This is 40: Survivor’s Mid-Life Crisis

In Judd Apatow's This Is 40, married parents Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann struggle to take stock of their lives and marriage as they both turn 40 years old. Are they still the people they were? Have they taken each other for granted? Why is it so much more work to do the stuff they used to be good at? Are they still cool?

Those aren't quite the same questions that plague CBS reality stalwart Survivor, but the show that launched an entire genre of television when it premiered in the summer of 2000 has reached a moment of soul searching. Season 39, which concluded last December, may have been the single most unpleasant season to watch in the show's long history. Repeated incidents of inappropriate touching by contestant Dan Spilo led to a crisis of leadership at the show's production level, leaving female contestants (and crew) vulnerable, and some in the home audience frustrated and deeply turned off. By the season's end, host and executive producer Jeff Probst had publicly apologized to contestant Kellee Kim and promised to implement changes. Now all Probst, Survivor, and the show's fans can do is wait and see if time will heal their wounds.

Ten years ago, Survivor embarked on its most ambitious season yet: a 20-player all-star season called "Heroes vs. Villains," with tribes divided (often haphazardly) between the show's fan favorites and its most underhanded back-stabbers (some of whom were also huge fan favorites). The season was a wild success, probably the greatest Survivor season that's ever aired. And so the show learned from this success and adapted accordingly. That meant bringing past Survivor players onto 9 of the subsequent 19 seasons, many of which were also fantastically entertaining.

Clearly Probst and CBS are hoping lighting strikes twice, as Survivor's 40th season could not be arriving at a more opportune time with a more opportune theme. "Winners at War" will pit 20 former Survivor champions against each other, in a competition for an unprecedented $2 million prize and the title of the ultimate sole survivor. An all-winners season has long been at the top of fan wish lists, giving any viewers who might have been disillusioned by last season the thing they've most wanted would have been a cynical ploy if the season hadn't already been cast, shot, and filmed before Season 39 began airing.

Of course, a public relations crisis is not the most "midlife crisis"-y thing happening at Survivor right now. It's also in the midst of a several-seasons-long arms race when it comes to the trinkets, medallions, and scrolls that represent advantages in the game. Ever since hidden immunity idols were introduced in Season 11, they have exponentially changed the strategy of the game, leading to some of the show's best and most shocking moments, and helping strategic giants flourish in the game. In recent seasons, however, the proliferation of hidden idols, "legacy" advantages, extra votes, vote-stealing advantages, and more, have turned a once-pure game of social interaction and physical endurance into a strategic free-for-all, culminating in the heartbreaking moment when a cavalcade of advantages conspired to fell one of the game's most beloved players:

For Season 40 — a season that you wouldn't think would require any more adornment, on account of the TWENTY FORMER WINNERS — not only is Probst bringing back the irksome Edge of Extinction concept (where voted off players are sent to live on a beach with no supplies, and if they last long enough, are allowed to compete to get back in the game), he's also introducing something called "Fire Tokens," a kind of barter system for even more advantages in the game. Probst has always advocated for the necessary evolution of the game, but what he sees as evolution could also very easily end up drowning the simple, bulletproof concept of Survivor that's has sustained it for 20 years and 40 seasons in unnecessary adornments.

I wouldn't count Survivor out yet, though. To borrow just one more Judd Apatow allusion, this is the show that, in 2005's The 40-Year-Old Virgin, was held up as the epitome of the kind of program a sad, lonely, virginal 40-year-old would watch instead of having fun. In the summer of 2005, Survivor was preparing to enter its 11th season, and it was already vastly uncool. But the show just kept on going, never trying too strenuously to seem any cooler or more youth-friendly, and before you knew it, another 15 years and 18 seasons had gone by. Survivor has endured, and it has the makings of a blockbuster season ahead if it can stay out of its own way. 

CBS airs a one hour retrospective Survivor at 40: Greatest Moments and Players Wednesday February 5th at 8pm. The show's 40th season kicks off a week later on February 12th with the two-hour premiere of Survivor: Winners at War.

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Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.