I actually enjoyed the last season for the most part, unnecessary twists eating up time and all, but this does feel like it's off to a stronger start. Hopefully now that the pressure of "the first Survivor season in over a year" is off and the audience has a better idea of the twists that are potentially in play (though I will never be happy about that stupid hourglass), the season can be a bit more relaxed (or as relaxed as it can be in this 26 days iteration).
The Jackson thing was a bit weird, but if this was something that he kept from production until the day before it started like Jeff mentions during their talk, I can see why they chose to have him start the game. That late into the process, it doesn't seem like there's much else that can be done unless they had alternates out there (and the alternate process seems like a headache to do when there's a two week isolation period involved) or were willing to start on an odd number. My optimistic reading of what happened was they gave him a couple days to see how he'd do and then pulled the trigger the moment withdrawal side effects seemed to be kicking in, with the campfire scene being their way of ensuring he still had a moment besides being abruptly kicked off, though that thread from Max Dawson does raise some interesting questions about what their policies on prescription meds really are.
The amulet twist is fun. I like the layer of paranoia that goes into it and hope we have the chance to see that actually play out instead of having two of them get voted out before anything can happen. Also the "smear dirt and fake blood all over you to make it look like you struggled for the oars" was an incredibly funny bit of unnecessary theatricality, especially with Hai going overboard with the fake blood. This seems like another fun cast and it's always a good sign when I can remember at least half of the cast after the first episode. Maryanne is a delight and I hope she goes far, though I'm biased towards all the Canadian contestants.
I didn't realize how many of the contestants were Canadian this season until my friend messaged me and said another friend was at a premiere party with one of them in Toronto. (I didn't read bios, and never really have, and I'm curious to what degree their Canadianness is engaged by the edit as opposed to those sources as the season progresses).
The show certainly presents it as though they waited to see if Jackson started to experience side effects—and we get the mention of his dehydration to prove that he was, to help justify the decision—but to be honest my guess is that it was always a simple legal call in terms of medical clearance, and that there was no way they would ever clear someone in that position regardless of whether there were early onset symptoms. And if I had to wager, I'd say that Jackson had basically been told that, and might well have given that fireside speech in order to ensure that his time on Survivor made a difference.
And ugh, let us never speak of the hourglass again.
Agree that this was much more enjoyable than anything about last season, although I didn't immediately gravitate to any of these cast members in particular as I did with Evvie and Shan or even Deshawn last season--but overall it seems like a well-chosen cast as a whole and I'll give them time. (Maryanne's energy was delightful, I liked the awkward chemistry between Zack and Romeo but it was not to be alas, and Jackson's story obviously drew me in the most again alas. After reading this I will give Jenny another look, though, I wasn't as taken with her off the bat but the things you point out are pretty funny.). The twists felt much more organic and related to social dynamics, and I found the scene where they were smearing mud and fake blood on themselves absolutely hilarious, despite the fact that there was no payoff.
I did feel that letting Jackson start the game (they have alternates for a reason!) was a little bit manipulative to have Jeff get a big Jeff Probst Talk Show moment, but also thought it was a bit uncharacteristic of the Big Important Social Lessons era of Survivor (in a good way) that they did not make Jackson's Big Teachable Moment be about his gender identity. I have mixed feelings about this era, because I am glad Survivor is confronting how societal power dynamics play out on the island which has always happened but was rarely acknowledged before, but the discussions as they play out often feel very exploitative of the cast, and this did too. Of course, as you point out, Jackson blatantly lied through casting, so it's a little bit on him, but I kind of felt like Probst was producing a big moment for himself by not sending in an alternate so it still rubbed me the wrong way.
Also if there's anyone reading these comments who would like that three month gift subscription, as my friend I usually discuss Survivor with is Myles McNutt I am happy to donate it to any internet stranger who wants to talk about Survivor here, just lmk!
So here's the question: WERE there alternates in a COVID context? Scott sort of presumes there wasn't below, and that seems like it might have been possible, as hard as it is for us to revert back to a "mid-Summer 2021" mindset in regard to COVID. That certainly shapes how we understand the choice they made, and also the added stakes to Jackson's lie.
We're on the same page with the Jeff Probst Talk Show—as established, we talk about this all the time—and I guess it's an open question of whether this reality show or any reality show like it can ever have a conversation like this one without it feeling exploitative in some way. I'd much rather they try than not, but there's this nagging sense of futility that's fueled by this incident.
