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| SPOILERS and Speculation
(Semi-chronological) |
February 1, 2007: Game-play related tidbits
(excerpted) from the seasonal Jeff Probst pre-Ep1 media
teleconference, as transcribed by MayanSun of SurvivorFever.net,
and posted at Sucks. (Note: Just general spoilers here,
we copied the cast-related info over to the Probst Cast
Impressions page):
| Exile Island |
| "There's one difference
to Exile Island in that it does have literally
thousands of deadly sea snakes and you see that
play out in episode 2 when
the person on Exile has a run in with a snake. It's very clear that
they exist and are a problem." |
| "This time what they'll
find when they get there, the first clue will tell
them that it's not on Exile Island, it's back at
your camp. So it immediately throws kind of an
interesting dilemma. Now that I know this do
I share this information with anybody or do I secretly
try to be the person who gets sent back to Exile
again so I can keep this secret and get more clues
and try to find the whereabouts? And now when I'm
back at camp how do you look
for an idol when you're living with 6, 7, 8, 9
other people? So it complicated
that and added just one more element to that." |
On a related topic...
| Hidden immunity idols |
| "If you have
the idol you've got to decide, 'do I think it's
me, do I think they're playing me? Do I need to
play the idol right now?' The
idol I can tell you gets played more than once
this season. It's not a season of Yul holding on
til the end. " |
| "When they
first go to Exile Island the clue literally says,
words to the effect of, 'you will find this
back at your beach.' Subsequent clues tell
them where exactly to look. So the dilemma we had
was, how do you have the same clue apply to both
beaches and hide the idol in the same spot? Then
they slowly realize, what a second, there's one
on our beach, there's gotta be one on their beach. If
there's ever a switch or a merge or any of that
stuff, it became a really big game of cat and mouse
of who knew what, who might be looking for the
idol, who wanted to go to Exile Island and why?" |
And then there's the topic of...
| Two tribes...
'Haves' versus 'Have nots' |
| "You
cut from the winning tribe where one of the tribe
members says 'How bad is it that we have more
food here than some of the people at home watching
have in their refrigerator.' Cut to the other tribe
where they are on their hands
and knees literally licking leaves to get drops
of water. It's the hardest I've seen a group hit
probably since Africa. They just, they don't have anything and they're
not seasoned survivalists. They don't know what
to do so they literally start tearing palm fronds
off and laying them on the ground and telling each
other, 'this works, lick 'em.'" |
| "Survivor
is about social interaction. This fulfilled that
mantra. We've now got a new dynamic and after 14
seasons we fortunately found something that worked
in which we created adversaries so fast, it grows
because it's very hard to
catch up to the tribe that has this big of a lead
in terms of your living situation. So you have some animosity." |
"Question:
...Having one tribe in a very fancy camp with a
lot of food and the other tribe with no food and
no water, doesn't that throw off the challenges,
that it is almost unfair?
Probst: Possibly. I think
that's a fair question and potentially fair criticism.
You have to see it play out but in terms of it
being fair, it's not the word I would use. It just
is. There's nothing to say
that the tribe that has the winning shelter will
be entitled to it forever, either. There's nothing
to say that just because you won it that doesn't
mean we won't take it." |
Gulp... so you mean they never lose, but you screw them
over, anyway?
And lest we forget...
| Future 'twists'
and other such 'noteworthy' events |
| "[The car
challenge] is back. The reason that it wasn't
there last year is that before the show started
we didn't have a car sponsor. I'll tell you 'til
I'm blue in the face, GM did not drop out because
of our race thing. We know in advance they didn't
want to be in the show anymore so they left. Ford
came in and I'll tell you this, the
car challenge is back and the car curse, the question
of the car curse is back. The car challenge plays
an instrumental role in this season, a huge role. I feel bad that
GM was a sponsor all these years and Ford comes
in the first season and gets a lot of bang for
their buck." |
| "I just
watched Episode 3 last night about 1:30 in the
morning and I just sat there going, 'man the execution
of this show.'" |
| "And he may
not be as strong as Rocky or Mookie or Boo or Alex
or Edgardo, all these guys we haven't talked about.
We have some really strong guys. This
is definitely a season dominated by strong guys
in their late twenties, early thirties." |
| "There's one
other thing that happened late
in the game. There's a big ethical decision that
has to be made that
I think people will care about. I think by the
time it happens you will be invested in the people
involved, that you will care. It's the quintessential
question of Survivor. Where do ethics begin and
end and where does the game begin and end? It poses
that question. What is your
word worth in this game and in your life and is
there a difference? Would you act the same way at home? When we were
out there and it happened it was a big moment.
I think on the show it will probably have the same
sort of significance. It's something to look out
for." |
|
| Source |
| TV Guide Channel's Survivor:
Fiji Preview show |
January 28, 2007: Nominal
"highlights" of spoiler-related variety from
TV Guide Channel's Survivor: Fiji Preview show:
Theme:
- Jeff Probst: "We have a big cannibalism theme going
on this year, because Fiji is one of the places where,
as recently as 100 years ago, cannibalism was very normal."
