Why Jeff Probst cut Survivor 47’s schoolyard pick, and is ‘apprehensive’ about large tribes

On this week’s episode of On Fire with Jeff Probst—the official Survivor podcast on which three white men talk about Survivor 47, a show that does not already have enough white men discussing it (oops, sorry!)—Jeff Probst explained why a key part of the merge episode was missing.

He also reveals that he was “apprehensive” about a change that, well, reverted Survivor back to the way it was for most its first 40 seasons.

Jeff Probst at the reward/immunity challenge for the fake merge (Photo by Robert Voets/CBS)

In this week’s episode about the merge, Jeff Probst addresses cutting the team selection at the immunity challenge from the episode, and also

Probst explains that they added the schoolyard pick to the challenge because “we thought it would be interesting at this point in the game to force them to expose their thought process—and it was a fascinating thought process, especially seeing who was left at the end.”

And then Survivor didn’t show that.

The part of Survivor 47 episode 6 we did not see: Jeff Probst has players (Kyle Ostwald, Teeny Chirichillo, Andy Rueda, Sue Smey, and Sol Yi)—choose rocks to find team captains. (Photo by Robert Voets/CBS)

“If you’re going to do a schoolyard pick to see their thought process, you’ve got to allocate the time in the show so that you can show it,” he added. “And still, when we got to this episode with 90 minutes, there was so much gameplay happening that centered around the vote, that we once again had to make some tough cuts.”

I maintain they had plenty of time; just cut some of the multiple times the “earn the merge” nonsense was explained by players and Probst.

“As fun as it was, we knew—well, look. The result doesn’t change even if we don’t show it, so we won’t show it,” he said.

Probst did say the players picked last were Sue and then Andy, who talked about how being last was familiar to him. “That’s why you want to include it in the episode,” Probst added, and then, you know, did not include it in the episode.

EW’s Dalton Ross reports (citing “my sources”), that the team captains were Teeny and Tiyana, and they chose Sam, Gabe, Kyle, and Sol first.

Rome in Survivor 47 episode 4, two episodes before his game ended in a spectacular way (Photo by Robert Voets/CBS)

In another curious moment, Probst also says that “the entire episode is really told through Rome’s point of view. It’s subtle, but it’s there: every turning point is essentially seen through Rome’s eyes.”

Except: Was it? We saw so much that he did not, from the conversations at camp to the voting booth!

What made this episode so fun for me was that it had a third-person omniscient point of view. Many Survivor episodes are told using a third-person limited perspective, where we only see some players’ point of view, and thus we as viewers can be surprised, like at Tribal Council. But here, we got to see everyone plotting against Rome while he thought he was in control, and it added a layer of comedy to the drama.

Speaking of Tribal Council: the best change to the new-era merge came this season, when the entire merged tribe was allowed to vote as one, just like, you know, how the game used to work.

But Survivor showrunner and executive producer Jeff Probst, who has hosted for all 47 seasons, is skeptical about having a large group of players vote together, something that only happened for, um, most of Survivor’s life.

During seasons one through 40, tribes merged, and that new tribe has gone to Tribal Council. There are exceptions, of course. In Fiji, the merged tribe divided into two teams, kind of like this new era; and there was the fake merge in Thailand. But most seasons have started with two or three larger tribes that merged back into one larger tribe about halfway through the season.

So it’s kind of wild to hear Jeff Probst say this: “I will admit: I am very apprehensive about this large group idea, because I think—and I’ve seen—that it’s so easy for a vote to become a landslide vote, because nobody wants it to be them,” he said. “So the minute you hear any name, as long as it’s not yours—even if they’re in your alliance—you’re inclined to say you know what I can do that because you just want to survive.”

This is a fair point; one of the fascinating/frustrating parts of the new CBS competition The Summit’s early episodes has been how the players vote as one hive mind. One considerable difference is that The Summit’s players vote publicly; Survivor’s players have secret ballots.

Anyway, Probst said, “I’ve always felt like that makes it easy.” However, he’s open to changing his mind—well, about this, not about his incessant babble during challenges.

“But what I did hear at that Tribal was the players saying this is equally scary and here’s why: Yes, a small tribe—there’s nowhere to hide. There’s also only a couple of people you need to persuade to control the vote. Here, yeah, there’s some room to hide, but there’s so many more people you need in terms of numbers to control the vote. So I understand it better now.”

The scary/safe nonsense aside, I am glad he finally understands the value of having larger tribes—which I’d say should apply to both the merge and the pre-merge game.

For that, I’d love to see a return to two starting tribes, at least for some seasons. It’s been particularly frustrating to have small, six-person tribes when several players in a tribe are hobbled by twists and advantages, such as losing a vote or having 25 bonus votes plus a fish they can slap someone in the head with just for fun.