Jeff Probst Admits He Wasn’t Comfortable With What Survivor Producers Wanted During Early Seasons

Ahead of Survivor 50, a lot of newer fans have gone back and watched the earlier seasons they missed, particularly those with castaways about to make their returns. Many have shared random thoughts, and a recurring theme of those observations has been how much host Jeff Probst has changed. He’s gotten a lot nicer over the years. The natural assumption would be that he’s softened as he’s gotten older, but according to him, it has a lot more to do with the expectations for his job.

When Probst was first hired to work on Survivor, he was specifically a host. It wasn’t his vision, and he took notes from producers on what they wanted out of him. Early on, that was to hold contestants accountable and be aggressive when the moment called for it. That apparently wasn’t something he liked doing, but he felt he had to because it was what creator Mark Burnett, who originally ran the show, wanted. Here’s a portion of the quote he gave to Interview Magazine…

Survivor was, of course, a smash hit immediately. The finale of the first season was watched by 51 million people, and it’s typically credited with the explosive popularity of the reality television genre as a whole. Burnett went on to create and/ or produce a ton of other hit shows including The Apprentice, The Voice, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? and Shark Tank.

As his empire has expanded, he gave Probst more and more control over Survivor until he eventually named him showrunner. That allowed the longtime host to move the show into a direction he was more comfortable with. That involved being less confrontation, but it also involved repositioning the show less as a social experiment filled with conflict and more as a hero’s journey.

That concept of a hero’s journey is the primary driving force of Survivor now. It’s why the show doesn’t really cast villains anymore, and it’s why so much time is spent on the backstory of castaways and the adversity they’ve overcome. In fact, when Mike White told Probst that it was only a hero’s journey for whoever wins, the host pushed back hard in a way that further illustrates his thinking…

Fans, of course, have mixed feelings about the more positive direction Survivor has taken. The so-called New Era has been the source of constant arguments amongst fans, some of whom appreciate the changes and some of whom think it’s lacking the tension and aggressiveness that made the show so popular in the first place. They miss the Mark Burnett version, but with Jeff Probst now having all the creative control, we’re going to keep getting the show he wants to make.

Survivor 50 premieres tonight, and it’ll be fascinating to see where this show fits on that spectrum. It’s being produced in the New Era with Jeff’s more positive oversight, but it also contains a fantastic cast filled with many characters who played the game back when it was rougher and less optimistic. The end result will probably be a balance between the two. We’ll see.