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Survivor In The Media

RescueMom

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Jeff Probst on His Future on ‘Survivor,’ the Format Change He Was Told Would ‘Kill the Franchise’ and Already Planning for 51
By Emily Longeretta   Jun 18, 2024
https://variety.com/2024/awards/features/jeff-probst-survivor-format-changes-season-51-1236040161/ 

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“I just started a file for Season 51. Because I thought, I have an idea of something fun for 50, and then what are we going to do for 51? Not some dramatic change but another layer. It does take time to think about,” he says. “The file for 51, it’s just scribbles. But you have to be great every time; you can’t have a lousy season of ‘Survivor.’” 
*  *  *
“I remember several people telling me, ‘You’re gonna kill the franchise,’” he says of reducing the shooting schedule by a third and still delivering the same hours of television. They even gave the network a bit more. In Season 45, CBS greenlit 90-minute episodes, instead of the usual hour-long format. “We’ve gone from 39 days delivering 16 hours, to 26 days delivering 22 hours. I am proud that we were able to pull it off. It’s a Herculean effort by our teams,” he says. “But we like it, and I feel like we do have a new era. And to go to 39 days just doesn’t interest me. This game works.” 
*  *  *
The theme of the new era is “dangerous fun.” Part of that danger was getting rid of the rice given to castaways during the first half of the game. Probst called former players, including “White Lotus” creator Mike White, to ask their opinions. They all agreed that playing without the single bag of rice to be split among the tribe was doable, as did the medical team. 

“We just figured out it seemed to be between 15 and 18 or 19 days is when you need to give them something [to eat]. But that is an extraordinarily long time to go without food. And you do run the risk of them not having enough energy. We haven’t run into that yet,” he says. “It is a weird world to live in where you’re designing a game to break people, to see what’s in their tank, but you don’t want to injure them. You just want to push them further than they will probably ever been in their life.” 

And that’s exactly what “Survivor” has done from day one. The production has also provided mental health support for cast members from start to finish. Participants first meet the psychology team during casting and have full access to them during filming. “But the key is afterward, when you come home and you start to process your experiences,” says Probst. The team has compiled a full binder of resources and a list of different psychologists with different specialties. 

“You’re not just stuck working with our psychologist, and we’re there until you’re done. There is no end. We still have people from early seasons that maybe have medical needs or psychological needs,” says Probst.  

Additionally, castaways are given a welcome packet that walks them through what could happen after the show — from feeling you weren’t on it enough or receiving mean comments online to feeling like you don’t matter. 

“It’s to say, ‘We’re here. We’re always here.’ One page in the welcome packet is a sampling of one day of the hate mail I get,” Probst says. The packet includes quotes from former players sharing how they got through certain aspects of post-game reactions. “We’re trying to say, we’ve been there before you, we’re going to help you get through it and we’ll be there afterward.” 
*  *  *
Over 46 seasons, “Survivor” has changed in many ways. Each season had a theme, but Probst admits he was running out of ideas — and not every idea was a good one. For example, for years, he wanted an “economy-based” season; he had an idea for a trading post where idols and other items were available for purchase. He even had a friend “build an algorithm” to price every item out. Then he asked White about it. “All he said was, ‘Does that sound fun?’” Probst says. “I said, ‘Not at all. I’ve gotta go.’” 

Another idea that didn’t work was the Change History Advantage put in place in Seasons 41 and 42, during which a castaway could literally flip an hourglass and change something from the past. 
*  *  *
“The idea was ‘dangerous fun’ … And I went too far,” Probst recalls. “I loved the title. I had it on my whiteboard for 10 years and I knew it’d never work. But I just got a little drunk on the idea of dangerous fun, and boy did I hear about it!” 

... The casting process changed in 2020, when CBS president and CEO George Cheeks mandated that 50% of the cast be BIPOC. 

“In the early seasons, I think of the unscripted genre in general, you could typecast because it was so new — this is the mom, this is the leading man, this is the college student,” says Probst. “That’s not enough for me anymore. I want compelling, three-dimensional people from completely different walks of life.” 

When Cheeks put the new rule in place, “it forced us to dig deeper in our process of casting and the riches are on display in every new season of ‘Survivor,’” the longtime producer explains. “It’s been a really great teacher to me about the phrase ‘representation matters,’ because now you do have people applying who, when we meet them, say, ‘I applied because I saw a young woman who looked like me, who sounded like me, who was where I was from, and I realized that she can do it, maybe I can do it.’” 

Edited by tv echo
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kav

kav

On 6/16/2024 at 2:02 AM, LadyChatts said:

I don't know what the status is going to be for the Paramount+ app, but it'd be cool if they did some specials on there leading up to the 50th season (if not directly on CBS), and I'd love to hear from some of the really old-era castaways.  50 seasons is a big milestone, but the show will have been on 26 years on top of that so that's a huge accomplishment too, considering many didn't think Survivor would make it 5 years.

