This episode could have been an email.

Episode 5 of Survivor 49 was a bewildering forest of time-filling exercises and feats of strength and stories that didn't go anywhere, all for none of that to ultimately pay off, and to end up with exactly the outcome you would have expected after Episode 4, if the same tribe went to Tribal Council. They did, and the results were indeed as you would have predicted.

How did we get there, though? Well, we spent 90 minutes doing *something*, right? We certainly did. There was a journey, a challenge, and a lot of people allegedly plotting against each other (Savannah vs. Jawan, Sage vs. Shannon), none of which was actually reflected in the vote itself. But we did get a lot of meandering plotting, none of which came to fruition. (If you have not heard Grandpa Simpson's amazing story that doesn't go anywhere from which I stole this column's title, please enjoy below. It's only one minute long, and it's glorious. Go on, live a little.)

I know, these storylines are probably going to pay off eventually, perhaps one might even do so in the final pre-merge episode that will air next week. But with another swap looming there (in Episode 6), it sure *feels* like it was all an exercise in moving sandbags from one area to another, for no apparent reason, all in service of just circling back to the situation in which we found ourselves before the episode started.

I do understand that the vote is what it was, and it was challenging to build a compelling story around it. As great as it was to finally see a swap down to two tribes, for the first time in the new era, you could see from the moment the buffs were drawn that it was probably going to be a dud. Two episodes later, it definitely was. Which is fine, that happens sometimes. Instead of a fun power shift, we just had the extremely basic gameplay of the majority alliance from one tribe picking off the minority stragglers from another, despite Jeff Probst swearing up and down that the game is too fierce and complex and advantage-rich nowadays for that to happen any more. But not only is that not true, this outcome was aided by the new era's scarcity of idols and advantages, such that the same majority alliance had already secured the only idol in their camp. They also had an insurmountable 5-1 margin, and successfully blocked that one remaining minority player (Jason) from attending the journey (which, to be honest, he probably shouldn't have gone on anyway, since he'd probably have lost his vote, as we'll get to below), so it's not really clear what else was supposed to happen.

As mentioned last week, it might have been more exciting if the other tribe had attended Tribal instead, but this is the new era, and when a tribe loses immunity, as new Hina did last episode, they lose their flint, and then can't eat, so there's a decent chance they'll lose again. And hooray, they did! A second disaster tribe in the same season! (Or so I imagine Jeff Probst thinking.) But let's focus on the good (maybe): Change is coming, in the form of *another* swap, to three tribes (sigh) of four (sigh again ... just a re-draw and two tribes of six would have been fine).

What's good here is somewhat concealed behind the smokescreen of eXtREmE!!!-ly small tribes: We're probably not getting the dumb merge-atory we've had for the last eight seasons, where only half the tribe can "earn the merge." (Or at least, we're not getting that in Episode 6, as we have in the past new era seasons.) It's still formally possible we'll again see the dumb 47-48 format in Ep7, with random-drawn teams (for the third time in four episodes!), one person sitting out of the RC, only half the players eligible to compete for the first individual immunity, and all that. But I'm hopeful that we'll just have a clean, old-school merge, with everyone getting a buff, competing for immunity, and living on one beach. (I'm not *very* hopeful ... I'm saying there's a chance.)

Another more likely change that comes from delaying the merge by an episode (and being down a contestant relative to most new new era seasons at this point): With the merge coming the following week (Episode 7) with 11 players left, we're going to have the merge boot be the first member of the jury. That's so much better and simpler than the not-fun system of a double Tribal Council in Survivor 45 (and 46, and 48), where the first person booted (Sifu, Tim, Sai) missed the jury, but the second (Kaleb, Soda, Cedrek) became the first juror. That just felt particularly cruel to the first boot.

So in summary: Despite a long, particularly grim episode that closed out the first swap, things may be looking up. That's rare these days, let's celebrate it.

R.I.P., reward challenges (2000-2025)

Despite having 90-minute episodes for the foreseeable future, Survivor just can't be bothered to have reward challenges any more. Across five episodes, we've just one quasi-RC (the marooning challenge, for flint, pot, and machete, which was also sort of a pre-challenge to determine who went on the journey), and five combined reward/immunity challenges. In contrast, there have been three journeys.

This follows on the heels of the near-extinction of the individual reward challenge, which has wavered between one and two per season since S29: San Juan del Sur (unless you count the emergency one to fill time and introduce the juror removal advantage in S32: Kaoh Rong). There were six in S1: Borneo, and most seasons in the pre-Probst-showrunner era had three or four. (When he took over, he almost instantly introduced Redemption Island, where the duels replaced reward challenges. Sigh.) Although the two seasons that immediately preceded Probst taking over were S19: Samoa, which had *zero* individual RCs (and no swap), and S20: Heroes vs. Villains, which had only one individual RC (and no swap), a brief aberration I like to refer to as "the special Russell Hantz accommodations to the rules."

Instead, tribal reward challenges have been replaced by the much-cheaper journey (or just nothing). This is almost certainly a cost-cutting measure, although back when episodes were hour-long, Jeff Probst rationalized only having immunity challenges in the early episodes, quite reasonably, as a way to create extra room in the episodes to get to know the new players. A noble intention! And yet here we are in the 90-minute episodes forever era, and even after having sat through five episodes spanning eight hours so far this season, with just one challenge per week, I still have next to no idea who Sophie S. is, except that she dislikes fruit rewards. (If you blinked you missed it, but as we saw in the Ep5 IC, she's also a really good swimmer.) So forgive me for not buying that this high-minded storytelling gesture was the real motivation.

