I've been watching Survivor long enough to remember when the game itself was actually pretty simple. Put a group of very different people into tribes, make them live together, compete together, form alliances, lie, betray each other and eventually vote someone out. Hide a few immunity idols around camp if you want. The complexity came from the people. And people are complicated enough all by themselves.

Somewhere along the way, Survivor US seems to have decided that wasn't enough.

I've noticed myself slowly disconnecting from the American version over the last few years, and it took watching Australian Survivor to understand just how much. I can remember Australian seasons from years ago — the players, their names, their personalities, their alliances, the betrayals and the moves that actually changed the game. With recent US seasons, I can watch an episode and a few days later struggle to remember exactly what happened.

And I don't think it's because I'm getting old. At least that's the story I'm sticking with.

WHEN WATCHING SURVIVOR — Starts Feeling Like Homework.

Take the latest season. Before the tribes are even formed, they send one guy away by himself. Why are they sending him away? Where is he going? Nobody knows. Now the tribes are formed, but he's still gone. Oh, he's on Exile Island. Jeff shows up and tells him exactly where an immunity idol is, except knowing where the idol is doesn't mean he gets the idol because now he has to chop down a giant pole with a tiny axe to reach it. Why did they tell him where it was then? He doesn't get it anyway. Meanwhile, another guy finds a completely different idol back at camp — that one is just an idol, apparently — and now I'm trying to remember which guy has which idol. Wait, the first guy still isn't back. When is he coming back? Oh, after Tribal, because he has to join whichever tribe loses someone. Okay. He's back. What was the point of sending him away again?

And what was his name?

This isn't exaggeration for effect. This is what watching modern Survivor US increasingly feels like. This person has an idol, that person has an advantage, this one lost their vote, that one can earn a vote, someone went on a journey, somebody else risked something on the journey, and now apparently I need to remember who knows about which advantage because one advantage can steal another advantage.

Tribal Council — where the advantages go to be explained.

Then comes Tribal Council and I'm sitting there thinking: Wait. Who are we voting out again?

We've had Beware Advantages that took away your vote until three people on three different tribes said ridiculous secret phrases out loud in front of everyone. We've had Knowledge Is Power, where someone could steal another player's idol, which resulted in players passing idols around like somebody's car keys so nobody knew who technically had what. We had an Hourglass that could reverse the result of a challenge people had already won. We had Do or Die, where somebody could potentially leave the game because of a game of chance at Tribal. We've had Shot in the Dark, extra votes, lost votes, vote steals, journeys, risk-your-vote decisions and production-made fake idols — because apparently the contestants couldn't even be trusted to make their own fake idols anymore.

Even the Survivor Auction needed instructions. Instead of giving people money and letting us enjoy watching a starving person spend an obscene amount on peanut butter, they had to search for bamboo tubes containing money, there was a secret mechanism controlling when the auction would end, and the person left with the most money could lose their vote. At some point I stopped watching Survivor and started doing homework.

JUST HIDE THE DAMN IDOL — And Let Them Figure It Out.

To be clear: I don't hate idols. I love idols. Hide them everywhere for all I care. Just put people into tribes, hide the idols and let them play. Don't give every idol a name. Don't attach three conditions to it. Don't make someone go on a journey to risk their vote for the opportunity to earn something that might activate something else depending on whether another player does something on another beach.

Hide the damn thing. Let someone find it. Then let them figure out what to do with it. Someone keeps it secret. Someone tells the wrong person. Someone notices them disappearing into the jungle and follows them. Someone makes a fake one. Someone lies about having one. Someone gives one away. Someone gets blindsided with one in their pocket.

That's where the fun is.

Fake idols are the perfect example. Players used to make their own. They'd grab some beads, string and whatever random crap they could find around camp and construct something convincing enough to fool another human being. Then Survivor 44 actually gave players production-made fake idols to plant. Why? Tricking each other is their job. Production doesn't need to manufacture the chaos. Cast the right people and they'll manufacture plenty of it themselves.

SURVIVOR USED TO TRUST ITS PLAYERS — More Than It Does Now.

The best Survivor moves weren't created because somebody found a new advantage. Often somebody simply understood another human being better than that human being understood themselves.

Cirie Fields didn't need a parchment explaining how to manipulate a vote. Tony Vlachos didn't need production to introduce the Secretly Listen to Everyone Advantage. He built a damn spy shack. Cao Boi wasn't handed a Split Vote Advantage — he essentially figured out the split-vote strategy himself. Russell Hantz didn't wait patiently for an idol clue. He started searching because he figured there had to be idols hidden somewhere.

