I'm really rooting for 45 to be a returnee season, even if it's some type of hybrid and not pure returnee; especially with the 90 minute time slots in place. The returnee season average is roughly every 5 seasons.

A 30s vs 40s second chance season I could see being pretty fun.

Cast could end up looking something like

30s men - Dominik, Devons, Christian, Davie, Jamal
30s women - Gabby, Angelina, Victoria, Karishma, Elaine

40s men - Ricard, Omar, Jesse, Jonathon, Bruce
40s women - Shan, Karla, Carolyn, Cassidy, Evie


* factoring in the 50%+ none white quota
** assuming Yam Yam wins s44 as the clear edgic front runner
*** Bruce has already been confirmed to be on s45

I suspect it will be.

12 of the 18 castaways for Season 45 got revealed today. Bruce is back, but the other 11 are newbies. No returnee season unfortunately.

First tv advert aired at the weekend for the Uk Survivor reboot, coming this Autumn/fall

As a Brit have very high hopes after how good the UK Traitors was.

20 castaways and 60 minute episodes (on bbc so no adverts)

In the Uk we love slower character driven reality tv so imagine twists will be kept to a minimum. For example our version of the amazing race is barely unrecognisable compared to US

Compared to a show about sheep herding I’ll bet that’s still exciting.

Im glad you said herding and not …

Wow they really just voted off one of the goats? Tika 3 have played great but have to say Heidi, Jaime and Lauren have played absolutely terribly these last two weeks and have handed them the game.

Survivor UK should be pretty good yeah. I expect season 1 is gonna be a little too much mateship and loyalty but once the audience/players get's used to the gameplay with the slower character driven editing I think it will eventually produce some really good seasons.

Culturally I definitely feel we are less 'cutthroat' and take betrayal more personally than Americans and Australians generally.

However this sort of mentality has actually led to some really interesting outcomes compared to what we generally see on modern US Survivor where people like Jamie and Danny get voted out with a huge smile on their face like they have just got off Splash Mountain.

The arcs of Wilf in the traitors and Manreka in the most reason Uk season of the Circle epitomise this. If we get the casting right with some villains/anti heroes I think it has potential for some big exciting vote outs

A lot of manufactured drama around the vote. The Tika 3 had to stick together today no matter what - they're the three biggest threats left, and they are allied. If they had bumped Carolyn today, the two of them would have been next. I was never in the slightest doubt that Jaime was going, mostly because Heidi is playing a wonderful 3rd place zero votes game.

The only option for tonight was Heidi-Lauren-Jaime to force a tie, with Heidi using her idol to give them a chance at avoiding rocks. If they win that, they ice the other two Tikas next, and it's one of the most forgettable FTCs in Survivor history with one of the worst winners. But one of them does win.

Next week is when it gets interesting; if Carolyn is as good at fire as they've said, and Carson is as good at fire as we all kind of predict, F5 is when they should be targetting each other. Whichever one survives then tries to take out Yam Yam at fire, and enjoy sitting next to Heidi and Jaime and collecting your million bucks.

There is only one voting round left so worst case scenario one of them is being voting out behind Carolyn and the other one might make fire at four.

There is reason why Jesse made his move on his number 1 ally Cody at 6 and Maryanne made hers on her number 1 Omar at 6.

It's a bit of prisoner's dilemma; its better for Caroline and Carson to eliminate each other at F5 than F6, but it's also safer if they get their rival out at F6 when it's less expected. The counter is that maybe if one moves at F6, you guarantee you won't get got at F5 by that person, but you might just get got by the other people in the game.

As likable as Yam Yam is, I don't see him as having a great resume of sparkling moves, especially if Caroline or Carson is sitting next to him taking credit for the Tika moves. His winning F3 has to involve neither Caroline or Carson and I doubt there's a path to make that happen.

Feels like if S45 was going to be a returnee/FvF/hybrid season (besides Bruce) we would’ve heard something by now.

For previous returnee seasons we’ve known weeks (sometimes months e.g. S40) before the finale of the preceding season.

I feel YY should definitely beat Caroline if his tribe behavior is anything to his tv persona. Caroline just isn't that likeable. Carson should beat him, though. Carson seems to friendly with everyone.

While Caroline probably seems annoying to the typical 2+2 poster, everyone on the island seems to like her.

Jaime taking her hair out of the ponytal was a game changer. Really sexy

Jurors don't usually vote for young people. I think Yam Yam is a pretty big favorite right now.

Heidi is lol.
She would have been somewhat redeeming if she idol'd Jaime and Carolyn goes home.
Then she doesn't need her idol at F5 because Yam or Carson go home.
At worst she goes to fire at 4, at best she's in F3 with a big move on her resume.

Yeah, that was awful by Heidi.

I just caught up with the season.

Has there been any occasion before where someone didn't even get a shot at individual immunity post-merge?

In episode 7, the first episode after merging, they are divided into 2 teams of 5 to hold up a ball with a stick and Carson had to pick a team to support. This seems to go completely against one of the basic rules in the game, you should always have a chance to win immunity for yourself.

Said this earlier but YY and Caroline are 2 of the all time best characters they've ever had on Survivor. The fact that both made it to F5 is pretty amazing and extremely good luck for the producers.

As to who will win, I mean seems obvious to me that no one particularly likes Heidi. I suppose Lauren could somehow win in a shocker if she got to a F3 with Heidi and Carson since she seems to have a more compelling backstory that could away some jurors. But I give her a very small chance.

Caroline and Yam Yam are very close in their odds of winning, and far ahead of the others, so Carson's best play is probably to try and get them out so he can go against Lauren and Heidi.

Given there's an s45, have to guess final 3 isn't Jaime/Lauren/Heidi because if that was the case, the show should've immediately ceased operations.

Pretty hard for Jaime to be in the final 3 unless there's some bizarre twist coming I'm not aware of.

Lol me.