Review: Survivor, "I'll Sign the Divorce Papers" | Season 43, Episode 3
Survivor's tweaks to the game don't extend to the subconscious bias that defines its early episodes
The “Beware Advantage” idols from Seasons 41 and 42 of Survivor were a failure of game design. The fact that they were useless until other tribes found and engaged their idols meant that players had no control over their own destiny, which makes for a less dynamic experience as a viewer. If one tribe was slower in looking for idols, everyone who did look for and find idols were punished, and that doesn’t support actual gameplay so much as people saying nonsense phrases.
The adjustment to the “Beware” Idols this season offers a more dynamic story point, albeit one that—as we see in this week’s episode—risks being pretty samey. Last week, Cody managed to get all the necessary beads pretty easily, and the same is basically the same for Karla in the Coco tribe. She hesitates on the beware advantage initially, but she talks herself up to taking it, and she quickly realizes that it’s not a huge stretch: they had just made James a bracelet anyway, and between bartering her earrings …