Review: Survivor, "Mergatory" | Season 43, Episode 6
'Tis a fine combination of tribes, but sure 'tis no merge, Probst
“Oh, this is Survivor? What have I been playing?!”
Friend of Episodic Medium Joe Reid published a great piece at Primetimer today about the distinct televisual pleasure of the Survivor merge, which is a sacred ritual for the show’s players and viewers. There’s this idea that Survivor doesn’t truly start as a game until you’ve made it to the merge, as the individual competition begins and encourages players to rethink their alliances and approach the challenge ahead of them differently. Joe talked to a bunch of Survivor alumni—including, I’m sure, many of your favorites—about their experiences, and inevitably the conversation turned to the current state of the most iconic Survivor narrative.
There are some really thoughtful answers to this question among the alumni, and I absolutely concur that Survivor’s efforts to add some additional drama to the merge are not inherently bad. They’re built on the idea of the merge being such an important threshold that producers should maximi…