Despite running for a lengthy two hours, the season premiere of Survivor 49 generally used its expanded footprint wisely. We had a brief flashback to the early-season "hometown introductions" with Alex and to an extent Jake, and in general the backstories were kept light and mostly inspiring. We had enough room for all kinds of bodily secretions to be shown or talked about: pee, poop, spit, vomit, and that was just Sage and Nicole! Most importantly, we had time for multiple worthwhile trips to each camp.

Still, the introduction to the cast felt slightly better than adequate, considering the runtime. While we spent a lot of quality time with the Kele tribe, as should be expected, and have at least rough outlines of the personalities and divisions on Uli (the red tribe), the characterizations of Hina (the yellow tribe) were lacking in places. Does anyone know anything about MC or Sophie, beyond that they're there? For everyone else on that tribe, we had either a deep dive (Steven, Kristina) or can at least say a couple of things about them (Jason - alternate, plays Smash like Kenny from S17: Gabon, can do puzzles; Matt - old, throws bags at the airport, can make fire). Maybe we needed three hours? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(We absolutely did not need three hours.)

On the plus side, the time we did spend was all generally useful and fun. There was an authentic explosion of Day 1 enthusiasm, some of these new players have the potential to be all-time characters, and all seem to have a more nuanced understanding of Survivor gameplay than just "honor and integrity," or whatever. All signs point to a good time for the rest of the season.

On the other hand, Jeff Probst has ominously promised that this season will feature brutal heat. You can see him drooping (fainting?) from the swelter during a challenge in the montage of future events during the opening (above), along with someone hooked up to a pulse monitor, getting medical attention (it's very obvious who that is, so you'll have to screencap it yourself if you want the spoiler). That's not awesome, especially when we're still stuck with the wrongheaded new era "this game is *hard*!" mentality of no food and confiscated flints. As always: Look how great SurvivorAU: Australia v The World was, even though the players had ready access to food and flints, in an even shorter season. It's almost as if you don't need to make the contestants suffer to have a fun, entertaining season with elite gameplay!

But if the voting went well, wise fans may have already reversed course on the "no food" element next season in Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans, so with luck, maybe this is finally our chance to give a good kick in the rump to new era sadism, as we shove it out the door. (There's been absolutely no indication whatsoever from the show that Survivor 51 and/or 52 will depart from the painfully repetitive new era format, but it's the only hope for the show I have left, so please don't destroy my fantasy.)

Rizo vs Alex in the fight for supplies journey

One new era element I've grown quite weary of is journeys, but surprisingly, this journey was a lot of fun, despite it following the most-recent format of having a guaranteed loser. Most of this enjoyment came through the extended introduction to Rizo, whose self-deprecating (but sincere) commentary was a delight, and the good-natured response Alex had, despite his losing effort. (Which Dalton Ross summed up perfectly). That and, of course, it was a deeply improbable, all-time, come-from-behind victory. Beyond that, I think there were two main reasons why it worked so well.

(1) Pure comedy - Rizo was objectively terrible (as he himself admitted!) on the puzzle. It wasn't a hard puzzle. But as he was flailing performance-wise, he was also an excellent narrator. He accurately gave us a quasi-real time play-by-play, not shying away from his own faults. But he was also really bad at the puzzle. As Rizo himself said, "On a scale of 0 to 100, my [puzzle ability] is -100." So there was no way he should have won, but somehow, Alex was *even worse* at digging, so Rizo did end up winning. You can't help but laugh when the in-shape guy touting his cardio/elliptical prowess fails, while the skinny underdog wins, despite his own very evident shortcomings. It's as if that -100 ability allowed Rizo to fail so hard, he dug a hole all the way through that failure, came out the other side, and won.

(2) The Probst-free novelty - Past new era versions of this have mostly had a time clock (before S47) and been in camp. Since S47, this has been a head-to-head competition instead (basically a journey), but the results have been a bit disappointing. In S47, the "suspense" mostly relied on editing trickery to disguise that Aysha was so far behind TK, she had no shot. Similarly S48's version died the second Kyle cracked his glass jug, so the focus turned instead to his kind gesture to help Kevin finish. (If "the margarita curse" is supposedly a thing, the "Fight for Supplies" curse should be too, since both winners have been booted in the very next episode so far. Bad luck, Rizo?)

So anyway, this was the first instance of "Fight for Supplies" where either person could have won, at any time after the initial coconut-collecting stage, and improbably, Rizo eventually did. It was also the first iteration where you could imagine Probst being there on site, bellowing about how far ahead Alex is, only for that not to matter. Here, it was Rizo and Alex narrating it instead. It felt like an actual challenge, but one we got to watch close-up, without the host filter. That's something that the show has been trying to make work since the DIY challenges in S19: Samoa. I'm not sure it's a good idea overall, but it is fun to see it finally pay off.

The pointless, self-indulgent time-wasting of Jake the shoe bandit

This segment would have been my first cut if we'd had a 90-minute episode instead of two hours. So, naturally, the next installment is already booked for Episode 2, based on the preview at the end of the premiere.

Honestly, I could have lived with five more minutes of Rizo doing puzzles instead of this. Jake took one of Nicole's shoes, placed it about 10 feet away from her bag, and then celebrated in confessional about what a big "chaos" moment it was. Jake described it as "99% entertaining, 1 % chaos." I think the 1% chaos is accurate. That also sounds right for the amount of effort taken, and the overall effect of the act.

It was just kinda dumb, pointless, one of the least-effective "pranks" ever. Nicole quickly found her shoe. It was clear someone had put it there, but oh well (shrug). So much chaos!

