I don’t know if this is controversial, but I LOVED the 90 minute episodes. It made it way easier to understand alliances and tribe dynamics in the pre-merge, and also allowed for challenges and journeys that didn’t feel like they took up airtime space.
And it also led to just more fun in general. If it was still an hour long we wouldn’t have gotten to see random chat about the pyramids and Pokémon. Stuff like that makes me root for players I didn’t originally care for.I would really like to see it next season since the cast for 46 looks fun
I definitely hated Emily in the first few episodes as well but then I absolutely loved her and rooted for her. I really hope she changes her mind as well to play again
I have the opposite opinion. I thought she was a great character in the first episode(s), and than just became another player in the game. I almost felt cheated. They promised me chaos Kass 2.0 and by the end that was not even close to what we got. Also, she didn't say hard no she's not coming back. He over exaggerated it in the video she said " I don’t think I’m overly eager to return. I kind of want to just move forward with my life and be normal again but I’m happy I had the experience!" (Historically speaking even the hard no's come back when asked Courtney, Parvati, Boston Rob extra.) I would say with such a fan favorite she is there are greater than 50% odds of a return.
The problem with Emily is that she became a more sympathetic player and then stopped playing the game after the merge. She was happy to be at the bottom of a five-person alliance and refused to shake the game up. Like the way people played 20 years ago. Boring.
@@monovision566I don’t think working with the extremely dysfunctional Belo would’ve worked out too well for her, the game was going well for her until Austin let his feelings get in the way of playing the game.
Katurah not voting Dee with Jake was the biggest disappointment of the season. That not only solidified Dee winning the season, but it also validated the fact that Katurah was never trustworthy. She flipped more often than anyone else, shared secrets that others confided in her, and prevented at least two blindsides by telling those individuals -- who weren't even working with her.
I don't want to take anything away from Dee because she played a great game... That said, if the cast was even halfway competent to see it she would have never made it to the end. Katurah not voting her out despite knowing she's the biggest threat in the game was a boneheaded play, even if she has tried to defend it by calling Jake shifty. Some would credit that to Dee, but savvier players would have sniffed that out and she would have been just another forgotten jury member. Just a bunch of people playing for second place and willing to let Dee walk to the end. And no one is even talking about the fact that J Maya decided to take the blame for the Sifu vote at the Tribal where Sean quit for no reason even though it was Dee that cast that vote. How do you even end up on a tribe where someone else takes the fall for your biggest mistake in the game?
yeah I don't understand the casting, these people are suppose to be "super fans" knowing how the game works so they sacrificed casting physical players/social players. But at end of they day it looked like they didn't know how to vote. They talked for an entire episode of julie having an idol and they all voted for her anyways instead of just having 2 people vote for Emily. It doesn't make sense at all, seems like it was intentional to just make it seem like it was a "big play". Season 45 had to be one of the worst seasons ever. 2 quitters and no action at all.. boring. It used to be that the players would tell a story, now the show is just about "can i get my vote back after opening a beware clue"
Jake was way better than Owen. Jake was right about the moves to make but he seemed to be the only one on Belo who could see what the Reba 4 were doing so nobody would listen to him
We’d have a different winner if a lot of things happened. She made a bad move out of fear and Jake failed to build better trust with her because of his lies in the name of being flashy (he didn’t learn from the Bruce idol drama!). Lest we forget, voting Dee out was K’s idea while Jake wanted Julie, but she knew he was lying about something. And on top of that, why would Jake tell Austin about his idol? Coulda shoulda woulda, but 4th/3rd place makes them both pretty formidable players
@@Superbounce3 At F5 it didn’t matter too much even if their plan had worked they weren’t gonna win but if she went to rocks at Kaleb’s tribal the entire season plays out differently and she absolutely should’ve in hindsight
Boys night was the hardest I laughed at survivor since 10 days is two weeks. By far the best thing that happened for survivor 45 was the 90 minute episodes. It allows for more creative camp life segments like Boys Night. I hope survivor is 90 minutes for good, it adds so much entertainment to the TV product. And I can’t have enough praise for modern casting, this is a very cohesive cast and it gives room for that form of entertainment
People rewriting history claiming Katturah was good is hilarious. She was so petty and clung on to a majority alliance until she was their final victim. And even if she lucked out and won fire, she still finished 3rd. She was annoying and one note.
Exactly! By the last 3 episodes especially with that failed Dee moved I said it doesn’t matter whatever happens with Katturah even if she makes it to the end she will NOT win. She has played a game filled with fear and petty grudges. So many blindsides didn’t happen because of her. Never seen someone block so much and just walk to their demise
the entire casting was bad except for a couple, these people were suppose to be "super fans". They were bad at the thing they were brought on for. There voting wasn't strategic at all (they talked for an entire episode of julie having an idol and they didn't drop 2 votes on Emily). They were garbage at challenges, bad at social game play (was all superficial talking the entire season). The show used to be about players telling a story, now it's just about "can i get my vote back after finding a beware clue"
Katurah has to hold some sort of record for the number of chances to take control of the game that she didn’t take or actively blew up. Some of the weirdest NON-gameplaying we’ve seen since the early seasons. Jake deserves to play again for the simple fact that he was the only one not in the Reba 4 who actually WANTED TO PLAY SURVIVOR after the merge. Katurah especially, but also Emily and Bruce and Kendra… just useless post-merge.
The only move that would’ve been good for her and why she loses the game would’ve been to vote out Dee at 5, any other chance she “blew” would’ve put her in a bad position. She was 4th place, only losing to fire but otherwise never really being a target while still actively playing from the bottom on all sides and could’ve racked in some votes at FTC if she makes a good case for herself, which obviously Dee thought she could otherwise she wouldn’t have wanted her out at 5 and 4. Jake’s plans were bad and he didn’t build trust with Katurah at any point in the game, that’s on him not her and why he loses the game probably. Y’all trash Katurah for her gameplay while also praising Emily when they had the exact same game plan, only Katurah was able to keep her threat level down hence why she stays in the game while Emily gets idoled out.
@@sgumglm this is literally how I feel. In my opinion, Jake has been super humble since the finale aired. He owned up to a lot of the flaws in his game, and I respect that a ton. Katurah had valid reasons to distrust Jake; he was a key part of concealing Bruce's idol from her. Both Katurah and Jake made huge mistakes at the Final 5, but Katurah's can be explained by distrust, while Jake was withholding information to make his move look as flashy as possible.
@@handsoaphandsoapKaturah was never targeted because nobody would vote for her to win. She doesn’t need to be like Jake, who was bad for the exact opposite reason, but just allowing the dominant alliance to trample you is not good gameplay. I also disagree with Emily’s gameplay, but at least hers had some sort of reasoning (Drew and Austin saved her and convinced her they were bringing her to the end). Katurah in the other hand just sorta snitched to reba every round even though nobody on reba liked her or ever included her in strategy. Her hatred for Bruce seemed to trick her into thinking that she would win the million by getting Bruce out, not by getting to the end next to people she played better than
Something I'd love to see happen is an old school picking teams but instead of day one do it at the tribe swap. Do a reward challenge where the top male and top female become captains and have to pick their teams alternating sex each time. Do you pick strength? Do you pick your allies? do you pick someone you're targeting? I think it would be a lot more interesting than just drawing colored rocks.
I totally agree that Jake NEEDS to come back, me and my family loved his energy and he was hilarious, I think in a different season with different circumstances he could be a power player
I think this is definitely the best season of the new era. They had a lot of great characters on this season and they even brought the auction back which was fantastic. I'm also glad they brought the intro back and I'm really hoping they bring it back next season. I think these 90-minute episodes really helped a lot and we honestly needed these 90 minute episodes during WAW. I think the only sour thing from this season was a little bit in the beginning with the quits otherwise I really enjoyed this season😊
I'm surprised people like 45 so much better than 44. 45 was just a cakewalk for Dee and the reba 4 (I'd love to see her come back and see how she fares against real players). 44 had a similar alliance in the Tikka 3, but they had to really fight and scramble and scheme constantly to stay alive. Plus, Carolyn and Carson! Talk about great characters. And Frannie and Matt! Maybe I have to rewatch but I'm baffled why people prefer 45, when the post-merge was such a snooze.
@@coneil72 I only have seen 44 once so I might need to watch it again since 45 is fresh in my mind but I do remember Gabler winning was such a 180 and I did not like it 😂
The 90 minute episodes were truly a godsend. Through the highs and lows of the season, the 90 minute episodes remained a consistent force multiplier that added to the entertainment value. The pre-merge wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if we didn’t have the extra time to flesh out the players. And the post-merge would have felt like a monotonous slog if we didn’t have the extra time to get a better sense of the dynamics. Even though the season ended up a steamroll, we still had a good grasp of the dynamics to understand why the steamroll was taking place. Not to mention that the editors were really in their bag this season as they took multiple chances to inject some much appreciated humor and fun into the season. Boys’ Night was some truly unexpected hilarity and I loved the plethora of ways they took to highlight Jake’s Charlie Brown-esque narrative 😂. Emily, Kaleb, and Drew got the lion share of the substance (which is understandable since they were gold mines for content), but I felt like the cast overall had decent to good content that sufficiently presented their character within the narrative. I do wish Katurah had a more well-rounded edit. It felt extremely jarring to see her get more of a competitive edit towards the end after the show spent so much time dragging her for her Bruce obsession. I felt Katurah had more gas in the tank than just Bruce. I know we are getting 90 minutes for 46 and CBS said that the added length was already an idea prior to the strikes, so hopefully they continue the 90 minutes into the 47/48 cycle. The advantages weren’t as bad as it has been in the New Era, but they did get a little intrusive as the season went on. Sacrificed votes are much more engaging than lost votes. It’s always better to give the players agency if they are going to lose a vote versus just taking them away. No intrigue there. All in all, 45 was the best season of the New Era, and that was in large part thanks to the 90 minutes. Survivor is best when the people are highlighted. Not the bells and whistles that are twists and advantages.