 Challenges:
- Jeff Probst: "One thing that we're doing this season,
that we haven't done in a while, is a food-eating
challenge. We're going around, as we always do,
to the locals, and saying, 'What do you eat?' One of the
things that surprised me, that they say they eat all the
time is pig snouts. And I thought, wow,
is that Survivor? Yeah!" [No word if, in keeping with
the cannibalism "theme", the Survivors have to
force pigs to eat pig snouts].
|
January 12, 2007: Brief
but info-filled blurb from TVGuide.com:
"Survivor: Fiji — Shocking
Twists Revealed!
The tribes will be segregated by political
affiliation! No, by sexual orientation! Actually, the plan
for Survivor: Fiji, premiering Feb. 8, is to group the
19 castaways as one tribe equipped with enough supplies
and resources to fashion themselves an exceptionally cozy
camp. But come Day 3, one player will
be called upon to split the one mass into two. The tribe which then wins
the first immunity challenge lives large at the existing
camp, while the other is relocated to a separate island
with only a pot, a machete and a water source. (Think The
Apprentice: L.A., but with millions more viewers.)
What's
more, an immunity idol will be hidden
at each camp, and Exile Island will now offer its visitor
a clue to its whereabouts. I can see the promos now: 'Fox offers
you one Idol, but we've got two.'"
|
| Source |
| TV Guide
Channel's Survivor Fiji: Preview show |
January 12, 2007: Derrik
J. Lang's semiannual cast-release story gets demoted from
ubiquitous AP wire copy to his own, semi-autonomous (albeit
AP-backed) blog post, further proof of Survivor's
decreasing relevance to anything. Still, fairly full of show-relevant
insights:
"Jeff Probst: The
overall theme is letting them make almost every decision
in terms of how this game will play out in the initial setup.
That was the big idea. It starts with 19 people because we
had somebody quit the night before, which has never happened
before, so that threw us for a bit of a loop because we didn't
anticipate an odd number.
They're literally just put on a beach. They've got some fruit
trees there, but that's it. I come over in a float plane
and drop a box. And in that box they start to get the information.
And the information is you're gonna need to build the most
elaborate shelter Survivor has ever seen. Here's
blue prints, a building plan, a map to find lumber and tools.
You've got a sink and a kitchen area and a couch, all kinds
of stuff to build this elaborate shelter. They're told they
have to finish this before the game can continue.
They build this great shelter. They've got water and flint.
Once they finish building it, I show up and say, 'Now you're
gonna figure how to divide these tribes up.' They choose
somebody to divide the tribes. That person divides them,
and they square off in a challenge. The losers have
to go to a new beach where they literally have a machete,
pot and water they have to boil. No fire. They have a cave
they can kind of get under, but it's miserable.
| Preview
shots: Click thumbnail image to view larger image |
Winners' camp |
Winners' camp |
Losers' cave |
The game is about one tribe living a life
of luxury, and the other tribe really scraping to get by
while the other tribe has it so good it almost doesn't feel
like Survivor to them. They have a couch. They have
tables. The tribe that wins the first challenge goes back
to this reward, which is all these luxury items. They're
not necessarily better. They just make life better like hammocks
and umbrellas and bottles and decanters and all this silverware
and plates and china and a bush shower. So you see them eating.
It looks like some sort of Ralph Lauren picnic.
The other tribes show up and they're dragging their butts
because they haven't even had water. What was really interesting
was how quickly you started to see the attitude change where the
winning tribe started to have this sense of entitlement.
It was fascinating to watch the rich tribe get lazy and entitled
and the poor tribe get desperate and resentful.
The Slug: Tell us about the
person who quit. There wasn't an alternate?
Jeff Probst: We brought
alternates in the past. We had an alternate in Cook
Islands. Sundra was an alternate, and Sundra
made it to the final four. But we only bring an
alternate if we're worried about somebody. We weren't
worried about anybody. We thought we had a solid
group of people.
One woman, bless her heart, she just got overwhelmed and
started panicking. We told her about how the show works and
how you'll be a little isolated. It was just too much for
her. Our psychologist talked to her. Our medical doctor talked
to her. We went out and talked to her. There was just no
way you could try to encourage her to stay on the show. She
was not comfortable — not even close to comfortable.
And the game hadn't started. So we said, 'All right. You're
out.'
The Slug: Oh my. When did this
happen? During training?
Jeff Probst: It was the night
before. We did give them a little course on what's going
to go on out there. You know, what berries to pick and what
snakes to watch out for. She was OK during that period. As
a group, they can feel the game's about to begin. They're
secluded. And they can sense a shift in energy. She could
feel the game was about to begin. All the producers go out
and explain the game. She just panicked. So we were stuck
with 19. It required one shift. We were originally going
to have two tribes of 10. We won't be able to do that now.