Rob C from Amazon has a podcast that he does with TBIRD (Theresa Cooper from Africa) called Talking With Tbird where they interview former players.  They recently had Tina.  They have also done Maddog, Kelly W, Jerri and many others.

 

I would love for them on the season to do some sort of memorial for those players who have passed away.  I think it is at around 10 people.  They could invite family members of those players to come to the island or something.  Another cool special might be on how former players used their money to make a positive difference in their community. 

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tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

‘Everything on That Island Wanted to Kill You’ The first Survivor crew slept tent-less on a beach covered in rats and snakes. And then it got worse.
By Emily Nussbaum  Intro by Joe Reid  July 5, 2024
https://www.vulture.com/article/how-the-first-crew-of-survivor-survived-the-show.html 

Quote

... The contestants didn’t even understand what kind of TV they’d be making — some envisioned a wilderness documentary, others had prepared for an endurance adventure, a few thought they’d be making a docu-soap.

In Emily Nussbaum’s new book Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic digs into the roots of the genre that indeed changed television forever. In this excerpt on the birth of Survivor, Nussbaum goes back to the moments before the 16 original castaways were marooned off the sides of a ship in the South China Sea, left to row toward a beach where their game — and the production of the show — had already begun. It was a competition and a network gamble that many in front of and behind the camera were not prepared for, and for which they would all have to make up the rules as they went along.
*  *  *
EXCERPT FROM ‘CUE THE SUN! THE INVENTION OF REALITY TV'

Survivor began filming on March 13, 2000. The 16 castaways, who knew very little about the format they’d signed up for, based their expectations on previous reality shows. Gretchen Cordy, a former Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape trainer for the Air Force, imagined a gritty adventure-sports series, something like Mark Burnett’s previous TV show Eco-Challenge. College student Colleen Haskell thought of MTV’s The Real World. Several players harbored Hollywood dreams; they all wanted the prize money. But a significant proportion of the group had applied primarily as an existential adventure, like skydiving or a silent Buddhist retreat. This peculiar new type of television show would be a test of their strength, a way of exploring who they were and what, exactly, they were capable of.

Under strict orders not to interact with one another, the cast flew to Borneo. For two days, they stayed at the Magellan hotel in Kota Kinabalu, eating heartily, getting schooled on survival skills, and learning the rules (no hitting, no splitting the money). Each of them was cleared for one “luxury” item, like tweezers (the truckdriver Sue Hawk) or the Bible (the evangelical Dirk Been). Finally, they boarded a schooner to the island, Pulau Tiga, a four-hour ride. Only then were the rules against fraternization finally lifted. Gervase Peterson gave Ramona Gray, the only other Black contestant, a nod. Sue spoke with Gretchen, her fellow practical tomboy. Gretchen also walked over to Richard Hatch, a corporate consultant from Rhode Island, hoping to share first impressions. He told her that he was gay and asked if she had a problem with that — and when she said that she didn’t, that her father was gay, he cut her off to tell her that she was wasting her time. Gretchen should just quit Survivor, Richard told her. The game was going to have only one winner: him.
*  *  *
These conditions would get worse for both the cast and the crew over the next thirty-eight days. That was the paradox of the first season of Survivor: CBS had launched a wildly ambitious, shrewdly structured television show, one that would elevate the scrappy, low-fi reality genre into something more like a slick, hypnotic blockbuster movie. They were inventing new production techniques on the fly — ways to gamify personal relationships, to turn real life into plot points, to make suffering beautiful. But the Survivor production was simultaneously understaffed and under-budgeted, made by people who were underslept and starving. It was a brutal work environment that left those who had endured it even prouder of what they had accomplished, given the conditions they had accomplished them in.
*  *  *
Amidst this chaos, the castaways struggled to figure out the game: Were you supposed to demonstrate survival skills? Show that you were a leader? Or was the game about something else? It wasn’t clear, at first. On Tagi, river guide Kelly Wiglesworth focused on impressing her teammates, shucking coconuts, trying to make fire in humidity so extreme she felt like she could sip the air with a straw. Early on, she butted heads with the sole remaining member of the older demographic, military veteran Rudy Boesch, who struck her as dead weight. “And I was like, ‘You are the most useless military man ever.’ And he was like, ‘Well, I was a Navy SEAL. We weren’t supposed to build fires… . We weren’t supposed to be seen. I just came in and killed people!’ And I was like, ‘Okay, point taken.’ ”

Edited by tv echo
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ApprenticeFan

ApprenticeFan

Off Topic

ABC has just announced the 2024 fall schedule, I think Survivor 47 will premiere on September 18 alongside The Summit. If the latter fails to get viewership, The Amazing Race 37 may premiere in October as The Summit will be bumped to Paramount+ on Saturdays.

