“Survivor” host Jeff Probst explains how they reshaped the auction

Survivor 45 It just aired the best episode of the season, concluding with the stunning elimination of Kelly Nalbandian. How shocking was it? “This was one of the most surprising and brutal events in history,” host Jeff Probst tells EW Survivor. It resonated so strongly that it almost knocked me out of my seat at Tribal.

Kellie’s blind side – which left the player dazed, confused and stumbling around tribal council like a zombie – served as an exclamation point to the part that teases at every opportunity. Not only did it have an epic blind side, and not only did Probst at one point try to kill a bag of rice, but the episode also included the return of Survivor The auction is back after an eight-year absence and better than ever.

This isn’t even an exaggeration. When he was last seen in 2015 Survivor: Worlds Apart, The auction was broken, which Probst Open admitted in the latest episode of his show on fire Podcast. “We felt we had cracked it, and we broke it by offering advantages, which worked for a while and gave us some great moments, but then players wisely started holding on to their money until the advantage came. And that was the end of the auction.”

But the host and showrunner also goes into great detail on his podcast regarding how to bring back the podcast with new wrinkles. The first big twist wasn’t just handing each of the players a wad of cash, but instead having them work to earn the money they would spend by hiding bamboo tubes filled with cash throughout the tribe’s camp and having the contestants scramble to get the most money. money as much as possible.

“In the past, you would come in and get $500,” Probst explains. “That was negative. You won’t get anything in the new era SurvivorNot even money for the auction. So we stored money all over the forest. Then, what you get immediately is that character is revealed in the way each player deals with this scramble for money. And you’ve seen it happen in a very dramatic way.

That would be a nod to the usually hard-working Bruce Perreault, who for some strange reason decided to barely work to raise any cash – a decision that would ultimately cost him later on when he lost his voice over it.

The next flaw in the new plan was that the person with the most money left at the end of the auction would lose their vote at Tribal Council – only the players would not know when the auction would end. This creates a fascinating strategic dilemma as you need a lot of money near the end to outbid others and empty your wallet, but the more you have, the greater the risk of being penalized if it suddenly ends with you. High number. The auction will end with somewhere between six and 15 lots, depending on which number the host has drawn from the bag, with Probst being the only one who knows the number. Although this scene was filmed in a way that allowed another group of people to know about the secret – the audience.

“I will say we had a camera that took that shot,” Probst says. “When I pulled it out, I knew where to hold it so we could pick it up.” As the host explains: “Maybe we wanted to put it in the show to let the audience see it. We might do that in future seasons because the dilemma might become: ‘Oh, they don’t realize that this is the last element and it’s more fun to watch.’” In this case, because The first auction, we decided to let the audience be the player and they didn’t know it either.

So how and where did they prepare those dishes — including D’s $900 milkshake — that were bid on by players? It turns out that some of them were set up right there in the forest. “We built a temporary kitchen in the forest and bring either the already crafted item or the ingredients needed to craft it depending on the situation into the forest. And what’s interesting about that [kitchen] The team also doesn’t know if there will be only six items or just 15 items, so they are ready for 15 items. Sometimes I can hide something under the table in advance, like my large table that I work from. Sometimes, if it’s like a milkshake, it will be refrigerated. Sometimes things are heated in ovens, so it’s really like a kitchen and it’s a lot of fun because I come back, and I have money in my hand, and there’s someone to give money to. In fact, this is how they found out how many items there were. I came back after I drew the number and said, “By the way, the number is…”

Speaking of dishes, where did they get the fish eyes that cost Katurah $480? “Heaney, who runs our marine department, was out fishing two days before the auction,” Probst reveals. “And they were at a thousand feet and they caught one of these ruby ​​snappers. He told me the reason their eyes were so big was because they were a thousand feet down and needed big eyes to see…. Heaney put the snapper on ice because we cook everything we catch. And then he heard that we We were looking for a disgusting food item and he said, “I don’t know if you’re interested in fish eyes, but I have some beauties.” And so those fish eyes ended up on display and in the auction. And in those fish eyes, Catora probably found something in the game that she actually hated more than Bruce .

Naturally, now that the auction is back, the question becomes: Will we see it again? “Absolutely,” Probst promised. “I will say it’s a lot of work for us and it takes 90 minutes because it’s a really big auction, so it probably won’t be every season, but I think the format works well. I think it’s repeatable. That’s one of the things you look for in any development is: Can we do it again? In this case, yes, now everyone knows the rules, but it doesn’t change anything. There are still the variables of money, number of items, and losing votes.

For more inside information from Probst on the latest episode — including the rice stabbing and dramatic blind side — visit On Fire: The Official Podcast for Survivors.

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