The mud and blood smearing was indeed funny, although I was super confused by any of them chose blood—Hai got a lot of questions about it, despite us never seeing any followup, but it's not like they HAD to use the blood, and it feels like that pushes the whole situation past the point of credulity.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that discrepancy with some people assuming there were alternates and others assuming Covid was different, *including* from within the Survivor community but given that one person who was like “where is the alternate” was Ricard ,who was on the other summer 2021 shoot, I came down on the side that there must have been. It certainly seems sucky to quarantine for just a chance but I have to feel like there are a variety of legal and financial reasons you’d HAVE TO have them, esp if someone could be disqualified for Covid! You can make it enough worth someone’s while, I think.
Nagging sense of futility is certainly the feeling. And when I think to other reality shows I watch (RH, Bachelor) whew I think frankly their desire to engage with conversation about inclusion/diversity type stuff (mostly on racial lines) has almost entirely swung all the way around to simply being something that puts cast members of color in harms way on and off the show I have begun to feel like they should kind of...stop and just admit the format is unsavable in that respect. But I don’t feel that way about Survivor, bc the premise of its social experiment has always been to have people who are different forced to live and work with each other to gain understanding of each other. Jackson at the campfire works for me bc it’s in that mode, it’s about them on the island learning about each other. Probst asking Jackson meaningful questions (or leading a tribal council chat about representing the black community as he has on several occasions) does not bc the intended audience is us at home. Let the players tell their story. Ask the questions you want articulated in confessionals. Keep Jeffy off the screen making it about him and how much he’s seen people grow and change bc of their time on the show. I just think this is the one show where these conversations don’t HAVE to be futile but his insistence on being America’s Teacher makes it so.
This is where the level to which this conversation was engineered is kind of my question. My personal feeling is that all of this was negotiated carefully, and so who exactly felt strongly that "Jackson playing for two days" was the right approach here. Did Jackson, faced with his dream being dashed, assert that he wanted to have the chance to be in the game and tell his story? Or was it the producers who talked him into this as a way to preserve THEIR story? Was visibility related to stigmas surrounding transness and mental health something Jackson came into the game prioritizing, or something that became the priority when actually playing became impossible?
As is often the case, the answer is probably a little column A/little column B, but the Jeff Probst Talk Show of it all can't help but create the sense that he's the one puppet mastering things. You're absolutely right that the organic, tribe-based dialogues are always more meaningful, and that the less Probst involves himself the more meaningful they become. It's obvious though that involving himself is the first instinct, and admittedly there's precedent for Jeff handling castaway removals such that his absence here would have been weird. So I get why they chose to have Jeff walk people through what was happening, even if that carries a lot of baggage with it.
And yeah, if there was an alternate, I have to feel like they offered them guarantees that if they flew to Fiji to quarantine and not play, they'd be invited back this year? Or maybe they paid them really well.
Great piece Myles, and I'm looking forward to a season full of discussion! A couple of notes I took:
With Jackson, if we take Jeff at his word, they found out about the Lithium a day or two before the start of filming. I have to imagine they knew he couldn't play, but didn't want to start with uneven tribes (I hadn't even thought of your potential more cynical view). I wonder: if this had been a normal, non-Covid season, would there have been an alternate they could have replaced him with?
The Gen-Z woman in a blazer saying that she will sunburn instantly, only camps at music festivals, and hates sand is the most I've ever identified with anyone on this show, despite the age and gender discrepancies.
I don't really get Tori's strategy of lying about her job; seems like a hard lie to keep up with for not much gain. Also, her reaction faces are going to be meme gold, based on this episode.
It seems weird that they gave them the same amount of time for the triangle puzzle and filling the barrel. With 4 hours, and up to 6 people, I feel like you're basically guaranteed to eventually get to a consensus right answer. Would have been a tougher choice if they only gave them like 30 minutes. I wonder how long they actually took.
Lying about your job feels like it's always more mental effort than just facing the potential blowback, but at the same time I feel like Tori's attempt to bullshit her way out of some early game missteps would have been read much more cynically if everyone had read her attempts at bonding as therapist voodoo.
As for the puzzle, I think the four hours serves two different purposes. In one case, it's meant to communicate the physically grueling nature of the physical task. For the puzzle, it's there to force them to overthink, and potentially get fatigued and start recounting triangles (which you saw them having to negotiate). I feel like giving them rope is a smart choice in that instance.
