Day 22: Worst Twist
Survivor 39-Day Challenge
The basic structure of the game Survivor which makes it compelling to its audience is encapsulated by Jeff’s words during torch-lighting ritual at tribal council.
In this game, fire represents your life. When your fire is gone, so are you.
That means, as The Queen™ perfectly stated on her retirement, when you’re out, you’re out. There are two twists in Survivor history which alter such basic premise. One is redemption island, one of the worst twists but a mellow one compared to the edge of extinction, the worst twist of them all.
When I first heard of the twist for the thirty-eighth season of Survivor, I thought, could this be a test run for the milestone 20th anniversary season? It would feature an all stars cast, for sure, either with winners or legends. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one thinking that way.
Edge of extinction truly alters the structure of the game in the sense that anyone who would be voted out early in the season could still win the game. It’s different from the redemption island twist where there’s weekly duel, albeit having the same premise that someone who’s already voted out can still win the game.
In redemption island, once voted out, a castaway’s gameplay shifts from a tribal or an alliance to an individual game promptly, focused on the physical challenges through duels along the way. There’s also a separation of the jury phase from the pre-jury phase. All of these are the exact opposite of what the edge of extinction offers.
On the edge, once voted out, a castaway would wait for a chance to get back in the game via a challenge. Once on the edge, a castaway’s gameplay doesn’t shift so much from a tribal or an alliance game, because it’s pure social. What’s worse is when a castaway gets voted out post-merge, their gameplay must revert from an individual sense to an alliance or tribal sense, which is ridiculous.
Edge is a desolate place, where castaways go in devastated about getting outright voted out or worse, blindsided. So, there’s animosity, angst, that only the people on the edge understand well enough. This gives the people who are still in the regular game a disadvantage, because there’s still a social game being played on the edge which they are completely unaware of. And it will definitely be a lot stronger than in the deceptive, manipulative nature of the regular game, bonding over something tragic that happened on all of the voted-out people. You just have to befriend everyone, talk about strategies especially when one of you gets back in the game, with all the information being brought upon one after another, and it’s a whole done deal. I remember there’s an argument going around versus secluding all the jury members in one house aka Ponderosa. Edge of extinction is just that, minus the food and other luxurious stuff.
Not to mention, there could be people out pre-merge who would sit on the jury, who would have no connection whatsoever with some of the finalists, and would still have to cast a million-dollar vote. I mean, someone with whom you’ve bonded with on the edge vs. people who played a decent game but you didn’t get to play with at all, who would you vote for?
The regular game of Survivor gets shut down.
It started with a premise of testing people’s will of staying in the game with pretty much nothingness of an island. But as the seasons with this twist progressed, it unraveled itself to be problematic. The premise of test could be true for the first one out, or maybe even for the second. But once almost the whole cast is on the edge, the game shifts dramatically to the edge of extinction dynamics; it’s pretty much a separate social experiment over there.
I have nothing against Chris who won Edge of Extinction (2019) and Natalie who finished as runner-up in Winners at War (2020). Both of them deserve their placements given they’ve played the game with the cards dealt to them, that is having edge of extinction. People should stop giving them a hard time about how well they placed just because the twist is bad.
The problem is the twist. I may sound purist but it’s time to cut this b–sh––. It’s time to go back to the most compelling part of watching Survivor: watching people get voted out. In Winners at War, as amazing as it was to see the champions play against each other, knowing that there’s edge of extinction, the torch snuffing was not as emotional as it would’ve been without the edge. And majority of the cast hated that twist, which boggled Jeff. I frankly am flabbergasted by his reaction. He seriously didn’t know that edge of extinction sucks and must be thrown out the window?! Come on.
Sure, as a player, it would have been amazing to know you still got a second chance. For the show, that twist busted the game left and right, front and back. It’s a nightmare for the editing floor as well. It’s awful.
I had an idea before on how to make the edge of extinction twist a little bit tolerable. After someone won the first battle back challenge making the Final 13, everyone would be sent home as the pre-merge vote-outs. Restart the edge of extinction at the merge/jury phase, and have the second battle back to complete a Final 7. Everyone eliminated on the second battle back would be part of the jury. Although, seriously, while typing this, I’m thinking this twist has no cure whatsoever. It’s the worst.
Runner-up: Final 4 Fire-Making Twist
