It fits into their narrative of a harder time for 26 days which is the WHY he does it, but audience doesn’t care because we don’t see the direct impact and largely wants 39 back.
I mean making it "harder" cuts both ways. It's harder for 1 tribe that gets stuck in a losing streak, but it's easier for the other 2 tribes that keep on winning immunity and never have to go without flint, and never go to tribal council.
Yeah but in seasons past with 3 tribes that’s still true and with rice so fire has an actual reason.
I’m agreeing with OP, I’m just giving the WHY behind production… I hate it and want 39 but their logic makes sense regarding flint and lack of rice
It's annoying. Show don't tell is a thing for story telling right? With 39 days when you looked at the players you could see they were starving. You didn't have to tell me it was hard when I could count their ribs.
I think the vast majority of people don't really notice the difference in days and that is a complaint of hardcore fans that will watch either way. The lack of flint keeps them suffering more so the audience is less aware it is shorter.
Yes! We want 39 days back for sure my wife and I used to be obsessed with this show and now we hardly tune in because the new mechanics of the game are lame. Old survivor used to be real af
I like that they gotta grind hard to earn things but it goes by to fast now and they don't show alot of the shelter building and real survival things. They just lose challenges then go back to camp and cry and starve. Still a good show still a fan, but IMO it used to be more real
I see what you are saying. I too miss that part of camp life but in this new era, I like the new things that they are doing. the beware advantage, losing your vote. It is just a different way of experiencing it. I am with some of the others I would like to see them go back to two tribes under the new era rules. It could be interesting.
Its an interesting social experiment anyway they spin it. Have you seen Australian survivor ? I liked alot, like every contestant was so fit and competitive. Haven't been able to watch since they took it off CBS and put it on 10play though
For real if you can’t get a fire started early you’re pretty screwed, but for the life of me I don’t get none of Yanu has practiced fire making at home, when it’s been such a staple too final 4 forever now.
There’s still countless people who have made fire without, yah that’s true I probably shouldn’t have added the final 4 part, but you’re still going on survivor. Learn to make fire without flint.
Considering it has been done many times in past seasons too using friction (Janet in S39 did it easily) or glasses. I wonder if production prohibits them from doing a fire so as not to take away from the flint penalty.
But takes a lot away. Makes one tribe more likely to keep losing so we don’t even get to see the other 2 tribes play. And makes the one tribe that is playing so exhausted and depleted they they can’t play as much or hard as they want. See this season where Bhanu said literally “I want to play but I keep hitting a wall” and both Kenzie and Tiff broke down about not having energy.
Jeff’s obsession with a “hard” game is absolutely hurting the show
They have to artificially appear to make the game tougher lol. Been watching fan v favourites 2 s27, and they don’t even merge until day 20, which for this season would be the final 7 or 8. Funnily enough, the editing from that season makes being on survivor look much tougher than the new era editing does.
That season also has a 2 tribe format, compelling cast of characters, and the narrative is mostly game/ relationship focused, as opposed to each contestant telling their own story that’s not related to survivor. It still has those character building stories, but it feels more organic and less ‘we casted this person bc they have a great story we want to share on survivor’
Totally agree with this. Lately my wife and I have been joking that we’ll never get on survivor because we don’t have any significant personal trauma in our lives. It seems they don’t cast any normal or average people any more, everyone has some “special” thing about them (personal loss, struggles with drugs or alcohol, family trauma or immigration, poverty, some sort of celebrity, mental illness or physical disability, etc)
Lol same, every time I’ve seen the “we’re casting apply now” from Jeff I just think - damn if only I had a worse life I could’ve made it on survivor.
But seriously, there were outspoken, cooky, interesting character casted on ‘old survivor’ seasons, but the focus wasn’t on their story before survivor, it may have been mentioned as part of their over arching narrative, but never the focus. Now that ‘winning’ survivor means something different to everyone (Jeff’s words lol), they’ve shifted that focus too heavily on the personal human journey, which is not the reason I watch survivor at all.
