The media coverage around Survivor 50 continues to trickle out, and by trickle, I mean it’s the entertainment media version of Niagara Falls.
Among the many interviews is David Canfield’s profile of Jeff Probst for Vanity Fair, which was published toward the end of January.
Survivor connection aside, it’s the best kind of celebrity profile: among the context and information that many of us already know, there are fun, colorful, surprising scenes that reveal personality, like Probst’s pre-challenge ritual.
There are also tidbits, like twist teases (“an unprecedented game-changing format shift” that causes “gasps” and a “deadly serious” mood among the players) and Mike White sharing that Probst texts him while watching The White Lotus and is one of Mike White’s “hype men.”
Canfield’s writing is often a delight, like when he refers to Probst with the perfect five-word encapsulation of his role as showrunner and visionary: “the most benevolent of dictators.”
Having read the profile, I now wonder how Jeff Probst felt about that phrase, since at one point, he says that criticism of the Survivor 50 cast — including from rejected cast members — “hurts my heart. People think I probably don’t care — that somehow I’m immune from it. No. I’m a deep-feeling person.”
Here are 11 other things that stood out to me while reading.
To me — and I am not being snarky here — the most profound Probst quotation in the entire piece was this:
“That’s what happens when you do a show like this for two and a half decades — you make tons of mistakes. You don’t even know you’re making them. In the moment, they feel right.”
As I’ve written before, I’m convinced Jeff is trying to make the best show he can. I just have wild disagreement with many of his choices, choices that sometimes cause me to turn into that fire-head character from Inside Out.
But this is the most human way of describing things. Maybe he could remind us of that more? Though I guess interviews wouldn’t be great if he kept saying, We’re doing this because it felt right in this moment, but it may be a colossal fuck-up the size of Mike White’s ego!
And speaking of fuck-ups….
The most outrageous thing about Jeff Probst changing his challenge welcome “come on in, guys” to “come on in” was not the change itself.
Sure, it caused the snowflakes to freak out and melt all over the internet, as if saying “guys” was really the part of Survivor that they loved the most.
But instead of just making the change — a change few people would have noticed — was that he turned into a The Jeff Probst Show moment, asking the players at Survivor 41’s very first reward challenge, “What do you think?”
Clueless about the power dynamics at play — never mind repercussions for the players in the game and/or when the show aired — he basically was like, Okay fine we’ll keep it until the next challenge, when Ricard said language matters (indeed) and it should change. Then Probst agreed and said, “I’m with you: I want to change it.” SO WHY DID YOU NOT JUST DO THAT?!?
Sorry! Fire is no longer coming out of my head. In the profile, we learn the change was actually “a shift suggested by his daughter.”
Probst also said, “Everybody got upset because I’m ‘too woke’ or whatever, which is irrelevant to me. I don’t care about that. I only care about if I feel like I’m doing the right thing in the right way.” Hmm, then maybe just own it?
The Wi-Fi network for Probst’s rental house is “thesanctuary,” and Canfield tells us, “If you’re reading this as a fan of the show, you might be able to guess the password.”
By the way, as we’ve heard before, the house he rents is right next door to Tribal Council. And it’s amazing people have houses next door to Tribal Council! Just look at this map.
Canfield watched a reward challenge where Applebee’s is the reward — including the Shark Bowl cocktail with its gummy candy shark. That’s a nice throwback to Survivor: Borneo: totally hilarious product integration!
But there’s a second fun fact here. Apparently the rehearsal wasn’t going well and/or Probst was channeling Liz, because this happened:
Probst rehearses his lines: “An Applebee’s reward would not be complete without the Shark Bowl.” He says “fuck” intermittently, leading to a few concerned looks between parents and kids. They shouldn’t be shocked; Probst’s earnestness may be contagious, but fuck is one of his favorite words.
Oh no, the children! Seriously, they’ll be fine; I’m sure they’d rather hear adults use explicit language than pander to them.
We won’t get a third era of Survivor next fall. While Survivor 51 won’t film until later this spring, and wasn’t even in pre-production when this article was reported, Probst said that season 51 is “probably not gonna be something dramatically different. Tiny steps.”
If you thought Jeff might pull a Padma Lakshmi and bail after a milestone season’s conclusion, Probst said he likes the gig anywhere — though he fears being fired like Australian Survivor host Jonathan LaPaglia was (“Why don’t we get somebody new and fresh and different and get rid of Probst?”).
Canfield’s discussions with several Survivor 50 players reveal they think Probst is inextricably tied to the show. “There is no Survivor without Jeff. When Jeff is done, Survivor is done,” Cirie Fields said.
Probst both does and doesn’t believe that:
“I’m flattered about that. If you like Survivor, then on some level you also like a part of me. I put my soul into this. My blood is all over that show. Every idea I ever have goes into the show. … But I don’t think it’s true — and I’m not being self-deprecating. The show would be fun and it would be different [without me].”
In every episode of Survivor, you’ll see Mark Burnett’s name as the very first executive producer in the credits. But he is not involved with Survivor now. (When I was on location for Survivor: Samoa, Burnett showed up — I didn’t see him in Gabon or Brazil — and producers said they talked to him, but he was also clearly just observing, and left all the day-to-day producing to others.)
Canfield has this tidbit in the profile:
“We talk all the time,” Probst says. About Survivor? “No,” he says flatly. All those years ago, when Burnett stepped aside as showrunner, he told Probst, “I’m going to give you this show.” He’s held to that.
I thought Burnett was the current special envoy to the UK, appointed by the man he helped make our racist-in-chief, but he quit that job too.
In one of many fun scenes, Canfield rides with Probst in his golf cart around Mana Island, which has hosted every season since 33:
“I get lost on this island that I’ve been on for a decade. I’ve got topographical disorientation — I don’t ever know if I’m north, south, east, or west,” says Probst, making a U-turn in his golf cart. It’s last June, and he’s agreed to drive me around Survivor HQ for the next few days. “Everybody laughs that I still don’t know how to get from my house to tribal [council] — and tribal’s only 100 yards away.”
Canfield reports what we’ve learned before: CBS’s mandate that half of its reality TV casts be people of color didn’t even last five years.
But thankfully, Jeff Probst thinks it made Survivor better (I agree!).
“We took it as a beautiful challenge, and as much as anything in the history of Survivor, it changed Survivor. It’s absolute proof that representation makes a difference.”
While he says he’d cast a trans person and air conversations about accepting trans people, Canfield reports that “Probst reminds me he will not publicly discuss his own politics. He insists that Survivor is not political.”
LOL stop, I can’t laugh this much. Seriously, I know why he’s saying that — he doesn’t want Survivor to be destroyed by the bad-faith creeps who want to control everything we watch — but it’s just beyond silly to pretend that art isn’t political; and TV isn’t political; and a strategic, social game that he’s referred to as “a microcosm for our real world” is not political.
A small moment with Probst on one of the boats that transports crew and cast around the islands:
“Good morning, David. Good morning, good morning. Who else can I say good morning to?” he says cheerfully before taking a seat in the back corner of the boat, covering his ears, closing his eyes, and not speaking until we debark. This, I’m told, is his pre-challenge ritual.
How can we make not speaking his during-challenge ritual? Asking for a friend.
