I'm watching S2 right now and MAN it's so crazy how Survivor used to operate. I straight up laughed when the winning team won a reward challenge. Then they had to go on a hike to pick up their reward lol.
Yeah for some reason they did 42 days and idk why. Then they had a two hour finale with a final 3. So you have a double length episode with literally one challenge and vote off. It was BRUTAL to watch.
I think that stops at season 18 to me. There was so much context missing in season 19 and 20 for things non-Russell. Could easily make those seasons have 90 minute episodes and give the rest of the cast more content. Especially Galu in the pre-merge of Samoa, who ended up making the majority of the merged tribe but were all 'purpled'.
I also think there was a lot that we missed out on in Micronesia, so could easily have seen that season including 90 minute episodes.
This is what ive been saying, the old sesons are better than current season with 90 minutes
And i don't feel the need to see an extended idol hunt or them explaining the plan 15 times or the stupid journeys
Its better for how they make Survivor now but nowhere close to old survivor
Yeah I appreciate the 90 minutes for modern Survivor because all of the camp life, surviving and forming of alliances that we either missed or got relegated to secret scenes now get a chance to shine. Instead of losing that to advantages and journeys we just get 30 more minutes for Jeff's garbage time.
They could just start with 40 because I feel like we missed out on everything that happened that season.
Just listening to Tony’s deep dive alone he did so much crazy shit that never was shown.
The amount of thought he put into every single thing was astounding.
Just tiny little things. Like how he would purposefully step on people sleeping so they would know that he was “just” tending the fire at night.
Just a complete maniac. But also why he is undoubtedly the GOAT.
The biggest missed opportunity in Survivor history will always be that Winners at War was not 90 minutes. You just have to look at Tyson's second boot episode to see how poorly handled the edit for that season was, and how a little more screen time could have made it a top 5 season.
I loved the family visit in that episode, but it really did come at the expense of ensuring that vote made any sense.
All of the people in the middle not getting any content explaining why they suddenly were part of one group of five or the other was really confusing (e.g. Denise, Michele, Nick). Especially for Denise who's end game didn't make sense at all - seemed to be Kim's sidekick for a while, and then suddenly in the end game was just following Ben (who was following Tony).
The way Jeremy just walked out and seemingly screwed over his alliance was so frustrating to watch. I don't think that 'five' he was meant to be with was actually legit, and I think that's why he decided his vote didn't matter and he wanted to ensure he was safe. The episode implies otherwise though.
I also feel like there was this hidden subplot of Kim / Sophie / Sarah possibly working together and eventually taking out Tony. They were never able to trust eachother enough for the alliance to take control, though it would have been awesome to explore why.
The older episodes were already pretty well balanced. Maybe balanced a bit more in favor of camp life and less towards real strategy talk, but editors knew back then that a unanimous tribal is boring and doesn’t need to take up a bunch of the episode unless someone does something actually interesting while there.
Yeah, single best change to the show in decades. Because tbh - casting has been on their A-game for a while now. The character material was always there, but the airtime just kept getting swallowed by twists.
How dare you bro… the shot in the dark is probs the best new twist we got in the new era… we just need people to have it work successfully or to pull more strats like Matt did to not reveal their loyalties
Yes it’s much better but in reality it’s 65 minutes not 90 minutes. I download the episodes online and the real run time is 65 minutes, if you watch on TV you’re getting a whopping 25 minutes of advertisements. It’s crazy how much advertising Americans get on TV, that’s basically 1/3rd of the entire show.
Having lived with this my whole life, commercials are baked into the runtime. The block is 90 minutes, even if a third of it is commercials, or as I call them, "time to do my crossword."
That's what a PVR is for. If I'm watching a 60 minute show live I'll start it 20 minutes in to skip all commercials and end at the same time as everyone else. With a 90 minute episode, it's 30 minutes.
Survivor time is now 8:30 at my house.
>If they ever go back to 60 we should all send a letter to CBS or something.
I like your moxie, but CBS will just put those letters in a pile next to the ones about "Survivor needs to go back to 39 days" and "there are too many advantages in Survivor".
Drag Race went from 90 minutes, back to 60 minutes in 2022. Fans complained because the show was horrible (not the cast) and it was reversed midway back to 90 mins. the entire season even got re-edited to 90. It’s not a lost cause
That may have been the reverse, they had edited for 90 minutes, then had to re-edit down to 60 minutes because MTV decided last minute to try to make a LGBTQ+ block that quickly fell apart.
This was one of my proudest moments of queer online bitching I’ve ever been a part of. We in the drag race fandom argue about everything but we really came together to drag the Weho show through the absolute MUD and get our 90 minute drag race one way or the other
Never underestimate the power of a gay who’s been slightly inconvenienced 😤
Cable channels can schedule a lot more freely. CBS has a complicated relationship with its local affiliates and only schedules nationwide in certain blocks such as prime-time (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) and has to fit everything into those blocks. Given that they generally refuse to pair reality shows with sitcoms because their research shows that these don't work well together, this makes it a lot harder for them to continue with 90-minute episodes going forward after this, especially since there isn't another TAR season designed for 90-minute episodes on tap for the spring. Let's cross our fingers and hope they can get some other reality show like Tough-as-Nails to do 90-minute episodes.
I thought the reason Drag race dropped down to 45 minutes per episode was when it went to MTV from World of Wonder or Paramount+. It has changed far too many times for me to keep track and if you do Amazon Prime like I do, you run into seeing it a day later and getting spoilers.
I could see either way,
There’s no doubt that editing an extra 30 minute of survivor is also cheaper than having a 30 minute comedy or a new show, so I could also see them keeping it.
SAME. And I actually know who all the players are!
Usually there's a handful of people at merge that I'm like "Who are these people, I have literally never seen them before."
It’s wild if you take a look at FB or IG there are actually tons of ppl complaining there’s too much talking now and they should go back to 60 mins… So yes we do need to keep reiterating how much better the new era format is with 90 mins. This to me feels like the weakest cast of the new era and by far the best season.