Of the two, individual reward challenges are probably the bigger loss strategy-wise, because the winner is immediately put on the spot, and has to pick people to join in the reward or leave behind, which can expose alliances and/or irritate people. (Cue Liz's "I'm pissed!") But savvy players have been wise to this for a while, and a few openly sandbagged individual RCs, so it's not surprising that the show retaliated there. A better adjustment would have been to insist on schoolyard picks for team RCs in the post-merge phase, which would have similar stresses on alliance revelations/hurt feelings, but Probst loves his bag of rocks, and also claims there's just not enough time to do that. (Heavy eye-roll.)

For tribal reward challenges, we already flagged this once this season, but as Josh Kettles and Shannon Guss discussed on Bluesky, the new era's insistence on always having combined reward and immunity challenges in the pre-merge *amplifies* the "sorry for you" pressure when a disaster tribe fails to win flint. Because they also repeatedly miss out on camp supplies like fishing gear and tarps, they're perhaps even worse off than the Have-Not Ravu tribe from S14: Fiji, who at least were able to make fire (eventually).

So again, tribal reward challenges are also all but extinct, and in their place (every other episode) we have journeys, which are less "reward" challenges, and more "punishment" challenges. And they are also for at most one person per tribe. Smaller scale, fewer cameras, much easier on the old production wallet. Just like the duels Probst first tried to shoehorn into the show. Which ... if we have a choice between cheapo depot Survivor and no Survivor, fine, I guess I will reluctantly take the Temu version. (While noting that a massive amount of construction budget has gone into the Tribal Council sets the past few seasons ... they are visually stunning, sure, but also barely visible, and for seconds at a time, on TV, and could easily be replaced by S3: Africa-style huts with very little change noticed by the viewers.)

But still: What the hell was the point this week's journey? MC and Nate were faced with a brutally grueling physical task, for which the "reward" was ... getting their votes back. It's "Sweat vs. Savvy," minus the Savvy, and not for winning needed supplies, but for re-acquiring something the show took away just for volunteering. True, there was an actual advantage that was available mid-task, but the pair had to remove roughly half the sandbags to get there, and MC and Nate are probably two of the largest, fittest people left. Imagine if it had been two of the smaller people, like Sophi and Sophie? It's possible they might not have even moved enough sandbags to uncover the advantage clue. Nate cleverly concocted a scheme to at least guarantee he and MC re-earned their votes, but all in all, this just felt like arbitrary punishment.

And unlike a regular challenge, this was another task where it was impossible for the audience to gauge how much progress had been made, or how close they were to running out of time, so it was a grind to watch (and it took up a full 10 minutes of the episode, not including the ad break in the middle). Just unsatisfying all around. Earning something back through extreme exertion is not the same as winning a challenge. No matter how many times someone like MC says, "This is why I wanted to play Survivor," this is not Survivor. Nobody asked for this.

The land of tepid takes

The one-sided Jawan vs. Savannah feud: On the one hand, Jawan's using Savannah's bag (after removing her clothes from it, I guess?) to collect firewood was pretty hard to play off as a mistake. And I'm not really sure how he mistook her water bottle for his, since they should be labeled with their initials, and "SL" does not look at all like "JP". But the additional scene this episode, where Savannah is irate that Jawan is "listening in on my conversations" featured poor Jawan napping in the shelter, then Savannah and Sophi come in, sit down, and start yapping right next to him. I'm guessing there was an actual instance of Jawan eavesdropping that Savannah's confessional was referring to, but the editors choosing this one to use instead raises questions about whose side we're supposed to be taking here. At first, it felt like Jawan was clearly in the wrong, but as this drags on, it's starting to seem like it's also partly in Savannah's head?

Having said that, this episode's vote seemed like Uli had finally figured out how to optimally work around the Shot in the Dark. Tribe after tribe in the new era has insisted on throwing an extra vote on a backup target just in case the Shot hits. (Which again, at 1-in-6 odds, is highly unlikely, even if it's happened three times now.) The Uli three (plus Sophi) wanted to keep Jawan nominally with them, so they did two things: All the votes were on Jason, with no back-up vote, and they sent Jawan to figure out who Jason might be voting against, with no suggested decoy. (Jason chose Rizo, who has an idol.) If Jason plays his shot, there's no vote from him, so there's no need for a decoy vote. In the worst-case scenario where Jason is SAFE via the Shot, the majority group simply agreed to all vote Jawan (while he was away talking to Jason.) Jawan is not tipped off that he's really on the bottom, and they keep his vote on their side for at least one more round. Really well done, and a great example of not splitting votes unless you actually need to.

Okay, can we stop talking about how tough it is yet? I am not disputing in any way that 26-day Survivor is tough. I know it is! But it's exhausting having to listen to the show justify the new era format by exclusively talking about how tough it is - Alex gave a defensive confessional which was roughly, "You think I'm soft? Get out here and kill a chicken on Survivor then!" and the opening discussion at Tribal was extended reflections on how debilitating the experience is. Look, we get it already. It's season nine of this. Please stop wasting our time talking about something we already know. 26 days is fine! Nobody needs dead days where nothing happens, footage that will never even end up on TV. Trim it down even more if you have to! Australian Survivor just aired a 16-day season, and it was fantastic!

That's because the point of Survivor is not starvation. Nor is it physical exertion, nor paranoia, despite what Tribal Council seemed to be trying to tell us. Those things are not even *necessary* ingredients! You would think the showrunner who's been doing this for a quarter century would already know this! But one more time for those in the back: You can still have a really fun Survivor season when people get to eat, and nobody is struggling with the elements. The point of the show is the social-strategic game, not suffering. Working together to vote people out, while still being able to convince some of those same people to vote for you to win a million dollars at the end. That's it!

(Seriously, is this all because CBS gave Phil Keoghan a second hosting job on a show called Tough as Nails, and Probst's feelings were wounded because he wasn't their first choice?)