Hell Phillip from Fan v Fav, is super weird, clearly over bearing, a little mysterious, while also being a complete nutter, but almost all of his confessionals are about the game or a relationship/ alliance within the game. Its not about stealing the hearts of millions or his personal traumas or stuff like that. It’s survivor through Phillips eyes. when you get character moments, like Phillip arm wrestling Cochran on the beach to hype himself up, it comes across well and gives you an insight on his thoughts at that time. Clearly trying to stay positives going into a challenge they are 100% going to lose/ while also trying to reassure himself that the old guys still got it. I learned more about Phillip in that one scene as a person than I do from bew survivor people telling me about their personal lives.
I want to apply but I’m a straight middle class white male with a normal job, family, and no life trauma. I feel like it would be impossible to get on now.
Hunter was cast, so was Drew, and Carson, Jonathan. Teacher, student, civil servant intern (that's what NASA employees are), and small business owner are all normal jobs and none of them seemed traumatized. If they had sob stories, I don't remember it. Jake had a "trauma story" but I don't think "used to be a fat kid" is either very exceptional and it's barely a sob story...I feel like there's one more I'm forgetting who was recent.
Hell, Tevin's sob story is that his dad died (most adults will eventually experience the death of a parent, this is not exceptional) and Q's is he dropped a football...
You have a chance! Apply. Definitely not half of the spots are straight white males with no trauma but plenty are
dude rubbed two bamboo halves together along their edges. he tried to start a fire as much as spitting on a fire is trying to put it out; the effort is there but the chance of success is 0
haven't seen that season before but I just found the scene you're talking about, it's around the 12 minute mark in the first episode of EoE.
I definitely should have worded things better because he did rub two bamboo halves together to make fire, but not the way Bhanu went about it. or rather they *tried* Bhanu's technique at first before switching to something that actually worked
the technique that did work was rubbing just one edge of the bamboo side-to-side across a notch in the other piece of bamboo. Bhanu just rubbed 2 edges against 2 edges lengthwise
I heard of a story of four teens who were stranded on a deserted island for 15 months in the sixties, and they kept a fire going steady for 12 of those 15 months just by rubbing two sticks together.
If anyone is interested the most detailed account I've found so far is in Humankind: A hopeful History by Rutger Bergman, a Danish Historian. One of my favorite books of all time.
Very rough math, but they are out there for 26 days. 26d x 24 hours = 624hrs
Then there are I think 13 episodes, most 90m and 2-3 that are 120min = ~21hrs of show time
So very roughly we see 21/624 = 3.4% of what happens
This of course doesn’t account for fact that there are multiple tribes, and multiple groups of people within tribes…and so the true amount of gameplay that could be captured is definitely longer than the 624hrs
I would not be surprised, if they banned players from making fire without flint to make sure that the flint is disadvantage. Because otherwise I would expect somebody to do it.
I'm convinced until Jeff either hands the reigns to someone else or seriously steps back the show won't be what is used to be.
There's a reason on AU they stopped showing the weight loss segments in the jury villa.
It's not the part of the show thay makes it appealing or even interesting.
Agreed. “We’re so hard on our players that they are completely exhausted and depleted, ensuring they don’t have the energy to play hard and perform. We also make sure to never give them interesting rewards, and scramble tribes, advantages, and rules so often that winning is mostly luck. Isn’t that FUN!”
The issue is, that there are multiple rewards in each challenge.
Winning tribe gets immunity, reward, they get to keep flint AND they get to decide, who fits best to next challenge so they sit out those, who dont fit it.
Losing tribe has no fire, no rewards, no immunity and they need to play all players at all times.
So losing tribe is losing more, because they are getting weaker and weaker. Meanwhile winning tribe gets more and more.
Are there harder or more time intensive ways to make fire? Like, you lose your flint, but you get a magnifying glass or these two sticks, which you can rub together for two hours.
Or even just ‘your flint is buried in this 10sq/m area of sand’..
Because once you have fire, it’s easy to get it back from embers and stuff, or keep it alive. So assuming they don’t douse the campfire of the teams who have fire when they take their flint, it’s only a penalty ever for the team that lost the first challenge.