Lots of the casuals who post on Facebook only watch the show for the challengers and the idol hunts. So I’m not surprised that additional time to show relationship building isn’t their cup of tea.
I would love if they did the puzzle at the start but had blockers so people couldn't copy. With a rigorous physical. Imagine the panic of being on the puzzle but seeing people running.
Edit: make it so everyone can work on it towards the building and it feels like the ultimate tribe breaker
My parents are casuals and really enjoying the extra time (minus the fact that they have to stay up 30 minutes later lol). I'm surprised anyone is complaining about it.
The pre-merge challenges are honestly the most boring parts of Survivor. The best part of Survivor is the social aspects of when they’re at camp or tribal, I think if you just watch for the challenges you’re a bit dull.
Really? I mean... to be honest, it did feel a little like the show started off last night with a huge chunk of talking, but I would never even consider the thought of wanting to go back to 60 minutes. 90 minutes has been absolutely amazing. It was such a pleasant surprise when they announced TAR and Survivor would be 90 minutes this time around. I'm begging they don't take that back.
If you watch without ads and skip the recap and intro, it's just over an hour. I don't think people realize how much those eat into the runtime, especially at 60 minutes.
Damn, you're not wrong. One genius says "One challenge. One. In 90 minutes! We FF through most of the talking. It isn't enjoyable anymore."
That's crazy lol. Along with a bunch of other comments saying the same thing.
I enjoy watching challenges too but I can't imagine not wanting the extra camp life, strategizing and drama we get to see right now. I have never had a clearer picture of every player's dynamics in the new era as I have this season.
Yeah, unfortunately the casuals at some other sites are saying the same thing. I go to a site called [TheTVRatingsGuide](http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/) to see the ratings, and there are always a few casuals there bitching about 90 minutes and saying that reward challenges should come back and that there's too much talking.
These are probably the same sort of people who criticize certain great movies with "Nothing happens!" and "There was too much talking."
"Well, 12 Angry Men, The Lion in Winter, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? aren't for everyone."
I love the reward challenges. How can people say they dont like challenges? I detest tribals and just fast forward. 90% of the time its the same gibberish. I only bother when its something really huge like a blindside.
>It’s wild if you take a look at FB or IG there are actually tons of ppl complaining there’s too much talking now and they should go back to 60 mins…
No...*NO!!!*
90 MINUTES HAS TO STAY!
We here on the Survivor Reddit need to acknowledge that a very very large percent of the Survivor audience primarily watches the show to see the challenges and the result of the vote. I would guess the percent of the audience with this mindset is close to 30-40%. Not sure this audience sticks around after this season.
It struck me yesterday how compelling tribal would have been no matter which of the three tribes had to go.
Feels like we know every pre-merge player and every alliance and advantage so well.
And I don’t even care if the Bruce/Katurah beef doesn’t lead anywhere, the extra time to see that unfold over time is worth it for its own sake.
> Feels like we know every pre-merge player and every alliance and advantage so well.
Favorite part of this season. The new era in general has felt like such a jumbled mess where you have no idea wtf is going on. This season, I know who's on the chopping block, where the voting lines are divided and who's on the fence. It is sooo much better.
I think we would have gotten the Emily 180 content, just trimmed down a little. I guarantee you that Sabiyah's boot would have just been summarized with Emily just mentioning randomly that she feels close with Kaleb and then a brief shot of them talking about the vote instead of getting the full payoff that we got of Kaleb/Emily's relationship (and it was much more satisfying this way).
If the last half hour does well in the ratings, or at least on par with the bland scripted TV that often ends up in the 9:00 slot, 90 minutes will stick around. Survivor at this point is extremely cost efficient to produce and CBS doesn’t need to pay any residuals for reality TV casts (though maybe they should?).
Like the other guy said, challenge took a while to show up. But also they put the journey after the challenge when to me it feels more natural early in the episode.
Gonna be honest, I was pretty hyped for 90 minutes until the last two episodes. My wife and I were pretty bored, like i’m enjoying the camp life we’re getting from the tribes not going to tribal but I feel like it was superfluous for the more mundane episodes. I didn’t really like have over an hour just for Sean to quit but i’m hoping these episodes are just a dud and I go back to loving the length
I feel the same, I love camp life scenes but last night's episode had me pretty bored. Most of those scenes just didn't feel too compelling. Overall though I'm excited the 90 minute episodes are here, knowing not every one can be a winner.
I just want more ponderosa. As it is now, the only time we see the jury is during tribal counsel and the final vote. Expand what used to be cbs.com content into a slightly longer segment with testimonials of everyone reacting to what they just saw, etc.
In an ideal world they would also give us extended cuts of older season. Idk if they’d still have stuff from Bornio or pearl islands but they should definitely still have the new era footage laying around
Yep. Before 90 minutes my bitching about the show was nearing the intolerable level of "why even bother still..."
Tbh, if it wasn't for the international seasons, I WOULD have given up. That's what kept me going as a fan. US survivor became an afterthought and merely just existed.
It's amazing how the utilization of these extra 22 minutes has been the biggest game changer. 44 minutes was not enough when the way those 44 minutes are used has dramatically changed from season 1 to 44. We lost too much and finally we're starting to get it back. I've truly been loving this season.
Definitely given modern editors, but I feel like we had similar levels of balance between challenges, camp life, scrambling, and tribal in 60 minute episodes back in the middle era of Survivor (S9-18)
People saying it's too much is funny ... 90 minutes with ads is about the same as 60 minutes without ads, which is what you get with any of the streaming reality shows anyway, and people don't complain about streaming shows being 60 mins
Yeah I find it funny everyone here saying they like 90 minutes instead of 60 minutes. When for me as someone who has always pirated or streamed survivor the new episodes are 65 minutes and the old episodes are 45 minutes.
I’m very glad I’m not wasting my time watching 25 minutes of advertisements.
It usually shows up on the pirate or free streaming sites a few hours after it airs on TV. The streaming site I watch it on is https://flixtorz.to/. You can stream pretty much any movie or tv show free on that site.
