Review: Survivor, "The Third Turd" | Season 44, Episode 5
Unbalanced tribes have the game—and the producers—longing for the merge
Last week, I focused some attention on the alarming pattern that we’ve seen across the past two seasons of Survivor, in which the first four people voted out of the game were women. But there’s another pattern that we’ve seen over seasons 42 and 43 that has been better for the game: sure, they’re voting out women early, but they’ve been doing so across multiple tribes. It’s ensured that when the merge approaches, the tribes are evenly divided with four players each.
Balanced tribes are simply better for Survivor at this early stage, especially starting with tribes of 6—challenges have more players, and the votes are more dynamic. It also creates more oxygen in any given tribe for the show’s influx of advantages, whether real or fake. There’s a big difference between a tribe of four or five juggling an increasing number of balls and a tribe of three effectively running on fumes fully aware of how the next vote is going to play out.
This season has, clearly, not been as advantag…