@@CompleteUpload what the hell... this felt like one of the worst seasons i've ever watched. Players are boring, it's all superficial talking. 2 quitters in the first 3 episodes and the casting directors deserve an award? How do you even justify bringing Brandon being selected as a cast? Players were terrible at challenges, terrible at social play.. They were suppose to be strategic players (super fans) but the way they were voting was mediocre half the time. We both agree that "beware idols" are garbage. The show used to be about players telling a story, now it's just some "can i get my vote back"
@@michaelbreaux-tj6mx Yes, I believe they deserve praise for their casting. My justification comes from the reality of the show. Not everyone is going to be great at challenges, not everyone is going to handle the stress of being in the wilderness and not everyone is going to be good at the social game. Survivor is about being put into difficult situations and adapting to it. Brandon is a super fan that did not account for the physical aspect of the game. Lizz is another super fan that clearly had no pulse on the social aspects of the game. Jeff has said in the past that not everyone should get off the couch and get into the game. Maybe this season highlights it. Everyone thought they were playing the game at a higher level than where they really were. Ngl after the second idol being voted out I was very confident that if I were in this season I would have won because WTH. Then again being out there is very stressful and they also didn’t eat much so…
@@CompleteUpload I'm not saying everyone is great at everything, but they were casted as "super fans" and we'll the strategic game play is suppose to be their strength but them being that bad is kind of insane to me. I hold the casting team responsible for selecting Brandon because it's their job..I can't fathom when he was interviewed that they didn't bother to ask him how much physical labor he does. I'm not just upset with the quitters/brandon, majority of the cast felt bad (maybe with a few exceptions). I really hope they bring back a "Russell hantz", "Courtney" or a "Cerie" Rusell for the villain entertainment, Courtney for the funny entertainment, Cerie for the strategic game play.
Enjoyed the season but can't really say I feel satisfied with Dee winning. I respect the game, she played strong, but of the Reba 4 she was the most unlikable and least charismatic imo, obviously as a character on the show she could be extremely pleasant and sweet irl but that didn't really come across on the season for me. I never enjoy showmances in reality TV, whether it be Survivor or Drag Race and this really was not an exception to it, although that one is both her and an Austin thing. She never faced any real obstacles to get to the end and it just made the endgame feel incredibly stale, a steamroll can be entertaining I mean look at Cagayan. But it just felt like once Emily went the season lost steam and momentum and kinda ended on a dud for me.
I know I'm likely going against the grain with this take, but for me the season started out very strong but then really finished with a wimper. They spent so much time pumping up Emily in the editing that after she left I didn't care about anyone left, aside from kind of Drew, who was then the next person voted out. To me this season finished firmly in the middle of the new era seasons, which is something I never thought I'd have said after how good the first two thirds of it were.
i definitely agree, i wasn’t rooting for anyone much after Emily was eliminated, besides Katurah and dee, both of which i ended up not really caring for by the end of the season because of the way they played, but i was somewhat happy when Dee won over Austin and Jake.
who also lied to him and didnt tell him the truth until the finale and was the mastermind to voting his best friend out ven when Austin told her about voting her bestfriend out. crazy..
Personally wasn't a huge fan of Season 45 simply due to the lack of shifting power dynamics. I love Survivor more for the strategy than the personalities. My favorite seasons have constantly shifting "power rankings" where one day you're on top and the next you're on the bottom. While I loved the cast of Drew, Emily, Kaleb, Kellie, Austin, and Jake, it was just monotonous in the feeling of wanting non-Reba's to band together to take out the OBVIOUS power alliance. Reba absolutely dominated the season, which is a testament to their teamwork and decision making, but it made for a less entertaining season that rarely had a redeeming strategic move. It was just clockwork for Reba.
Yes great pont thank you we all had to scream at our TV at the Roku 4 never going and Sabideh (sp?) had a chance to get out Dee and never did which was a million dollar mistake argh!
Strong agree, and that mid merge stretch of terrible gameplay and awful twists is what brings the season down for me. However, I do like when we have somewhat solid dynamics, and it’s not just like 42 where people just seek to forget about the previous round completely and vote with different people each round. It might be better gameplay, but it’s just really messy and confusing, and leads to a mid season
Honestly got to disagree there's aways gonna be a dominating force because of the edit for example hero vs villains had Russell and Parvati controlling the game fans vs favorites had the black widow alliance controlling the game and in Cagayan Tony was controlling the game these are all considered the best seasons but each one of them had a dominating force because that's survivor
@@Jack-ol1io But that wasn't the case for hvv. Russell and Parvati were at the bottom in the beginning of the season, it was 3 vs 7. Then when the merge came it was 5 vs 5 (hero's tribe giving up there immunity to russell ruined them) Russell and Parvati dominated the game but not because of numbers
I wish I could relate to what seems like the universal praise of season 45. It wasn't a bad season by any means but just felt middle of the road to me overall. I personally still think 44 is the best New Era season that brought us the best characters and narrative, and I would even rank 42 over 45 as well. I would say 45 is definitely the best PRODUCED season of the New Era and one of the best overall as far as the editing for sure but isn't as compelling to be narratively, strategically, or personality-wise to place it any higher than somewhere in the mid-tier. But I'm glad most of the rest of the fanbases seems to be very excited about it.
I have to agree! Once the Lulu trainwreck was over, I thought the season was very medium. And I shudder to think what it would have looked like without 90-minute episodes, because I do think that helped it. For me it's 42, then 44, and either 41 or 45, but probably the latter. I need more time to come back to it and rewatch the season with fresher eyes.
This had to be one of if not the least athletic group I’ve seen on the show. There wasn’t a lot of impressive strategy either. This season was totally mid to low for me as well.
What I took from this season is that Old-School Survivor is not dead. It was so weird to see a group stick together for a majority of the game, and waiting until the end to pick each other off. Even then, two of them made the end. The winner didn't focus on making the "big moves". Dee played with loyalty, played with her people, mixed her heart in with her strategy and WON with that strategy. In an era that was dominated by advantages and a "strategy/moves first" mentality, seeing someone win where the main part of their game was that she was loyal to her people is very refreshing. Loved this season. By far my fave of the new era, and the 90 minute episodes certainly helped. I think the show is finding the groove with this new era, and I hope we keep going up with it!
Not sure if this would be possible but I'd love to give Brando and J Maya a chance too! They really didn't get the chance to shine this season... just my opinion though!
For me this season was good, but not great. The setup was great. Two roughly equal forces, Reba and Belo, fighting over the decimated remains of Lulu, was a really interesting premise. Instead watching Belo implode and simply hand the win to one of the Reba 4 was rather disappointing.
I had Dee and Sean as my survivor team, so to have one quit and one be the winner was wild for me. Your edit near the end of showing how Dee really commanded the game was well done though, I for the longest time was still like "I don't know if she can pull it off," but seeing that, I shouldn't have been worried lol
Funniest thing is we actually got a Parvati 2.0 win the game and no one clocked it out there. Their winning games are pretty similar: Both were the center of the power alliance and had players who would never write their name down, both blindsided their showmances by eliminating a player in their alliance, both won with the same vote count. This may be recency bias, but removing Tony, she has the strongest winning game since Jeremy
Huh? Nobody clocked it? Literally everyone had dee or her aliance winning the season, they were the power alliance the whole show. I don’t get why people try to lie about the outcome after the fact. Very weird thing to do.
@@arjunkishore4080 ah, fair. I think there were 3-4 bigger targets, then a handful of very very bad players who could of got her out, but didn’t. Hard to call her parvati, she wasn’t nearly as center stage or hands on as she was. She was put into the power alliance and was able to kick her feet up and float to f5.
@@SweetRyGuy I think yan yam suffers from the same issues dee has, weak cast around them. Yam yam was a good player but his season was the weakest we’ve had in a long time. Carson was his only threat and they were allies. I put yam above dee tho because dee should of been voted out if her season had smart players, but yam was never even close.
This was a mid to high-mid season for me. I'm really disappointed that they haven't done a Second Chance 2 season. So many great players including from the 30's that we have not seen a second time.
I feel like the first half of the season was amazing, but the second half was a totally predictable snooze fest and Katurah enraged me by completely sabotaging anything that MIGHT derail the Reba 4. She reminded me of Cochran flipping at the merge and letting his tribe be pagong'd.
I was really mad when I realized that a lot of the episode names were phrases that the person voted out said…. I noticed at Caleb’s boot. Then Bruce, etc.. I stopped reading them after that…
I don’t like how katurah and emily went with reba instead of flipping when they had multiple opportunities. I also dislike how so many times in early merge people lost votes.
Best season of the new era and once the first few cast members that didn't want to play were weeded out, this became the best cast of the new era and I think that has to do with their hunger to play the game with no regrets AND the 90 minute episode length. I hope that stays moving forward because that added so much depth to each episode and to each player. Absolutely balanced, well said. Jake absolutely deserves a second chance in the game. I would also love to see Kellie come back. Lots of great candidates for a second chance. Also liked that the showmance made it to the end and flew under the radar enough to where there was nothing anyone could do about it when it came down to the wire. Austin and Dee played really strong games and it was great to see the vote come so close with the final 3. Feel bad for Jake that he got no votes but that is kind of a poetic end to his season. People tried to vote him out all season and in the end, he didn't see his name come up for once. I would also argue that Dee is the best winner of of the new era. I could say best winner since Tony MAYBE... though I think that Yam Yam was a good winner too in terms of social game and how he had his hand in every part of the game. The podcast has also added great detail to the season too. Overall FANTASTIC season with a DREAM cast.
To me the season peaks at the out at the middle once Kellie was gone, it was a two horse raise to me and once Emily was taken out it was just a question of if Dee could lose? She didn't so it's a bit boring in the last couple episodes strategy/gameplay wise. Though the characters, the drama, just the extra camp life shenanigan's all of that was good. 90 minutes really helped almost every episode maybe one or two didn't need it but I think it was a good way to allow the show time to breathe. To allow us to just get to know the cast and not have so much screen time eaten up by twists. Though they did turn back the twists this season. Overall a dang good season and the show has been getting better since 41 and if this keeps up we could have an all time great season next.
Strong disagree, the middle was terrible to watch with all the dumb twists and terrible Belo gameplay, while the end really saved this season, and all 4 Rebas had a very viable chance to win
Austin said in pre game press he wants to find his Amber only to kinda become Amber. Also the strength of the cast shows in how much a lot of us want a lot of the players back. Everyone wants Kellie, Emily and Caleb back but I would love to see Drew playing again.
This was the BEST season of survivor in YEARS. I actually liked the cast, the most athletic/attractive people weren’t immediately voted out in the first few episodes, and there were several new interesting twists along with some callbacks (looking at you, auction) that were done well with mind to what doomed them in prior seasons.
As much as i was routing for austin, by the final episode i was screaming "Dee, you deserve to be the winner" because the season deservess a magnetic winner like Dee
I think they should do away with taking away the flint from tribes. With the time reduced to 26 days I find it increases the chances of a team self destructing far to much that you can start assuming at the start of a season that if a team doesn't get a flint that team will constantly lose.
It’s also just dumb. The only reason they do it is because they want the 26 days to seem just as hard as the 39 days when there isn’t any good reason as to why they don’t just go back to 39 days at this point. Also, the audience couldn’t care less if they have the flint or not, I don’t want to watch a group of people suffer for no reason.
completely agree with you. this season def revived my love for survivor. i found myself looking forward to the next episode every week and seeing the narratives established throughout the season getting a satisfied pay-off was just amazing. great cast, excellent editing, tons of memorable moments a top tier winner who played a fantastic game while displaying a lot of the seasons themes as a character. really happy with the overall result.
