I realize it's impossible for Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans to measure up to the sky-high expectations of Survivor fans. Clearly from the (alleged) vote tallies, that group encompasses both people who hate the contestants (and want to see them starving and supply-less), and those who revere them and the show's quarter-century history. And everyone in between, from fresh converts who binged the show on streaming, to never-miss-an-episode live-watch lifers who've been here from the start. We don't all agree on everything, we hardly agree on anything. So no matter what, someone's going to find something to complain about here.

For myself, I want to try to focus on the positive here. A three-hour episode with *one* Tribal Council was a LOT to get through, but the time was mostly well-spent, mainly because ... how can you go wrong with a highly anticipated all-star cast? This collection of contestants is great, even if it wasn't exclusively the people I, personally, wanted to see. Watching players from vastly different eras of the game find connections with each other was still exciting and funny and occasionally cringey. That's the whole point of the show, it's like the world around us.

That's not to say there weren't things that didn't quite click. I didn't love that *both* challenges were a series of spotlight tasks for 1-2 people, and that neither really required teamwork. (The only part that did was the extremely overused "climb up a high ramp" element in the IC, which resulted in Kyle's medevac. Great work, everyone.) I appreciated the historical throwback intent of ending the opening challenge with fire lighting, as in the S1: Borneo first challenge, "Quest for Fire." It was also a symbolic gesture to the whole "fire represents your life" thing, but can we admit it was a a bit underwhelming to go through all that rigamarole, only to watch the winning tribe light a torch in an already-burning wok, and use that flame to ... light a slightly larger wok a few feet away? Pretty lame, Milhouse.

Despite those misgivings, there's still a lot of potential for fun here. And the key to that is the cast. It's always fun to see your favorite past players (and a lot of other people's favorites) connecting with each other. Christian and Emily and Devens are in an alliance! Cirie is on the same tribe, and Ozzy is now an official Fields family adoptee! Coach has gone full villain (while still touting his "honor and integrity," sigh), and was able to reprise his Colby-dominating effort from the S20: Heroes vs. Villains opening challenge, this time vulturing a win from Ozzy! There was a ripped Mike White! Colby grudgingly admitted to seeing something of his younger self in Rizo, after he borrowed the Mokuta talent show concept from SurvivorAU 5: All Stars and turned it into a fashion show! (And then just as Colby was warming up to him, Rizo ruined the moment by telling Colby his dad is much younger than Colby, and crying, which made Colby deeply uncomfortable. You could tell, even if he didn't say anything.)

The point is: Watching this group of battle-tested players play against each other has a really good chance of being its own reward for the audience. The cast can elevate the season above whatever poor decisions production (or "The Fans") have made. Everyone here has played before, almost all of them give good confessionals, there are no duds. Sure, Kyle's medevac was a pretty grim, depressing way to close out a three-hour marathon, but I understand the thinking in taking an unplanned event that would otherwise have disrupted the middle of Ep2, and having this departure close out the premiere instead. (We probably need to get through two Tribals next time, anyway.) A Survivor season is not just the story of the winner, it's also the story of everyone else losing, and we have to absorb the Ls along the way. All in all, even if it was over-long, it was at least a fun reunion with some beloved past players, and a promising start to a big season.

Starting with history

If you're a long-time fan of the show, the "rewind" montage at the start, zipping all the way back to the opening of S1: Borneo, then hopping and skipping ahead through key moments and characters of the 49 already-aired seasons, was a rich (ard Hatch) and rewarding experience. A lot of the shots were of people on this season (Jenna, Colby, Stephenie, Cirie, Ozzy, especially).

(Somewhat relevant sidebar: Starting the episode with Jenna's original torch-snuffing (above) at around the 1-minute mark, would have paired nicely with the outcome of Tribal Council, making a neat pair of bookends for the episode ... if that had been the official end of the premiere. Oh well.)