I actually enjoyed the last season for the most part, unnecessary twists eating up time and all, but this does feel like it's off to a stronger start. Hopefully now that the pressure of "the first Survivor season in over a year" is off and the audience has a better idea of the twists that are potentially in play (though I will never be happy about that stupid hourglass), the season can be a bit more relaxed (or as relaxed as it can be in this 26 days iteration).
The Jackson thing was a bit weird, but if this was something that he kept from production until the day before it started like Jeff mentions during their talk, I can see why they chose to have him start the game. That late into the process, it doesn't seem like there's much else that can be done unless they had alternates out there (and the alternate process seems like a headache to do when there's a two week isolation period involved) or were willing to start on an odd number. My optimistic reading of what happened was they gave him a couple days to see how he'd do and then pulled the trigger the moment withdrawal side effects seemed to be kicking in, with the campfire scene being their way of ensuring he still had a moment besides being abruptly kicked off, though that thread from Max Dawson does raise some interesting questions about what their policies on prescription meds really are.
The amulet twist is fun. I like the layer of paranoia that goes into it and hope we have the chance to see that actually play out instead of having two of them get voted out before anything can happen. Also the "smear dirt and fake blood all over you to make it look like you struggled for the oars" was an incredibly funny bit of unnecessary theatricality, especially with Hai going overboard with the fake blood. This seems like another fun cast and it's always a good sign when I can remember at least half of the cast after the first episode. Maryanne is a delight and I hope she goes far, though I'm biased towards all the Canadian contestants.
I didn't realize how many of the contestants were Canadian this season until my friend messaged me and said another friend was at a premiere party with one of them in Toronto. (I didn't read bios, and never really have, and I'm curious to what degree their Canadianness is engaged by the edit as opposed to those sources as the season progresses).
The show certainly presents it as though they waited to see if Jackson started to experience side effects—and we get the mention of his dehydration to prove that he was, to help justify the decision—but to be honest my guess is that it was always a simple legal call in terms of medical clearance, and that there was no way they would ever clear someone in that position regardless of whether there were early onset symptoms. And if I had to wager, I'd say that Jackson had basically been told that, and might well have given that fireside speech in order to ensure that his time on Survivor made a difference.
And ugh, let us never speak of the hourglass again.
Agree that this was much more enjoyable than anything about last season, although I didn't immediately gravitate to any of these cast members in particular as I did with Evvie and Shan or even Deshawn last season--but overall it seems like a well-chosen cast as a whole and I'll give them time. (Maryanne's energy was delightful, I liked the awkward chemistry between Zack and Romeo but it was not to be alas, and Jackson's story obviously drew me in the most again alas. After reading this I will give Jenny another look, though, I wasn't as taken with her off the bat but the things you point out are pretty funny.). The twists felt much more organic and related to social dynamics, and I found the scene where they were smearing mud and fake blood on themselves absolutely hilarious, despite the fact that there was no payoff.
I did feel that letting Jackson start the game (they have alternates for a reason!) was a little bit manipulative to have Jeff get a big Jeff Probst Talk Show moment, but also thought it was a bit uncharacteristic of the Big Important Social Lessons era of Survivor (in a good way) that they did not make Jackson's Big Teachable Moment be about his gender identity. I have mixed feelings about this era, because I am glad Survivor is confronting how societal power dynamics play out on the island which has always happened but was rarely acknowledged before, but the discussions as they play out often feel very exploitative of the cast, and this did too. Of course, as you point out, Jackson blatantly lied through casting, so it's a little bit on him, but I kind of felt like Probst was producing a big moment for himself by not sending in an alternate so it still rubbed me the wrong way.
Also if there's anyone reading these comments who would like that three month gift subscription, as my friend I usually discuss Survivor with is Myles McNutt I am happy to donate it to any internet stranger who wants to talk about Survivor here, just lmk!
So here's the question: WERE there alternates in a COVID context? Scott sort of presumes there wasn't below, and that seems like it might have been possible, as hard as it is for us to revert back to a "mid-Summer 2021" mindset in regard to COVID. That certainly shapes how we understand the choice they made, and also the added stakes to Jackson's lie.
We're on the same page with the Jeff Probst Talk Show—as established, we talk about this all the time—and I guess it's an open question of whether this reality show or any reality show like it can ever have a conversation like this one without it feeling exploitative in some way. I'd much rather they try than not, but there's this nagging sense of futility that's fueled by this incident.