This is the first new era season that I watched all the way through. 41 and 43 weren’t good, and for whatever reason I just lost some interest in 42 and 44 along the way. This season held my interest from episode 1. The 90 minute episodes were an absolute godsend in helping flesh out what turned out to be an incredible cast. I don’t know if it’s top 10 for me, but it’s up there. And Dee is pretty high in the winners rankings for sure. And the Kenny Loggins montage is legitimately my favorite thing the Survivor editors have ever done. That was hilarious. I’d love to see Jake, Sabiyah, Kaleb, Emily, Kellie, and heck even Bruce play again.
This is the most memorable new cast since at least Millennials vs Gen X. A huge part of that has to be the longer episodes. Think of what we were missing through so many other seasons.
I liked this season but the amount of quits in the beginning made me so angry. So many people would’ve killed to have those spots. Imagine what it would’ve been like if we had quality characters that didn’t quit
True, but when I think of that I realize that if Hannah hadn't quit in episode 1, Emily would have gone home. Trying to imagine this season without Emily in it makes me feel better about that quit.
Have we ever seen an easier walk to the end for any player besides Dee? Dee literally never struggled. Never had to work with players outside of her original alliance. Never had to worry about being the target. The ONLY strategy Dee used was to lie to Austin and hide behind her numbers advantage after Belo imploded. Dee was the player I wanted Emily to be, a backstabbing, cut throat liar with no sense of guilt. Deception is important, but giving the win to the person riding on Austins back for a month is a tragedy. No love for Austin either, he couldn't keep his fat mouth shut when they were going to blindside Julie which sent Emily home because ALL of them were too stupid to split votes just to be safe. Dee is basically a Puerto Rican version of Parvati, giant fake smile and all.
ehh not parvati at all. Parvati actually controls other players and orchestrates the votes. Dee just went along or spilled the beans. She wasn't the mastermind behind the votes.
I think that my least favorite part of the season is Katurah being afraid to make big moves with Jake. It could have made it way less of a steamroll and I would have loved to see Jake do some big things like he wanted to. Jake was one of my favorite reality show players ever!
For me, 41-44 are all better IMHO. 42 was a joy from start to finish, period. 43 was a roller coaster with a brilliant overarching narrative/twist ending, and lots of exciting, interesting players. 44 was a fascinating emotional journey of perseverance and a wonderful pay-off. 41, which has some major weaknesses (had an under-edited tribe that housed the winner, and some early episodes were CRAMMED with advantages), but overall I still thoroughly enjoyed almost every moment from start to finish, with the complex characters, emotional drama, and devastating blindsides, thanks to players like Shan, Ricard, Deshawn, Xander, Tiffany, Evvie, Danny. 45's strengths were a few standout episodes and character arcs, but I don't think they outweigh the weaknesses -- especially the long stretches of limited/inadequate gameplay, and another under-edited tribe/winner (well, a bit less so thanks to the 90 minute episodes). The show made us root for Kaleb and Emily, but after both rising to power at different stages, their games just sorta fizzled out. We also rooted for Jake, but it was sort of out of pity since he had zero agency after episode 7 through to the end of episode 12. Perhaps that's just the effect of a dominant game and a dominant winner. But in trying to hide the winner a bit until the very end (i.e. end of episode 11), the season felt like it was missing something. Why were the Reba 4 so solid? Why were the Belos so dysfunctional? These critical developments were shown to us on a surface level (wow, Bruce is so annoying! Katurah hates him! Dee and Julie are a solid two, and Drew and Austin are like Stephen and JT, wow!), but never fleshed out. Kellie being Bruce's #1 ally was explored in about 30 seconds of footage. Kellie turning on Bruce was explored in about 15 seconds. Julie was ignored by the edit (apart from some one-liners) for like 8 episodes until she randomly became this big threat in episode 9. Since when did Kendra think Dee is a threat? Came outta nowhere. That's the best they can do with 90 minute episodes?
Interesting that you’d say that about this season but not about 42, where people seemed to always completely forget about previous rounds and arbitrarily vote for a big threat. Maybe I need to rewatch 42, but I never got all the hype about the season, Omar as a player, or Maryanne as a winner
I just felt like every single player, particularly at the merge, had agency until they were the target of the vote, and most of the cast were really interesting or exciting players. Everyone (except perhaps Romeo, Lindsay, and Chanelle) had decent edits for where they ended up in the game... I dunno. Maybe I have rose colored glasses but I remember being glued to my seat for almost every episode. With Season 45, the overall character study was good, and some highlight moments at some Tribal Councils, but it didn't feel as dynamic, the most exciting "plan" that actually came to pass was Drew deciding to split between Jake and Kellie instead of Jake and Bruce. A fun blindside, but not THAT impactful on the game.@@willtriplett4128
Once the merge started I thought that is where season 45 started to go downhill for me. This is where the gameplay started to fall flat in my opinion. Were there still good moments after the merge? Yes, but to be honest the only person I was invested in was Emily at that point. It was very clear from this point forward that someone from the Reba 4 was going to win this season. Specifically either Austin or Dee. The focus on Mama D and Drew was wild to me. Well deserved win for Dee. There were what I felt like a ton of emotional/personal voting this season compared to strategic. Overall it is one of the better seasons of the new era, but this season got a little boring after the merge. I love everyone on this cast though
I enjoyed the first 2/3rd of the season a lot… but I feel like the last third was weaker and a bit disappointing. Still, I liked the longer airtime and the season overall.
I honestly felt the season was “over edited”. It felt like the show forced me to think of players as “dumb” or “strategic” or other, without really giving me a real reason to think so. Like Austin played an amazing game but they purposefully overshadowed him in favor of Dee (yeah I know why but shouldn’t the edit be less obvious?)
Dee was such a predictable win after the Emily vote, and yet I was still crossing my fingers for it! Needed a likable strong and dominant winner so badly - it’s so fun watching a woman run the game like a man too
I REALLY ENJOYED the 90 minute episodes REVELLED in the return of the Survivor Auction and tribe swap And, FREAKING LOVE that Dee is our winner of Survivor 45!!! 🥳
Bring back 39 days Get rid of "risk your vote twist" Stop casting cry babies and people with sob stories Bring back 2 tribes Go to different locations If these things do not happen, every season will be mid Also why at every merge are half of the players safe
They won’t leave Fiji anytime soon because it’s cheap to film there and I am not sure they’ll ever do 39 days again because it’s also saving them money. I agree that the days need to be increased but it’ll probably be a while that they stay at 26. I am not a fan of starving the castaways within an inch of their life to accommodate a shorter season but the producers won’t ignore the extra money they have from doing it that way. The show really lost its former luster. At this point, I’ll just be happy if THEY STOP TAKING AWAY VOTES AND START HAVING A NORMAL MERGE
Totally agree with the whole sob story thing. I get that it makes for good shocker tv moments and it fits the CBS “variety cast” they’re going for now, but they’re doing it to such an extreme degree that it just becomes hard to watch a lot of the time. I think the main issue is that there isn’t any “normal” people, as in people who are easy to relate to and root for. Even worse, by highlighting these people’s tragic backgrounds, which I have to emphasize I’m not discrediting by any means, you define the players by their backgrounds and it kinda forces the audience to always perceive them through a very specific light. Maybe I’m just being too overly critical, but I would love to have future casts with a lot more “normal” people, or to at least seriously de-emphasize all these horrible backstories for the sake of tv.
Basically, while they have the capacity to increase the number of days and film in another location, they won’t, because it’s inconvenient and would cost more.The producers need to learn that twists don’t make the seasons more interesting, and challenges aren’t entertaining when the contestants are starving and physically weak. And with the 90 minute episodes, I feel like we can have two tribes again and have enough time to fully explore the dynamics on a larger tribe.
Can you promise you won’t cry if you’re left starving and sleep deprived for 26 days? Easy to judge from comfort of your couch. But I do agree not every player need a sob story
Just found your channel with this video. Incredible! Thank you. This is better than the post season final episode. Such a great breakdown of the entire season. Surely, in time, it cracks your top 10 season ranking.
I adored Emily right from episode 1! She was intelligent and wasn’t afraid to be honest and blunt. I feared it might not be good for her gameplay, so I worried for her in that sense - but gosh it was SO REFRESHING to hear someone on the screen say the exact same things I was thinking instead of always tiptoeing around superficial niceties. Love her! ❤
Re your comment "Jake was shifty", would it be more accurate to say that "Katurah *thought* that Jake was shifty?" given that he did actually vote the way that she told him to. She said she didn't trust him but I never quite understood why. Ironically it was Katurah who ended up being shifty and not Jake.
I loved this season a lot...except for the end game. It was so obvious Dee was winning because literally no one was willing (except like one person) to take her out of the game when it was obvious she had so much win equity in the game and power AND good social game. Became frustrating.
In my ranking for the past 5 seasons, I would rank this as 4 out of five, only above 41. Pros were the swap, the 90 minute episodes, and some very entertaining rootable characters that went too early or couldn’t get any traction (Kaleb, Emily, Jake, Kellie). It just felt like everything had time to breathe with the extra time. Characters became more fleshed out. Arcs and storylines were established and went somewhere for the most part. Cons were the gameplay, those quits, and the failure of the editors to give Dee an edit that would make her more satisfying as winner (she is a satisfying winner, don’t get me wrong, but the fact a significant portion of the fan base were rooting for Jake due to his underdog status instead of the winner is a sign of bad communication from the editors). Honestly if people thought through Dee’s 2 “Number 1”s, they would realize her plan for the final three. It honestly felt like amateur hour from a solid 2/3 of the cast. Nobody but the Reba 4 and a few others thought long term with their moves. Emily ensuring Bruce (while edited as a great move) would not play his idol ensured Reba the numbers without her, thereby making her more exposed. Katurah’s edit was bad (its hyper fixation on Bruce that went nowhere) and she made mistakes that allowed Reba to marched unchallenged to the end (The Kaleb boot and the Julie boot). The Kellie blindside was brutal, but just illustrates the nearsighted nature of Belo. Jake failed to keep his idol secret and to maintain a solid relationship with a key player in Katurah. Austin was a lovesick idiot, who in my opinion was lucky to even get votes at final tribal. The whole showmance was getting too much screen time towards the end and was a little sickening to me. Great moments were undercut by the boot order like Kaleb’s Shot in the Dark and then being voted out the very next episode. My ranking for the New Era would 41, 45, 42, 43, 44.