But there was more history of course, including some past players who will never be on competing on this show again (Jonny Fairplay, Russell Hantz), some who were surprise adds (Amy from S11: Nicaragua, Lisi), and a few who just missed the cut or declined (lots of Boston Rob and Parvati, Tony, also Jerri, Rupert, Penner, Maryanne, Terry Deitz ... even Judd Sergeant). Not present? Rob Cesternino, which is a pretty massive snub. Also Omar Zaheer, Jesse Lopez, and Carolyn Wiger. And perhaps most surprisingly, Rachel LaMont, who was cut from the New Era winner speedrun, despite being (I think) the only "On Fire" co-host not already on this season. Certainly, the inclusions outweighed the exclusions, and the whole package was heartwarming and nostalgic, but it's hard not to wonder is some of those omissions were intentional?

(Irrelevant but fun sidebar: By far the best moment is everyone's favorite meme of Will Sims slipping facefirst down the slide in S30: Worlds Apart... which came complete with a bonus Wilhelm Scream. Go rewatch it if you missed it, it's perfect. It's at 2:58 in the Paramount+ version.)

Similarly, the immediate post-marooning mat chat, once Probst started actually interacting with the assembled castaways, was very satisfying because it embraced the history of the moment. Starting with Jenna, asking her about her perspective as a season 1 player coming back 25 years later was really meaningful, as was Cirie's surprisingly emotional exploration of how being on the show has impacted her life. "Survivor is like home for me" and everything that followed that ... didn't just elicit tears from Ozzy, let's say. In the new era we've often seen longtime fans in the premiere talk at length about what the show means to them, but there are so many additional layers of depth to this kind of spiel when coming from a five- (six-) time player.

As always in an all-star season, it's exciting just having all these players here at the same time. Gathering a diverse group of contestants "across all eras" is a thrilling experiment to undertake. There's a lot of potential for greatness here. The cast is loaded with big characters, strategic powerhouses, and players with rich histories. (And, as always, a few head-scratchers, but that's okay.) I just hope these legendary players get to play Survivor, and don't just run into constant roadblocks, as appeared to be the goal in the premiere, as we will now get into:

History, schmistory, let's get to screwing people over for funsies

It's not a *great* sign for the season that Genevieve had a 5-3 majority on Vatu at the end of Day 1, and was so delighted she couldn't believe her good fortune. "I can't believe it's going so well ... like, when is the other shoe gonna drop?" she wondered aloud. Well it dropped. And then it dropped, and then it dropped again. By the morning of Day 4, that majority was down to a 2-3 minority, because Q and Colby had both lost their votes on journeys (a guaranteed outcome for one person each time), and Kyle was medevacced. Even without the latter, going from 5-3 to 3-3 is simply ridiculous for the first episode. And all of that was completely outside Genevieve's control. That's not Survivor. That's Russian roulette.

If there's an even greater objection, though, it came in the transition from the S1-S49 history flashback to kicking off the S50 footage. This segue started with footage of Jeff Probst being Q&A'ed at a public fan event, in which he answers a "what comes next?" question from the audience with: "[In Survivor 50] for the first time ever, the producers will NOT be in charge of the game design, YOU (the fans) will." The contestants themselves got the same misleading pitch in Probst's opening monologue after they first stepped foot on the beach: "We turned the ENTIRE SHOW over to the fans."

(Narrator: They very much did not.) Fans need look no further than this episode to see how spectacularly hyperbolic and misleading Probst's sales pitch was.

The fan vote included such critical decisions as picking between two almost-identical individual immunity necklaces. We were asked to select one out of a few sets of buff colors. (At least we chose the most garish combo!) We chose between a final challenge that we see every other season and two that are slightly less frequent. I'm surprised we weren't entrusted with flipping a coin between a two trios of tribe names that are four-letter, two-syllable Fijian words that will never be translated or explained. At best, barely a handful of choices (rice, supplies, a swap, plentiful idols/no idols, and forced F4 fire ... full list here) actually even impact the game itself in any meaningful way. It was great to have *some* input, don't get me wrong, but the level of fans actually being "in charge of" the game was drastically minimized here relative to the last time around, when fans selected the entire cast of S31: Cambodia.