So we came up with an alternate idea of what to do.
The Slug: What happens?
Jeff Probst: It plays out in the
first episode. It's nothing significant. Instead of having
two equal teams, you have two tribes and one extra person.
And what do you do with that other person? It played out
just fine. The only drag is we lost a person, and it just
affects your creativity a little bit. Where you maybe wanted
to do a double Tribal Council and vote two people out, you
can't because you just lost one. It has a little bit of trickle
down, but when it happens before the show, it's very easy
to move everything a little bit.
...
Jeff Probst: I can say this group
is one of the most real groups we've had. They fact that
a lot of them are from California will not feel that way.
This is one of the most real, dirty groups we've had.
...
The Slug: Tell us about the Hidden
Immunity Idols. There's two this season, but how are they
used?
Jeff Probst: I think we figured
out how to do it this season. The very first time we introduced
it, you had to play it before anybody voted. Then the second
time we introduced it, you could play it after the votes
had been made and read. So it was an absolute get-out-of-jail-free
card.This season, I think we found the happy medium. You
must play the Idol after the votes have been cast but before
I read them. Before the votes, I say, "How confident
are you? Do you want to take a chance? Or should you play
your Idol?" That made a dramatic difference. The Idols
get played. Nobody is sitting on their Idol until the end
and taking it home as a souvenir."
|
January 12, 2007: Excerpts
from a largely CBS-penned copy accompanying the cast reveal,
although still containing nuggets of info:
"- As for the show, this
time around, the theme is Haves vs. Have Nots. The new
series will begin with all of the contestants in a single
tribe. All 19 adventurers are dropped off on an island
near a natural cave and given supplies to make for a deluxe
camp. But by the third day the group
will be split into two and the tribe that wins the first
immunity challenge will stay in relative luxury, while the losing tribe will
be forced to move to a new island with only a pot, machete
and a water source.
-
Elements of
the last two seasons – Exile Island
and a hidden immunity idol – will return but with
a twist. This time, the person sent
to Exile Island will look for clues to where an immunity
idol is hidden somewhere at each tribe camp. This means there could be the tantalizing
possibility of two hidden immunity idols being in play
at the same time.
-
As for the figure of 19 participants
instead of 20, one potential castaway
cast herself off the show before it began. Melissa McNulty [sic.],
a 28-year-old talent manager from Los Angeles, had been
flown to Fiji before she decided to bow out of the game.
Producers decided not to bring in an alternate and so the
series continues with 19 castaways. "
|
December 22, 2006: Spoiler-related
excerpts from a Probst interview, the full text of which
was written by Ryan Heidet at Reality
TV Magazine:
"The 14th season, premiering in 2007, takes place
in Fiji and also has twists. 'We came up with a couple of
small ones for Fiji that had a big impact,' Probst
said. 'We have two immunity idols. It’s kind
of funny to talk about all this stuff. We
changed it by adding another immunity idol and we changed
the location of them. And nobody knew where they were and
it became a very different game.'
The idols apparently play an important
role once again. 'Idols
get played next season,' he said. 'People
don’t hold onto them like Yul did. That makes for
great drama because tribal council was suddenly a wild
card. Every night you’re thinking does somebody have
it, are they gonna play it?'
This isn’t the only major thing
Fiji’s
season will deliver. 'One of the biggest decisions
that’s
ever had to be made on our show gets made late into the
season – and it’s controversial,' he
said. 'And it will definitely have Survivor fans
on one side of the fence or the other. There will be no
neutral on it. You will think this decision was the right
one or the wrong one'."
|
December 20, 2006: Sucks
poster survivorfreak10 registers to reveal the following
tidbit about the S14 hidden immunity idol:
"I went to the Cook Islands finale and heard
Probst say during red carpet interviews that the hidden immunity
idols get used next season. They aren't held onto like Yul
or Terry did."
|
December
17, 2006: Jeff Probst's voiceover from the Survivor:
Fiji preview (replete with actual contestant photos,
as far as we know) that aired during the Survivor:
Cook Islands reunion show:
"Coming in the new year... Survivor turns
the tables on two tribes, as one lives the life of luxury,
while the other is left with virtually nothing. For the first
time, there will be 19 new Survivors. This
diverse cast, with lifestyles ranging from a Harvard-educated
lawyer to a once-homeless street performer, will be forced
to battle each other more fiercely than ever before. Crawling
with thousands of deadly sea snakes, Exile Island will be
more treacherous than ever. This time, two
immunity idols and a twist will drastically complicate the
game. And one of the most controversial decisions ever made by a Survivor
will have America talking. Who will outwit, outplay and outlast
all the others? Join us next time, for the premiere of Survivor:
Fiji."
| Preview
shots: Click thumbnail image to view larger
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