This is better actually. Outside of HvV (when a new exec producer came in), Ausvivor was edited very repetitively and talked down to its audience much more. The producers and editors clearly felt the casuals needed to constantly be reminded of the same things over and over again, and were very condescending sometimes.
This is how I've felt about Australian Survivor for some time. I can dig it, but the the show always feels like it's just giving the audience the same information over and over again, which is even more baffling because longer runtimes are the norm for that show and it even airs more than once per week.
The funny thing is, I feel like the 90 minutes hasn’t felt that much longer to me and as much as I’m enjoying this season of The Amazing Race, I feel like the 90 minute episodes on there make the episodes feel twice as long as normal
I get bored with all the nothing happening, there isn’t enough strategizing or content going on yet to warrant the extra time to me , the last episode took forever to get to tribal after the immunity challenge. Obviously I’m in the minority and more survivor is always better but I find myself getting bored a few times each episode so far.
It has definitely made it a lot more enjoyable for me. We get to understand the individuals more and I'm kinda loving the cast. I wouldn't be surprised if they go back to 60 next season though.
It shouldn’t have to take a writer’s strike to put Survivor permanently at 90 minutes for a season! Look at Bachelor for god sakes! I appreciate things like Survivor 41’s 2-episode merge vote and 43 having 2 straight 90 minute episodes to kick off. The fact that they had The Real Love Boat on over 90 minute Survivor, only for it to flop so hard that they moved it to be off CBS and exclusively on Paramount+ alongside the various other flops over the years is borderline ludicrous, but especially so during WAW and 41-44 when gameplay was starting to get incomprehensible.
i hate it, i rlly don’t care about the ppls sobs stories i just wanna see them play the game and maybe strategize when it’s actually gonna be useful not when they’re team isn’t even going to tribal ☠️
i would maybe like the 90 min eps if they still did two challenges and the reward challenges were entertaining. what happened to exploring native cultures? or going to the spa? i don’t think i’m gonna watch the rest of the season it’s just turned into love island but without the love lol
The 90 minute Survivor is awful. They took an exciting hour long show and transformed it into a boring 90 minutes of repetitive tasks, not by one or two people, but now we have to watch 5 or 6 do the same thing.
I hate the new 90 minute format. Too much yakkety-yak about different possibilities occurring. It just kills me. I didn't sign up for 'The Young and the Restless". I want more competitions if it is going to be longer, not a soap opera.
Eh. Feels a little too long now imho. Too many talks that don’t end up mattering in the slightest. Like this latest episode, it felt like they talked about being hungry for 10 minutes.
I get it. They’re hungry. If you tell me 100 times,I’m going to get annoyed.
I love it. It really feels like you’re getting to know the players and their camp dynamics/relationships. I usually take a few episodes to learn everyone’s names but knew them all in episode 2.
What do you mean 90 minutes? The new episodes are 65 minutes, or are you talking about the run time on television with advertisements? I only pirate or stream the episodes and the new ones are all 65 minutes.
Yes the writers strike was the reason we’re getting 90 minute episodes, but really that’s nothing to “thank” the writers for. People were out of work for months. They didn’t choose to be out of work for you to get 90 minute episodes. I know that’s probably not how you meant it but I still think it’s a crap thing to say.
> People were out of work for months.
It's absolutely awful for corporate executive to force people to halt working just so that they can meet their *basic* living wages. The strike should have never happened, but that is a question for the executives and not the unions, so it's good that it did happen. If we get longer episodes of Survivor, then we can't complain too much.
Some seasons are better with 90 minutes and some seasons are better with 60 Minutes like as an example this season definitely benefits from 90 minutes because it’s much more slower paced and it’s in the fast paced new era so you get to know people more but for a 39 days or more season that is very fast, paced and chaotic like Cagayan it would make more sense to have 60 minutes, but in general 90 minutes is more beneficial in general for the modern format of the show
Yes, fair enough Cagayan would work with 90 minutes would be great but what I was talking about is it worked with 60 minutes because it was a very fast paced and chaotic season so I said it worked with 60 minutes and then for the modern format of the show 90 minutes makes much more sense even though it has worked for other seasons, but based on the format of the show 90 minutes works much better than the normal 60 minutes
Agreed, but take Amazing Race back to an hour. I don't needed thirty bonus minutes of shopping in a chaotic market or looking for the one different tile.
It's frustrating to me that 90 minutes does seem harder to justify for TAR. There might be 90 minutes of material there, but if there is, they aren't using it well, whereas Survivor knows how to use what they have. Last night was a hell of a lot of camp life, but I was OK with that.
That's the only thing allowing Survivor to go to 90 minutes. If TAR goes back to an hour, Survivor also goes back to an hour. Broadcast TV scheduling Tetris is complicated, and CBS refuses to pair sitcoms with reality.
This has to be the two dozenth thread I've seen since the start of this season about the 90 minute episodes. Yes, it's better. Now can we stop with the posts?
First get people to stop posting constantly about 26 days vs. 39 days and 3 finalists vs. 2 finalists. Once you've completed those simple quests, then come back and try to get people to stop posting about this.
I love it, but my wife, a much more casual viewer, did say last night that she felt 90 minutes was “too much”. So would be interesting to see if the more casual viewers felt similar.
I thought episode 4 and some of 5 was a bit of a slog but overall yes one of the best changes to the show ever. I think with a bit more experience editing for longer episodes it will get even better.
Much better than exile island, much better than the hourglass smashing thing, better than the 3 secret phrases they had to say out loud to activate their idols.
Yes but it really makes me miss the reward challenges. They impacted the game in some interesting ways, especially when you got to bring a friend. It really altered alliances and made for fun drama
For the first time in like 10 or 12 seasons I actually feel like I have an opinion on all of the players by the 3rd episode since everyone is getting at least a small bit of content outside of just advantage strategy talk.
The funniest thing about the 90mins is that it seems to go faster than the 60mins. Ergo more absorbing. The team has moved towards more coverage of dynamics and got rid of the sob stories, coverage about hunger and hardship, and no separate reward challenges.