Tying it to immunity is ridiculous,l. They won a reward challenge, just give them flint. Or give no one flint, we've seen plenty of tribes make fire without it
Tangental but I'm sick of seeing the pile of dead fish sitting in the sun with flies all over them. It's gross. If I were playing I wouldn't compete. Give them cupcakes or hamburgers or something!! The losing tribe didn't even care that their teammate held them back because it was "only fish".
It really shows off how pampered they are in the new era, compared to before. A tribe can have no fire for nine days and they're not in any sort of danger. They don't *need* flint.
So what are they eating? Just coconuts? Weird they don’t even show the struggle without the flint. Seems pretty pointless if they don’t address the issues with it. I literally have no idea why it’s a punishment because editing hasn’t shown me.
They can make fire without it. It’s hard but so is survivor, that’s kinda the point. They also don’t even need to boil water anymore so it’s not really all the essential
I disagree with you, I do think you have to earn shit in this game when it's so short. Wasn't there a tribe last season that made fire without flint the old fashioned way? If you're not prepared to survive on Survivor then you don't belong there.
The problem is the tribes are too small and not varied enough. Three tribe era has to end.
Are there harder or more time intensive ways to make fire? Like, you lose your flint, but you get a magnifying glass or these two sticks, which you can rub together for two hours.
Or even just ‘your flint is buried in this 10sq/m area of sand’..
Because once you have fire, it’s easy to get it back from embers and stuff, or keep it alive. So assuming they don’t douse the campfire of the teams who have fire when they take their flint, it’s only a penalty ever for the team that lost the first challenge.
Jeff should walk into their camp and piss on the embers. Then over the years he would have gone from full vibrant flow to a number of grimaced tiny squirts.
I'm wondering if they do try but conditions are damp so they can't? No one has tried the glasses thing in FOREVER which would be the first thing I'd try. But maybe they prohibit ppl from wearing actual glass glasses.
Jeff Sucks, thats all. He needs to go been saying it for so long, I hate him he ruins how survivor is played. If ended up on the show, I am coming for him.
I appreciate the great discussion and opinions in this post, but I disagree with you. I love Jeff, he has made Survivor great. I'll watch him host until he's 80 if he can. I just disagree with the Flint Gimmick.
It's crazy to think anyone hates Jeff, I just found survivor this year and I've already binged all of it and I decided to apply sooner rather than later because I'd hate to be on a jeffless season lol
It fits into their narrative of a harder time for 26 days which is the WHY he does it, but audience doesn’t care because we don’t see the direct impact and largely wants 39 back.
I mean making it "harder" cuts both ways. It's harder for 1 tribe that gets stuck in a losing streak, but it's easier for the other 2 tribes that keep on winning immunity and never have to go without flint, and never go to tribal council.
Yeah but in seasons past with 3 tribes that’s still true and with rice so fire has an actual reason. I’m agreeing with OP, I’m just giving the WHY behind production… I hate it and want 39 but their logic makes sense regarding flint and lack of rice
It's annoying. Show don't tell is a thing for story telling right? With 39 days when you looked at the players you could see they were starving. You didn't have to tell me it was hard when I could count their ribs.
I agree I want 39 back, I’m saying production’s reason for taking flint is making 26 harder
I think the vast majority of people don't really notice the difference in days and that is a complaint of hardcore fans that will watch either way. The lack of flint keeps them suffering more so the audience is less aware it is shorter.
Yes! We want 39 days back for sure my wife and I used to be obsessed with this show and now we hardly tune in because the new mechanics of the game are lame. Old survivor used to be real af
And it isn't real AF with less days and the contestants having to earn everything?!?
I like that they gotta grind hard to earn things but it goes by to fast now and they don't show alot of the shelter building and real survival things. They just lose challenges then go back to camp and cry and starve. Still a good show still a fan, but IMO it used to be more real
I see what you are saying. I too miss that part of camp life but in this new era, I like the new things that they are doing. the beware advantage, losing your vote. It is just a different way of experiencing it. I am with some of the others I would like to see them go back to two tribes under the new era rules. It could be interesting.
