Review: Survivor, "This Is Where The Legends Are Made" | Season 46, Episode 1
Main Character Syndrome cuts through Backstory Fatigue as another season begins
Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of Season 46 of CBS’ reality stalwart Survivor. As always, the first review is available to all subscribers, but further coverage will be exclusively for paid subscribers. Yearly subscriptions are 20% off until 3/4, and if you’re already subscribed but not interested in Survivor, you can adjust your mailing list settings to stop getting emails in your Substack profile under “Manage Subscription.”
“Right now, everything seems possible.”
Earlier this week, I was talking with Episodic Medium founding member—I mean, I comped her for life, but she’s a Founding Member in spirit—Annemarie about The Traitors and the storytelling dynamics of reality series that feature returning stars. The Traitors might be a mashup of numerous franchises, but it follows similar logic of All-Star seasons, where the narrative shifts from watching new players adapt to a game they think they understand to returning players navigating their past experience, whatever that might entail.
And naturally, the conversation turned to a nagging question: why has Survivor not done an All-Star season in its “New Era?” We’re now in our sixth post-COVID season, which means we’ve definitely collected enough new all-stars for an O.G. vs. New Era season where we see how players from pre-40 adapt to the new pace of the game and how post-40 players rethink their strategy when everyone’s got a history with the game. But there’s no sign that Jeff Probst is interested in bringing back existing players en masse, as opposed to what we saw last season with Bruce getting a second chance after being medically evacuated early in 44.
My theory, as Annemarie already heard at dinner, is that Probst so understands the New Era through the lens of regular people testing themselves that the stories offered by an All-Star season are not as appealing as they used to be. So much of the storytelling in recent seasons, especially with the switch to 90-minute episodes, has been on emotional backstories that viewers at home can relate to, thus encouraging them to aspire to be part of it themselves. And so to switch to people who already know how the game works, and whose stories we already know, would be a far more dramatic shift in narrative focus than All-Star seasons have created in the past, and clearly one Probst is not interested in at this time.
I raise these points less because I think the cast of 46 is unsatisfactory, and more because I think there’s a Backstory Fatigue that’s settling in. This two-hour premiere is luxurious in its ability to map out almost every player’s story, but there’s a point where seeing so many potential narratives of personal triumph and self-discovery blurs together into nothingness. If a 60-minute premiere would have struggled to establish anyone’s stories, a 120-minute premiere struggles to distinguish between those stories, outside of Jelinsky’s undeniable main character energy. While it’s perhaps better for future storytelling that we’ve got a baseline for every player (Nami’s Randen was the last player to be formally “introduced” per my notes), there’s a part of me that knows so many of these players are dead weight, and whatever backstory we get will be squandered by their performance.
As a result, my response to New Era premieres is mostly about the shifts in the game itself. On this front, we continue to see variations on the Journey and Beware Advantage dimensions of the game. As far as Journeys go, to be honest I’ve completely forgotten what last season’s challenge even entailed, because this part of the game is more about fostering mistrust while distributing the now plentiful advantages Probst wants in play. But this time around, there’s an added layer of mistrust in the journey itself, with the Torch/Vote/Skull tiles creating a mini-game of trust. And if Jelinsky hadn’t immediately folded when Maria threatened to sully his name with her tribe if he was lying in a game where he has to lie if he doesn’t want to lose a vote, then we might have seen something more interesting. Instead, two extra votes were introduced to the game, which I prefer to more chaotic advantages but still feels like unnecessary clutter at a stage where every vote offers new story anyway.
The adjustment to the Beware Advantage is more interesting, and pays off immediately in ways that are undeniably satisfying. I don’t know if you could say it was particularly hidden where it was on that rock, but the added layers creates a delayed urgency—we get the initial thrill of Tiffany’s discovery, the scramble over realizing they need to dig it up, and then the promise that if Yanu loses an immunity challenge that it will be a race to try to find the key before tribal. And when Yanu is dead last for the second straight challenge, we get the urgency we were promised, and Tiffany manages to solve the cypher and get her key pretty effectively. I’m guessing that things won’t line up so cleanly for other tribes (provided they have the same structure, albeit likely with different clues), but here it’s a decent enough shift to the Beware logic that at least gives players who are at risk of losing their vote a chance to get it back before it hurts them.
