Survivor 49 officially premiered this week, and for the first time in months, the fanbase is finally talking about something other than Survivor 50. Response to the debut episode was a lot of “it was okay” type comments, though that shouldn’t really come as a surprise given host Jeff Probst has repeatedly said the season picks up after the merge. I do, however, think there’s one percolating theme that’s worth talking about: the tribe sizes.
The two most common complaints about Survivor’s so-called New Era are the change from 39 days to 26 days and the prevalence of advantages and chances for people to lose their votes. It sounds like the days thing is never going to change, but the producers may be listening on the second front, as the Survivor 49 premiere didn’t contain any idols, advantages or lost votes. As such, many fans have moved on to the third most common complaint: the number of tribes.