I feel like I'm alone here, judging by the commentary and comments, but I thought the premiere episode of 45 was the WORST ep of Survivor I had seen. Not the worst premiere, the worst, full stop. Having said that, ep 2 onwards was great (with a couple of meh episodes here and there) but I ended up loving the season overall.
90 minute episodes made the show far better. They must keep it and hopefully return to 39 days. Just look at the ratings and the reception. This was the best season in the new era by far.
Honestly, i don't really get how people could not at least like the season it had so many great moments the Kelly blindsided the Kaleb shot in the dark and the 2 1 1 1 vote plus one of the most in depth cast ever and a deserving winner what's not to love?
Was Dee really a big player when it came to leading votes or was everyone around her just afraid to make moves? She was like "Kendra!" "Kaleb!" and everyone was like "but, why?" And she was like "because" and they were like "ok" 🤷🏼♀️
I never thought I would ever watch any existing, or future new era seasons with (mostly) all new players just bc I’ve never really seen anything about any of them that looked interesting and have always liked returning player stacked casts…but I did see some things about this season that got me curious and I was so shocked by how incredible this entire cast was (especially post-merge!!) I loved this season and would’ve been satisfied with more than half of the players that made it to the jury/final 3
This was the first season of survivor I watched in full. I absolutely loved it and I'm obsessed now. I've watched big brother since I was in single digits and would sometimes catch an episode or two a season when it lined up with big brother. I enjoyed this this season of survivor more than a lot of the past seasons of big brother. I know they are different shows with some similarities but it's the only thing i have to compare to lol. I'm gonna have to binge watch past seasons. Also I love Jake and would love to see him play again. Such a cool dude.
I think this was a good season for sure but recency bias is really causing people to overhype this season and ignore its flaws. Pros: 90 minute episodes Intro is back Mostly solid cast Some good blindsides Satisfactory insight on relationships Auction is back Cons: The quits Taking away people's votes just because Some moments of very frustrating gameplay Auction's new format was kinda broken Maybe I'll like it more if I ever rewatch but even then, this cracks top 20 at best.
This was my first Survivor season I watched ever. I was HOOKED after the first episode that I binged Season 44 just to get an idea of the long game and I loved it. I feel extremely lucky that 45 was my first season because it was an awesome season to watch as a brand new person to all of this.
That’s awesome! Highly recommend watching some of the great non new-era seasons when they had 39 days like heroes vs villains or fans vs favorites, there were a lot more villains, challenge beasts, and highly strategic players than they have these days!
I just finished watching the season over the last couple of weeks and I enjoyed it way more than many recent seasons. I don't tend to have the same problems with some of the game changes or power quirks (although the hourglass one was awful), but I thought they did a really good job of managing it for 45. My favorite player was Emily (I always appreciate it when folks wear their heart on their sleeve and you can see them navigating parts of the game they're not good at). I was so disappointed to see her voted out, but it didn't ruin the season for me. Lastly, I LOVED the longer episodes. They rarely felt overlong. I think modern Survivor has done a really good job of giving players the chance to look good in their own ways. It feels like most players get a generous edit (not to imply stuff is hidden, just that they get a generally positive spotlight) and the longer episodes gave room for that while also letting the challenges and strategy breathe. Plus we got the "boy's night" montage, something that was so good but unnecessary, you'd think it was done by a fan after the season instead of put within an episode.
Continuing the trend of the 40's being the very worst era of Survivor while simultaneously having each season be better than the last, while ALSO having really underwhelming winners. I think every winner so far in the 40's (not including winners at war of course) easily falls into the bottom half of winners.
This is the best of the 'new era' but the bar was not set very high. THREE quitters in one season. The only reason Dee won was because Katurah made the WORST move in Survivor history. Dee owes her part of the million.
2 seasons in a row my early winners pick won (breaking like 7 seasons where i was way off). 90 minute episodes made what could have been an average season into a great season, I really look forward to 90 minute episodes going forward.
So many good episodes, consistent narratives and confessionals from most of the cast, and a really strong winner; I couldn't have asked for much more from this season. By far the best of the new era and probably up there with some of the best seasons. If someone has this in their top 10-20 seasons, I wouldn't bat an eye.
While I also don't like quits, I think the fans are overreacting about them for a very specific reasons. There's this underswell in the fandom where people want to push the narrative that the new era is weaker than previous seasons. Some do it because they want to convince everyone that Australian Survivor is superior. Others do it for the far more sinister reason of wanting fans to believe that a more diverse cast is inherently not as strong. In 42 they pretended that Jonathan muscling his tribe forward and the challenge needing to be paused was proof. In 44 they pretended that Last Gasp ending the way it did was proof (when, in reality, it was the exact opposite because it showed how badass Karla and Owen are). Now in 45 they pretended the two quits were proof.
Diverse doesn't need to mean annoying weak. I guess we should be able to have anyone on the island but people who are objectively not mentally or physically well should not ever compete. I don't want to see someone with no arms or legs and eats from a straw ever.
Also I think some of it is boomers and gen x who like to think they had the best style of gameplay ever for sure and People under 35 play a watered down game.
On Emily returning: if it’s because you starve for several weeks, ok ya But if you think you don’t have a story to tell, look at Kathy from Marquesas and All Stars. Your edit was near identical to hers in Marquesas, and her edit in All Stars showed her confident in her abilities and ready to win socially
The best of the new era for sure, although I did like 43 a lot. 90-minute episodes are great because you get to know the players more, and that makes more sense for alliances. I will never be satisfied with less than 39 days because things happen so fast in the game that it could be completely turned on its head within a few days. Besides, people who have no food at all are not going to be scheming and planning as much as they could be. Challenges are only 1/3 of a player's game. People working with other people socially is the best part for me. I was satisfied with the finale and Austin was my pick, so I'm good.
1. Bring back villains. NOT REAL-LIFE ONES like Dan and Varner: I mean character villains like Russell and Rob and Sandra. 2. Just do the reunion the old-fashioned way. I have a sneaking suspicion that CBS's craving to save money on this show is COSTING them money through viewership. Same with the loved-ones visits. Jeez, guys, come on. Don't be cheap and then cry when you sink your own boat. 3. Can we get out of Fiji? Please? Those purple flowers in the background have been the same for several seasons now. You know the ones I mean: they're in the background of a lot of confessionals. Can we have CULTURE back? Remember Survivor China? Thailand? That kind of thing. The challenge variation has gone up again, though: a few seasons ago, if I'd seen any more balancing challenges, I would have been at my wits' end. These are all quality versus quantity issues. You throw too much at us, it's all going to blur together, like with twist after twist after twist instead of having good characters. I'm not complaining about people like Yam Yam or Maryanne or even Bruce, though I found him annoying: at least he had a personality. But a lot of them feel kinda...white bread? Which is horrible for me to say about PEOPLE, since they AREN'T characters, but we all know that the only "real" thing about "reality TV" of this kind is when they have to turn things over to medical. We got a likeable, intelligent winner this time around. More real heroes and more show villains, fewer stupid twists. And don't cheap out on the loved ones thing. I won't even BOTHER asking for 39 days back, though that would be the show's best-possible decision if they're thinking long term, but since they don't seem to think long term, I'm not going to bother. Just think MORE THAN one season ahead. Come on. All of this to say that I think it's all one big mixed bag nowadays.
Jake’s memorization strategy in the finale has got to be in a future challenge hack video
I don’t know if this is controversial, but I LOVED the 90 minute episodes. It made it way easier to understand alliances and tribe dynamics in the pre-merge, and also allowed for challenges and journeys that didn’t feel like they took up airtime space.
This is definitely not a controversial take : it was waaaay better with 90 minutes ✨
Not to mention it gave us scenes like Dee’s big toe and boys night out. Scenes that wouldn’t have made the cut in regular sized episodes
This is not controversial at all.
And it also led to just more fun in general. If it was still an hour long we wouldn’t have gotten to see random chat about the pyramids and Pokémon. Stuff like that makes me root for players I didn’t originally care for.I would really like to see it next season since the cast for 46 looks fun
It was so much better. I loved this season so much.
Hated Emily in the first few episodes, but then I completely fell in love with her. I hope she changes her mind and comes back one day.
me too! i wanted her out but then i realized "wait, she's really fun to watch"
I definitely hated Emily in the first few episodes as well but then I absolutely loved her and rooted for her. I really hope she changes her mind as well to play again
I have the opposite opinion. I thought she was a great character in the first episode(s), and than just became another player in the game. I almost felt cheated. They promised me chaos Kass 2.0 and by the end that was not even close to what we got. Also, she didn't say hard no she's not coming back. He over exaggerated it in the video she said " I don’t think I’m overly eager to return. I kind of want to just move forward with my life and be normal again but I’m happy I had the experience!"
(Historically speaking even the hard no's come back when asked Courtney, Parvati, Boston Rob extra.) I would say with such a fan favorite she is there are greater than 50% odds of a return.
The problem with Emily is that she became a more sympathetic player and then stopped playing the game after the merge. She was happy to be at the bottom of a five-person alliance and refused to shake the game up. Like the way people played 20 years ago. Boring.
@@monovision566I don’t think working with the extremely dysfunctional Belo would’ve worked out too well for her, the game was going well for her until Austin let his feelings get in the way of playing the game.
Katurah not voting Dee with Jake was the biggest disappointment of the season. That not only solidified Dee winning the season, but it also validated the fact that Katurah was never trustworthy. She flipped more often than anyone else, shared secrets that others confided in her, and prevented at least two blindsides by telling those individuals -- who weren't even working with her.
Yeah that was the dumbest play and everyone I know hated Dee winning because of that.
I don't want to take anything away from Dee because she played a great game... That said, if the cast was even halfway competent to see it she would have never made it to the end. Katurah not voting her out despite knowing she's the biggest threat in the game was a boneheaded play, even if she has tried to defend it by calling Jake shifty. Some would credit that to Dee, but savvier players would have sniffed that out and she would have been just another forgotten jury member. Just a bunch of people playing for second place and willing to let Dee walk to the end.
And no one is even talking about the fact that J Maya decided to take the blame for the Sifu vote at the Tribal where Sean quit for no reason even though it was Dee that cast that vote. How do you even end up on a tribe where someone else takes the fall for your biggest mistake in the game?
Exactly and it sucked because she was my favorite cast member this season but her gameplay was terrible.
And then she gaslit Jake, like I was sooooo angry with her.
yeah I don't understand the casting, these people are suppose to be "super fans" knowing how the game works so they sacrificed casting physical players/social players. But at end of they day it looked like they didn't know how to vote. They talked for an entire episode of julie having an idol and they all voted for her anyways instead of just having 2 people vote for Emily. It doesn't make sense at all, seems like it was intentional to just make it seem like it was a "big play". Season 45 had to be one of the worst seasons ever. 2 quitters and no action at all.. boring. It used to be that the players would tell a story, now the show is just about "can i get my vote back after opening a beware clue"
we need a returnee season ASAP. maybe second chances 2 with people from seasons 30-45+
This this this.
