Two votes after the "merge," one vote after the start of the jury phase, the normal, individual-game phase of Survivor 44 has finally begun, as of Episode 8. Ten people (minus Lauren, who won immunity) were eligible to be voted against. Ten people cast votes. It was a Christmas-in-April miracle!

If there's one hope this fan has for the now-in-progress seasons 45 and 46, it's that they revert to this simpler, more standard format, and just let the players play. This episode was an excellent demonstration of why that should happen.

Last week, there was a planned blindside, and a planned blindside of the person engineering the blindside ... until Jeff Probst dumped all the pieces off the board and reset the game with a rock draw. This week, there was an actual coherent narrative of people reacting to the last vote, adjusting to the game as it emerged from that vote, and making moves based on that. Frannie felt lost and alone after Matt's being sent to the jury, she and Heidi made overtures towards joining up with the Tika three, then Danny - the same guy she'd been on board with targeting 24 hours earlier, in part because he had an idol - played his idol to protect her from incoming votes! All of this was organic, player-generated strategy. All of it made logical sense. Not a rock draw for randomness nor a complicated new advantage in sight.

As the audience, we were finally able to see what these three groups of people would do when the voting options and pool of voters were both unrestricted, and everyone had the latitude to work as either individuals or as voting blocs. You know, like what normally happens after the merge. And it was interesting! The two tribes with three people worked together to target the tribe with four people (and five votes). Two underdog trios, joining together to topple the quartet who were gloating about their newfound power at the top of the episode: A classic Survivor power shift.

This is what makes Survivor watchable, season after season. Actions, followed by consequences of those actions, all with occasional subterfuge and trickery mixed in. It's a morality play, in which the players make moves of questionable morality.

So why does the show go to such lengths to erect artificial barriers to this sort of thing in the new era? Nobody is tuning in each going, "Boy, I can't wait to see what the producers have cooked up this time to interfere with the strategy!" Instead, we want to see the "misfits" (as Heidi described them) or other underdogs joining up to topple their oppressors. It's much less interesting when a powerful person gets tripped up by a random draw or some other deus ex machina the producers threw in just because they were bored after 43 seasons.

Just let the players play! Please?

Individual immunity challenges should be, well, individual

On the one hand, many fans (including me) have been complaining since approximately San Juan del Sur (alternatively: it's the 15-season anniversary of this whining!) that modern post-merge immunity challenges have become a dull, largely interchangeable morass of "stand in one place and balance" competitions, each one only marginally different than the one that preceded it. Furthermore, (gather round children, grandpa's going to talk about the olden days) multi-stage elimination challenges had been a staple of the earliest seasons (often as a late post-merge compilation of elements from prior challenges that season, aka the "super-challenge" or "SuCha"). So for those reasons, it *is* fun to see that concept back again. But to out-of-context quote Russell Hantz: "Not like this."

(Okay grandpa, let's get you to bed. You're quoting Russell Hantz.)

Multi-stage elimination challenges - while admittedly an old-school staple - have never been ideal for individual immunity, because if the storyline of the episode is "This player is in huge trouble, and the only thing that save them is immunity" ... well, when they're out in the first round of a multi-stage challenge, so much for the suspense. (I had thought production had learned this lesson way back in South Pacific, when Ozzy was sent back to Redemption Island in exactly this way, and suddenly multi-stage eliminations just disappeared from the repertoire. Maybe they forgot again.)

That said, these multi-round eliminations are perfect for reward challenges! If you want variety, let's bring back those. Please sir, may we have some more individual reward challenges?

Lack of suspense, however, is far from the biggest problem with Ep8's multi-stage elimination IC (and of the version that preceded it in 43, which Gabler won). Those flaws are far more glaring: (1) At 20 minutes (not including an ad break), it took up half the episode, and (2) individual immunity should never start in pairs.

No fan ever asked for an immunity challenge to start off in pairs. Again, this is fine for reward challenges - in the Panama and Fiji car challenges there was an initial team challenge, then it became individual. Totally cool! But not for immunity challenges. That's a massive violation of the basic concept that individual immunity challenges should be individual. Even when they get to choose their partner, a player who needs immunity shouldn't be hindered by a partner (Carson and Carolyn kind of dragged each other down here). It's just not fair.

What's most alarming about the concept is that if this new design is allowed to take root and become a staple, smart players will see it as a perfect opportunity to take out an opponent by partnering up with them, then sabotaging their performance. That's something that is strictly out-of-bounds in normal individual challenges. You can't drop out, then shove someone you don't want to win off of their perch, or knock the balls off their plate, or whatever.

Obviously this hasn't happened yet ... but it will, give it time. So instead of waiting for that to happen: Please, no more hybrid team-/pair- individual immunity challenges. If you want the partners-to-competitors dynamic, make it a reward challenge.

The decision to start this exceptionally long (half the episode!) challenge in pairs was also particularly galling because it ended in "Chimney Sweeps," something that was already a classic individual immunity challenge, all on its own. It doesn't need two preceding stages. Why not just have this be the challenge, and have 10 stations?

Just saying: The show *used* to think this was sufficient drama on its own, and didn't need to shove everyone through an obstacle nicknamed "the butthole" and get them covered in mud before starting this part. (Coach may not be the ideal go-to for authentic in-challenge drama here, but come on, this was at least memorable. From this season's version, we'll mostly remember Danny farting.)

Having said all this, Lauren's reaction to winning the challenge was one of the best ever. She was so overcome with shock and joy that she could barely speak, she was wandering off in a daze after Jeff placed the necklace on her, she snuck in a side-hug before getting the real thing. Heartwarming, emotional, a great moment. This is why it's always a good choice to cast people who have a history with the show, who care about the show. More Laurens, please.

