Survivor

The tides come in, the tides go out, Survivor 43 brings back a classic immunity challenge and actually has a moment of drama at Tribal Council, and yet things stay mostly the same.

Survivor is returning to the UK after more than 20 years, and is now looking for players. But its search is very different than CBS’s search for Survivor 45 players.

Survivor 43 had an actual individual reward challenge, and some fun editing to explain the blindside—and conceal the fact that there was yet another series of events where people talked about doing something and then did not.

Jeff Probst did an accent and split the tribe into mini-tribes for the ninth episode, which resulted in two blindsides and the second flushing of a major advantage.

Is Survivor 43 just having a middle-of-the-road season? Or are we mid-Pagonging? I suspect something else might be contributing to how little is happening.

There were a few fascinating moments on Survivor 43 episode 8, but a large alliance is now in control, and that, plus a stand-and-hold challenge, meant a one-way street to dullsville.

In a mess of an episode, Survivor 43’s 12 remaining players crawled through nets, shared their inspiration, swapped advantages, and found a new one that producers put in their drinking water.