At the beginning of the season, there were high hopes for Survivor 48. The eighth New Era season had an engaging cast and featured some good strategic moves. Since the merge, however, the season has flopped. While Survivor 48 had the potential to become one of the best New Era seasons, it’s now in the running for the worst.
The merge of Survivor 48 has hardly had any blindsides
One of the key aspects of Survivor is blindsides. The past few New Era seasons have had massive blindsides in nearly every episode of the merge. Remember the good days when there were cool moves like Operation Italy? Instead, the Survivor 48 cast has continuously voted out members at the bottom of the tribe. This makes the season predictable and less fun to watch. Several episodes have teased a blindside, only for nothing to happen.
The only satisfying blindside of the merge so far was the vote off of David Kinne. At the beginning of the merge, David was keen on getting to the end with the strong players alliance he had helped to form. David wanted the game to be honest and loyal, which of course Survivor is not meant to be. At the final nine, David’s alliance began to get tired of his paranoia and decided to blindside him. He didn’t see it coming, which made it all the more satisfying.
The only other big move made in the merge so far was the recent vote against Shauhin Davari. While it was a better move than most of the votes this season, it wasn’t a true blindside. Joe Hunter went to Shauhin before the vote and made it clear that he didn’t trust him one hundred percent. This caused Shauhin to get in his head and tell his fellow castaways that he thought Joe wanted to vote him out. While voting out Shauhin was an ok strategic move, it wasn’t a true blindside.
The winner of Survivor 48 feels too obvious
The only real problem I had with Survivor 47 was that it made it too obvious at the end that Rachel LaMont would win. Survivor 48 seems to be repeating that through Joe’s edit. It’s hard not to like Joe, however, his strategic game hasn’t been the best. From the edit so far, it seems pretty obvious that Joe is going to be crowned the winner of Survivor 48. Of course, anyone could still win, but it would be a surprise if it’s someone other than Joe.
Joe has received the most personal content of anyone left on the season by far. In the most recent episode, Joe opened up about the story of his sister Joanna’s passing from domestic violence. It was an incredibly touching moment that really made viewers feel for Joe. Throughout the season, Joe has also talked a lot about his two children. Joe’s relationship with Eva Erickson has also been a big story line of his, which has given both of them a lot of screen time.
To be clear, I wouldn’t be upset by a Joe win at all, I just wish producers would give everyone an even amount of screen time to make it seem like anyone has a shot. In the last few episodes, Mitch Guerra has hardly had any confessionals, whereas contestants like Kamilla Karthigesu only get screen time to talk strategy. It’s possible either Mitch or Kamilla could still win, the current edit just isn’t favoring those possibilities.
The challenges in the post-merge of Survivor 48 have been too repetitive
As a longtime Survivor fan, one of my favorite parts of each episode are the challenges. The New Era of Survivor has featured some unique challenges, however, the ones in Survivor 48 all seem recycled.
The early merge saw classic Survivor challenges like holding buckets with twenty-five percent of the player’s pre-game body weight. Recent episodes saw other repetitive challenges that have been used over the past few seasons. For instance, the reward challenge for the final six was featured during Survivor 45. Furthermore, the immunity challenge at final six used the same snake maze as one of the final immunity challenges in Survivor 46.
Challenges are a key element of Survivor, however, it’s boring to see the same ones used over and over. Survivor 48 has been recycling challenge after challenge, which has made them less engaging to watch.
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