Friday Open Thread

And some thoughts on Survivor 50

We’re heading into a holiday weekend. What’s on your mind? What are your weekend plans? What should I write about in the coming weeks?

I’m still stewing, believe it or not, about the Survivor 50 finale and the season as a whole. I love reality TV but it has morphed into something that has very little reality to it. It’s all kind of manufactured and unpleasant and gravely lacking in charm or whimsy. I expected that this milestone season would be fun and have lots of intrigue and twists but so much of the production felt, well, like a production! You could see the ways the producers tried to manipulate the game to get their desired outcomes. And one thing that has persisted across seasons is that racism and misogyny travel to the Survivor island with the contestants. No bigotry left behind!

(Cirie was robbed. Even Tiff, who I am not crazy about, was robbed. And what was Stephenie even doing during the final tribal council? )

During COVID, or at the height of COVID, I should say, the show changed its format. Instead of different locales, they settled in Fji. They shortened the season from 39 days (much more compelling) to 29 days (whatever). There were other changes and none for the better. Shows do change and evolve to stay “fresh” but what should have just been a temporary change became a permanent one. This is all compounded by the way that anyone who goes on the show now is a superfan, very familiar with how the game is played, which strategies work most effectively and so on. They come on the show with grandiose ideas and immediately start to build their Survivor portfolio, an accounting of the strategic moves they make during the season that will, hopefully, get them to the finale. They also talk about jury management which is to say they have to be careful about who they betray and how, because many of those people will be the ones who determine the season’s winner. And, of course, they immediately start looking for immunity idols and everyone at camp knows they are looking for immunity idols so it becomes something of a clusterfuck group project so that no one is every alone if and when they find an advantage.

As a viewer, this is all kind of grating. We’re no longer seeing people thrown into an inhospitable climate, with a bunch of strangers, using their intellectual and physical prowess to win a million dollars. We’re seeing a bunch of people showing how well they’ve watched previous seasons of the show, and how well they can mimic what they’ve seen. It’s an imitation of life.

Anyway, Season 51 is around the corner. The machine rolls on.