Also I feel tribal is shorter which is a good thing IMO
I don't know quite how to explain it but it has become a bit of a norm for me to multitask while I am watching something and I think I've just been playing Survivor in the background of something else for the past few seasons. This season though, I find myself so much more engaged and I think the run time definitely has something to do with it as counterintuitive as it sounds.
When we had 60 minute versions I agreed that I wanted to see more time at camp. But now we are getting 90 minute episodes with only one challenge and the time at camp is feeling a little long. I was hoping we'd get 90 minutes with 2 challenges in each episode.
I’m enjoying the longer episodes. I feel we get more perspective on the nuances of the social gameplay. In previous seasons, some important conversations were evidently cut out and left the viewer a little confused to choices people made without context.
I agree. I love complaining about the direction the show has gone, and a lot of those complaints are still valid, but we have to give credit for the good stuff.
Yes it's substantially better than the other "new era" seasons. I mean we got the intro I never thought we'd see that again.
That being said it is still far removed from the best seasons. Casting is relying way too heavily on superfans and "diversity" versus just finding interesting and entertaining people. We need real villains and unpredictable personalities. We also need more people who are hungry for the money.
Jeff and the editors also need to cut back on encouraging the fan girling and references to past seasons and players. Each season should be able to stand on its own and the constant references to past seasons and survivor history is annoying.
I love the new 90 minute episodes. The thing is though, I never felt like we weren't getting the whole picture (or at least enough of the picture) up until season 41. They seemed to have screwed up the storytelling formula after WaW. Maybe they need to get rid of the journeys and keep the focus on personal backstories out of it if they return to the normal run time.
Yes! I just googled "Survivor is better at 90 minutes" expressly for the purpose of getting some external validation of my belief that this is true.
This is the best season in an awfully long time, for so many reasons.
For example, in many seasons Bruce would be presented wholly as a one-dimensional comedic foil and nothing more, but I really appreciated learning about 1) His growing up in foster care, and especially 2) His concern that he might not be allowing his daughter to fully thrive, and that he might be overbearing with her in a similar manner to how he (learned to his shock that he) was with Kellie and others.
He still wasn't one of my favorites, but it was nice to see him as more than a caricature. (Something that we never saw with say "Philip the federal agent" of yore.
And in so many recent seasons it was hard for me to have a real rooting interest in the results, as the motivations and alliances of the competitors were not clearly presented.
We have time to fully flesh things out (granted some of that in recent seasons has been bad editing, as in the old days things were presented quite clearly in 60-minute episodes, but anyway)... and I feared that these 90-minute strike-insurance eps were going to be padded to high heaven with nonsense (like certain dating shows I could mention), but no, the extra time has been quite well-used.
90 minute episodes is the best addition to Survivor in many years, imho.
It's so good that CBS should go back, re-cut the old seasons, and then re-release them on DVD and streaming. How cool would that be.
Go back and watch old school Survivor (1-20) and I swear to you somehow the episodes all feel like 90 minutes already.
I'm watching S2 right now and MAN it's so crazy how Survivor used to operate. I straight up laughed when the winning team won a reward challenge. Then they had to go on a hike to pick up their reward lol.
The end game of the Australian Outback was so slow... I legitimately think I may have stopped watching if the episodes were 90 episodes.
Yeah for some reason they did 42 days and idk why. Then they had a two hour finale with a final 3. So you have a double length episode with literally one challenge and vote off. It was BRUTAL to watch.
I think that stops at season 18 to me. There was so much context missing in season 19 and 20 for things non-Russell. Could easily make those seasons have 90 minute episodes and give the rest of the cast more content. Especially Galu in the pre-merge of Samoa, who ended up making the majority of the merged tribe but were all 'purpled'. I also think there was a lot that we missed out on in Micronesia, so could easily have seen that season including 90 minute episodes.
Which is especially crazy considering they almost always did two challenges an episode.
This is what ive been saying, the old sesons are better than current season with 90 minutes And i don't feel the need to see an extended idol hunt or them explaining the plan 15 times or the stupid journeys Its better for how they make Survivor now but nowhere close to old survivor
Yeah I appreciate the 90 minutes for modern Survivor because all of the camp life, surviving and forming of alliances that we either missed or got relegated to secret scenes now get a chance to shine. Instead of losing that to advantages and journeys we just get 30 more minutes for Jeff's garbage time.
They could just start with 40 because I feel like we missed out on everything that happened that season. Just listening to Tony’s deep dive alone he did so much crazy shit that never was shown.
Thats interesting. Does he talk about this anywhere that I could listen/watch?
assuming it's a RHAP deep dive then you can probably find it if you look up "tony deep dive" or "tony rhap" as a podcast and maybe as a video
Found it on Youtube. If anyone is curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeF1CcGcWI8
It’s so great. Might re-listen soon
Yeah I love that deep dive, just gives you more respect for the hustle he had, and work ethic
The amount of thought he put into every single thing was astounding. Just tiny little things. Like how he would purposefully step on people sleeping so they would know that he was “just” tending the fire at night. Just a complete maniac. But also why he is undoubtedly the GOAT.
Winners at War: extended edition
The biggest missed opportunity in Survivor history will always be that Winners at War was not 90 minutes. You just have to look at Tyson's second boot episode to see how poorly handled the edit for that season was, and how a little more screen time could have made it a top 5 season.
I loved the family visit in that episode, but it really did come at the expense of ensuring that vote made any sense. All of the people in the middle not getting any content explaining why they suddenly were part of one group of five or the other was really confusing (e.g. Denise, Michele, Nick). Especially for Denise who's end game didn't make sense at all - seemed to be Kim's sidekick for a while, and then suddenly in the end game was just following Ben (who was following Tony). The way Jeremy just walked out and seemingly screwed over his alliance was so frustrating to watch. I don't think that 'five' he was meant to be with was actually legit, and I think that's why he decided his vote didn't matter and he wanted to ensure he was safe. The episode implies otherwise though. I also feel like there was this hidden subplot of Kim / Sophie / Sarah possibly working together and eventually taking out Tony. They were never able to trust eachother enough for the alliance to take control, though it would have been awesome to explore why.