Tiffany wasn’t at risk, exactly, but in the instance that the emerging alliance of four—Tiffany, Kenzie, Q, and Bhanu—had remained at odds about how to progress once Yanu was headed to tribal council, her vote might have been critical. But in the end, while Jess’ sleep-deprived brain fog and the fact she’s not a white dude may have played against her, Jelinsky spent the entire episode playing against himself in a way we’ve never really seen before. His exit interview reveals a level of delusion that’s hard to shake: he still felt comfortable after all of that, even with Q so clearly calling him out and Bhanu becoming so emotional talking about him? Or after Probst spent so much of his time clearly laying down judgment for his unwillingness to acknowledge the truth of his situations, whether it’s quitting the Sweat challenge or folding during the Journey? It’s the ultimate morality tale of Main Character Syndrome, and it eats up the vast majority of the two-hour premiere’s oxygen in the process.
The result is an iconic first boot without a whole lot of other story to work with. That said, as noted, there are clearly seeds of stories in place: Hunter’s introverted efforts to fit in with the summer camp vibes at Nami and Charlie as the floater between the men and women of Siga are both clearly going to come into play once those tribes make it to tribal. And while there are players with bad vibes—Tim’s “we’ve got to vote out a woman” turn after initially bonding with Maria over being parents, for example—the Jelinsky Show gave us a mostly satisfying first boot insofar as we didn’t see the “strength first” elimination of women contestants take over immediately.
And so while I don’t know that I needed two hours of foundational storytelling to invest in a season, and I’m definitely yearning for that All-Stars season a bit more with each passing year, it’s nice to be back on the island with y’all once again.
Stray observations
Sorry for the delay—busy week meant I had to move theater tickets to last night. But I’m not teaching on Wednesdays this semester, so at least until the end of the season (where I will be teaching) things should be up on Wednesday evenings no problem.
The Andy Griffith Alliance bit was great, and a nice followup on the licensed music we saw last season. Love to see the editors getting to be creative and really engage in stylistic flourishes to tell story.
Liz might have hurt her social game when she bragged about how many businesses she’s started and sold, but I wonder about her practical ability to exist in the game if she’s allergic to so many thing, including coconuts? I wonder if there’s some kind of consideration of that when they cast and think about resources.
I don’t want to be so derivative by forcing Soda to be compared to Maryanne, but the latter made the comparison herself, and between her enthusiasm during challenges and her camp counselor vibes at camp, the editors are definitely leaning into it.
Q’s real estate/football energy is not a great vibe, to be honest, but at least his moral code led him to the Jelinsky vote. I just don’t really trust where his focus goes next.
I’m curious how central Charlie’s Swiftie identity was during his audition process, and how much producers—prepping this season in the midst of the Eras Tour’s U.S. dates last summer—asked him to lean into it. Are we seeing literally every single time he mentioned Taylor Swift, or was it actually a big part of his personality?
Speaking of Charlie, there’s not a lot of stakes for the Sweat/Savvy challenge given that everyone gets the materials after the end of the first episode anyway, but it was still cringe to see him solve enough of the puzzle to figure it out but then just…not keep looking when he didn’t immediately find something. But it was a smart puzzle, in terms of seeing how long it would take them to realize there was no way they could find a six digit number from what they were given.
Do we think Moriah’s friends really call her “Mo-on-the-Go” or did she just invent that to make it seem like she had friends?
Fun fact: if we don’t get an All-Star season for 47, Jelinsky reports it will have been several seasons since Winners at War.
Welcome back to another round of Survivor coverage, everyone—two years ago, some of you joined me on the solo journey that Episodic Medium used to be, and it’s always this wonderful little corner of our community as it’s grown. Excited for the conversations to follow.
I mean I am a founding member in the sense that you started a personal substack and I said “but what if it was a whole publication” (I only read one sentence I’ll be back to talk about the episode)
All hail the gecko. The geckos are our New Gods now.