Culture Desk

“Survivor” Is Still Compulsively Watchable

The show has evolved from a national treasure to a niche bastion of superfandom.

By Carrie Battan
December 29, 2021

In spite of all the nostalgia “Survivor” has for itself, the show has been committed to its own evolution. Photograph by Robert Voets /
Courtesy CBS

F
irst, a quick and crucial fact that might come as a shock: the reality-TV series “Survivor” is still going strong. Another fact
that might come as a greater shock: the show remains a consistently well cast and an immensely pleasurable viewing
experience. In an attempt to capitalize on the wave of quarantine binge-watching, CBS licensed two of the show’s most beloved
seasons to Netflix in 2020, breathing life into the franchise and drawing in a new cohort of fans eager to learn how “the tribe has
spoken” or who has earned the million-dollar prize. Now the show is casting for contestants to appear on what will be its forty-
third and forty-fourth seasons. For most viewers of its groundbreaking early seasons, “Survivor” is a pleasant and distant memory,
but the show has become one of the longest-running and most influential enterprises in television history.

Those who haven’t been tuning in all these years might also be disoriented to see how the show has transformed. It’s rare that a
well-established franchise makes room for genuine evolution, but the latest season of “Survivor” is a unique document of an
institution attempting to change—sometimes awkwardly, sometimes triumphantly. It’s a season in which the show fumbles with
its past and grapples with rapidly shifting social mores in real time. In the première, Jeff Probst, the show’s longtime host,
confronts his cast with a question that sounds both absurd and vital. For twenty years, he’s been using the same phrase every time
he invites the contestants into an arena to compete in physical challenges: “Come on in, guys!” But now, Probst explains, “I, too,
want to be of the moment. . . . Is a word like ‘guys’ O.K., or is it time to retire that word?”

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Carrie Battan began contributing to The New Yorker in 2015 and became a staff writer in 2018.

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