To name a few, I would love to see Cydney from Kaoh Rong come back. Christian, Angelina, Natalie, and Patrick from D v G as well ^^
@@GamingFanactic911 also Omar from 42, Jessie from 43, and Danny from 44. Loved those three.
Jake was way better than Owen. Jake was right about the moves to make but he seemed to be the only one on Belo who could see what the Reba 4 were doing so nobody would listen to him
Blame katurah for that. She has to be the single worst player we’ve seen in a long time.
@patrickoconnor3807 we would have had a different WINNER if Katurah would have listened to Jake.
We’d have a different winner if a lot of things happened. She made a bad move out of fear and Jake failed to build better trust with her because of his lies in the name of being flashy (he didn’t learn from the Bruce idol drama!). Lest we forget, voting Dee out was K’s idea while Jake wanted Julie, but she knew he was lying about something. And on top of that, why would Jake tell Austin about his idol? Coulda shoulda woulda, but 4th/3rd place makes them both pretty formidable players
@@Superbounce3 At F5 it didn’t matter too much even if their plan had worked they weren’t gonna win but if she went to rocks at Kaleb’s tribal the entire season plays out differently and she absolutely should’ve in hindsight
@@lucrative6477Finally someone who agrees with me. Quite possibly the worst ever normal person to play survivor
Boys night was the hardest I laughed at survivor since 10 days is two weeks. By far the best thing that happened for survivor 45 was the 90 minute episodes. It allows for more creative camp life segments like Boys Night. I hope survivor is 90 minutes for good, it adds so much entertainment to the TV product. And I can’t have enough praise for modern casting, this is a very cohesive cast and it gives room for that form of entertainment
The way Jeremy says, “That’s not 2 weeks man.” Always cracks me up.
People rewriting history claiming Katturah was good is hilarious. She was so petty and clung on to a majority alliance until she was their final victim. And even if she lucked out and won fire, she still finished 3rd. She was annoying and one note.
Exactly! By the last 3 episodes especially with that failed Dee moved I said it doesn’t matter whatever happens with Katturah even if she makes it to the end she will NOT win. She has played a game filled with fear and petty grudges. So many blindsides didn’t happen because of her. Never seen someone block so much and just walk to their demise
the entire casting was bad except for a couple, these people were suppose to be "super fans". They were bad at the thing they were brought on for. There voting wasn't strategic at all (they talked for an entire episode of julie having an idol and they didn't drop 2 votes on Emily). They were garbage at challenges, bad at social game play (was all superficial talking the entire season). The show used to be about players telling a story, now it's just about "can i get my vote back after finding a beware clue"
Katurah has to hold some sort of record for the number of chances to take control of the game that she didn’t take or actively blew up. Some of the weirdest NON-gameplaying we’ve seen since the early seasons. Jake deserves to play again for the simple fact that he was the only one not in the Reba 4 who actually WANTED TO PLAY SURVIVOR after the merge. Katurah especially, but also Emily and Bruce and Kendra… just useless post-merge.
The only move that would’ve been good for her and why she loses the game would’ve been to vote out Dee at 5, any other chance she “blew” would’ve put her in a bad position. She was 4th place, only losing to fire but otherwise never really being a target while still actively playing from the bottom on all sides and could’ve racked in some votes at FTC if she makes a good case for herself, which obviously Dee thought she could otherwise she wouldn’t have wanted her out at 5 and 4. Jake’s plans were bad and he didn’t build trust with Katurah at any point in the game, that’s on him not her and why he loses the game probably. Y’all trash Katurah for her gameplay while also praising Emily when they had the exact same game plan, only Katurah was able to keep her threat level down hence why she stays in the game while Emily gets idoled out.
Jake would have lost to Katurah, I liked Jake but all these delusional stans make me dislike him
@@sgumglm this is literally how I feel. In my opinion, Jake has been super humble since the finale aired. He owned up to a lot of the flaws in his game, and I respect that a ton. Katurah had valid reasons to distrust Jake; he was a key part of concealing Bruce's idol from her. Both Katurah and Jake made huge mistakes at the Final 5, but Katurah's can be explained by distrust, while Jake was withholding information to make his move look as flashy as possible.
@@handsoaphandsoapKaturah was never targeted because nobody would vote for her to win. She doesn’t need to be like Jake, who was bad for the exact opposite reason, but just allowing the dominant alliance to trample you is not good gameplay. I also disagree with Emily’s gameplay, but at least hers had some sort of reasoning (Drew and Austin saved her and convinced her they were bringing her to the end). Katurah in the other hand just sorta snitched to reba every round even though nobody on reba liked her or ever included her in strategy. Her hatred for Bruce seemed to trick her into thinking that she would win the million by getting Bruce out, not by getting to the end next to people she played better than
Nah laurel in the dynamic duo of Wendell and Dom
Something I'd love to see happen is an old school picking teams but instead of day one do it at the tribe swap. Do a reward challenge where the top male and top female become captains and have to pick their teams alternating sex each time. Do you pick strength? Do you pick your allies? do you pick someone you're targeting? I think it would be a lot more interesting than just drawing colored rocks.
I totally agree that Jake NEEDS to come back, me and my family loved his energy and he was hilarious, I think in a different season with different circumstances he could be a power player
I think this is definitely the best season of the new era. They had a lot of great characters on this season and they even brought the auction back which was fantastic. I'm also glad they brought the intro back and I'm really hoping they bring it back next season. I think these 90-minute episodes really helped a lot and we honestly needed these 90 minute episodes during WAW. I think the only sour thing from this season was a little bit in the beginning with the quits otherwise I really enjoyed this season😊
I'm surprised people like 45 so much better than 44. 45 was just a cakewalk for Dee and the reba 4 (I'd love to see her come back and see how she fares against real players). 44 had a similar alliance in the Tikka 3, but they had to really fight and scramble and scheme constantly to stay alive. Plus, Carolyn and Carson! Talk about great characters. And Frannie and Matt! Maybe I have to rewatch but I'm baffled why people prefer 45, when the post-merge was such a snooze.
@@coneil72 I only have seen 44 once so I might need to watch it again since 45 is fresh in my mind but I do remember Gabler winning was such a 180 and I did not like it 😂
@@coneil72 I’m surprised too. I loved 44 so much more 😅
@@GamingFanactic911 a Swampert and Survivor Fan?! Did you like the Pokemon references?
Not a high bar by any means but I agree. The three quitters were a tough start.
the peridiam shout out from jake in that interview is hilarious, great video as always !!
The 90 minute episodes were truly a godsend. Through the highs and lows of the season, the 90 minute episodes remained a consistent force multiplier that added to the entertainment value. The pre-merge wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if we didn’t have the extra time to flesh out the players. And the post-merge would have felt like a monotonous slog if we didn’t have the extra time to get a better sense of the dynamics. Even though the season ended up a steamroll, we still had a good grasp of the dynamics to understand why the steamroll was taking place.
Not to mention that the editors were really in their bag this season as they took multiple chances to inject some much appreciated humor and fun into the season. Boys’ Night was some truly unexpected hilarity and I loved the plethora of ways they took to highlight Jake’s Charlie Brown-esque narrative 😂. Emily, Kaleb, and Drew got the lion share of the substance (which is understandable since they were gold mines for content), but I felt like the cast overall had decent to good content that sufficiently presented their character within the narrative. I do wish Katurah had a more well-rounded edit. It felt extremely jarring to see her get more of a competitive edit towards the end after the show spent so much time dragging her for her Bruce obsession. I felt Katurah had more gas in the tank than just Bruce.
I know we are getting 90 minutes for 46 and CBS said that the added length was already an idea prior to the strikes, so hopefully they continue the 90 minutes into the 47/48 cycle. The advantages weren’t as bad as it has been in the New Era, but they did get a little intrusive as the season went on. Sacrificed votes are much more engaging than lost votes. It’s always better to give the players agency if they are going to lose a vote versus just taking them away. No intrigue there.
All in all, 45 was the best season of the New Era, and that was in large part thanks to the 90 minutes. Survivor is best when the people are highlighted. Not the bells and whistles that are twists and advantages.
The casting directors, editors and producers deserves awards for this season. They all did very well with 45.
@@CompleteUpload what the hell... this felt like one of the worst seasons i've ever watched. Players are boring, it's all superficial talking. 2 quitters in the first 3 episodes and the casting directors deserve an award? How do you even justify bringing Brandon being selected as a cast? Players were terrible at challenges, terrible at social play.. They were suppose to be strategic players (super fans) but the way they were voting was mediocre half the time. We both agree that "beware idols" are garbage. The show used to be about players telling a story, now it's just some "can i get my vote back"
@@michaelbreaux-tj6mx Yes, I believe they deserve praise for their casting. My justification comes from the reality of the show. Not everyone is going to be great at challenges, not everyone is going to handle the stress of being in the wilderness and not everyone is going to be good at the social game. Survivor is about being put into difficult situations and adapting to it. Brandon is a super fan that did not account for the physical aspect of the game. Lizz is another super fan that clearly had no pulse on the social aspects of the game. Jeff has said in the past that not everyone should get off the couch and get into the game. Maybe this season highlights it. Everyone thought they were playing the game at a higher level than where they really were. Ngl after the second idol being voted out I was very confident that if I were in this season I would have won because WTH. Then again being out there is very stressful and they also didn’t eat much so…
@@CompleteUpload I'm not saying everyone is great at everything, but they were casted as "super fans" and we'll the strategic game play is suppose to be their strength but them being that bad is kind of insane to me. I hold the casting team responsible for selecting Brandon because it's their job..I can't fathom when he was interviewed that they didn't bother to ask him how much physical labor he does. I'm not just upset with the quitters/brandon, majority of the cast felt bad (maybe with a few exceptions). I really hope they bring back a "Russell hantz", "Courtney" or a "Cerie" Rusell for the villain entertainment, Courtney for the funny entertainment, Cerie for the strategic game play.
Enjoyed the season but can't really say I feel satisfied with Dee winning. I respect the game, she played strong, but of the Reba 4 she was the most unlikable and least charismatic imo, obviously as a character on the show she could be extremely pleasant and sweet irl but that didn't really come across on the season for me. I never enjoy showmances in reality TV, whether it be Survivor or Drag Race and this really was not an exception to it, although that one is both her and an Austin thing. She never faced any real obstacles to get to the end and it just made the endgame feel incredibly stale, a steamroll can be entertaining I mean look at Cagayan. But it just felt like once Emily went the season lost steam and momentum and kinda ended on a dud for me.
She was ego tripping in the finale and it was basically false. She said she couldn’t separate her heart from brain yet she lied twice to her #1.
