Survivor answers to criticisms of Reunion
Banning contestants, and snubbing others? Jeff Probst tries to explain that Survivor reunion.
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This week longtime Survivor fan John Cochrane realised a lifelong dream when he won the show’s million dollar prize.
He had proven to be a popular player, proving that even the geeky looking guy with white skin and no muscles could outwit, outplay and outlast.
But Survivor fans online have been critical of the show’s Reunion which snubbed the other contestants who were not on the jury. Most of them got to sit in the audience without any airtime.
Volatile contestant Brandon Hantz, who quit the show during an explosive episode, was nowhere to be seen.
Speaking to EW, Jeff Probst has since said:
Regarding Brandon, we had a conversation and everyone, including Brandon, felt this was the best decision. Regarding the jury, the main reason was staging. We were on a new stage this year and our design couldn’t accommodate the usual enormous amount of people we have at the reunion. But having done it once, we may do this same configuration again in the future. The truth is, it’s very difficult to manage 20 people in an interview situation, and the staging last night was much more manageable. The hardest part of all of this is that it is so disappointing to the non-jury. I completely empathize with them feeling left out. Like it or not, the priority is for us to produce the best reunion show we can. Quite often when someone is voted out early they just don’t have enough story to warrant a spot on the reunion show. It doesn’t mean they aren’t deserving people, they just didn’t get to play long enough.
But Russell Hantz has tweeted:
“Shame on @Survivor_Tweet & @JeffProbst for treating the pre-jury and their families that got invited to the live show like trash!! #Survivor”
Meanwhile contestant Eric Reichenbach, who didn’t even get a question in the Reunion, has told Reality Ravings:
I would have been fine to meet Brandon if he had been there, either way. I was a little displeased with the way the reunion went. It is because the people were voted off early were not allowed to be on the stage which might seem like a small superficial thing but to me if you are the first person voted off or you are the winner of the game everybody was apart of that adventure together. All those twenty people were there at the same time. They were not happy. They had invited their family to see them. It is an accomplishment to be on this show even to be chosen to be on Survivor in the first place and a lot of them were very displeased with what happened with the fact they had to be in the audience and not onstage. There is all these loose ends, everybody was there and people want to know what happened and to know what they are doing now. We did not really get to see a lot of that there was more of a focus just on more controversial people that played the game rather than “hey let’s find out what’s happened”. If someone gets medically evacuated in the final five you would at least like to hear a little about that. “Are you OK? What happened?”.
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18 Responses
Those wondering about Brenda… and how she could be pregnant. I asked myself the same. But then i did a bit of research and it was actually filmed in May/June of last year. And the winner was announced in May this year. So there’s a fairly big amount of time that elapsed thus putting to bed rumours that Brenda was pregnant during the show. Can’t wait for Survivor Blood vs Water. Returning Players and family members! woot! Now just have to wait for September 🙁
Demoting the reunion show has been a bad idea. Maybe they’re trying to drive more people to the website for that content, but for me involving everyone on stage in the reunion reiterates that Survivor is about the experience of everyone being out in the elements. How people interact under that pressure makes the show fascinating. By announcing the winner and immediately talking about the season (rather than how someone is now rich/famous) they keep the show about that experience. Just seeing the weight gain and the difference make-up has is interesting and most have a good story to tell. Eric’s medical story, living with Brandon, if any of the ‘cool kids’ were hooking up, if Cochran has been to the bar with Reynolds et al. All of that stuff would have fueled Twitter more than reading out those tweets. Maybe they knew how much of a stuff-up people thought the Brandon episode was so they decided to address as little as possible about the season.
bettestreep2008 – agreed, there were probably three or four very memorable moments from the season that hardly rated a mention – Brandon’s meltdown, Malcolm’s crazy idol play and Brenda’s teeth ultimatum at final tribal council.
As others said the season ended ages ago. I doubt anyone would be allowed to play pregnant (and would have it picked up in pre-season medicals) because the malnutrition would probably cause a miscarriage.
I did think at the time it was a little odd but let us be honest, why get upset about a short reunion show when we just had one of the greatest seasons ever?
Ultimately I think the time allowed is just to short as it was in previous seasons but then again I don’t watch the show for the reunion…
To be honest, the thing that annoyed me most was Probst mentioning Twitter every 3rd sentence. I get it that this is a way to promote the show and have it ‘trend’, but for a Twitter sceptic like me it just grated every time, and I imagine it did for every other non-Twit out there. Most people in the world don’t use Twitter, even the majority of Americans don’t have a Twitter account, let alone use it while watching TV.
