After more than a half decade of waiting, Survivor finally gave fans another live finale, and as you may have seen by now, it did not go as planned. Jeff Probst accidentally revealed the results of the fire-making challenge before it aired, and the resulting cringeness will be referenced, memed and laughed about for as long as the show is on the air.
Last night, we got a chance to hear from the host himself, who recovered and poked fun at the incident several times throughout the rest of the episode, but now Rizo Velovic, the castaway who awkwardly shared the stage with him when it happened, has entered the chat with his perspective.
The fourth place finisher, who was the spoiler in question who lost to Jonathan, told People that, like everyone else, he was very confused when it happened but is happy that they were able to play it off and make a joke about it later in the night. Here’s a portion of his quote…
I was very confused. Jeff wanted to give me my moment, which was great, but I'm getting my moment before the travesty of losing fire back-to-back times. So, I was trying to be a professional, I was trying to be funny, trying to see if Jeff would pick up what happened. He didn't, but I think we picked it up pretty well. After the commercial break, we came back and lost, we played a little joke, so it was fine — a part of history!
The roots of what happened last night can be traced all the way back to a decision Jeff Probst and the producers made about the live finale. Fans voted before the season to bring the reunion back for 50 (which hasn’t happened since Season 39 Island Of The Idols), but those involved in the show decided to do things a little differently. Instead of airing the episode and then speaking to the contestants during the finale about what happened, they decided to break up the finale with interspersed live segments.
In practicality, that meant they would show a sequence of prerecorded events and then cut back to the live finale to talk about what happened. So, when Tiffany was voted out, as an example, we came back to a segment that included Tiffany talking about her experience. Then we went back to the final four.
That format worked out fine enough for the early portion of the evening, but it all went south ahead of the firemaking challenge. The show gave us the entire lead-up to Jonathan and Rizo being put into fire, but before they actually aired the competition, they cut back to the live finale where Jeff introduced Rizo and offered his condolences about losing fire. Rizo and some of the nearby contestants awkwardly told him that the footage hadn’t aired yet, and a confused Probst sent the feed to commercial to figure out what happened.
As Rizo said, the host recovered nicely and owned up to what happened. He made a few funny jokes at his own expense and then aired the actual firemaking challenge, which he hilariously introduced by telling people they could tune in and watch Rizo lose. It was a nice moment of comic relief, but it didn’t stop the mess from going mega-viral.
According to Velovic, the original plan was to show the lead-up to the fire segment, then show the actual fire segment and then bring him on stage. Unfortunately, they only showed the first part and jumped the gun by bringing him on stage.
I think the goal was to see fire happen and then that segment happen, but I think they did the segment before fire was shown. That's my understanding, I don't know.
Fans are going to roast what happened, but ultimately, I think the mix-up will be joked about and remembered in a fond way for as long as Survivor is on the air. Weird things happen on live television, and as SNL shows every year, sometimes the best moments are unplanned bits of chaos. That being said, I probably wouldn’t hold my breath on getting another live reunion next year. They’re expensive, and as we saw, very difficult to control.
Regardless, Survivor 51 recently finished filming, and Probst announced last night that the show is going to transition into the Open Era. Expect everything to be less formulaic than it was during the New Era and to incorporate twists and random ideas that have been on seasons in the past. Also, expect to see another returnee season sooner rather than later. Ratings were up this season, and while fans were mixed on some of the twists, they were clearly happy to see so many legends back.
