Immunity idol complicates ‘Survivor Panama’

In "Survivor" terms, this is stunning, because the tribe will essentially be voting without knowing how their votes will play out. If the person who receives the most votes has the idol, the person with the second largest number of votes will go home.

Jeff Probst recently offered a hypothetical explanation of this major twist when talking to Jam! Showbiz: “Now, what if I have the idol and I don’t tell you and what if you vote for me — all of your guys vote for me. I cast my single vote for you and I have the idol and you are the one that has to go home. That will screw your game up and everybody knows that any time somebody has been to ‘Exile Island’ that means the idol could have been found. It means it could have been traded with someone. You don’t know,” Probst told the site.

Probst also promised that this will be “wreaking havoc” by the middle of the season. He said, “At one point someone said to me at tribal council that ...’You know, we think this has just changed the game too much’. I cracked up. That’s definitely a sign it’s working.”

If anything, these changes officially make “Survivor” a game unlike most others. “Survivor” does not have easily mastered rules that games like tennis, chess, horseshoes or Parcheesi do.

Instead, it relies on much more fundamental skills, ones that can be applied regardless of changes to the game’s specific rules.

Survivors must be able to bond with other people, to help form a community, to be physically strong despite adversity, and to strategize and play people against one another despite all of this. These twists will unquestionably challenge every one of the 16 castaways in each category.

Because of  the show's emphasis on the importance of people over rules, and because human relationships are so unpredictable, “Survivor Panama: Exile Island” may be the most complicated, difficult game human beings have ever played. And that will probably make it one of the most exciting seasons to watch.

Andy Dehnart is a writer and teacher who publishes reality blurred, a daily summary of reality TV news.

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