I know I'm likely going against the grain with this take, but for me the season started out very strong but then really finished with a wimper. They spent so much time pumping up Emily in the editing that after she left I didn't care about anyone left, aside from kind of Drew, who was then the next person voted out. To me this season finished firmly in the middle of the new era seasons, which is something I never thought I'd have said after how good the first two thirds of it were.
One of my friends absolutely loved Emily on the show and after she left he had enough of the Season LOL
It was like 2023, a lot of incredible and the incredibly awful. At least not a boring season or year.
Am I the only person who hated Emily?
@@Yelmerald oh no, i never liked emily and i was so happy when she finally got voted out
i definitely agree, i wasn’t rooting for anyone much after Emily was eliminated, besides Katurah and dee, both of which i ended up not really caring for by the end of the season because of the way they played, but i was somewhat happy when Dee won over Austin and Jake.
Austin preseason: I hope I find my Amber out here
*proceeds to lose by 1 jury vote to his showmance*
I don’t watch every post game interview so I might have missed it. But did Jake say who he was going to vote for in a tie?
It's reversed in S45. Austin is Amber while Dee is Rob. Only this time the jury isn't bitter and rightly voted the correct winner, Rob (Dee).
@@freddytang2128he confirmed with RHAP that he would’ve voted for Dee in the event of a tie
who also lied to him and didnt tell him the truth until the finale and was the mastermind to voting his best friend out ven when Austin told her about voting her bestfriend out. crazy..
Personally wasn't a huge fan of Season 45 simply due to the lack of shifting power dynamics. I love Survivor more for the strategy than the personalities. My favorite seasons have constantly shifting "power rankings" where one day you're on top and the next you're on the bottom. While I loved the cast of Drew, Emily, Kaleb, Kellie, Austin, and Jake, it was just monotonous in the feeling of wanting non-Reba's to band together to take out the OBVIOUS power alliance. Reba absolutely dominated the season, which is a testament to their teamwork and decision making, but it made for a less entertaining season that rarely had a redeeming strategic move. It was just clockwork for Reba.
Yes great pont thank you we all had to scream at our TV at the Roku 4 never going and Sabideh (sp?) had a chance to get out Dee and never did which was a million dollar mistake argh!
Strong agree, and that mid merge stretch of terrible gameplay and awful twists is what brings the season down for me. However, I do like when we have somewhat solid dynamics, and it’s not just like 42 where people just seek to forget about the previous round completely and vote with different people each round. It might be better gameplay, but it’s just really messy and confusing, and leads to a mid season
Watching it was so painful because I was wondering why no one but Jake tried to target the Reba 4 before they came the majority
Honestly got to disagree there's aways gonna be a dominating force because of the edit for example hero vs villains had Russell and Parvati controlling the game fans vs favorites had the black widow alliance controlling the game and in Cagayan Tony was controlling the game these are all considered the best seasons but each one of them had a dominating force because that's survivor
@@Jack-ol1io But that wasn't the case for hvv. Russell and Parvati were at the bottom in the beginning of the season, it was 3 vs 7. Then when the merge came it was 5 vs 5 (hero's tribe giving up there immunity to russell ruined them) Russell and Parvati dominated the game but not because of numbers
I wish I could relate to what seems like the universal praise of season 45. It wasn't a bad season by any means but just felt middle of the road to me overall. I personally still think 44 is the best New Era season that brought us the best characters and narrative, and I would even rank 42 over 45 as well. I would say 45 is definitely the best PRODUCED season of the New Era and one of the best overall as far as the editing for sure but isn't as compelling to be narratively, strategically, or personality-wise to place it any higher than somewhere in the mid-tier. But I'm glad most of the rest of the fanbases seems to be very excited about it.
truth
I have to agree! Once the Lulu trainwreck was over, I thought the season was very medium. And I shudder to think what it would have looked like without 90-minute episodes, because I do think that helped it. For me it's 42, then 44, and either 41 or 45, but probably the latter. I need more time to come back to it and rewatch the season with fresher eyes.
This had to be one of if not the least athletic group I’ve seen on the show. There wasn’t a lot of impressive strategy either. This season was totally mid to low for me as well.
Agreed! I'm liking what the producers are doing but the contestants in this season were pretty lame.
What I took from this season is that Old-School Survivor is not dead. It was so weird to see a group stick together for a majority of the game, and waiting until the end to pick each other off. Even then, two of them made the end.
The winner didn't focus on making the "big moves". Dee played with loyalty, played with her people, mixed her heart in with her strategy and WON with that strategy. In an era that was dominated by advantages and a "strategy/moves first" mentality, seeing someone win where the main part of their game was that she was loyal to her people is very refreshing.
Loved this season. By far my fave of the new era, and the 90 minute episodes certainly helped. I think the show is finding the groove with this new era, and I hope we keep going up with it!
I don't understand why they're still holding out on reunion live shows. It feels like every season is incomplete to me
A lot less hassle for production, honestly. Also you can get their later thoughts from podcasts/interviews after the show.
it cuts costs
Jake, Emily, Kaleb, and Kellie would be perfect for a second chance season IMO
Not sure if this would be possible but I'd love to give Brando and J Maya a chance too! They really didn't get the chance to shine this season... just my opinion though!
Sabiyah got got too early, she could be awesome
Kellie is a callback to when they used to cast hotties in the best way possible, she could become the next Amanda very easily.
@@raymondpontemayor9474I would love to see Brando again. As a fellow Pokemon nerd, it was insane to hear Nuzlockes brought up on Survivor.
Where's the love for Drew?
All credit to Emily in the merge phase for lasting like she did. Could’ve easily been out behind Caleb but made it to final 7
she wasnt in final five the hell
that's because she was dragged along with the reba 4
Are we forgetting the most important part? The official return of the freakin intro?
For me this season was good, but not great. The setup was great. Two roughly equal forces, Reba and Belo, fighting over the decimated remains of Lulu, was a really interesting premise. Instead watching Belo implode and simply hand the win to one of the Reba 4 was rather disappointing.
I had Dee and Sean as my survivor team, so to have one quit and one be the winner was wild for me. Your edit near the end of showing how Dee really commanded the game was well done though, I for the longest time was still like "I don't know if she can pull it off," but seeing that, I shouldn't have been worried lol
Canadians who have won Survivor: 2
Batmans who have won Survivor: 0
Clearly it's better to be Canadian than Batman.
I respect Jake for always trying to make a big move this season, especially since they technically would have been good moves.
Funniest thing is we actually got a Parvati 2.0 win the game and no one clocked it out there. Their winning games are pretty similar: Both were the center of the power alliance and had players who would never write their name down, both blindsided their showmances by eliminating a player in their alliance, both won with the same vote count. This may be recency bias, but removing Tony, she has the strongest winning game since Jeremy
Huh? Nobody clocked it? Literally everyone had dee or her aliance winning the season, they were the power alliance the whole show. I don’t get why people try to lie about the outcome after the fact. Very weird thing to do.
@@lucrative6477 I meant on the season itself. Usually the players are quick to point out a young attractive woman as the Parvati 2.0
@@arjunkishore4080 ah, fair. I think there were 3-4 bigger targets, then a handful of very very bad players who could of got her out, but didn’t. Hard to call her parvati, she wasn’t nearly as center stage or hands on as she was. She was put into the power alliance and was able to kick her feet up and float to f5.
I’d say since Jeremy the best winners are probably Sarah, Wendell, Yam Yam, and Dee (obviously excluding Tony as he’s the GOAT haha)
@@SweetRyGuy I think yan yam suffers from the same issues dee has, weak cast around them. Yam yam was a good player but his season was the weakest we’ve had in a long time. Carson was his only threat and they were allies. I put yam above dee tho because dee should of been voted out if her season had smart players, but yam was never even close.
This was a mid to high-mid season for me.
I'm really disappointed that they haven't done a Second Chance 2 season. So many great players including from the 30's that we have not seen a second time.
I feel like the first half of the season was amazing, but the second half was a totally predictable snooze fest and Katurah enraged me by completely sabotaging anything that MIGHT derail the Reba 4. She reminded me of Cochran flipping at the merge and letting his tribe be pagong'd.
Dude! Nice shout-out from Jake at the end 🙌🏼
I still wish they would change locations. I’m sick of Fiji 😭
if they are doing 90 min episodes then they should be bring back 39 days
not possible, did you see these players? We would had at least 5 quitters.
As a Survivor fan since day 1, Survivor 45 felt like a nice mix of old school play vs. new! Good recap!!!
Looking back, it's crazy how Katurah almost singlehandedly ruined every Belo's shot at winning...just to be the 6th member of a four-person alliance.
I was really mad when I realized that a lot of the episode names were phrases that the person voted out said…. I noticed at Caleb’s boot. Then Bruce, etc.. I stopped reading them after that…
I don’t like how katurah and emily went with reba instead of flipping when they had multiple opportunities. I also dislike how so many times in early merge people lost votes.
Best season of the new era and once the first few cast members that didn't want to play were weeded out, this became the best cast of the new era and I think that has to do with their hunger to play the game with no regrets AND the 90 minute episode length. I hope that stays moving forward because that added so much depth to each episode and to each player. Absolutely balanced, well said.
Jake absolutely deserves a second chance in the game. I would also love to see Kellie come back. Lots of great candidates for a second chance. Also liked that the showmance made it to the end and flew under the radar enough to where there was nothing anyone could do about it when it came down to the wire.
Austin and Dee played really strong games and it was great to see the vote come so close with the final 3. Feel bad for Jake that he got no votes but that is kind of a poetic end to his season. People tried to vote him out all season and in the end, he didn't see his name come up for once.
I would also argue that Dee is the best winner of of the new era. I could say best winner since Tony MAYBE... though I think that Yam Yam was a good winner too in terms of social game and how he had his hand in every part of the game.
The podcast has also added great detail to the season too.
Overall FANTASTIC season with a DREAM cast.
To me the season peaks at the out at the middle once Kellie was gone, it was a two horse raise to me and once Emily was taken out it was just a question of if Dee could lose? She didn't so it's a bit boring in the last couple episodes strategy/gameplay wise. Though the characters, the drama, just the extra camp life shenanigan's all of that was good.
90 minutes really helped almost every episode maybe one or two didn't need it but I think it was a good way to allow the show time to breathe. To allow us to just get to know the cast and not have so much screen time eaten up by twists. Though they did turn back the twists this season.
Overall a dang good season and the show has been getting better since 41 and if this keeps up we could have an all time great season next.
Strong disagree, the middle was terrible to watch with all the dumb twists and terrible Belo gameplay, while the end really saved this season, and all 4 Rebas had a very viable chance to win
Austin said in pre game press he wants to find his Amber only to kinda become Amber.