The mud and blood smearing was indeed funny, although I was super confused by any of them chose blood—Hai got a lot of questions about it, despite us never seeing any followup, but it's not like they HAD to use the blood, and it feels like that pushes the whole situation past the point of credulity.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that discrepancy with some people assuming there were alternates and others assuming Covid was different, *including* from within the Survivor community but given that one person who was like “where is the alternate” was Ricard ,who was on the other summer 2021 shoot, I came down on the side that there must have been. It certainly seems sucky to quarantine for just a chance but I have to feel like there are a variety of legal and financial reasons you’d HAVE TO have them, esp if someone could be disqualified for Covid! You can make it enough worth someone’s while, I think.
Nagging sense of futility is certainly the feeling. And when I think to other reality shows I watch (RH, Bachelor) whew I think frankly their desire to engage with conversation about inclusion/diversity type stuff (mostly on racial lines) has almost entirely swung all the way around to simply being something that puts cast members of color in harms way on and off the show I have begun to feel like they should kind of...stop and just admit the format is unsavable in that respect. But I don’t feel that way about Survivor, bc the premise of its social experiment has always been to have people who are different forced to live and work with each other to gain understanding of each other. Jackson at the campfire works for me bc it’s in that mode, it’s about them on the island learning about each other. Probst asking Jackson meaningful questions (or leading a tribal council chat about representing the black community as he has on several occasions) does not bc the intended audience is us at home. Let the players tell their story. Ask the questions you want articulated in confessionals. Keep Jeffy off the screen making it about him and how much he’s seen people grow and change bc of their time on the show. I just think this is the one show where these conversations don’t HAVE to be futile but his insistence on being America’s Teacher makes it so.
This is where the level to which this conversation was engineered is kind of my question. My personal feeling is that all of this was negotiated carefully, and so who exactly felt strongly that "Jackson playing for two days" was the right approach here. Did Jackson, faced with his dream being dashed, assert that he wanted to have the chance to be in the game and tell his story? Or was it the producers who talked him into this as a way to preserve THEIR story? Was visibility related to stigmas surrounding transness and mental health something Jackson came into the game prioritizing, or something that became the priority when actually playing became impossible?
As is often the case, the answer is probably a little column A/little column B, but the Jeff Probst Talk Show of it all can't help but create the sense that he's the one puppet mastering things. You're absolutely right that the organic, tribe-based dialogues are always more meaningful, and that the less Probst involves himself the more meaningful they become. It's obvious though that involving himself is the first instinct, and admittedly there's precedent for Jeff handling castaway removals such that his absence here would have been weird. So I get why they chose to have Jeff walk people through what was happening, even if that carries a lot of baggage with it.
And yeah, if there was an alternate, I have to feel like they offered them guarantees that if they flew to Fiji to quarantine and not play, they'd be invited back this year? Or maybe they paid them really well.
Great piece Myles, and I'm looking forward to a season full of discussion! A couple of notes I took:
With Jackson, if we take Jeff at his word, they found out about the Lithium a day or two before the start of filming. I have to imagine they knew he couldn't play, but didn't want to start with uneven tribes (I hadn't even thought of your potential more cynical view). I wonder: if this had been a normal, non-Covid season, would there have been an alternate they could have replaced him with?
The Gen-Z woman in a blazer saying that she will sunburn instantly, only camps at music festivals, and hates sand is the most I've ever identified with anyone on this show, despite the age and gender discrepancies.
I don't really get Tori's strategy of lying about her job; seems like a hard lie to keep up with for not much gain. Also, her reaction faces are going to be meme gold, based on this episode.
It seems weird that they gave them the same amount of time for the triangle puzzle and filling the barrel. With 4 hours, and up to 6 people, I feel like you're basically guaranteed to eventually get to a consensus right answer. Would have been a tougher choice if they only gave them like 30 minutes. I wonder how long they actually took.
Lying about your job feels like it's always more mental effort than just facing the potential blowback, but at the same time I feel like Tori's attempt to bullshit her way out of some early game missteps would have been read much more cynically if everyone had read her attempts at bonding as therapist voodoo.
As for the puzzle, I think the four hours serves two different purposes. In one case, it's meant to communicate the physically grueling nature of the physical task. For the puzzle, it's there to force them to overthink, and potentially get fatigued and start recounting triangles (which you saw them having to negotiate). I feel like giving them rope is a smart choice in that instance.