Episode 13: What comes next

Published: June 3, 2024

Survivor 46's finale continued to make welcome trims to the New Era's excesses, while also adding some new features. Some glaring problems, like the Aftershow's cruelty to the losing finalists, still need fixing, though. What else should change?

Episode 12: One more

Published: May 20, 2024

After Episode 12, we now have just one episode of Survivor 46 left. The good news is, it's unlikely someone will be voted out in the finale while holding an unplayed idol, so we should have a different storyline. Although we did get one more person doing that this episode, to make four in a row. Yay, records.

Episode 11: The edit vs. in-game perspectives

Published: May 13, 2024

Episode 11 of Survivor 46 was the third straight episode in which Q was played up as the obvious boot, all as a smokescreen to mollify an idol-holder who was then blindsided instead. Similarly, the show's editing has been hiding a few things over the past few weeks ... for what purpose?

Episode 10: Whither the withered Six?

Published: May 6, 2024

In theory, as we approach the final seven, the Journey Six should have been preparing to claim their final victim. But in reality, the opposite has happened, and Episode 10 of Survivor 46 marked the fourth straight episode in which a member of the Six left the game. What happened?

Episode 9: Artificial chaos

Published: April 29, 2024

There was a lot of maneuvering going on in Episode 9 of Survivor 46, but the edit struggled to tell the story completely, which unfortunately buried some solid gameplay. Also, in light of the Survivor 50 announcement, let's compare the Survivor 'teens with the new era.

Episode 8: And that's what hide and seek showed me

Published: April 21, 2024

With a cat-and-mouse game as its metaphorical centerpiece, Episode 8 of Survivor 46 finally kicked off the post-merge game for real, and made use of the off-day entertainment as a snapshot of each player's game. Everything then fell apart at a chaotic Tribal, but the actual gameplay no longer seems to be hiding up in a tree.

Episode 6: They must work together, or ...

Published: April 7, 2024

The new-era merge (-atory) is now a wasteland of half-baked ideas that used to make sense as part of the hourglass twist. Now it's not new, not logical, and mostly not entertaining. Can we just have a normal merge back, please? Plus, revisiting the premiere's foreshadowing.

Episodes 4-5: Looking for green shoots of life

Published: March 31, 2024

With a new tribe squawking to the forefront and a fun journey task, Episode 5 of Survivor 46 finally produced some enjoyable elements, and narrowly avoided hitting the merge with only two people who had ever attended Tribal. Let's hope now that everyone can finally play the game, a game actually emerges.

Episode 3: Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't

Published: March 16, 2024

Episode 3 of Survivor 46 had all the flaws of the New Era on full display: An already-depleted tribe that keeps losing, a terrified player on that tribe who was outside the numbers from the beginning, then had his vote taken away. Fans complain the season is boring, slow, and overly focused on one tribe, but the fault is not in the cast, it's in the game design, which has produced the same result two straight seasons.

Episodes 1-2: Pacing, back and forth

Published: March 9, 2024

The first two episodes of Survivor 46 had constant Yanu failure in common, but little else, as an overstuffed premiere led into a laboriously lengthy second episode. A look at the highlights, lowlights and villains (?) of the first four hours.