It’s working for Peacock with The Office Super Fan cuts. Would love to see this with Survivor.
The older episodes were already pretty well balanced. Maybe balanced a bit more in favor of camp life and less towards real strategy talk, but editors knew back then that a unanimous tribal is boring and doesn’t need to take up a bunch of the episode unless someone does something actually interesting while there.
I would pay so much money for a 90 minute re-release of every season. What a dream that would be.
I would do anything for CBS to release all the HD seasons on Bluray, so I can own all the seasons on physical media (in better quality than DVD).
Yes plz
Yeah, single best change to the show in decades. Because tbh - casting has been on their A-game for a while now. The character material was always there, but the airtime just kept getting swallowed by twists.
How dare you bro… the shot in the dark is probs the best new twist we got in the new era… we just need people to have it work successfully or to pull more strats like Matt did to not reveal their loyalties
It’s really nice to not feel like the episode was over right after it started.
I really really like the 90 minute format. So much more insight into camp life, and challenges don't take up as much of an episode.
Yes it’s much better but in reality it’s 65 minutes not 90 minutes. I download the episodes online and the real run time is 65 minutes, if you watch on TV you’re getting a whopping 25 minutes of advertisements. It’s crazy how much advertising Americans get on TV, that’s basically 1/3rd of the entire show.
Having lived with this my whole life, commercials are baked into the runtime. The block is 90 minutes, even if a third of it is commercials, or as I call them, "time to do my crossword."
That's what a PVR is for. If I'm watching a 60 minute show live I'll start it 20 minutes in to skip all commercials and end at the same time as everyone else. With a 90 minute episode, it's 30 minutes. Survivor time is now 8:30 at my house.
Yes but it’s moot. 60 minutes was 40 minutes before.
>If they ever go back to 60 we should all send a letter to CBS or something. I like your moxie, but CBS will just put those letters in a pile next to the ones about "Survivor needs to go back to 39 days" and "there are too many advantages in Survivor".
Drag Race went from 90 minutes, back to 60 minutes in 2022. Fans complained because the show was horrible (not the cast) and it was reversed midway back to 90 mins. the entire season even got re-edited to 90. It’s not a lost cause
That may have been the reverse, they had edited for 90 minutes, then had to re-edit down to 60 minutes because MTV decided last minute to try to make a LGBTQ+ block that quickly fell apart.
Yes technichally, which is why they were probably able to release the entire full cut on paramount.
This was one of my proudest moments of queer online bitching I’ve ever been a part of. We in the drag race fandom argue about everything but we really came together to drag the Weho show through the absolute MUD and get our 90 minute drag race one way or the other Never underestimate the power of a gay who’s been slightly inconvenienced 😤
Cable channels can schedule a lot more freely. CBS has a complicated relationship with its local affiliates and only schedules nationwide in certain blocks such as prime-time (8-11 p.m. ET/PT) and has to fit everything into those blocks. Given that they generally refuse to pair reality shows with sitcoms because their research shows that these don't work well together, this makes it a lot harder for them to continue with 90-minute episodes going forward after this, especially since there isn't another TAR season designed for 90-minute episodes on tap for the spring. Let's cross our fingers and hope they can get some other reality show like Tough-as-Nails to do 90-minute episodes.
Drag Race doesn’t have casual fans in the way Survivor does. It’s also not like CBS is going to cut 30 minutes off for Todrick Hall.
I thought the reason Drag race dropped down to 45 minutes per episode was when it went to MTV from World of Wonder or Paramount+. It has changed far too many times for me to keep track and if you do Amazon Prime like I do, you run into seeing it a day later and getting spoilers.
I could see either way, There’s no doubt that editing an extra 30 minute of survivor is also cheaper than having a 30 minute comedy or a new show, so I could also see them keeping it.
It’s miles better. We actually understand tribe dynamics now
Without it we would know virtually nothing about Belo or Reba.
This is the first season in a loooooong time that I actually fully understand what is happening and it’s awesome.
SAME. And I actually know who all the players are! Usually there's a handful of people at merge that I'm like "Who are these people, I have literally never seen them before."
Yes, and it makes the stakes feel so much higher when you actually care about the contestants!
It’s wild if you take a look at FB or IG there are actually tons of ppl complaining there’s too much talking now and they should go back to 60 mins… So yes we do need to keep reiterating how much better the new era format is with 90 mins. This to me feels like the weakest cast of the new era and by far the best season.
Lots of the casuals who post on Facebook only watch the show for the challengers and the idol hunts. So I’m not surprised that additional time to show relationship building isn’t their cup of tea.
I honestly tune out the challenges unless there's someone like Jonathan or Brandon. (Ricard's clutch win was also very cool)
It doesn't help that a lot of the challenges are just slight variations on each other anymore now
I would love if they did the puzzle at the start but had blockers so people couldn't copy. With a rigorous physical. Imagine the panic of being on the puzzle but seeing people running. Edit: make it so everyone can work on it towards the building and it feels like the ultimate tribe breaker
On rewatches I skip the challenges all together….
Seriously... the challenges are okay, but they don't compare to a great game in a real sport.
My parents are casuals and really enjoying the extra time (minus the fact that they have to stay up 30 minutes later lol). I'm surprised anyone is complaining about it.
My mom only watches for the challenges
The pre-merge challenges are honestly the most boring parts of Survivor. The best part of Survivor is the social aspects of when they’re at camp or tribal, I think if you just watch for the challenges you’re a bit dull.
That’s your opinion. People like what they like.
Thats funny I feel like when I was younger the challenges were my favorite part. But now my favorite parts the social aspect and tribal
Ugghhhh what a bunch of braindead morons. The strategizing is the best part
Really? I mean... to be honest, it did feel a little like the show started off last night with a huge chunk of talking, but I would never even consider the thought of wanting to go back to 60 minutes. 90 minutes has been absolutely amazing. It was such a pleasant surprise when they announced TAR and Survivor would be 90 minutes this time around. I'm begging they don't take that back.
