Guest Review: Survivor

Survivor: Season 21, Episode 1 “Young at Heart” (B)

Hi, I'm Andy and I’ll be your guest blogger for Survivor: Nicaragua!

This season’s theme, Young vs. Old, is not terribly surprising, but definitively interesting. It’s a good step forward for the game. Oftentimes, older players are voted off early because they aren't as strong as the young people. However, they do add some much needed diversity to the crowd. The current split will ensure that more older players will make it further into the game (unless of course the older tribe is completely decimated by losing challenge after challenge. I don't think it will come to that though).

Another good thing about the tribal division is that in past seasons, the older castaways were often at a disadvantage right off the bat because they had trouble relating to their younger tribe mates. Now, this problem should be greatly reduced.

I must say that I'm a bit surprised that CBS would drastically reduce the number of young attractive contestants. Usually the cast is stocked with attractive young people and only a few old ones. And of course the young attractives are used to bring in ratings. Notice how all members of the young tribe are good looking this season? Without the Young vs. Old factor, there would be even more! Very refreshing to see that they are toning it down a bit this season.

I really like how we went to Tribal Council not really knowing who was going to be voted out. Usually, Tribal is the most exciting part of the episode but it is often dulled when the outcome is already known. Hopefully this uncertainty will occur more often.

The introduction of the Medallion of Power (MoP) has me a little bit weary. Basically the way it works is that one tribe starts off with the MoP and if they choose to use it in a challenge, they will get an advantage. Once they use it though, the MoP gets transferred over to the other team, and they could use it in the next challenge.

I like the competitions to be fair from the beginning, and the Medallion ruins that. Do we really need it? If the goal is to create an equalizer so that the older tribe could compete, then why not just make the challenges a little simpler and easier (like this week's episode)? Challenges that are less work intensive aren't necessarily less exciting to watch. (Although this week was kinda weak).

I’m still a little iffy about how I feel about the inclusion of Jimmy Johnson. It feels a little too gimmicky for my taste. Time will tell.

Comment below!!