Survivor brought back so many elements and made so many changes during its 51 premiere that fans are barely talking about immunity idols. I get it. My first reaction was to go nuts over only having two tribes, getting a marooning and even that fun start at the beginning of the game with everyone on the same beach. All those exciting developments and more deserved our attention as Survivor fans, but now that we’ve had time to appreciate all that, we need to talk about the change to immunity idols and whether that change is really as it seems.
During the New Era, castaways didn’t typically find immunity idols early in the game. Instead, they found Beware Advantages, which temporarily took away their vote until some complicated task was completed that gave it back and rewarded them with an idol. Initially, the change led to some interesting decisions and unique gameplay, but after awhile, fans started getting frustrated with the repetition (even if the task changed) and started getting frustrated about so many players losing their votes at tribal council.
That didn’t happen during the 51 premiere though. Instead, Rob found a hidden immunity idol in a tree, and it was just, gasp, his to keep. He didn’t lose his vote. He didn’t need to say a phrase in front of the other tribe or unlock a bird cage or find three maps. He just put the idol in his pocket and can use it whenever he wants.
Not surprisingly, the change was very well received by every single fan I saw post on social media and/ or I talked to about it in real life. All of us were collectively done with beware advantages and especially done with players losing their votes. On the surface, it feels like yet another example of production listening to the fanbase, but I don’t think we should celebrate permanently. I think there’s a larger scheme going on here.
The entire point of the Open Era, per longtime host and showrunner Jeff Probst in his speech to the players, is that (almost) any twist from any season of the show is technically in play, plus new game mechanics no one has seen before. He even teased that what happens on one beach or to one group of players may be entirely different than what’s happening on another beach with another group of players. It’s going to be permanent uncertainty.
To me, that means we should not get used to idols reverting back to their original form. Altering how an idol works and what you need to do to secure it is one of the easiest changes for production to make. It’s way less foundational than how many players will be on the season or how many tribes they’ll be split into or even whether they’re a final two or a final three at the end. I fully expect production to go back and forth between straight up idols, clues to hidden immunity idols, beware advantages, shared idols, super idols and God forbid, another Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol.
My guess is there’s another hidden immunity idol somewhere on the other tribe’s beach that someone will simply get for finding it, but there’s even an outside chance that that specific idol will require jumping through some kind of hoop. We just don’t know. It’s permanent uncertainty, and that is definitely going to extend to idols.
To be clear, I’m not mad about any of this. In general, I prefer when idols work in the traditional fashion, but if every now and again, there’s a wrinkle to them, that’s a good thing. It adds more excitement and uncertainty if they expire at different times. It adds more excitement and uncertainty if players have to occasionally scramble around because they found a clue, not an idol. So, let’s celebrate that idols are pivoting away from usually being Beware Advantages or some similar thing. Let’s just not assume we’ve seen the last of them.
New episodes of Survivor air on Wednesday nights on CBS as part of its TV schedule. You can also stream via Paramount+.