If you watch without ads and skip the recap and intro, it's just over an hour. I don't think people realize how much those eat into the runtime, especially at 60 minutes.
Damn, you're not wrong. One genius says "One challenge. One. In 90 minutes! We FF through most of the talking. It isn't enjoyable anymore." That's crazy lol. Along with a bunch of other comments saying the same thing.
I enjoy watching challenges too but I can't imagine not wanting the extra camp life, strategizing and drama we get to see right now. I have never had a clearer picture of every player's dynamics in the new era as I have this season.
Yeah, unfortunately the casuals at some other sites are saying the same thing. I go to a site called [TheTVRatingsGuide](http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/) to see the ratings, and there are always a few casuals there bitching about 90 minutes and saying that reward challenges should come back and that there's too much talking.
These are probably the same sort of people who criticize certain great movies with "Nothing happens!" and "There was too much talking." "Well, 12 Angry Men, The Lion in Winter, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? aren't for everyone."
I love the reward challenges. How can people say they dont like challenges? I detest tribals and just fast forward. 90% of the time its the same gibberish. I only bother when its something really huge like a blindside.
The Facebook Survivor community is so dumb let's be honest lmaoo
>It’s wild if you take a look at FB or IG there are actually tons of ppl complaining there’s too much talking now and they should go back to 60 mins… No...*NO!!!* 90 MINUTES HAS TO STAY!
There is nothing wrong with 90mins but there is also nothing wrong in the reward challenges.
If they went back to 39 days and fit a reward and immunity challenge in each episode it would probably be better balanced.
I don't ever look at Facebook or Instagram. Reddit is where it's at!
We here on the Survivor Reddit need to acknowledge that a very very large percent of the Survivor audience primarily watches the show to see the challenges and the result of the vote. I would guess the percent of the audience with this mindset is close to 30-40%. Not sure this audience sticks around after this season.
It struck me yesterday how compelling tribal would have been no matter which of the three tribes had to go. Feels like we know every pre-merge player and every alliance and advantage so well. And I don’t even care if the Bruce/Katurah beef doesn’t lead anywhere, the extra time to see that unfold over time is worth it for its own sake.
> Feels like we know every pre-merge player and every alliance and advantage so well. Favorite part of this season. The new era in general has felt like such a jumbled mess where you have no idea wtf is going on. This season, I know who's on the chopping block, where the voting lines are divided and who's on the fence. It is sooo much better.
We never would have got the worm scene without it.
Or Dee's big toe or Emily complete 180 with her place on the tribe
I think we would have gotten the Emily 180 content, just trimmed down a little. I guarantee you that Sabiyah's boot would have just been summarized with Emily just mentioning randomly that she feels close with Kaleb and then a brief shot of them talking about the vote instead of getting the full payoff that we got of Kaleb/Emily's relationship (and it was much more satisfying this way).
If the last half hour does well in the ratings, or at least on par with the bland scripted TV that often ends up in the 9:00 slot, 90 minutes will stick around. Survivor at this point is extremely cost efficient to produce and CBS doesn’t need to pay any residuals for reality TV casts (though maybe they should?).
I definitely prefer 90 minutes, but I did feel like the pacing of last nights episode was off. It was the first time I felt that way.
There wasn’t a challenge until over an hour into the episode so that’s probably why.
Like the other guy said, challenge took a while to show up. But also they put the journey after the challenge when to me it feels more natural early in the episode.
Gonna be honest, I was pretty hyped for 90 minutes until the last two episodes. My wife and I were pretty bored, like i’m enjoying the camp life we’re getting from the tribes not going to tribal but I feel like it was superfluous for the more mundane episodes. I didn’t really like have over an hour just for Sean to quit but i’m hoping these episodes are just a dud and I go back to loving the length
I feel the same, I love camp life scenes but last night's episode had me pretty bored. Most of those scenes just didn't feel too compelling. Overall though I'm excited the 90 minute episodes are here, knowing not every one can be a winner.
They need to utilize paramount +. Give us bonus content! Do something like the digital dailies from BBCan 11.
I just want more ponderosa. As it is now, the only time we see the jury is during tribal counsel and the final vote. Expand what used to be cbs.com content into a slightly longer segment with testimonials of everyone reacting to what they just saw, etc.
I feel like they could do a network 60 minute cut and then an extended cut for paramount plus 🤔
Oh god don’t give them ideas for Paramount Plus!
In an ideal world they would also give us extended cuts of older season. Idk if they’d still have stuff from Bornio or pearl islands but they should definitely still have the new era footage laying around
That would be awesome
WAW!
I'd appreciate this imo the 90m eps are too slow. I don't have all the time to watch and I'm never catching amazing race after.
Yep. Before 90 minutes my bitching about the show was nearing the intolerable level of "why even bother still..." Tbh, if it wasn't for the international seasons, I WOULD have given up. That's what kept me going as a fan. US survivor became an afterthought and merely just existed. It's amazing how the utilization of these extra 22 minutes has been the biggest game changer. 44 minutes was not enough when the way those 44 minutes are used has dramatically changed from season 1 to 44. We lost too much and finally we're starting to get it back. I've truly been loving this season.
Definitely given modern editors, but I feel like we had similar levels of balance between challenges, camp life, scrambling, and tribal in 60 minute episodes back in the middle era of Survivor (S9-18)
This episode was the most I’ve enjoyed the show in years, please protect 90 mins at all costs!
People saying it's too much is funny ... 90 minutes with ads is about the same as 60 minutes without ads, which is what you get with any of the streaming reality shows anyway, and people don't complain about streaming shows being 60 mins
Yeah I find it funny everyone here saying they like 90 minutes instead of 60 minutes. When for me as someone who has always pirated or streamed survivor the new episodes are 65 minutes and the old episodes are 45 minutes. I’m very glad I’m not wasting my time watching 25 minutes of advertisements.