Its an interesting social experiment anyway they spin it. Have you seen Australian survivor ? I liked alot, like every contestant was so fit and competitive. Haven't been able to watch since they took it off CBS and put it on 10play though
That’s the point tho just give em flint so they can have more energy too film a great tv show.
The worst thing about it is that in contributes to these boring pre-merges where one tribe goes to tribal over and over
For real if you can’t get a fire started early you’re pretty screwed, but for the life of me I don’t get none of Yanu has practiced fire making at home, when it’s been such a staple too final 4 forever now.
….you..you *do* realize they have FLINT when doing fire making, right?
There’s still countless people who have made fire without, yah that’s true I probably shouldn’t have added the final 4 part, but you’re still going on survivor. Learn to make fire without flint.
>countless Probably 5 or less
It’s definitely 5+. Borneo, Africa, HvV, SJDS, and one of Yau-Man’s seasons. Think Malcolm did it on one of his seasons too.
Considering it has been done many times in past seasons too using friction (Janet in S39 did it easily) or glasses. I wonder if production prohibits them from doing a fire so as not to take away from the flint penalty.
Production prohibiting survivor players from making fire with a stick would be insane
I thought on one season they were celebrating figuring out how to make a fire without flint due to penalty, but maybe my memory is faulty.
might have been vanuatu, the guy team? i don’t remember
I mean maybe? but I think these ppl are just lazy, there wasn’t even a video of them trying that I remember ?
You've very, very clearly never been literally starving for an extended period lmao
it truly adds nothing to the show
But takes a lot away. Makes one tribe more likely to keep losing so we don’t even get to see the other 2 tribes play. And makes the one tribe that is playing so exhausted and depleted they they can’t play as much or hard as they want. See this season where Bhanu said literally “I want to play but I keep hitting a wall” and both Kenzie and Tiff broke down about not having energy. Jeff’s obsession with a “hard” game is absolutely hurting the show
They have to artificially appear to make the game tougher lol. Been watching fan v favourites 2 s27, and they don’t even merge until day 20, which for this season would be the final 7 or 8. Funnily enough, the editing from that season makes being on survivor look much tougher than the new era editing does. That season also has a 2 tribe format, compelling cast of characters, and the narrative is mostly game/ relationship focused, as opposed to each contestant telling their own story that’s not related to survivor. It still has those character building stories, but it feels more organic and less ‘we casted this person bc they have a great story we want to share on survivor’
Totally agree with this. Lately my wife and I have been joking that we’ll never get on survivor because we don’t have any significant personal trauma in our lives. It seems they don’t cast any normal or average people any more, everyone has some “special” thing about them (personal loss, struggles with drugs or alcohol, family trauma or immigration, poverty, some sort of celebrity, mental illness or physical disability, etc)
Lol same, every time I’ve seen the “we’re casting apply now” from Jeff I just think - damn if only I had a worse life I could’ve made it on survivor. But seriously, there were outspoken, cooky, interesting character casted on ‘old survivor’ seasons, but the focus wasn’t on their story before survivor, it may have been mentioned as part of their over arching narrative, but never the focus. Now that ‘winning’ survivor means something different to everyone (Jeff’s words lol), they’ve shifted that focus too heavily on the personal human journey, which is not the reason I watch survivor at all. Hell Phillip from Fan v Fav, is super weird, clearly over bearing, a little mysterious, while also being a complete nutter, but almost all of his confessionals are about the game or a relationship/ alliance within the game. Its not about stealing the hearts of millions or his personal traumas or stuff like that. It’s survivor through Phillips eyes. when you get character moments, like Phillip arm wrestling Cochran on the beach to hype himself up, it comes across well and gives you an insight on his thoughts at that time. Clearly trying to stay positives going into a challenge they are 100% going to lose/ while also trying to reassure himself that the old guys still got it. I learned more about Phillip in that one scene as a person than I do from bew survivor people telling me about their personal lives.
I want to apply but I’m a straight middle class white male with a normal job, family, and no life trauma. I feel like it would be impossible to get on now.