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SVNBob

SVNBob

On 7/11/2024 at 2:25 AM, Soapy Goddess said:

What's the Summit about?

 

From the promos that aired during the final episodes of Survivor and TAR this season, it's a reality competition where 14 people have a limited timeframe to climb (with supervsion) one of the Alps of New Zealand.  And they're carrying the prize money in their packs.

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ApprenticeFan

ApprenticeFan

(edited)
On 7/11/2024 at 9:09 AM, ApprenticeFan said:

Off Topic

ABC has just announced the 2024 fall schedule, I think Survivor 47 will premiere on September 18 alongside The Summit. If the latter fails to get viewership, The Amazing Race 37 may premiere in October as The Summit will be bumped to Paramount+ on Saturdays.

It turns out I got it right. Survivor 47 will be a 2-hour premiere on the first episode and will be in a regular 90-minute episode the following week.

https://deadline.com/2024/07/cbs-fall-premiere-dates-2024-1236008913/

Edited by ApprenticeFan
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Quilt Fairy

Quilt Fairy

(edited)
On 7/12/2024 at 2:48 AM, SVNBob said:

to climb (with supervsion) one of the Alps of New Zealand.

Between season 2 of Alone-Australia, Race to Survive: New Zealand and now this, New Zealand is getting quite the tourist boost this year.   Probably the most since the LOTR trilogy came out. 

Edited by Quilt Fairy
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tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

Apparently he once auditioned for Survivor and was almost cast...

The Summer of Joe Manganiello Is Just Heating Up
Paul Schrodt   Jul 16, 2024 
https://www.mensjournal.com/entertainment/joe-manganiello 

Quote

But his love of shows with physical stakes started with Survivor. He was hooked from the first season that premiered in 2000. And he and his two roommates threw weekly Survivor parties in their West Hollywood house.

“I was at a house party a few years later and ran into someone who worked for CBS casting, and they said, ‘You would be great for Survivor.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, I can win!’ I went into my whole strategy, and they said, ‘Would you make a tape? But you can't be an actor.’ ” Since he was working for a masonry company to pay bills, he decided to make an audition tape as Joe the construction worker from Pittsburgh, descendent of an Armenian genocide survivor. “I'm a survivor. I have survivor genes in my blood.”

The producers wanted to cast him, but then a pilot he filmed a year before got picked up. Alas, Manganiello’s Survivor dreams were dashed by, of all things, VH1’s So Notorious starring Tori Spelling. “I had no agent, no manager. I'm shoveling sand and gravel,” he remembers of those early, hungry years.

He’s held onto his Survivor strategy all this time. “I was going to get my eyes corrected by surgery, because I wear contacts, even though I found out they give you contact solution. And I'd met a yogi whose specialty was taking people off solid foods. The philosophy is that you could eat a leaf that contains more nutrients in it than an entire large pepperoni pizza. I was going to wean myself off solid food so I wasn't worried about energy. And then, as a big, athletic male, you're going to help win all the challenges for your tribe. But at the merge, you're going to have to win immunity, because I'm a target.”

Edited by tv echo
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tv echo

tv echo

Jeff Probst & Manu Bennett Discuss the Triumphs & Trials of Reality TV | Conversations Between St…
CBS   Aug 15, 2024

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Reality competition hosts Jeff Probst ('Survivor') and Manu Bennett ('The Summit') discuss the power of human determination and triumph, their connection to contestants, and the unique adventures of their shows. 

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Jobiska

Jobiska

I just came across a USA network reality show "The Anonymous" and one of the contestants is Sandra Diaz-Twine's daughter Nina Twine (who looks a lot like her...which one fellow contestant has already noted!)  Apparently Nina has been on Survivor Australia twice (I haven't watched that).

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SummerDreams

SummerDreams

10 hours ago, Jobiska said:

I just came across a USA network reality show "The Anonymous" and one of the contestants is Sandra Diaz-Twine's daughter Nina Twine (who looks a lot like her...which one fellow contestant has already noted!)  Apparently Nina has been on Survivor Australia twice (I haven't watched that).

I suggest you watch all Australian survivors, they are 100 times better than modern American survivor.

 

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kav

kav

I hope Jeff has some way to honor the past Survivors who have past away during the season.  I am not sure how many there are, maybe 15ish?

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tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

'Survivor' Alum Ryan Medrano Wins Silver Medal at Paralympics
Mike Bloom    Aug 31, 2024
https://parade.com/tv/survivor-ryan-medrano-silver-medal-paralympics

Quote

Ryan Medrano, a Survivor alum who competed on Season 43 in 2022, won a silver medal in the men's 100-meter T38 event at the 2024 Paralympic Games. Medrano placed behind fellow American Jaydin Blackwell, who set a world record for the event with a time of 10.64 seconds.