Oh. Yay. It's the new era again

Speaking of immunity ... next week, for the first time since Winners at War, we will finally be having a Final 9 vote, one of the most crucial late-game votes, because the odd number allows just one person flipping to change the balance of power. It's where we saw Vee and Sean team up with Kathy, Neleh, and Paschal to seize control in Marquesas, but for some reason, production thought that was boring, so they replaced it with split Tribals at F10, which took away the F9 vote. So ... yes! An important post-merge vote! Celebrations all around!

Except, well ... just when you least expect it (preview ad here), the new era rears its ugly head again. It *should* be a normal vote, but this time, they're taking away even a chance at immunity for half the voters, as we for some reason need to have Probst forcing people to sit out in exchange for rice. For the fourth consecutive season. Sigh.

Here's a list of all the people in the entire world who love this twist: Jeff Probst. He gets to spend more time on camera, and even though he all but encouraged Soka to vote out Claire because she sat out of immunity challenges, he gets to force people to sit out of immunity challenges. Sitting out is okay when he *makes* people do it, see?

Anyway, that's kind of been this season's trend. Just when you think you've avoided some dumb new era twist, just when you think production had the wisdom to admit, "You know what, the fans were right, we really don't need that twist," back it comes, just an episode or two later than expected. Remember when you were pleased that nobody had to get whisked away for a time-wasting journey after the Ep3 IC? Well, they just shifted it by a day, and did it after the Ep4 RC instead (and turned it into a swap).

Similarly, if you were relieved that (probably thanks to dual medevacs) they at least got the split five-person Tribals out of the way early, plunking them down at F11, rather than F10, and had hoped that also meant the traditional forced sit-outs at F11 were gone ... ha ha, fooled you! It's back, baby! Taking up space at Final 9! Hooray?

(Side note: We should all be very worried that Do or Die could easily be resurrected in one of Episodes 10-12.)

Here's a table of how 44 has "kept things fresh" by simply reshuffling all the grating new era staples into slightly shifted timeslots:

Twist	41	42	43	44
IC in two teams, split tribals	Ep9 (Final 10)	Ep9 (Final 10)	Ep9 (Final 10)	Ep7 (Final 11)
Pairs IC, then individual	- (Phew!)	- (Phew!)	Ep7 (Final 12)	Ep8 (Final 10)
Forced sitouts for rice	Ep8 (Final 11)	Ep8 (Final 11)	Ep8 (Final 11)	Ep9 (Final 9)
Do or Die	Ep11 (Final 7)	Ep11 (Final 7)	- (Yay!)	?

Putting on my most charitable hat possible, I believe production *thinks* the "forced sit-outs for rice" twist is supposed to be a brilliant stratagem that exposes people who are too comfortable, players who think they're safe no matter what. In practice, these players are all smarter than that. This isn't One World, where at most four people have even seen the show before. They're also starving (thanks to production no longer offering rice to begin with, or merge feasts, or food rewards). So yes, if someone is sure they're in trouble, they're probably going to compete. But there's so much more going into this dumb forced decision, and ultimately, anyone who volunteers is viewed more as someone who will self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good, than as a smug, lazy, entitled jerk.

So why on earth has this replaced the far more entertaining, obviously selfish, old-school version of sitting out for food, which *did* cast sit-outs in that light? What's wrong with letting people sit out and eat a (personal) feast, while others compete? Those have generated some of the funniest moments in the show's history!

Why remove something that works reliably, and replace it with something that significantly more irritating each time it's repeated, in (so far) back-to-back-to-back-to-back seasons?

Obviously, we don't need people opting out for a personal feast *every* season, but why demolish that and replace it with a shittier version, when the original was already nearly perfect? We know Jeff Probst claims not to watch the other (often better) international Survivor versions, so as not to muddy his creative process. Fine. But does he watch his own show, just to evaluate what works? Does anyone associated with this show do that?

Shorter takes

But wait, that's ... oh, never mind: To be fair, "Matt" was a decent guess, given that the season started off with two of them. 22% chance of being right! (In Ep1, at least. Slightly better in Ep5!) Sadly, though, all the Matts have now left the game (except Van Wagenen, who lurks, everpresent, just off camera), and, well, the loss of the last Matt was mentioned earlier in the episode.

Starting to get confusing: If you needed a hint that we've started to run out of two-syllable Fijian words for tribe names, Yam Yam twice called Ratu "Rotu" (which, fair, lots of us did pre-season), and Soka "Soku" before Tribal, both in confessional. As someone who's already having trouble remembering who was on which new era numbers-only season, maybe can we have themes again, please?

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means: Probst before the 20-minute IC: "Today's challenge is going to move quickly."

Outta time: Rob Cesternino and Jamal Shipman talked on RHAP about how the condensed, 26-day season format is starting to show signs of affecting the gameplay. Nowhere has that been more apparent than in the post-merge so far. The tribes joined together on one beach on Day 12. Since then, on Days 13, 14, and 15 there have been three ICs and three Tribals. Two of those (Day 13 in Ep6, Day 14 in Ep7) involved the "merge" tribe randomly being split into two groups up until shortly before Tribal (or until Tribal itself in Ep8's case). Here, it was a "normal" cycle with an IC, everyone going back to the same camp, then Tribal later that day. But according to Brandon's exit interviews, they were still hadn't finished painting the Va Va tribe flag! On the third vote after the merge!