Survivor 49: Jeff Probst Says Players Have 'Rough' Start, Teases 'Bonkers' And 'Unpredictable' Back Half
There's a lot of factors that can make the early days of Survivor feel downright grueling. The starvation, the bugs, the big personalities. While the show's 18 new castaways are surely in for the ride of their lives, Season 49 won't be a walk in the park. This crew is going to have work hard, battle it out and put in a lot of sweat — literally — if they want to make it to the end.
"This was the hottest season I can remember, maybe with the exception of Cambodia, when we had three players go down at once," host Jeff Probst tells TVLine. "That doesn't sound like much, but I felt it. And in fact, I asked the editors to leave it in — when I'm tired, when I'm exhausted, when I stumble with a name, when you see the sweat through my shirt — because I want the audience to understand, it really is real. And when you have temperatures that hot on Day 1 and then you don't earn any tribe supplies, so you don't have any way to have shelter. You don't have a way to make fire. You have no chance at food. And it's hot the next day, and then it rains, and now you're cold. The way it can debilitate you is so severe and so fast that now you can't do the one thing you're desperate to do, and that is, think clearly."
Without food and sleep in Fiji's extreme temperatures, the cognitive decline becomes a real test of grit for the players, one that viewers will immediately see on screen during the season's early pre-merge episodes.
"There are times when I ask players a question, and they will stop and say, 'I'm sorry. What did you ask me?' I'll say, 'I asked what your name was.' It's that fundamental," adds Probst. "The front half of the game is pretty exhausting, and it's pretty rough for a few of the players. It's not an easy go. And then the merge hits and the weather starts to cool and the game goes bonkers. The players are now back and it's one of the most unpredictable back halves of a season that we've ever had. Suddenly, you get a little bit of energy and a little bit of a cloud cover, and all the big guns come out." (Hear what Probst has to say about some of the new cast members here.)
With the new era's bells and whistles unraveling left and right, the host has noticed that each and every season impacts the players and games that follow.
"The future players who are watching the current season are learning and taking the game to that next step," he says. "And I felt that out of the gate with 49, that it's just a little more heightened."
Probst makes it clear that it's not that one particular group is better than the last, it's just that more students of the game are stepping up to the plate to elevate what they just saw play out on their TVs.
"With every new season, the players are evolving the game, and so it forces the next group of players to keep that evolution going," he says. "So, I do think the game will continue to get faster in terms of making split-second decisions that can really enhance or kill your game, but that is how you have to play."
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