Also the strength of the cast shows in how much a lot of us want a lot of the players back.
Everyone wants Kellie, Emily and Caleb back but I would love to see Drew playing again.
please god no, casting was terrible..Can we go back to the old survivor where players were some what competent and funny.
This was the BEST season of survivor in YEARS. I actually liked the cast, the most athletic/attractive people weren’t immediately voted out in the first few episodes, and there were several new interesting twists along with some callbacks (looking at you, auction) that were done well with mind to what doomed them in prior seasons.
Jake was our one chance at having an interesting middle game, but Old Belo and Katurah managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
🤨
Yep, some of the worst players ever, but I guess it made for an interesting last 3 episodes
As much as i was routing for austin, by the final episode i was screaming "Dee, you deserve to be the winner" because the season deservess a magnetic winner like Dee
I think they should do away with taking away the flint from tribes. With the time reduced to 26 days I find it increases the chances of a team self destructing far to much that you can start assuming at the start of a season that if a team doesn't get a flint that team will constantly lose.
It’s also just dumb. The only reason they do it is because they want the 26 days to seem just as hard as the 39 days when there isn’t any good reason as to why they don’t just go back to 39 days at this point. Also, the audience couldn’t care less if they have the flint or not, I don’t want to watch a group of people suffer for no reason.
completely agree with you. this season def revived my love for survivor. i found myself looking forward to the next episode every week and seeing the narratives established throughout the season getting a satisfied pay-off was just amazing. great cast, excellent editing, tons of memorable moments a top tier winner who played a fantastic game while displaying a lot of the seasons themes as a character. really happy with the overall result.
This is the first new era season that I watched all the way through. 41 and 43 weren’t good, and for whatever reason I just lost some interest in 42 and 44 along the way. This season held my interest from episode 1. The 90 minute episodes were an absolute godsend in helping flesh out what turned out to be an incredible cast. I don’t know if it’s top 10 for me, but it’s up there. And Dee is pretty high in the winners rankings for sure.
And the Kenny Loggins montage is legitimately my favorite thing the Survivor editors have ever done. That was hilarious.
I’d love to see Jake, Sabiyah, Kaleb, Emily, Kellie, and heck even Bruce play again.
This is the most memorable new cast since at least Millennials vs Gen X. A huge part of that has to be the longer episodes. Think of what we were missing through so many other seasons.
I liked this season but the amount of quits in the beginning made me so angry. So many people would’ve killed to have those spots. Imagine what it would’ve been like if we had quality characters that didn’t quit
True, but when I think of that I realize that if Hannah hadn't quit in episode 1, Emily would have gone home. Trying to imagine this season without Emily in it makes me feel better about that quit.
Have we ever seen an easier walk to the end for any player besides Dee?
Dee literally never struggled. Never had to work with players outside of her original alliance. Never had to worry about being the target. The ONLY strategy Dee used was to lie to Austin and hide behind her numbers advantage after Belo imploded. Dee was the player I wanted Emily to be, a backstabbing, cut throat liar with no sense of guilt. Deception is important, but giving the win to the person riding on Austins back for a month is a tragedy. No love for Austin either, he couldn't keep his fat mouth shut when they were going to blindside Julie which sent Emily home because ALL of them were too stupid to split votes just to be safe. Dee is basically a Puerto Rican version of Parvati, giant fake smile and all.
ehh not parvati at all. Parvati actually controls other players and orchestrates the votes. Dee just went along or spilled the beans. She wasn't the mastermind behind the votes.
Also just gotta give a shoutout to bringing back the opening credits (thanks to the 90 min eps no doubt)
I think that my least favorite part of the season is Katurah being afraid to make big moves with Jake. It could have made it way less of a steamroll and I would have loved to see Jake do some big things like he wanted to. Jake was one of my favorite reality show players ever!
For me, 41-44 are all better IMHO. 42 was a joy from start to finish, period. 43 was a roller coaster with a brilliant overarching narrative/twist ending, and lots of exciting, interesting players. 44 was a fascinating emotional journey of perseverance and a wonderful pay-off. 41, which has some major weaknesses (had an under-edited tribe that housed the winner, and some early episodes were CRAMMED with advantages), but overall I still thoroughly enjoyed almost every moment from start to finish, with the complex characters, emotional drama, and devastating blindsides, thanks to players like Shan, Ricard, Deshawn, Xander, Tiffany, Evvie, Danny.
45's strengths were a few standout episodes and character arcs, but I don't think they outweigh the weaknesses -- especially the long stretches of limited/inadequate gameplay, and another under-edited tribe/winner (well, a bit less so thanks to the 90 minute episodes). The show made us root for Kaleb and Emily, but after both rising to power at different stages, their games just sorta fizzled out. We also rooted for Jake, but it was sort of out of pity since he had zero agency after episode 7 through to the end of episode 12.
Perhaps that's just the effect of a dominant game and a dominant winner. But in trying to hide the winner a bit until the very end (i.e. end of episode 11), the season felt like it was missing something.
Why were the Reba 4 so solid? Why were the Belos so dysfunctional? These critical developments were shown to us on a surface level (wow, Bruce is so annoying! Katurah hates him! Dee and Julie are a solid two, and Drew and Austin are like Stephen and JT, wow!), but never fleshed out. Kellie being Bruce's #1 ally was explored in about 30 seconds of footage. Kellie turning on Bruce was explored in about 15 seconds. Julie was ignored by the edit (apart from some one-liners) for like 8 episodes until she randomly became this big threat in episode 9. Since when did Kendra think Dee is a threat? Came outta nowhere.
That's the best they can do with 90 minute episodes?
Interesting that you’d say that about this season but not about 42, where people seemed to always completely forget about previous rounds and arbitrarily vote for a big threat. Maybe I need to rewatch 42, but I never got all the hype about the season, Omar as a player, or Maryanne as a winner
I just felt like every single player, particularly at the merge, had agency until they were the target of the vote, and most of the cast were really interesting or exciting players. Everyone (except perhaps Romeo, Lindsay, and Chanelle) had decent edits for where they ended up in the game... I dunno. Maybe I have rose colored glasses but I remember being glued to my seat for almost every episode. With Season 45, the overall character study was good, and some highlight moments at some Tribal Councils, but it didn't feel as dynamic, the most exciting "plan" that actually came to pass was Drew deciding to split between Jake and Kellie instead of Jake and Bruce. A fun blindside, but not THAT impactful on the game.@@willtriplett4128
Boys night is probably the editing crews most beloved couple of minutes on this season
Once the merge started I thought that is where season 45 started to go downhill for me. This is where the gameplay started to fall flat in my opinion. Were there still good moments after the merge? Yes, but to be honest the only person I was invested in was Emily at that point. It was very clear from this point forward that someone from the Reba 4 was going to win this season. Specifically either Austin or Dee. The focus on Mama D and Drew was wild to me. Well deserved win for Dee. There were what I felt like a ton of emotional/personal voting this season compared to strategic. Overall it is one of the better seasons of the new era, but this season got a little boring after the merge. I love everyone on this cast though
I enjoyed the first 2/3rd of the season a lot… but I feel like the last third was weaker and a bit disappointing. Still, I liked the longer airtime and the season overall.
I honestly felt the season was “over edited”. It felt like the show forced me to think of players as “dumb” or “strategic” or other, without really giving me a real reason to think so. Like Austin played an amazing game but they purposefully overshadowed him in favor of Dee (yeah I know why but shouldn’t the edit be less obvious?)
Dee was such a predictable win after the Emily vote, and yet I was still crossing my fingers for it! Needed a likable strong and dominant winner so badly - it’s so fun watching a woman run the game like a man too
Okay look it’s not something she should get too much shade for. But Katura kept screwing over Jake when he was right about what move to make
I REALLY ENJOYED the 90 minute episodes
REVELLED in the return of the Survivor Auction and tribe swap
And, FREAKING LOVE that Dee is our winner of Survivor 45!!! 🥳
Bring back 39 days
Get rid of "risk your vote twist"
Stop casting cry babies and people with sob stories
Bring back 2 tribes
Go to different locations
If these things do not happen, every season will be mid
Also why at every merge are half of the players safe
They won’t leave Fiji anytime soon because it’s cheap to film there and I am not sure they’ll ever do 39 days again because it’s also saving them money. I agree that the days need to be increased but it’ll probably be a while that they stay at 26. I am not a fan of starving the castaways within an inch of their life to accommodate a shorter season but the producers won’t ignore the extra money they have from doing it that way. The show really lost its former luster. At this point, I’ll just be happy if THEY STOP TAKING AWAY VOTES AND START HAVING A NORMAL MERGE
Totally agree with the whole sob story thing. I get that it makes for good shocker tv moments and it fits the CBS “variety cast” they’re going for now, but they’re doing it to such an extreme degree that it just becomes hard to watch a lot of the time.
I think the main issue is that there isn’t any “normal” people, as in people who are easy to relate to and root for. Even worse, by highlighting these people’s tragic backgrounds, which I have to emphasize I’m not discrediting by any means, you define the players by their backgrounds and it kinda forces the audience to always perceive them through a very specific light.
Maybe I’m just being too overly critical, but I would love to have future casts with a lot more “normal” people, or to at least seriously de-emphasize all these horrible backstories for the sake of tv.
Basically, while they have the capacity to increase the number of days and film in another location, they won’t, because it’s inconvenient and would cost more.The producers need to learn that twists don’t make the seasons more interesting, and challenges aren’t entertaining when the contestants are starving and physically weak. And with the 90 minute episodes, I feel like we can have two tribes again and have enough time to fully explore the dynamics on a larger tribe.
Can you promise you won’t cry if you’re left starving and sleep deprived for 26 days? Easy to judge from comfort of your couch. But I do agree not every player need a sob story
@@freddytang2128 I would not quit
Just found your channel with this video. Incredible! Thank you. This is better than the post season final episode. Such a great breakdown of the entire season. Surely, in time, it cracks your top 10 season ranking.
I adored Emily right from episode 1! She was intelligent and wasn’t afraid to be honest and blunt. I feared it might not be good for her gameplay, so I worried for her in that sense - but gosh it was SO REFRESHING to hear someone on the screen say the exact same things I was thinking instead of always tiptoeing around superficial niceties. Love her! ❤
Re your comment "Jake was shifty", would it be more accurate to say that "Katurah *thought* that Jake was shifty?" given that he did actually vote the way that she told him to. She said she didn't trust him but I never quite understood why. Ironically it was Katurah who ended up being shifty and not Jake.
Exactly!!
I got better vibes from the 46 preview than I have in awhile. Great idea to include audition video clips too.
I haven’t had a chance to watch the finale until today… I watched it and when I opened up my UA-cam, this was the VERY FIRST video that popped up!
