It was tragic to see all the old school players get picked off one-by-one (+ Natalie) from the very start. It's unfortunate because it was likely helped by pre-game alliances between the new school players to take all those people out, but more so because it may very likely result in CBS choosing not to bring back older school players in the future "because they just can't handle the evolution of the game."
Sandra's elimination was sad, but it was an epic blunder on her part (and she's admitted that), and an incredible move by Denise. Sandra's legacy as the queen of Survivor is not tarnished by this or her decision to not participate in Edge of Extinction (not a single person can argue Sandra could've won either of the comeback challenges, seeing how physical they were and how well people like Tyson and Natalie performed in them).
Michele, Natalie, and Tony is honestly probably the best Final 3 we've had since San Juan del Sur (in my opinion). A valid argument can be made for each of them as to why they deserved to win, and I think most people would've been satisfied (to differing degrees obviously) with any of them winning.
Tony going the entire season without ever receiving a vote against is one of the most mind boggling things we've ever seen on Survivor, and is a testament to how well he played this season. I would argue against saying he was never targeted however, because he was Natalie's #1 target upon her return, but due to his idol, final five individual immunity win, and her fire-making decision, she couldn't get him out (We have no reason to believe Natalie could've beaten Tony in fire, and although it's possible Michele could've beat him, it's not a guarantee).
This season should've had 90 minute episodes, if not 2 hours. The editing this season was very questionable, largely due to Edge of Extinction. The family visit could've easily been a 2 hour episode, with only Tyson's elimination, and the double penultimate episode of Jeremy/Nick's eliminations should've been 2 hours, not crammed into 60 minutes. Or even better, there should've been another episode so the only double boot was the Double Tribal pre-merge when Parvati/Sandra left.
I'm going to guess with fairly high levels of confidence that they intended to have all 20 castaways on Zoom for the Reunion, but realized in test-runs prior to the finale that there were too many opportunities for technical difficulties, which is when they made the decision to have no reunion and just the final three on Zoom for less than 5 minutes to announce the winner.
This was the first "modern era" Survivor season I would say that didn't feel completely bogged down by advantages/idols. Some of the new advantages were questionable, but they made for interesting television, and most of the questionable ones were limited to a single episode, so they weren't lingering around for the entire season.
While this was overall a good season, I wouldn't say this is the best all-returnee season of all time. If I were to rank every season, WaW wouldn't make it into the Top 5, but it might just barely scrape into the Top 10. Also this isn't the best all-returnee season we've had, but it was a lot more enjoyable than Game Changers.
Fire Tokens worked well as a new twist, and I actually didn't hate it. However, I do not know if it has the potential to work as well without Edge of Extinction also in play. I fully expect Fire Tokens to return for Season 41, and it will be interesting to see how that pans out without Edge to help create the "two societies" narrative they went for this season.
I'm happy Natalie was the one who returned from Edge of Extinction. I'm happy Natalie played the last three rounds well. I'm happy Natalie made it to the Final 3. I'm happy the twist allowed us to see how strong of a player Natalie can be, and give us a glimpse of what we might've missed out on had she not been voted off first. However, Edge of Extinction is a fundamentally broken twist, and I truly do hope we never see it again. Especially with Fire Tokens present, it heavily favors those voted out early and leaves those voted out later in the game (Kim, Jeremy, Nick, etc.) without any real chance at making it back into the game. As highlighted with Sandra, it also really only favors those who are strong physical players - weaker/older players who have to rely more on their social skills or strategic minds have no real chance in these heavily physical endurance obstacle courses against athletes and younger/stronger players. Natalie being the one to come back and slay at the end was certainly more exciting to watch than Chris Underwood, but we'd already seen Natalie play a season prior - we all fell in love with her as a player and a winner, so there were a million more reasons we could root for her (or anyone this season for that matter) than there was Chris, whom we only saw for 3 episodes prior to his comeback and he was quite boring in that time. I'm happy for Natalie, but her being the one to comeback and dominate at the end doesn't change my attitude towards the twist.
[tl;dr] - Best final 3 we've had in a long time. Edge of Extinction is still a horrible twist I hope we never see again, but I'm glad Natalie was able to dominate it and be the one to comeback and slay the final three rounds of the game. Editing this season was whack 90% of the time, and we shoulda had longer episodes.