So the spin kind of borders on insulting, because there are a lot of things fans would LOVE to change about the New Era format, and instead of actually seizing the opportunity for audience feedback, we were mostly herded into choosing between paint colors and trim packages, while Probst quietly replaced the season's New Era engine with a Maximal New Era version. Fans did not choose to have three tribes, that was decided for us. Fans didn't decide on having 24 players. And it's not like the latter requires the former: Australian Survivor routinely starts with two tribes of 12, while in the US, we've now had 10 consecutive seasons of three tiny starting tribes, and fans are desperate for something different. But we weren't asked about it.

Fans also didn't get to vote on whether the premiere would have a journey that would morph into Exile Island. We were not consulted on whether the first two journeys should force at least one participant to lose their vote, no matter what (both did). We had no input on having crossover episodes with MrBeast's Beast Games. We weren't asked if we wanted an in-person appearance by Zac Brown (who apparently Probst thinks is really famous and will drive ratings through the roof?). Fans didn't even get to offer feedback on whether we should have a history-honoring traditional marooning like in key epic seasons such as S1: Borneo and S7: Pearl Islands and S13: Cook Islands, or a sedate boat ride to the arrival beach, scripted Probst speech, and challenge for flint, just like in every other New Era season.

In short, the entire subtitle of the season, "In the Hands of the Fans" is a somewhat condescending facade, because at least 95% - probably more - of the game design rests, as it always does, in the hands of Jeff Probst. And while his decisions have generally been consistently poor, I guess the plus side here is, the fans' tastes have been just as bad so far, as we (allegedly) voted to *continue* not giving the contestants rice, and also stripped away starting supplies, such that even after winning the marooning challenge, Vatu had to send Q to compete for a pot and machete, turning the already tired "Fight for Supplies" into a three-way battle. Ugh, although at least it was a "fight" in the same sense that the Becky-vs-Sundra firemaking tiebreaker was.

While at least we (again, allegedly) chose to keep idols in the game, my hopes that fans might wisely convince Probst to do away with forced F4 firemaking have now dwindled to ashes.

Post-script: Going forward, I'll allow that it does add a welcome layer of intrigue for the players that they don't know, for example, if idols even exist this season. But that mystery is unlikely to last much beyond the first few episodes. Enough people will have found, heard about, and/or seen the idols played that it will no longer be a secret by then. Again, the only other game mechanic the fans had any semblance of control over is forced F4 firemaking, which we (and the contestants) won't get an answer on until the finale. Until then, it's basically just a super-sized new era season. We didn't get both losing tribes going to Tribal this week, but the fact we were shown Angelina's gasp of relief at that news seems like a sign it's almost certainly coming at the next IC. Logistically, there's no other non-trivial way to fit 21 eliminations into 13 episodes/26 days.

Wait, could Exile Island actually be good?

I've long looked askance at the original incarnation of the Exile Island twist. As pitched to the contestants, it was a trade-off: Yes, attendees missed out on camp life, *but* they also had the opportunity to find an idol or advantage ... except when Exile was still going on late in the game, and all the goodies had already been found. Candice even worked a title quote out of that situation: "People That You Like Want to See You Suffer." With S50 apparently having plentiful idols and advantages, there's an opportunity here for occasional use of Exile in the same spirit it was used in the premiere - as a site for discreet distribution of prizes (and penalties).

So could Exile actually be worthwhile if it's no longer a barren wasteland, devoid of reward opportunity? I think it *could* work that way, but it would be best if there are no *guaranteed* punishments for attending. Again, being away from camp is its own penalty, especially when everyone suspects you have something when you return to camp, anyway. But always having some form of head-to-head game where someone wins something would be much closer to the original, very entertaining The Outpost (from SurvivorNZ 2: Thailand) than whatever it is journeys are supposed to be. It doesn't have to introduce advantages or extra votes, either. Let someone win a tarp, or a giant fish, or a bag of rice. Or give the winner the choice of a selfish game advantage or one of these options that benefits the tribe. There are lots of ways this could work in an interesting way once you give up on the Someone Must Always Be Punished mindset.