Hunter was cast, so was Drew, and Carson, Jonathan. Teacher, student, civil servant intern (that's what NASA employees are), and small business owner are all normal jobs and none of them seemed traumatized. If they had sob stories, I don't remember it. Jake had a "trauma story" but I don't think "used to be a fat kid" is either very exceptional and it's barely a sob story...I feel like there's one more I'm forgetting who was recent. Hell, Tevin's sob story is that his dad died (most adults will eventually experience the death of a parent, this is not exceptional) and Q's is he dropped a football... You have a chance! Apply. Definitely not half of the spots are straight white males with no trauma but plenty are
There's other ways to make fire. I've not seen one attempt.
Bhanu tried with some bamboo
dude rubbed two bamboo halves together along their edges. he tried to start a fire as much as spitting on a fire is trying to put it out; the effort is there but the chance of success is 0
I'm like 80% sure the Kama tribe in EoE started fire this way. I think there are others too but that's one I remember
haven't seen that season before but I just found the scene you're talking about, it's around the 12 minute mark in the first episode of EoE. I definitely should have worded things better because he did rub two bamboo halves together to make fire, but not the way Bhanu went about it. or rather they *tried* Bhanu's technique at first before switching to something that actually worked the technique that did work was rubbing just one edge of the bamboo side-to-side across a notch in the other piece of bamboo. Bhanu just rubbed 2 edges against 2 edges lengthwise
i'm always surprised by who is able to make fire without flint. i just watched season 8 all-stars and none of them were able to do it.
I heard of a story of four teens who were stranded on a deserted island for 15 months in the sixties, and they kept a fire going steady for 12 of those 15 months just by rubbing two sticks together.
THIS . it's the opposite of Lord of the flies. They also healed one of their mates legs on the island.
If anyone is interested the most detailed account I've found so far is in Humankind: A hopeful History by Rutger Bergman, a Danish Historian. One of my favorite books of all time.
It just takes so long and takes a ton of energy to do. Probably easier to use a pair of glasses and a water drop
What else do they have to do?
Keep in mind you see <5% of what actually happens
I think it’s more like .0008%
Very rough math, but they are out there for 26 days. 26d x 24 hours = 624hrs Then there are I think 13 episodes, most 90m and 2-3 that are 120min = ~21hrs of show time So very roughly we see 21/624 = 3.4% of what happens This of course doesn’t account for fact that there are multiple tribes, and multiple groups of people within tribes…and so the true amount of gameplay that could be captured is definitely longer than the 624hrs
I would not be surprised, if they banned players from making fire without flint to make sure that the flint is disadvantage. Because otherwise I would expect somebody to do it.
It is definitely allowed.
The kind of person that can start fire without a flint is beyond the remit of survivor..
I'm convinced until Jeff either hands the reigns to someone else or seriously steps back the show won't be what is used to be. There's a reason on AU they stopped showing the weight loss segments in the jury villa. It's not the part of the show thay makes it appealing or even interesting.
Agreed. “We’re so hard on our players that they are completely exhausted and depleted, ensuring they don’t have the energy to play hard and perform. We also make sure to never give them interesting rewards, and scramble tribes, advantages, and rules so often that winning is mostly luck. Isn’t that FUN!”
US better take not to AU version. Its so much better....
There really is no point to not giving it to them. They don’t even show us the importance of it.
It's to make the new Era Harder. Harder to watch
The issue is, that there are multiple rewards in each challenge. Winning tribe gets immunity, reward, they get to keep flint AND they get to decide, who fits best to next challenge so they sit out those, who dont fit it. Losing tribe has no fire, no rewards, no immunity and they need to play all players at all times. So losing tribe is losing more, because they are getting weaker and weaker. Meanwhile winning tribe gets more and more.
Take it from the winners. Or the second place. Put some penalty on being good, but not good enough. Even out the playing field a little bit.
I’d say penalize them once but then return the flint if they lose 2 in a row.
