This Week’s Survivor 50 Episode Description Contains An Outrageous Spoiler

I’m not normally someone who gets worked up about loglines, episode descriptions or even marketing materials in general, but the blurb for this week’s Survivor has me screaming like Liz Wilcox after she didn’t get picked for the Applebee’s reward. It basically just blurts out a huge moment that’s going to happen, and I don’t understand how anyone associated with the show could possibly be okay with this.

Before every episode, Survivor typically drops two or three sneak peek scenes, as well as the title of the episode and a few sentences of description, outlining the basic gist of what we’re going to see. I watched all three of the sneak peeks and felt nothing but happy excitement. Then I checked out the logline for "Double The Fun, Double The Demise" and almost dropped my laptop on the ground. In a not so subtle way, it telegraphs that a moment we’ve been waiting for this entire season is about to happen.

Check out this description at your own risk…

I’m fine with the part about dividing into pairs. I’m fine with the tease of one of the biggest twists ever. What I’m not fine with is saying “a theatrical risk taken at tribal council might be enough to cast doubt upon those on the chopping block…” For those of us who actually watch the show carefully and are capable of basic analysis, it tells us exactly what is going to happen.

Earlier this season, Rick and Christian conspired to hide a fake idol at Tribal Council in one of the most outrageous schemes in Survivor history. The thought process was that if one of them was ever in trouble, they could find the idol and use it to try and save themselves. Well, it looks like that's happening. Either Rick or Christian is going to be targeted and likely to go home; so, in a last ditch effort to save themselves, one of them will “find” the fake idol they hid at Tribal Council.

Why would you tell people that? We should never, ever be told anything about what’s going to happen at Tribal Council. That’s the crescendo of the episode. If you want to reveal the basic structure or what the immunity challenge is or a fun, Zac Brown style reward the contestants might get, I’m fine with that because it doesn’t have a clear effect on who is going home. This episode description does. It tells us who is going to be in trouble and what they’re going to do to save themselves in a moment that’s likely going to happen during the last fifteen minutes of the show.

And why? What is the point of revealing this? Survivor isn’t some new movie the marketing department is desperately trying to get people to see. It’s a TV show that people are either watching or not watching. No one is going hear about a big twist and say, let me just jump into the 8th episode of Survivor 50 and see what that’s all about. Maybe, maybe in the best case scenario, this blurb could convince a couple hundred thousand more people to watch live versus DVRing and watching later. Maybe. But is that really worth spoiling what’s likely to be one of the craziest moments of the season?

Spoiler alert: it’s not. It is not worth it. The best outcome for the show is for people to enjoy the episode and jump online to talk about how much they enjoyed it afterwards. Blurting out what’s going to happen ahead of time only alters people’s expectations and lessens the impact.

Regardless, Survivor 50 has been a lot of fun this season, and I can't recommend it enough. Yes, there have been some unfair twists and moments where production got in the way and didn't let the players play, but in general, it has been a delight to see so many fun characters from the show's history back in Fiji and causing chaos.