This is Medrano's first time at the Paralympics. The T38 event is designated for athletes with hypertonia, ataxia, and athetosis, common symptoms of cerebral palsy. Medrano was born early, and grew up with mild cerebral palsy.

Edited by tv echo
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SVNBob

SVNBob

20 hours ago, tv echo said:

'Survivor' Alum Ryan Medrano Wins Silver Medal at Paralympics

...and is thus practically guaranteed a spot on Survivor 50.

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seacliffsal

seacliffsal

I am so excited about tomorrow night's premiere.  It's been too long since there's been an episode of Survivor on t.v.!  And, no matter how much I might complain about idols, advantages, etc., I still think this is one of the best shows on t.v.

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Carey

Carey

Sorta forgot the show was on tonight.  Funny thing is that I remembered the past week but early this week, I forgot that new content starts on Wednesday.  Figured that I would since it feels like 09/25 would've been the definitive start date

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seacliffsal

seacliffsal

17 minutes ago, tv echo said:

Jeff Probst Says He Was 'Shocked' By the First Boot of 'Survivor 47'
Mike Bloom   Sep 18, 2024
Parade article link 

Well, if Jeff is so 'shocked' maybe they should rethink their casting priorities or the way he tried to publicly give accolades to Andy (this is why you signed up, you can grow from this, etc.).

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Lantern7

Lantern7

In case you missed it, here’s the Reality Blurred recap of the first episode. Andy went all-in on the snark.

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The challenge had exciting, brand-new elements, like crawling under a muddy net and retrieving puzzle pieces while a middle-aged white man yelled at them descriptions of what they were doing in that moment. 

The man also yelled “THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT ON SURVIVOR” which would seem self-evident, but what do I know? I only scream at my TV.

 

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During a commercial break, everyone’s favorite Survivor loser and Traitors winner Cirie Fields was in a commercial for the film The Wild Robot, and convincingly delivered some strained lines about “true survival” and how Survivor and the movie are about being “more than you were programmed to be.” You get that Dreamworks cash, Cirie!

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“It is an absolutely disaster in the first immunity challenge of Survivor 47,” Screamface McNarrator yelled at them as they floated in the ocean being crushed by giant props. “You wanted Survivor. YOU GOT SURVIVOR RIGHT HERE YOU FUCKING FAILURES NOW GET UP BECAUSE DADDY DOESN’T WANT ANY DROWNING.” The editors went to commercial before the “fucking failures” part so I wrote the rest in my head.

Quote

 

The doctor gave Andy water, and Andy whined so much Probst said, “Dude, you’re in the game still. Stop. I’m with you.” 

In Andy’s defense, having Jeff Probst kneel next to you and narrate your medical condition usually means you’re about to die.

 

 

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tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

Jeff Probst Reveals What Old-School 'Survivor' Element May Come Back
Mike Bloom   Sep 25, 2024
https://parade.com/tv/jeff-probst-survivor-47-luxury-item-old-school-return 

Quote

The topic of luxury items was brought up on the most recent episode of "On Fire: The Official Survivor Podcast." While the show typically recaps that week's installment of the CBS reality series, they often close out the podcast with questions from the audience. One listener asked about why the personal mementos have not been seen on the show in some time, allowing Jeff Probst to pull open the curtain on their decision-making.

"In the early seasons, we allowed them to bring one emotional item," the host and executive producer answered, "Which means it couldn't be survival related. You're not going to bring a toothbrush. But then we stopped letting them start the game, and we started using them as rewards. And then we just stopped altogether. But we do still have them. They bring one with them, and we approve them, and then we hold them in case we decide we want to use them in the game for any number of reasons."

Edited by tv echo
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LadyChatts

LadyChatts

I feel like someone brought a toothbrush once but maybe I’m wrong.  Also, I know John Carroll specifically brought cologne because it had alcohol in it and he thought it might be able to help start the fire.  So I think contestants tried finding loopholes in not bringing survival related items.  

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tv echo

tv echo

(edited)

'Survivor 47's Terran "TK" Foster Says Kyle Turned Tiyana Against Him
Mike Bloom   Sep 26, 2024
https://parade.com/tv/terran-tk-foster-survivor-47-eliminated-interview 

Vegetarian Kyle struggles after eating meat in exclusive Survivor 47 deleted scene
By Dalton Ross   September 26, 2024
https://ew.com/survivor-47-kyle-struggles-after-eating-meat-exclusive-deleted-scene-8718165 

‘Survivor’: Jeff Probst Apologizes for Being ‘Too Cocky’ With Players in Early Seasons
Kelli Boyle   September 26, 2024
https://www.tvinsider.com/1154087/survivor-jeff-probst-apologizes-triggering-cast/ 

Edited by tv echo
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