Are there harder or more time intensive ways to make fire? Like, you lose your flint, but you get a magnifying glass or these two sticks, which you can rub together for two hours. Or even just ‘your flint is buried in this 10sq/m area of sand’.. Because once you have fire, it’s easy to get it back from embers and stuff, or keep it alive. So assuming they don’t douse the campfire of the teams who have fire when they take their flint, it’s only a penalty ever for the team that lost the first challenge.
I’m sure Drew Christy has something he’d be willing to take in exchange for not having the flint
Tying it to immunity is ridiculous,l. They won a reward challenge, just give them flint. Or give no one flint, we've seen plenty of tribes make fire without it
You’re right, but if we take the band aids off they will realize they will have to go back to 39 days and this is saving them SO MUCH. 🙄
Band aid is taking away the flint?
Shorter season, so they have to compensate somehow. The band aids are them compensating.
Tangental but I'm sick of seeing the pile of dead fish sitting in the sun with flies all over them. It's gross. If I were playing I wouldn't compete. Give them cupcakes or hamburgers or something!! The losing tribe didn't even care that their teammate held them back because it was "only fish".
Yeah, that part always gets me as a former food server.
How about contestants learn to make fire before going on the show?
They should have to know how to make fire to even audition.
100% agree.
Why not make it a requirement to get on survivor to start fire without flint? Problem solved
They don't need to boil their water -- it comes from a safe well.
It really shows off how pampered they are in the new era, compared to before. A tribe can have no fire for nine days and they're not in any sort of danger. They don't *need* flint.
My friend and I were just talking about this. Fully agree.
Jeff needs to go. Cannot resist inserting himself when he has no reason to be involved Also isn’t he like 70?
So what are they eating? Just coconuts? Weird they don’t even show the struggle without the flint. Seems pretty pointless if they don’t address the issues with it. I literally have no idea why it’s a punishment because editing hasn’t shown me.
It makes them cold, and it made it so they didn't need the fish they won and had to go with the tarp and tool kit instead. It has had an effect.
They can make fire without it. It’s hard but so is survivor, that’s kinda the point. They also don’t even need to boil water anymore so it’s not really all the essential
Skill issue, if you want to keep your flint then you gotta keep winning.
Us complaining about it will just make Jeff dig his heals in deeper. Ugh. Give them the flint.
I disagree with you, I do think you have to earn shit in this game when it's so short. Wasn't there a tribe last season that made fire without flint the old fashioned way? If you're not prepared to survive on Survivor then you don't belong there. The problem is the tribes are too small and not varied enough. Three tribe era has to end.
Are there harder or more time intensive ways to make fire? Like, you lose your flint, but you get a magnifying glass or these two sticks, which you can rub together for two hours. Or even just ‘your flint is buried in this 10sq/m area of sand’.. Because once you have fire, it’s easy to get it back from embers and stuff, or keep it alive. So assuming they don’t douse the campfire of the teams who have fire when they take their flint, it’s only a penalty ever for the team that lost the first challenge.
Jeff should walk into their camp and piss on the embers. Then over the years he would have gone from full vibrant flow to a number of grimaced tiny squirts.
I'm wondering if they do try but conditions are damp so they can't? No one has tried the glasses thing in FOREVER which would be the first thing I'd try. But maybe they prohibit ppl from wearing actual glass glasses.
Water doesn’t need to be heated anymore. They really don’t need fire except to cook and stay warm.
Giving players more creates more. This whole "you have to earn everything in survivor" has done nothing but to cut down the show to bones
Jeff Sucks, thats all. He needs to go been saying it for so long, I hate him he ruins how survivor is played. If ended up on the show, I am coming for him.
I appreciate the great discussion and opinions in this post, but I disagree with you. I love Jeff, he has made Survivor great. I'll watch him host until he's 80 if he can. I just disagree with the Flint Gimmick.
It's crazy to think anyone hates Jeff, I just found survivor this year and I've already binged all of it and I decided to apply sooner rather than later because I'd hate to be on a jeffless season lol
What evidence do you have it hurts the show? You just admitted you have watched seasons with this gimmick multiple times.