10:55 I never realized that before, but that is so wild! Someone get Dr. Hubicki to calculate the odd of that happening!
I loved this season a lot...except for the end game. It was so obvious Dee was winning because literally no one was willing (except like one person) to take her out of the game when it was obvious she had so much win equity in the game and power AND good social game. Became frustrating.
In my ranking for the past 5 seasons, I would rank this as 4 out of five, only above 41. Pros were the swap, the 90 minute episodes, and some very entertaining rootable characters that went too early or couldn’t get any traction (Kaleb, Emily, Jake, Kellie). It just felt like everything had time to breathe with the extra time. Characters became more fleshed out. Arcs and storylines were established and went somewhere for the most part.
Cons were the gameplay, those quits, and the failure of the editors to give Dee an edit that would make her more satisfying as winner (she is a satisfying winner, don’t get me wrong, but the fact a significant portion of the fan base were rooting for Jake due to his underdog status instead of the winner is a sign of bad communication from the editors). Honestly if people thought through Dee’s 2 “Number 1”s, they would realize her plan for the final three.
It honestly felt like amateur hour from a solid 2/3 of the cast. Nobody but the Reba 4 and a few others thought long term with their moves. Emily ensuring Bruce (while edited as a great move) would not play his idol ensured Reba the numbers without her, thereby making her more exposed. Katurah’s edit was bad (its hyper fixation on Bruce that went nowhere) and she made mistakes that allowed Reba to marched unchallenged to the end (The Kaleb boot and the Julie boot). The Kellie blindside was brutal, but just illustrates the nearsighted nature of Belo. Jake failed to keep his idol secret and to maintain a solid relationship with a key player in Katurah. Austin was a lovesick idiot, who in my opinion was lucky to even get votes at final tribal. The whole showmance was getting too much screen time towards the end and was a little sickening to me. Great moments were undercut by the boot order like Kaleb’s Shot in the Dark and then being voted out the very next episode.
My ranking for the New Era would 41, 45, 42, 43, 44.
Great season. Was rooting for drew from day one and it was good ride 🎉🎉
I feel like I'm alone here, judging by the commentary and comments, but I thought the premiere episode of 45 was the WORST ep of Survivor I had seen. Not the worst premiere, the worst, full stop. Having said that, ep 2 onwards was great (with a couple of meh episodes here and there) but I ended up loving the season overall.
I was so annoyed with the first 4 boots because of the quitters but it really ended super nicely I am glad I never quit on a season.
it feels good to watch Survivor and fully understand what i’m watching again
90 minute episodes made the show far better. They must keep it and hopefully return to 39 days. Just look at the ratings and the reception. This was the best season in the new era by far.
Honestly, i don't really get how people could not at least like the season it had so many great moments the Kelly blindsided the Kaleb shot in the dark and the 2 1 1 1 vote plus one of the most in depth cast ever and a deserving winner what's not to love?
Was Dee really a big player when it came to leading votes or was everyone around her just afraid to make moves? She was like "Kendra!" "Kaleb!" and everyone was like "but, why?" And she was like "because" and they were like "ok" 🤷🏼♀️
Only criticism I would like to ask angry juries to come back. Stop the conversational style and bring back the ridiculously mean pointed questions.
Katurah could have put shit aside and vote with bruce and 5-4ed or 4-4ed reba. her voting out bruce gave her no power to dictate the end
I never thought I would ever watch any existing, or future new era seasons with (mostly) all new players just bc I’ve never really seen anything about any of them that looked interesting and have always liked returning player stacked casts…but I did see some things about this season that got me curious and I was so shocked by how incredible this entire cast was (especially post-merge!!) I loved this season and would’ve been satisfied with more than half of the players that made it to the jury/final 3
This was the first season of survivor I watched in full. I absolutely loved it and I'm obsessed now. I've watched big brother since I was in single digits and would sometimes catch an episode or two a season when it lined up with big brother. I enjoyed this this season of survivor more than a lot of the past seasons of big brother. I know they are different shows with some similarities but it's the only thing i have to compare to lol. I'm gonna have to binge watch past seasons. Also I love Jake and would love to see him play again. Such a cool dude.
Thank you for the loved ones spoof at the end.
I think this was a good season for sure but recency bias is really causing people to overhype this season and ignore its flaws.
Pros:
90 minute episodes
Intro is back
Mostly solid cast
Some good blindsides
Satisfactory insight on relationships
Auction is back
Cons:
The quits
Taking away people's votes just because
Some moments of very frustrating gameplay
Auction's new format was kinda broken
Maybe I'll like it more if I ever rewatch but even then, this cracks top 20 at best.
This was my first Survivor season I watched ever. I was HOOKED after the first episode that I binged Season 44 just to get an idea of the long game and I loved it. I feel extremely lucky that 45 was my first season because it was an awesome season to watch as a brand new person to all of this.
That’s awesome! Highly recommend watching some of the great non new-era seasons when they had 39 days like heroes vs villains or fans vs favorites, there were a lot more villains, challenge beasts, and highly strategic players than they have these days!
God that "Chaos is a ladder" scene still f*cking gets me 😂
season 45 is just sheer brilliance & fun season man
YESSS! Peridiam saw that Jake mentioned him on RHAP.
I’d love to see a review of Survivor UK. I enjoyed it even more than 45
I just finished watching the season over the last couple of weeks and I enjoyed it way more than many recent seasons. I don't tend to have the same problems with some of the game changes or power quirks (although the hourglass one was awful), but I thought they did a really good job of managing it for 45.
My favorite player was Emily (I always appreciate it when folks wear their heart on their sleeve and you can see them navigating parts of the game they're not good at). I was so disappointed to see her voted out, but it didn't ruin the season for me.
Lastly, I LOVED the longer episodes. They rarely felt overlong. I think modern Survivor has done a really good job of giving players the chance to look good in their own ways. It feels like most players get a generous edit (not to imply stuff is hidden, just that they get a generally positive spotlight) and the longer episodes gave room for that while also letting the challenges and strategy breathe. Plus we got the "boy's night" montage, something that was so good but unnecessary, you'd think it was done by a fan after the season instead of put within an episode.
I was glad to see that post-credits scene there. When I heard that I was smiling ear to ear! :)
Ending it with Guys night, chef's Kiss
Continuing the trend of the 40's being the very worst era of Survivor while simultaneously having each season be better than the last, while ALSO having really underwhelming winners. I think every winner so far in the 40's (not including winners at war of course) easily falls into the bottom half of winners.
I still say 22-25 is the worst era of survivor personally, but I get the grievances
I’ll take twists over dull play any day
This felt like the season of heart, all the casting was unusually perfect and idk if they can easily replicate it, they all had MC energy 😂
I was thinking Sean quitting was just to make sure the actual target doesn't shoot in the dark right until the moment he left
This is the best of the 'new era' but the bar was not set very high. THREE quitters in one season. The only reason Dee won was because Katurah made the WORST move in Survivor history. Dee owes her part of the million.
? You wanna tell us who the 3rd quit was?
Hannah, Sean and who else?
By third quit I assume you're talking about Brandon. He DID NOT quit. He wanted to be there, but he just learned that the hard way.
2 seasons in a row my early winners pick won (breaking like 7 seasons where i was way off). 90 minute episodes made what could have been an average season into a great season, I really look forward to 90 minute episodes going forward.
So many good episodes, consistent narratives and confessionals from most of the cast, and a really strong winner; I couldn't have asked for much more from this season. By far the best of the new era and probably up there with some of the best seasons. If someone has this in their top 10-20 seasons, I wouldn't bat an eye.
While I also don't like quits, I think the fans are overreacting about them for a very specific reasons. There's this underswell in the fandom where people want to push the narrative that the new era is weaker than previous seasons. Some do it because they want to convince everyone that Australian Survivor is superior. Others do it for the far more sinister reason of wanting fans to believe that a more diverse cast is inherently not as strong.
In 42 they pretended that Jonathan muscling his tribe forward and the challenge needing to be paused was proof. In 44 they pretended that Last Gasp ending the way it did was proof (when, in reality, it was the exact opposite because it showed how badass Karla and Owen are). Now in 45 they pretended the two quits were proof.
Diverse doesn't need to mean annoying weak. I guess we should be able to have anyone on the island but people who are objectively not mentally or physically well should not ever compete. I don't want to see someone with no arms or legs and eats from a straw ever.
Also I think some of it is boomers and gen x who like to think they had the best style of gameplay ever for sure and People under 35 play a watered down game.
On Emily returning: if it’s because you starve for several weeks, ok ya
But if you think you don’t have a story to tell, look at Kathy from Marquesas and All Stars. Your edit was near identical to hers in Marquesas, and her edit in All Stars showed her confident in her abilities and ready to win socially
The best of the new era for sure, although I did like 43 a lot. 90-minute episodes are great because you get to know the players more, and that makes more sense for alliances. I will never be satisfied with less than 39 days because things happen so fast in the game that it could be completely turned on its head within a few days. Besides, people who have no food at all are not going to be scheming and planning as much as they could be. Challenges are only 1/3 of a player's game. People working with other people socially is the best part for me.
I was satisfied with the finale and Austin was my pick, so I'm good.
1. Bring back villains. NOT REAL-LIFE ONES like Dan and Varner: I mean character villains like Russell and Rob and Sandra.
2. Just do the reunion the old-fashioned way. I have a sneaking suspicion that CBS's craving to save money on this show is COSTING them money through viewership. Same with the loved-ones visits. Jeez, guys, come on. Don't be cheap and then cry when you sink your own boat.
3. Can we get out of Fiji? Please? Those purple flowers in the background have been the same for several seasons now. You know the ones I mean: they're in the background of a lot of confessionals. Can we have CULTURE back? Remember Survivor China? Thailand? That kind of thing. The challenge variation has gone up again, though: a few seasons ago, if I'd seen any more balancing challenges, I would have been at my wits' end.
These are all quality versus quantity issues. You throw too much at us, it's all going to blur together, like with twist after twist after twist instead of having good characters. I'm not complaining about people like Yam Yam or Maryanne or even Bruce, though I found him annoying: at least he had a personality. But a lot of them feel kinda...white bread? Which is horrible for me to say about PEOPLE, since they AREN'T characters, but we all know that the only "real" thing about "reality TV" of this kind is when they have to turn things over to medical. We got a likeable, intelligent winner this time around. More real heroes and more show villains, fewer stupid twists. And don't cheap out on the loved ones thing. I won't even BOTHER asking for 39 days back, though that would be the show's best-possible decision if they're thinking long term, but since they don't seem to think long term, I'm not going to bother. Just think MORE THAN one season ahead. Come on. All of this to say that I think it's all one big mixed bag nowadays.
Fiji = ;(