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\t\t\t\t\tSeason 50\u2019s Dee Valladares, Chrissy Hofbeck, Benjamin \u201cCoach\u201d Wade, Christian Hubicki, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, Emily Flippen, Ozzy Lusth and Rick Devens<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRobert Voets\/CBS<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThere\u2019s nothing on the horizon, but they\u2019re very fun to do \u2014\u00a0for us as well. And now we have enough players, we might be able to pull off something that includes returning players sooner than the period of time we had since the last one. But I don\u2019t know. We know what we\u2019re doing for 51 and 52. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n \n\tHere\u2019s a criticism I listened to! A few players told me that it was really emotionally disturbing to see what they looked like while they were still in the game, and I took that to heart. They were saying, \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me now, because now I have self-awareness.\u201d Literally, the idea of a mirror, of reflection, is not good, because now it\u2019s a visual of looking tired \u2014 you\u2019ve lost weight, your face is dirty \u2014 versus the mirror you may have inside of being a warrior who\u2019s been through a gallant battle. The first person who ever said it, I was like, \u201cDone. I would not want that either. I\u2019d never thought about it. I\u2019ve never been in this position. Thank you very much.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt probably, ultimately, won\u2019t be my decision, but it could be a player. I don\u2019t think there are any qualifications. Here\u2019s the only thing I ever say anytime an executive has asked me about hosts and how to hire them: If you hire based on a look or social media following, you\u2019re picking the wrong attributes. What you really want is a producer who is capable of presenting in front of the camera. You don\u2019t want a host. The host has this idea of a long, skinny mic and a cool suit and a snappy batter. That\u2019s not \u201cSurvivor.\u201d \u201cSurvivor\u201d is an in-the-moment show, and the reason I\u2019m so grateful to be showrunner is not because that makes me the boss. It\u2019s because I don\u2019t have to ask permission to do anything I want as the host. <\/p>\n \n\tI don\u2019t want to leave \u201cSurvivor,\u201d but if I forecast into the future, I get really excited thinking about someone else taking over to see what they would do with it. Then I become the fan, going, \u201cOh, my gosh! They tried that. I never thought of that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat was fun. It was crazy because that\u2019s all we ever did, and we stopped. Then to walk out and say, \u201cI\u2019ll see you back in Los Angeles for the reading of the live votes\u201d was exhilarating. I\u2019m still exhilarated now. I\u2019m excited to do it. It\u2019s a lot of work to put on a live finale in between shooting two seasons and hosting the season that\u2019s currently on \u2014 it adds a ton of work. I\u2019m super pumped. The whole team is back from our live show, and we\u2019ve got a big stage and as many seats. That was the number one goal: let\u2019s make the stage beautiful and ornate, and then let\u2019s clear as much space as possible to get as many seats as possible.<\/p>\n \n\tThe thing that players don\u2019t like to hear is that when they\u2019re in the jungle, right after the show ends, that\u2019s the most honest they are. They may not really know that or feel that, but they\u2019re honest, and they\u2019ve not been persecuted by social media. Every single player gets annihilated for things they don\u2019t deserve \u2014 mostly from people who mean well, but they\u2019ll never play, so they\u2019ll never understand how out of touch comments like that are and how much they hurt. So you get players when they\u2019re pure and they\u2019re unaffected by the impact of social media in Fiji. When you do a live finale, all you get is defense. The live finale becomes people defending, and for me, from a storytelling standpoint, I never find it as interesting. So I get the pomp and circumstances, it\u2019s super fun, but I think we\u2019re going to change the format for the finale \u2014 make it more of a three-hour event, rather than a two-and-a-half-hour finale and a 30-minute reunion show. <\/p>\n \n\tWe want to celebrate as we go. When you sit down and just rehash, it\u2019s never satisfying. This year, the way we\u2019re doing it, I\u2019m pretty excited about it. We reimagined how we were going to do it, and it feels very fresh, big and equally fun. When we sat down initially, the first thing I suggested was, what if we don\u2019t do a reunion show and instead, we take that time and sprinkle it in throughout the final episode? I think it\u2019s gonna be more fun and exciting to take pauses along the way. It feels like a reinvention that feels right for where we are now, and it\u2019s more inclusive of everybody. Our finales are so packed that we don\u2019t really have enough time. The idea this time is: Let\u2019s take the entire three hours, do it as one event. And then when it ends, it feels complete.<\/p>\n \n\tThe \u201cSurvivor\u201d finale airs on CBS on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET. This interview has been edited and condensed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cSurvivor\u201d 50 is a milestone season for CBS and for Jeff Probst \u2014 and may just be the start of something new. On May 20, the show will air its finale, which will be live in front of an audience for the first time since 2019\u2019s \u201cEdge of Extinction.\u201d The live finale was one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2423823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[310067,308295],"class_list":["post-2423822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-jeff-probst","tag-survivor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jeff-Probst-on-Survivor-Live-Reunion-Themed-Seasons-Returning-Players.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2423822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2423824,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423822\/revisions\/2423824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2423823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2423822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2423822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2423822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\t\tDoes the same go for bringing back returning players?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tI have a random question: What happened to the mirror that used to be on the island for the players to see themselves toward the end?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tYou mentioned before that you see the show continuing whenever it is you leave \u2014 hopefully many years into the future. Do you feel like it should be a former player?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tHow did it feel leaving Fiji with the votes this time?\t<\/h5>\n
\n\t\tSo, will you keep doing a live finale going forward?\t<\/h5>\n