Wednesday night brought the two-hour premiere of Survivor‘s fortieth “season.”  This time around they’ve brought together twenty winners to battle it out for twice the normal prize.  And those first two hours didn’t disappoint.  A few interesting things:

1.  It’s always interesting to see early players learn first-hand how the game has changed. From alliances to voting blocks to every day-something different, the tempo of this has changed.  I’m not a big fan of the tempo change, but that’s kind of how it’s worked out.  It’s also sobering to be reminded that there was a time where hidden immunity idols weren’t in play.  The addition of “fire coins” will definitely make this season a little more interesting.  Anything, I think, is better than Exile Island.
2.  It’s amazing to think that life outside of the game has at least a strong initial influence on voting.  That some of the players have played together multiple times, that some have played poker together on television . . . that’s the kind of “meta” thing that I wasn’t quite expecting.  And it will be interesting to see how that plays out over the next few weeks.
3. We saw two contestants voted out in the first evening.  One completely makes sense.  The other, not so much.  It’s amazing to watch older players still play such a great social game.  Any time Sandra talks you just assume that she’s turning the game her way.  Same with Boston Rob.

Here’s a quick interview done with contestants about who each thought should get voted out first.  Interesting to see how some things happened and some things didn’t line up at all.