The players were taking the basic tools Survivor gave them and figuring out new ways to use them. That's what innovation in Survivor used to look like. And it's also why Australian Survivor often reminds me more of old-school American Survivor than modern American Survivor does.

AUSTRALIAN SURVIVOR — Let the Players Create the Chaos.

Australian Survivor has idols and twists too — sometimes ridiculous ones. But so many of its best moments come from the players creating the chaos themselves. The casting helps: different ages, professions, personalities and completely different ways of playing. They're casting characters, not people who know how to build a Survivor résumé. And those characters create their own twists.

David Genat in Australian Survivor All Stars.

David Genat didn't need production to hand him a fake idol. He made one himself, conned Shaun Hampson into taking it and walked away with the real one. In All Stars, he secretly worked both sides of the Daisy Richardson blindside while allowing everyone around him to believe a completely different version of events. There are idols involved in both moves. The idols don't create the moves. David does.

Then there's King George Mladenov — possibly the ultimate example of what Australian Survivor is really capable of. His famous "Checkmate" Tribal in Heroes v Villains wasn't about finding a magical new advantage. George publicly exposed cracks in the opposing alliance, pressured Simon into revealing his position, protected Stevie and engineered Fraser's blindside — all while using Tribal Council itself to reshape the tribe going forward. He didn't just organize a vote. He got inside everyone's heads and made them play his game.

Benji Wilson did something similar on a smaller scale. Sharn Coombes was standing at Tribal, ready to save Mat Rogers with her idol. Benji simply started talking. He made her doubt Mat, convinced her she was being played, and watched her change her mind in real time. Mat went home with his own idol still in his pocket. No special power. No journey. No Idol Redirect Advantage. Benji used his mouth.

And then there's Simon Mee in Brains V Brawn. Simon went into Tribal Council holding two immunity idols. Two. Hayley Leake and the players around her created enough confidence and confusion that Simon didn't play either of them. He was voted out with both idols still in his pocket. The idol already has a built-in weakness. It's the person holding it. Convince them they're safe. Problem solved.

THEY'RE NOT CASTING SURVIVOR PLAYERS — They're Casting People.

There's another piece of this that doesn't get talked about enough: who's actually walking off that plane.

Survivor US — eighteen students arriving for the same final exam.

Survivor US casting director Jesse Tannenbaum receives tens of thousands of applications per cycle. He and Jeff Probst have spoken about looking for personality, authenticity, people who jump off the screen. And I believe them. But here's the problem: the applicants have also been watching Survivor for twenty years. They know what a threat is. They know what a résumé is. They know they're supposed to have agency, talk about trust and numbers and Big Moves™, and find something called a Beware Advantage before someone else does.

They arrive ready. Pre-loaded with the vocabulary. Pre-programmed with the strategy. Some of them have probably drawn up flowcharts.

It increasingly feels less like eighteen strangers discovering Survivor together and more like eighteen very enthusiastic students arriving for the final exam. And when everyone knows the assignment — when everyone shows up already speaking the same language, thinking in the same frameworks — people who are actually very different can start feeling strangely similar on television.

And Forster has made another point worth sitting with: being a brilliant Survivor player isn't enough television if you can't communicate what you're doing in an interesting way. Australian Survivor isn't casting people who might play well. It's casting people you're going to want to watch while they play. There's a difference.

Put the 22-year-old superfan who has memorized voting statistics next to the 60-year-old who couldn't care less about anyone's résumé. Put the Olympic athlete beside someone whose greatest physical accomplishment this year was finding the remote. Put the control freak beside someone who refuses to be controlled.

Now I want to watch.

GIVE THEM TIME — Because That's Where the Characters Live.

Modern Survivor US plays out over 26 days. Australian Survivor gives its players substantially more time — more days, more television hours, more episodes to live together, annoy each other, trust each other and eventually do something about it. That extra space matters more than I think people realize.

Old-school Survivor US had room for camp life. We saw stupid arguments. Friendships forming. Personality clashes. People getting on each other's nerves for reasons that had nothing to do with the vote. Conversations that weren't explaining strategy. Those scenes weren't padding. They weren't wasted time. They were why the vote mattered. If I know these people — if I've watched them live together, bicker over rice, form genuine bonds or genuine resentments — I care when one of them betrays another.

If I've spent most of the episode learning how someone's advantage works, I may understand why the vote happened without particularly caring who it happened to.

That's the gap I keep feeling between the two versions. Australian Survivor gives me a complicated vote and I understand the complication through the relationships. Modern Survivor US sometimes gives me a complicated vote and I understand it through the mechanics.

One is asking: Who can I convince?

The other is increasingly asking: What can I use?