After The Survivor 49 Premiere, A Lot Of Fans Want The Show To Make A Structural Change

Survivor 49 officially premiered this week, and for the first time in months, the fanbase is finally talking about something other than Survivor 50. Response to the debut episode was a lot of “it was okay” type comments, though that shouldn’t really come as a surprise given host Jeff Probst has repeatedly said the season picks up after the merge. I do, however, think there’s one percolating theme that’s worth talking about: the tribe sizes.

The two most common complaints about Survivor’s so-called New Era are the change from 39 days to 26 days and the prevalence of advantages and chances for people to lose their votes. It sounds like the days thing is never going to change, but the producers may be listening on the second front, as the Survivor 49 premiere didn’t contain any idols, advantages or lost votes. As such, many fans have moved on to the third most common complaint: the number of tribes.

Back in the day, Survivor always began with two tribes of equal sizes. At some point along the journey, however, the beloved reality competition series started mixing in some seasons that start with three smaller tribes instead of two larger tribes. For awhile, the show rotated between three tribes and two tribes, but since the New Era began with Survivor 41, the show has always started with three.

Now, there are definitely some advantages to the three tribes format. It makes the immunity challenges more interesting, as there aren’t as many lopsided blowouts where it appears over halfway through. Three separate camps also makes it more likely that you’ll get very different vibes and tribe dynamics, which can make cutting between the different beaches more enjoyable as there’s typically a lot of variety.

Three tribes can also make the post-merge more enjoyable. Instead of one tribe having the numbers and being able to slowly pick off the other, the third tribe typically means there’s no absolute numbers advantage and new alliances need to be formed to get to a majority. That adds a way more compelling dynamic and prevents Pagonging, which is a real term Survivor superfans use to describe post-merge voting patterns.

Unfortunately, there are also some downsides to going with three tribes, and after so many seasons in a row, a lot of fans are starting to feel worn down by them. First, building a majority within a specific tribe is way too easy and can sometimes feel almost arbitrary.

Because Survivor almost exclusively casts superfans obsessed with the show these days, most people hit the beach with a goal of finding three other people to work with as soon as possible. Since no one wants to be voted out first, players are often very quick to enter into these early makeshift alliances. When you start with bigger tribes, it’s hard to form these coalitions quickly because you need more people, but with only six people, you can miss out on your chance to make that Survivor prize money because you happened to be getting water while four random players talked at the shelter.

It’s also a lot harder to hide when you’re bad at challenges. Contrary to what some fans would tell you, the slowest and least athletic person is not always the first person voted out on a tribe of six. Sometimes not fitting in with everyone else or being perceived as shady are the bigger crimes, but yes, if you’re not very athletic and your team loses the first challenge, you’re in deep trouble. That’s still the case if the game starts with two tribes, but with more players, there are almost always multiple castaways who are bad at challenges. That means the people at the bottom have a lot more wiggle room to use their social skills to keep themselves around.

Jeff Probst and the other producers have never come out and said they’re going to keep three tribes forever. The history of the game would tell us that they’ll want to switch things up at some point, but interestingly, the number of tribes was not something fans were allowed to vote on ahead of Survivor 50. They were given a choice on everything from firemaking to immunity idols to tribe colors, but the number of tribes was always set at three. With twenty-four players competing, however, it’ll be fun to see how having eight at each beach changes the dynamics or mitigates some of the issues fans currently have with the format.

Regardless, Survivor 49 is setting itself up to be a pretty fun season. It features a lot of really engaging personalities and should be a really enjoyable watch. You can catch it on Wednesday nights on CBS.