And just quickly: Less people on stage = better, but I wish they’d done a quick pan of the audience to point out the other contestants were actually there. Loved Rudi, Boston Rob was OK, little girl was a waste of 2 minutes. And yes, Erik deserved one quick question about his health.
bettestreep2008 Filming finished nearly 11 months ago, they filmed this season back-to-back with Malcolm’s previous season so there has been plenty of time for Brenda to get knocked up and be 9 months pregnant.
FWIW I didn’t mind them not having the pre-jury members on the stage but not asking Sherri (equal 2nd) and Erik (5th and medically evacuated) any questions is really unfair. I would have like to hear how he was medically unfit immediately after one TC but able to attend the next TC within a few days.
There has been a huge problem with the Reunions in the last couple of years with Probst snubbing contestants (even those that finished high up) for more airtime for his “favourites”, those that were controversial and just random segments that have no point – the little girl this season, interviewing Mayim Bialik from TBBT in South Pacific. I really don’t buy the claim that interviewing 20 people is difficult – in the very early seasons when Bryant Gumbel handled the Reunion he managed to find the time to ask at least one question of every contestant – he made them feel welcome and included, even Probst has in the past managed to ask 1 question of everyone.
Personally I wonder whether others paid the price for Brandon, although Russell announced beforehand that Brandon wouldn’t be there, by staging it as they did and showing few shots of the pre-jury contestants it helped hide that he wasn’t there. Even allowing for the fact that most of the fan boots weren’t memorable, it is incredibly disrespectful not to ask 1 question of people you’ve deemed worthy of returning in the first place.
@ alfagirl – It hasn’t been an hour for years, which is part of the problem. The reunion never starts in the US these days until 10.10-10.15 – so 30 minutes of content (minus ads) vs. 40mins if it drop filler from the finale.
I too was disappointed with the reunion.
They didn’t ask Eric or Michael any questions and spent too long on Boston Rob, Rudy and some little girl with braces.
As for Brenda – I am guessing that she was pregnant when she was on the island. It wouldn’t take 9 months from the end of the show to the live verdict.
And as for not even mentioning the Brandon meltdown – that was a colossal cop out. That was one of the biggest moments in Survivor history and was not even mentioned during the reunion.
Even if Brandon wasn’t present – it should have been discussed.
I didn’t mind the format for this years finale. I was glad that the Hantz’s weren’t there and was also glad that Cochrane won. I was amazed that Brenda was about to give birth. I thought that the final counsel and the announcement of the winner took place within hours to avoid leaks. But it seems that it took 9 months or more? Really surprised.
@par3182- I couldn’t agree more. I found those segments irrelevant. That time could’ve been better spent talking with Corrine as that was a big move. They could’ve asked Eric how he felt about being medically evacuated from the game-at the very least.
What was most disappointing was that Francesca didn’t eat the rock.
For those who recall the 1st ep she said “If I am voted out 1st I will eat this rock”
I don’t know why they had to interview the guy from season one at the expence of speaking to Eric and they didn’t even touch on the “three amigios” imunity idol play. Would have liked to have seen more of Corine aswell.
Would’ve loved to hear from Corinne! You would’ve thought the Final 3 were Brenda, Malcolm and Dawn with the airtime they got! Guess it makes sense as they were the biggest personality’s!
Personally I quite liked the lighter numbers on the stage. The truth is you invest your time with those that have been on the show longer and in general they are the ones you want to hear from and not the persons voted out early.
#firstworldproblems
Probst couldn’t even manage eleven people in an interview situation; he still managed to ignore three of the top five place getters.
Ignoring contestants while interviewing a tween girl about how dreamy Malcolm is, letting Boston Rob pimp his self-published book and Rudy spout his old timey homophobia is hardly an example of producing “the best reunion show we can”.
I really preferred that only the jury and final three were on stage. To be honest I can’t even remember the names of people eliminated in the first few weeks. The one hour Reunion has always been rushed in the past and Jeff would ask a question then cut off people’s answers because of time constraints. Unless the Reunion episode is longer than an hour I can’t see how all contestants can expect to be included. I was really pleased that Cochrane won.
I didn’t really care that the early contestants weren’t on stage, but I did think the questions in general weren’t very interesting and didn’t do justice to such a complex season. Would rather have heard more from the contestants (especially Corinne, Andrea, and Erik, all who had pretty pivotal storylines this season and got nothing in the reunion) rather than Boston Rob promoting his book or a little girl explaining why Malcolm is so awesomely good looking.
It’s a shame Brenda couldn’t have been there in person, as well, because it was kind of awkward how they set up the video link and nudged Dawn into an apology.