Survivor Season 41 premiered Wednesday, Sept. 22, with an episode titled, “A New Era.” 

This is the first season to come out since Season 40 ended with a Final Tribal Zoom call hosted by Jeff Probst. This Season was originally supposed to premiere in 2020, but production was put on hold due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Host Jeff Probst said himself, “Survivor 41 features a really likable group of savvy Survivor players, and they are in for the most intense, most difficult, and most dangerous season we’ve ever done.”

Due to new covid guidelines, they had to shorten the season. Recent seasons are 39 days long. This is 26 days long to incorporate a 14-day quarantine at the start of shooting. This change made the producers decide to make the game feel like 39 days, with no food, limited camp supplies, and very few rewards. The very first challenge was to fight for flint and a machete. 

This season’s cast is split into three tribes: Luvu, Ua, and Yase. It appears that Survivor is definitely moving into a new era of gameplay. The two losing tribes of six players each had to go to the first tribal council, where there was a brand new twist to the game: the shot in the dark die. If a player feels like they are in trouble, they can lose their vote and roll the die for a 17 percent chance at safety.

Another new twist added to the game: the Prisoner’s dilemma. Each tribe had to send one player on an “adventure.” This adventure includes the players hiking a long, winding path and getting to know each other. At the end of the path, each player has to then choose to either protect or risk their vote. If even one player protects their vote, then the players who decided to take the risk would gain an extra vote in tribal that would last until the final six. This is a huge advantage to the game. The tricky part is that if everyone risks their vote, then they all lose their vote at the next tribal. Also,  if they all protect their vote, then nothing happens. 

In this first episode, we see contestants JD, Danny, and Xander take the trip. Danny decided to protect his vote, while Xander and JD risked theirs, which paid off for them.

One highlight of the first episode was Shan’s “evil song.”  Contestant Shan Smith had a confessional where she shared that when she is doing something devious, there is a little song that plays in her head. She began to hum the song to the camera, and in the background, the song started playing with an instrumental survivor style. Throughout the episode, whenever Shan was doing strategy the song would play. Details like that are the reason that Survivor has gone on for 41 seasons. These small nuances bring life to the show.

The first episode was two hours long and came out on Wednesday, but all future episodes air every Monday at 8 p.m. on CBS. They will also be available to watch live and on-demand on Paramount+