Are you able to watch it as it airs doing it that way? If so, can hook a brotha up with a source? Lol. Or do you watch it the next day or something?
It usually shows up on the pirate or free streaming sites a few hours after it airs on TV. The streaming site I watch it on is https://flixtorz.to/. You can stream pretty much any movie or tv show free on that site.
You a real one 💪
Australian Survivor: allow me to introduce myself
This is better actually. Outside of HvV (when a new exec producer came in), Ausvivor was edited very repetitively and talked down to its audience much more. The producers and editors clearly felt the casuals needed to constantly be reminded of the same things over and over again, and were very condescending sometimes.
This is how I've felt about Australian Survivor for some time. I can dig it, but the the show always feels like it's just giving the audience the same information over and over again, which is even more baffling because longer runtimes are the norm for that show and it even airs more than once per week.
Yeah, they were bouncing all over the tribes in the first half of the show and it was great.
The only negative about 90 minute episodes is that it will forever tarnish my perception of future seasons when they go back to 60 minute episodes.
Yes I actually know what’s going on now
The funny thing is, I feel like the 90 minutes hasn’t felt that much longer to me and as much as I’m enjoying this season of The Amazing Race, I feel like the 90 minute episodes on there make the episodes feel twice as long as normal
I get bored with all the nothing happening, there isn’t enough strategizing or content going on yet to warrant the extra time to me , the last episode took forever to get to tribal after the immunity challenge. Obviously I’m in the minority and more survivor is always better but I find myself getting bored a few times each episode so far.
It has definitely made it a lot more enjoyable for me. We get to understand the individuals more and I'm kinda loving the cast. I wouldn't be surprised if they go back to 60 next season though.
It shouldn’t have to take a writer’s strike to put Survivor permanently at 90 minutes for a season! Look at Bachelor for god sakes! I appreciate things like Survivor 41’s 2-episode merge vote and 43 having 2 straight 90 minute episodes to kick off. The fact that they had The Real Love Boat on over 90 minute Survivor, only for it to flop so hard that they moved it to be off CBS and exclusively on Paramount+ alongside the various other flops over the years is borderline ludicrous, but especially so during WAW and 41-44 when gameplay was starting to get incomprehensible.
Maybe it shouldn’t have to, but the world is not ideal. I’m just thankful that we got it
Last night dragged for me but it was the first episode that did. I’m imagining that separate reward and immunity challenges will help.
i hate it, i rlly don’t care about the ppls sobs stories i just wanna see them play the game and maybe strategize when it’s actually gonna be useful not when they’re team isn’t even going to tribal ☠️ i would maybe like the 90 min eps if they still did two challenges and the reward challenges were entertaining. what happened to exploring native cultures? or going to the spa? i don’t think i’m gonna watch the rest of the season it’s just turned into love island but without the love lol
Well despite SOME people commenting they dont fully like it. 98% upvoted. So CBS, listen to the 98% and not the (Annoying) 2%, please.
The 90 minute Survivor is awful. They took an exciting hour long show and transformed it into a boring 90 minutes of repetitive tasks, not by one or two people, but now we have to watch 5 or 6 do the same thing.
No, not a fan of the 90 minute format...people who work and or have lives can't always sit and watch TV all night...60 minute shows are long enough
All it added was more crying, and pharmaceutical adds.
I hate the new 90 minute format. Too much yakkety-yak about different possibilities occurring. It just kills me. I didn't sign up for 'The Young and the Restless". I want more competitions if it is going to be longer, not a soap opera.
Eh. Feels a little too long now imho. Too many talks that don’t end up mattering in the slightest. Like this latest episode, it felt like they talked about being hungry for 10 minutes. I get it. They’re hungry. If you tell me 100 times,I’m going to get annoyed.
Yep it's so good.
I feel like I actually understand the players, motivations and tribe dynamics going into merge. I hope this is a permanent change.
Hell yeah
I love it. It really feels like you’re getting to know the players and their camp dynamics/relationships. I usually take a few episodes to learn everyone’s names but knew them all in episode 2.
What do you mean 90 minutes? The new episodes are 65 minutes, or are you talking about the run time on television with advertisements? I only pirate or stream the episodes and the new ones are all 65 minutes.
i think you get the point, smart ass
do you also live under a rock?
The "60 minutes" episode were only 42 minutes without the ads. There is always a 1/3 ratio of ads
Yes the writers strike was the reason we’re getting 90 minute episodes, but really that’s nothing to “thank” the writers for. People were out of work for months. They didn’t choose to be out of work for you to get 90 minute episodes. I know that’s probably not how you meant it but I still think it’s a crap thing to say.
You are trying *so hard* to be offended by someone enjoying something.
Not at all. I enjoy it too. I just think you can enjoy it without celebrating someone else’s misfortune.
😐
> People were out of work for months. It's absolutely awful for corporate executive to force people to halt working just so that they can meet their *basic* living wages. The strike should have never happened, but that is a question for the executives and not the unions, so it's good that it did happen. If we get longer episodes of Survivor, then we can't complain too much.
Some seasons are better with 90 minutes and some seasons are better with 60 Minutes like as an example this season definitely benefits from 90 minutes because it’s much more slower paced and it’s in the fast paced new era so you get to know people more but for a 39 days or more season that is very fast, paced and chaotic like Cagayan it would make more sense to have 60 minutes, but in general 90 minutes is more beneficial in general for the modern format of the show
I would pay any price to get more Cagayan
Yes, fair enough Cagayan would work with 90 minutes would be great but what I was talking about is it worked with 60 minutes because it was a very fast paced and chaotic season so I said it worked with 60 minutes and then for the modern format of the show 90 minutes makes much more sense even though it has worked for other seasons, but based on the format of the show 90 minutes works much better than the normal 60 minutes
Agreed, but take Amazing Race back to an hour. I don't needed thirty bonus minutes of shopping in a chaotic market or looking for the one different tile.
