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Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Survivor' host Jeff Probst explains why show stopped doing schoolyard picks to determine tribes
One of the most dramatic and controversial moments in early Survivor history occurred on the second day of season 10, when the players of Survivor: Palau were told to divide themselves into two tribes via a classic schoolyard pick. The twist was that the last two players not picked — which turned out to be Jonathan Libby and Wanda Shirk — were immediately eliminated from the game. Schoolyard picks were a semi-regular part of Survivor throughout the franchise's first 17 seasons. Sometimes, as on the Thailand and Gabon seasons, the initial tribes were determined by a schoolyard pick. On other seasons, such as The Amazon, Cook Islands, and Fiji, the picks occurred during mid-game tribe swaps. But there have been no schoolyard picks to determine tribes in the past 31 seasons, with Gabon (season 17) being the last one to take place. The most we get now is the occasional pick for a post-merge reward challenge. Related: Survivor 48 recap: The blindsider becomes the blindsided So would host and showrunner Jeff Probst ever consider going back to letting the players pick their own tribes? That was a question posed by a fan on the latest episode of the On Fire with Jeff Probst podcast. 'I like this question because schoolyard picks are fun,' Probst says on the podcast. 'But they are super risky because you are relying on the players to self-divide into somewhat even tribes.' Okay, that is a legitimate concern. Just look at what happened on Palau, where the Koror tribe beat the sad sack Ulong team in every single immunity challenge until there was only one poor Ulong member left (Stephenie LaGrossa). While watching one tribe go all the way down to a single person was a unique thrill for the viewer at the time, it's not necessarily an exercise the host would like to repeat. 'From that standpoint, as a producer, it's a bit terrifying to start a season that way,' Probst says. 'And so you have to ask yourself: Okay, let's look at our own risk versus reward here. What do we get from starting a season that way? Well, it's a fun opening beat. What do we risk from starting a season that way? We could get terribly lopsided tribes.' And Probst already anticipates what some fans would say to that. 'On the other hand, I know what you're thinking: We don't always do a good job of picking tribes ourselves. And we spend a lot of time analyzing the data — the IQ, the strength, the age, their puzzle ability. And we're looking at all different types of tribe formations and we still get it wrong.' Related: Jeff Probst had no idea Survivor 48 was a much older cast At this point, cohost Jay Wolff cuts in, asking, 'So what I hear you saying is there is a chance we could see a schoolyard pick for tribes.' And while Probst responds, 'There is a chance, yes' — the fact that he is laughing while saying it, coupled with 31 seasons of history speaking otherwise, tells us not to hold our collective breath. To hear Probst and former Survivor champion Rachel LaMont break down the latest episode of Survivor 48, check out the On Fire with Jeff Probst podcast. Weigh in below, in the comments, if you would or would not like to see a return to the tribal schoolyard picks. Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
Boston Globe
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘The Americas' gets up close and personal with whales, bees, and everything in between
He's referring to the fact that these expeditions don't just involve the folks involved in filming a given scene. Every trip has to be a self-contained collection of people capable of managing logistics, health, and safety. The project took five years overall to film. Male orchid bees (Euglossa viridissima), compete to collect the most intoxicating smells from across their forest home, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico. BBC Studios As is often the case in nature documentaries, 'The Americas' gives you plenty of protagonists to root for, whether that's a bee seeking out a mate or a tiny owl that lives in a cactus trying to avoid predators. As Gunton puts it, 'nothing is perfect' in their process, but he says they 'very much cast these stories like a movie. Of course, animals don't read any scripts, but we know the sort of story we want to tell.' The creative team endeavors to create a narrative that is entertaining and informative, but also gives a sense of what the locale is like. As anyone who's tried to get an animal to hold still for a photo knows, this doesn't always work. 'Nature always throws curveballs at you,' says Gunton, resulting in something that's 'weird and wonderful, hopefully, and often much more exciting and much more interesting than the original story you wrote.' Advertisement The 10-episode series is divided into regions, with each one named after the region it visits, including 'The Amazon,' 'The Frozen North,' and 'Patagonia.' And the technology involved brings the viewer as close as possible to the action — it's a common occurrence in the show to hear noises as subtle as the clack of a pygmy owl's beak. 'This series could not have been made without one significant piece of technology, which is drones,' Gunton says. 'What they do, which nothing else can do, and why it's particularly pertinent to this series, is they get you in a proximity to the animals that you can never normally do.' It's not just that a human physically can't get into some of those spots — moving a camera that quickly is otherwise logistically challenging. A person darting from place to place simply isn't as fast as a drone flying closer. Of course, as an experienced hand at this type of documentary, Gunton has seen a lot of powerful moments in the wild. But if you're looking for the moment that he called 'one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen in my life,' don't miss the pod of four blue whales cavorting. 'These are the biggest animals,' Gunton says. 'It's faster than a warship.' And while filming animals is always a gamble, the crew was able to use drones to capture the moment one of them leaped out of the water, did a barrel roll, and crashed back into the water. 'It's just spectacular,' Gunton says. THE AMERICAS Narrated by Tom Hanks. On NBC Lisa Weidenfeld can be reached at