In an episode where every other act was described as a "red flag," it's a bit worrisome that *this* guy, whose bio is littered with them, gets a free pass. Lest you missed his bio, his favorite past player is Joe from S48 because "Joe and I both put others before ourselves in every aspect of life. We are both in law enforcement." Slightly moving someone else's shoe sure is "putting others before ourselves," and Joe is a fire captain, not a cop.

The monster, revealed

During Jawan's opening monologue, we were treated to a delightful bit of foreshadowing that also served a dual purpose. As he talked about how in act one of a horror film "you're running from the monster," we were shown a shot of a muddy Nicole running, looking behind her, then cut to a shot of the snuffer. Neat microcosm of Episode 1, right?

Remember when Probst was going on and on about "the monster" at the start of the new era? It's said that one of Spielberg's best decisions in "Jaws" was to not actually show the shark until late in the film, to preserve the suspense. Along these lines, it's now (checks notes) the ninth act of the new era, and we've finally been shown the actual monster! And it turns out it was Jeff Probst all along! Just as everyone suspected. Good work, everyone, I guess.

The Kele vote - not as close as shown?

Nicole alleged in her exit interviews that Jake drove her blindside, simply because they did not get along. That story checks out from the show, even if it was presented out of order there. For example: The scene of Jake and Alex saying "today's the day" and talking about keeping Nicole calm and telling her she's good was clearly from early in the morning, probably early Day 3. That said the plan was set long before the IC. Sophi has a (probably post-IC) confessional talking about how she'd prefer to take out Annie instead, but the consensus has already congealed around Nicole. Kind of disappointing that Sophi didn't tip off Nicole that she might want to play her Shot in the Dark, since Nicole was considering doing so anyway. But oh well. Figures that big strong straight guy Jake (who insists he's a pro at talking to and manipulating women in his opening confessional) would fail to mesh with, then target the lesbian. Especially since he hid her shoe, not Annie's.

This also helps to explain Annie's failure to at least attempt to split the vote. If people like Jake and Alex were adamant that they were all five voting for Nicole (as was shown), to maintain tribe strength, maybe that's convincing enough to ignore the 1-in-6 chance of going home if Nicole plays her Shot in the Dark and is SAFE. Annie *knew* she was the decoy vote, and still felt comfortable enough not to write down a third name. Probably because, I guess, if all goes well and Nicole is out as expected, she's now made an enemy of that one person, and already knows she's the likely next target. So if Nicole ends up safe, Annie is still gone on the revote. So I guess it didn't make much sense to cast a rogue split vote.

The land of tepid takes:

Telling part of the story: I can see how it would get repetitive revealing this for everyone on Hina, but their tribe is 50% alternates. In addition to Jason's story (as shown in the show), MC was the other alternate added hours before filming started. And Sophie was an alternate for Survivor 48! I guess it would have been overkill to also put Sage on that tribe (she was an alternate for 47), but they were so close to a majority there! I'm not sure it's really "Pulling back the curtain" when we saw Austin being told he's in during the Survivor 45 opening, but I hope we get everyone else's alternate stories eventually. (Mike Bloom reports MC did *not* mention her status during the arrival mat chat.)

Pronunciation disappointment: As someone who was briefly excited about the blue tribe's name when it was first announced, I'm now slightly disappointed they didn't just change the second E to a long-E pronunciation, for tradition's sake.

Delayed mud is better than early mud: After multiple seasons of complaints about all the mud in challenges - especially in the first challenge in the premiere - at least production held off until the IC, giving the audience time to sort of learn who's who, before turning them into indistinguishable brown lumps. And we got a challenge with an actual swimming leg too, for the first time in what seems like forever. (Was S19: Samoa really the last one?) Anyway, it's refreshing to see the show (appear to) respond to audience complaints, and adjust accordingly. (Could just be coincidence, but please let me believe it's real, if so.) Still, I'm hopeful this is the last mud this season, which I realize is absolute fantasy.

Is Kele the disaster tribe? At first glance, that appears to be the case - they were pretty bad in both challenges (and Alex was even worse on the journey task) - but my money is still on Uli for this "honor". Uli also lost the opening RC, and were a distant second in the IC. Their big guys are Nate (who's 20 years older than his median tribemate, and is a runner, not a CrossFitter) and Rizo (who can't do puzzles). True, Jawan held his own in the physical parts of both challenges, and all three of their women look like they match up pretty well physically vs. the other tribes. But Hina was calm and thoughtful under pressure, which has served them well so far, and we saw the least of them overall, which seems like a sign they'll continue to not lose. We'll see how this shakes out soon enough, and two challenges are a vanishingly small sample size, so maybe the first episode was an outlier. Or maybe we'll get lucky, and all three tribes will be relatively well balanced this time.

No idols? This was the first season in a long time (since S42) that we didn't see anyone find either an idol or an idol clue in the premiere. It was a bit of a relief, to be honest, especially after the exceptionally time-intensive idol quests in the S47 premiere. It's unlikely that there are zero idols this season, but that *was* something fans were voting on (for S50) before this season filmed. From Mike Bloom's article in Parade at the time, the first fan vote opened February 26th. Filming for S49 didn't start until almost two months later. If production *wanted* an idol-free season, and saw the fan vote had gone the other direction for S50, they could easily have said: "The fans are wrong, let's get rid of idols for 49." (I think production is actually pro-idol, as all good people should be, so this is unlikely. Just saying the timing is right to have happened.)