I don't think I ever really posted my thoughts on this season because my life has been a combination of exhaustingly busy and exhaustingly disastrous lately, but this season was...... very enigmatic and mixed? I think we all went into this season having rock bottom expectations with the whole Edge of Extinction twist, and then the first few episodes were actually pretty enjoyable and the EoE twist was full of novelty and funny moments. It definitely wasn't Good Survivor, but it wasn't Bad Survivor either? But then we got to like episode 10 or 11 and everything just fell apart. Rick was shoved down our throats and would get a higher visibility than the rest of the cast put together, he'd have endless confessionals where he haughtily claimed that he was the only one PLAYING THE GAME and he WORKED HARD while everyone SLEPT and YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE despite the fact that he was a completely below average player. He was abrasive, isolated himself from any potential allies, voted incorrectly on a weekly basis, but because the show shoved him down our throats we had the Facebook audience loudly proclaiming him as the best player EVER (?!) or at least second best ever after Boston Rob (?!) It was puzzling and infuriating, especially when you couple that with the obnoxious Jury reactions including the infamous Julia twerk of 2019.
But then..... Rick lost because of the fire-making twist that was designed to give him a chance in the first place. And it was glorious??? Like, obviously Chris is such a questionable winner because he was literally voted out of the game by like Day 8 and then reentered on Day 35 or so with an Idol and endless information directly from the Jury, but he worked it to his advantage and played the heck out of the last four days. PLUS, he slayed Rick in humiliating fashion and completely broke edgic and The Game and it was just all too hilarious to me because Survivor isn't even a game you can take seriously anymore. We're fully at the point now where it's just Big Brother on an island, and if the oversized bust of Sandra Diaz-Twine in the Island of Idols preview didn't convince you of where this show currently stands, there's no point in even explaining it to you any further. There's no strategic merit in winning Survivor anymore, it's fully about if you rolled your ball into the slot in the table maze quickly enough and which hole in a tree you poked your hand into looking for an Idol.
And even when the show casts a bunch of newbies who do have strategic chops and played circles around all of the returning players, the subsequent season's theme is to have two returning players coaching the poor newbies who don't know how Survivor is played. It's comical at this point.
So overall... I'd rank this season definitely below average in the grand context of Survivor, but about average for the era we are currently in? The game is hilariously flawed and the editing makes a negative amount of sense, but there's still enough to keep me entertained from week to week except for a ****e endgame so I don't feel like I entirely wasted my time
