could take a load off the editors who won’t have to cut between three beaches and everything else.

The edit is a thorny subject to wade into. It’s monumentally difficult to whittle hours and hours of footage into a coherent story, but I was let down a few times by the pacing and focus of this season. For example, Tiffany was completely sidelined in the early game, and I got whiplash when she suddenly became a major player after the tribes merged. I wish I could have felt more uncertainty as to whether Tiff’s underdog story would end in a win, but I knew in the back of my head that they would have shown her more early-on if she ended up winning. This was a huge cast, with tons of twists including multiple double tribal council episodes, stays on exile island, and votes changing on a dime. It was tough to keep up with all those spinning plates while still finding time to see alliances shift, and show slivers of life at camp as well.

As much as things have changed, some constants were exactly the same in Season 50. Ozzy went home with an idol in his pocket again, Cirie played a phenomenal game and got closer to the final three than I ever would have expected, and Rick was a chaotic little trickster demon who brought some much needed instability to the merged tribe before he finally got taken down. It was fun to see the middle players prevail when it seemed like Coach, Chrissy, Stephenie, Joe, and Jonathan might rule the rest of game. Survivor is so, so good when it’s good, and I love that the game hasn’t been static since day one. Unfortunately, it did feel like the changes of this season, and in the New Era broadly, noticeably got in the way of some great players. This season proved to me that the fans may not be the best producers of the show… so don’t listen to us!

Going into the 50s now, Probst has teased that the next era is called the Open Era. From what the Season 51 trailer shows, they aren’t going to be pulling back on twists and advantages, promising new elements and even noting that all 50 seasons of past advantages and twists could be in play. Probst also teases that the Open Era is a, “shapeshifting game, changing without warning, creating permanent uncertainty.” Sure, it got me hyped to see the season 51 players raiding a ship for supplies just like classic Survivor, but I can’t help but be slightly wary of a kitchen sink approach to game design after In the Hands of the Fans.

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Season 50 Highlights

• All of Q’s confessionals. It sucks that he was voted out so early because no one did it better this season.
• Aubry saying “I’m a psycho, let’s do it,” and housing two grubs at the Survivor auction like it was her job. She deserved the $2 million from that scene alone.
• Jeff Probst’s live reunion gaffe. It was so funny to see the realization of the fire-making challenge spoiler move through the cast members sitting helplessly on the stage while Jeff still didn’t understand what was going on.

Season 50 Lowlights

• Watching Christian write his own name down, and have to say he was doing so in front of the whole tribe. I like challenges that put your vote at risk, but seeing that much agency removed from a player left a bad taste in my mouth.
• Seeing Jenna from Survivor: Borneo be the first boot. It would have been an amazing storyline to see Jenna go farther, but she made the mistake of saying Cirie’s name too early.
• Having to hear “honor & integrity” uttered in the game of Survivor in the year 2026. You’re not a knight of the round table!