There are additional potential benefits here: Exile Island with two people visiting (as in S16: Micronesia and pre-merge S18: Tocantins) adds at least the bonus of the potential for cross-tribal alliances. Yes, I know, that has never paid off in the past, but in a returning player season it just might work? A whole night to plot with a potential ally, away from prying eyes? Seems like a plus. There's no indication that happened here with Ozzy and Q, to be honest, but maybe with other people, it might? (I'm forever stupidly optimistic.)

The tempestuous teapot of tepid takes

- "YoU hAvE tO eARn iT!!" update - Q literally lit the torch that sealed his tribe's victory in the marooning challenge. From there, unlike any other New Era Ep1 RC winner, he then had to go to compete in "Fight for Supplies." After not winning that competition, he had to spend the night on Exile Island, which the sign admitted was a huge setback for his social game. The next morning, he was talked into losing his vote (but getting the supplies, at least ... which the Cila tribe also apparently received, whoops). He somehow ended up getting close to the full Yanu disaster tribe experience, despite winning the first challenge. How is that fair?

In Ozzy's case, he was again already punished for losing by missing out on Day 1 bonding. He did seem gung-ho about getting a measly extra vote, which has minimal power, but I guess that was at least something he chose. This trade-off was at least interesting, but it was also a heavily guard-railed choice. Ozzy and Q did not have the option of both saying "eh, no thanks" to supplies and keeping their votes instead. One of them HAD to lose their vote, because the note explicitly said they couldn't leave until one "bought" the supplies. The lack of true decision-making power is one of the most frustrating aspects of the new era. I just don't understand the show's need to micromanage every little detail. (Although I guess presenting a heavily limited choice is a nifty parallel to the fans' titular "control" of the game's mechanics.)

- "I don't think we're going to be losing any immunity challenges" - As wrong as Genevieve's cautiously optimistic assessment of her alliance on Day 1 ended up being, nobody was more clearly wrong than Rick Devens' Day 1 read on Cila's abilities. Probably not a great sign of future success for old Rick.

- Speaking of losing... - Cirie's inability to land the monkey's fist clearly was the main cause of Cila's last-place finish. But part of the problem was her technique. Coach and Aubry both held on to the monkey's fist and tossed it like a ball. Cirie was holding on to the rope and swinging the fist like a lasso, and repeatedly coming up short or off-target. Apparently nobody on Cila thought to watch the other tribes, or pass along their successful approaches to Cirie (or Cirie didn't listen, I guess). This was as much a lack of communication as of skill. Also, why couldn't they swap out? Jenna performed no individual tasks at all, while Emily both emptied the crate and worked the puzzle. It's not like everyone had to perform one and exactly one task.

- That sounds right - If you're gonna call your show The White Lotus, slyly embedding your last name, guess what color rock you're going to draw?

- Ugh, not you again - The Ep2, er, Day 4 journey had all the same problems as the Fight for Supplies version. A fairly dull, luck-based task, with one guaranteed vote loss and one guaranteed advantage. No choice to compete or not based on the competition involved. The best I can say is ... yay for Tetris pieces, I guess? Mike White dodged a bullet here, basically. Is it really seizing opportunity or whatever to basically do a coin flip over losing your vote? A better choice would have been an individual task where each person attending had a chance at winning or losing, and it was skill-based, not pure luck. But we got this instead. Explicitly excluding the Fight for Supplies attendees from coming back for a second crack at least spread the pain around a bit, I guess, although it did block Q from trying to win his vote back. I guess it was sort of fun-ish that Savannah was surprised to have won something after Colby left? But not really.