Typically I don’t do Survivor posts beyond my predictions and reviews. But as I sit here awaiting the merge episode to drop tomorrow, I realized I have a few things to say. Survivor 49 has been really good so far, in certain ways. In other ways, it’s a shining example of the New Era’s shortcomings. But all the signs point to a banging post-merge and I’ll try to explain why.

For me, the big annoying elephant in the room is we got another disaster tribe. Kele blowing up is not good TV. Production loves making the players “earn” everything and making the game dangerous. The issue I take with this is they aren’t considering the audience, or the TV product, with this mindset. I don’t care if the players think they’re in danger, I only care if the result on my screen is entertaining.

There’s an obvious problem when disaster tribes happen nearly every season. One season is an awesome novelty. Two seasons is a funny circumstance. FOUR SEASONS? Bro… there’s a flaw. Can we please stop taking their flint? Can we balance the tribes better and stop giving tribes no puzzle gods? Once a tribe is down a single member, the other tribes can start sitting people out. They run their A-Team while the losers need to run the people that have been losing.

I want to see everyone play the game. I want to see all the dynamics play out. Hina being invisible is distracting. Oversaturating Kele is annoying. I will say, Jake’s medevac was cinema. One of the most compelling scenes of Survivor I’ve seen in years. 

Moving on from my rant, there’s a lot to like about 49 so far. The cast is great and very rootable. Uli is a homerun of characters. Nate had me on my knees begging that he wouldn’t go to tribal last episode. The Shannon vs Sage drama fed families. That drama is exactly why I watch Survivor. I will not tolerate any Shannon haters, she was great TV.

The editing also deserves a ton of praise. There’s been a lot of inspired outside the box choices. Rizo’s flipper scene or the chicken killing scene come to mind. It seems very unfocused on bullshit, which is an improvement I see Survivor making more and more. I shudder just thinking about Survivor 41, but we’ve come so far.

The #1 reason I can guarantee the Survivor 49 post-merge will slap is the boot order. We have been blessed with the boot order. Let’s take a look: Nicole, Annie, Jake, Jeremiah, Matt, Jason, Shannon. When I look at that list, I don’t feel much remorse for lost potential. This is so subjective, but I think only Jake would have pushed the envelope. 

So when you lose a lot of “deadweight” early, it leaves only big players in the game. We have some gamers left. Savannah, Rizo, Nate, Steven, Sophie, Sophi, Alex and MC are ALL players I see fighting for the win. Even wildcards like Sage and Jawan I gotta throw a bone. The ingredients left in the pot are potent. I can’t even imagine what Savannah will be like when she actually has to play.

There’s a bloodbath coming that I’m very much looking forward too. The pre-merge was straightforward, but there’s not many easy votes left. And with Survivor 50 on the horizon, they’re all trying to earn that spot.