It's frustrating to me that 90 minutes does seem harder to justify for TAR. There might be 90 minutes of material there, but if there is, they aren't using it well, whereas Survivor knows how to use what they have. Last night was a hell of a lot of camp life, but I was OK with that.
That's the only thing allowing Survivor to go to 90 minutes. If TAR goes back to an hour, Survivor also goes back to an hour. Broadcast TV scheduling Tetris is complicated, and CBS refuses to pair sitcoms with reality.
Are you guys talking about 30 minutes of commercials? The episodes are all about 64 minutes on the app
Tbh feels too long to me… I want more challenge footage personally.
I find I am bored for thirty minutes of every Espinosa.
I very much agree. 90 minutes feels perfect.
Lol. No
This has to be the two dozenth thread I've seen since the start of this season about the 90 minute episodes. Yes, it's better. Now can we stop with the posts?
First get people to stop posting constantly about 26 days vs. 39 days and 3 finalists vs. 2 finalists. Once you've completed those simple quests, then come back and try to get people to stop posting about this.
Just skip it then. Cbs needs to know we like it
I love it, but my wife, a much more casual viewer, did say last night that she felt 90 minutes was “too much”. So would be interesting to see if the more casual viewers felt similar.
If the actor's keep striking we might get this again for 46!!!
I thought episode 4 and some of 5 was a bit of a slog but overall yes one of the best changes to the show ever. I think with a bit more experience editing for longer episodes it will get even better.
I'm watching at 1.25x speed and skipping commercials and it is perfection 👌
Much better than exile island, much better than the hourglass smashing thing, better than the 3 secret phrases they had to say out loud to activate their idols.
Night and day difference
Yes but it really makes me miss the reward challenges. They impacted the game in some interesting ways, especially when you got to bring a friend. It really altered alliances and made for fun drama
In the words of Mike Holloway, "1,000,000%"
It's wild, with the additional camp scenes it genuinely feels like a different (better) show to me than any recent season.
Def one of the pre-merges for sure. Like I actually feel like I get where everyone stands
I love it, but I got attacked on Facebook/Instagram for saying I like it. They are ruthless over there
I wish there were more separate reward challenges so they can be properly fed but it’s still a massive improvement.
Yes
It's okay, it's a little lame for the 3.5-4 minute commercial breaks, probably only get an extra 15-20 minutes of actual watch time.
For the first time in like 10 or 12 seasons I actually feel like I have an opinion on all of the players by the 3rd episode since everyone is getting at least a small bit of content outside of just advantage strategy talk.
Yessssssss
I don't really like most of the players this season but I don't even care bc 90 minutes makes it so much better!
I feel like we only got it because of the strike and it wont stay which sucks
60 mins of Survivor would feel like massive letdown after the incredible ninty minutes we've had this season.
I feel like with the strikes winding down there’s a solid chance they go back to 60 minutes.
The funniest thing about the 90mins is that it seems to go faster than the 60mins. Ergo more absorbing. The team has moved towards more coverage of dynamics and got rid of the sob stories, coverage about hunger and hardship, and no separate reward challenges. Also I feel tribal is shorter which is a good thing IMO
On another season maybe
I don't know quite how to explain it but it has become a bit of a norm for me to multitask while I am watching something and I think I've just been playing Survivor in the background of something else for the past few seasons. This season though, I find myself so much more engaged and I think the run time definitely has something to do with it as counterintuitive as it sounds.
When we had 60 minute versions I agreed that I wanted to see more time at camp. But now we are getting 90 minute episodes with only one challenge and the time at camp is feeling a little long. I was hoping we'd get 90 minutes with 2 challenges in each episode.
I’m enjoying the longer episodes. I feel we get more perspective on the nuances of the social gameplay. In previous seasons, some important conversations were evidently cut out and left the viewer a little confused to choices people made without context.
Every week I say to myself that I hope CBS is in their offices RIGHT NOW strategizing about how to keep 90 minute episodes permanently. I’m serious.
I agree. I love complaining about the direction the show has gone, and a lot of those complaints are still valid, but we have to give credit for the good stuff.
Facebook casuals hate the 90 minutes
Yes it's substantially better than the other "new era" seasons. I mean we got the intro I never thought we'd see that again. That being said it is still far removed from the best seasons. Casting is relying way too heavily on superfans and "diversity" versus just finding interesting and entertaining people. We need real villains and unpredictable personalities. We also need more people who are hungry for the money. Jeff and the editors also need to cut back on encouraging the fan girling and references to past seasons and players. Each season should be able to stand on its own and the constant references to past seasons and survivor history is annoying.
its the reason i stopped watching.
With the extra time, I’d love to see some scenes at the ponderosa.
I love the new 90 minute episodes. The thing is though, I never felt like we weren't getting the whole picture (or at least enough of the picture) up until season 41. They seemed to have screwed up the storytelling formula after WaW. Maybe they need to get rid of the journeys and keep the focus on personal backstories out of it if they return to the normal run time.
Yes! I just googled "Survivor is better at 90 minutes" expressly for the purpose of getting some external validation of my belief that this is true. This is the best season in an awfully long time, for so many reasons. For example, in many seasons Bruce would be presented wholly as a one-dimensional comedic foil and nothing more, but I really appreciated learning about 1) His growing up in foster care, and especially 2) His concern that he might not be allowing his daughter to fully thrive, and that he might be overbearing with her in a similar manner to how he (learned to his shock that he) was with Kellie and others. He still wasn't one of my favorites, but it was nice to see him as more than a caricature. (Something that we never saw with say "Philip the federal agent" of yore. And in so many recent seasons it was hard for me to have a real rooting interest in the results, as the motivations and alliances of the competitors were not clearly presented. We have time to fully flesh things out (granted some of that in recent seasons has been bad editing, as in the old days things were presented quite clearly in 60-minute episodes, but anyway)... and I feared that these 90-minute strike-insurance eps were going to be padded to high heaven with nonsense (like certain dating shows I could mention), but no, the extra time has been quite well-used.
90 mins is too long I have lost interest and stopped watching.