Survivor season 43 premiere: Time, how and where to watch

As fall with its colder temps and longer nights set in, those that want to take trip to a tropical paradise every Wednesday can look forward to Season 43 of Survivor. The new season will continue with the ‘new era’ format put in place for Season 41 after the pandemic-induced hiatus.

The season premiere to see “who will have what it takes to outwit, outplay, and outlast all the rest” will air on Wednesday 21 September. The premiere will be a two-hour episode and like the previous two seasons will come with a duo of eliminations. Unlike previous seasons though the following week will feature a 90-minute episode before the survival reality show of the fittest, and wittiest, settles into its one hour per episode routine.

Where and when to watch Survivor Season 43

The adventure will begin Wednesday 21 September, CBS will broadcast the premiere during Survivor’s regular time slot, 8pm ET. For those that can’t catch it live, they will be able to stream each episode on Paramount+, they will drop every Wednesday.

The ‘new era’ format for Survivor

The long hiatus during 2020 and 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic gave Jeff Probst a chance to rethink the format of Survivor which has been on the air for 20 years. After he pitched the idea to Mike White, TV producer and former contestant, Probst told Entertainment Weekly after a pause White responded “Well… it sounds… in-ter-est-ing. But is it fun?”

The switch up involved giving the show a faster pace, providing less food, more twists and potentially dangerous advantages. The game now plays out over the course of 26 days, thirteen less than before.

A big change in Season 41 was the introduction of “Beware Advantages” which gives the player that finds it a chance at an immunity idol. The catch is that if a player opens their advantage before all three have been found, they lose their vote until such time.

To signal that they have found one of the advantages, the three players are assigned a certain phrase. That’s where some of the fun comes in with players using silly phrases with nonsensical word combinations.

Absent this season are the Change History hourglass and the Do-or-Die game of chance at Tribal Council. And there may be some other changes that haven’t been reported yet as Probst likes to shake things up to keep participants on their toes. “The mere possibility that there might be another new advantage or small twist is enough to keep players guessing. That uncertainty is all we need to keep players off balance,” he told Parade.

Survivor Season 43 contestants

Like the previous two seasons there will be 18 castaways as opposed to the previously 20. Also instead of two tribes, they will be spread across three tribes: Baka (yellow), Coco (blue) and Vesi (red) with six players each.