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Do Australian Survivor producers save their favourite players?

"The audience are always suspicious, which I understand," says Jonathan LaPaglia when contestants are voted out but saved by a producer twist.

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Diehard Australian Survivor fans, and even casual ones, have sometimes been suspicious of moves in which popular players voted out at Tribal Council are seemingly thrown a lifeline with a new twist.

With the finish line not far off, last night two players were last night sent to ‘Survivor Islation’ a new concept which separates players and denies them food, water and information -unless shared by the remaining players- until the next Tribal Council. Nina was spared elimination, but sent to Isolation with Gerry and denied a chance to compete for the next Immunity.

Jonathan LaPaglia recently told TV Tonight, any ideas of favouritism via such lifelines was too hard to orchestrate.

“That may be true of other shows. There’s always online chatter when we have a twist and someone says ‘They saved you because they like you’ or he’s controversial or whatever,” he said.

“But the honest truth is our game is so big and so tight, that the schedule just doesn’t have that latitude. We can’t pull things up to try and save someone.

“If we’ve got someone that goes to, you know, Redemption Rock, or whatever we call it for that for that season, that’s already been in the works before we even started the game. It’s just the way it folds,” he said.

“But the audience are always suspicious, which I understand. But there really is no room in the schedule to make those kinds of decisions. I mean, we are shooting every single day. There’s just no way we can move stuff around.”

20 Responses

  1. It would be very simple to the game.

    Firstly, the story producers are following the drama, even interviewing contestants as to who they are aligning with.

    Secondly, the producers are the ones that set the immunity challenges, so they know each person’s strength and weakness. So there’s potential manipulation there.

    Thirdly, how do we know how long it takes to hold tribal council? They can take all the time they like, because tighten it in the edit.

    The producers tally up the votes as they are being written, so plan A, B or C can be adopted at the drop of a hat. Maybe they’ve had the “isolation” component set up from the beginning of the series and were just waiting to drop it in when required (most effective).

    When reading out the votes, there’s no way that JLP is randomly picking them out. They have been put in certain order to maximise the drama.
    So if they see that a fan favourite is about to be voted out, they make the call on the spot to change direction.

    1. Tribal Council is about 90 – 120 mins to film. Yes producers lay out the order of votes. I think in early US seasons they were random, but not for a long time. JLP indicated twists were mapped out well in advance, it’s kinda the point of the story.

    2. We’ve been listening to Probst’s new Survivor podcast – the production crew are literally there for months beforehand building the challenges etc – there is no way the producers could manipulate the immunity challenges when they have been built months before – they would have no clue who would be competing in each one. Its an awesome podcast FYI!!

  2. P.S. I think one rule with twists is that you should never really outright lie to your contestants. JLP did exactly that with last nights immunity challenge saying to Matt you have a “guaranteed one in five shot” of winning, which unless his immunity carries over is now not the case.

    I’ve been keeping a close eye on the wording at the immunity challenges to see if he ever skipped that phrase which would indicate a twist is coming. I know on Big Brother if you play close attention Sonia phrases things differently when it is a fake rather than real eviction.

  3. Whether they play fair or not is irrelevant – the perception is they do not and when they edit the entire series around George, block the biggest blindside of the season in the original Hayley vote and Idols are found just at the right moment it creates the image they have favourites.

    Watching last night was painful knowing that despite their best laid plans either the plans would come to nothing yet again, partly because of stupid gameplay, partly because of a misleading edit – or if they did come to fruition production would veto them.

    Reality shows always suffer when they’re edited around once person and always become more watchable once that person is evicted. If this season wasn’t built around George so much it would be much more watchable – and I probably wouldn’t hate George as much as I do if the entire series wasn’t told from his perspective.

  4. Happy to call bullshit on JLP’s dissembling here.

    If the twists are known about and scheduled in advance, then the players would be told about them before voting. Then they would have a chance to strategise according to the actuality of the situation, instead of wasting their time strategising for a non-existent scenario.

    If the players last night had known there was going to be no elimination, and that two of them would be leaving camp, obviously their thought processes would be completely different. I know we don’t see it on TV, but I am sure that the players must get furious to have their time wasted, and the integrity of the contest compromised, on a regular basis like this. I know I do, and I am not even playing.

      1. Because the players of a game are meant to be apprised of the rules before the game starts, not halfway through? Because it is unethical to lead people to believe that they are voting for one thing, when they are actually voting for something completely different?

      2. Because they had gone away from the “surprise” twist after the votes were read this season, probably because most of the non-casuals revile it. In every other non-elimination this season everybody knew what the deal was before voting – not here – which shouldn’t be happening at this late stage.

        I get why they do it, they don’t want a string of obvious boot episodes and we’ve had a couple of seasons now (David & Mark), where there is an obvious winner a fair way out, but all of their alliance is happy to play for 2nd. So producers try and deliberately shake things up and expose the pecking order. However they could also help ensure a better end-game by doing something they have refused to do – have an earlier tribe swap – factions won’t have 2 weeks to ingrain themselves, throw in their normal tribe swap and it exposes more players to each other before the merge which should enhance the possibilities for cross-tribe play in the end game.

  5. “But there really is no room in the schedule to make those kinds of decisions.” – can producers make a decision to stop these ridiculous non elimination episode twists!! Taking viewers for a joke it makes me so so angry. Let the game play out naturally like the US version. If you want more episode throw in a few more players into the game but stop wit the twists!!! I havent quit because i love survivor… i did quit BB reboot for this season though! #rage lol

  6. As a longtime fan I can honestly say last night was the “lamest” and most “unfair” twist yet.

    Yes we get it, Channel 10 ordered 24 episodes and you need to drag us along to your pathetic no elimination episodes, but don’t lose integrity doing it!

    There’s no way the “twist” should have been revealed “post” vote! That should have been disclosed prior to the vote to avoid fueling this producer theory and making it fair for the players.

    Game Intergrity is paramount! #punintended

  7. Every night I watch the show in hopes they vote out George, but they never do. It’s so frustrating. Why haven’t they?

    I’ve always thought JLP let’s the tribal council go on for way too long. He asks too many questions that give the others clues. Then the whispers start and plots are given away.

    1. Looking at Gogglebox, viewers hate his arrogance and airtime, but he has been great for producers. I’m not a fan of any whispering at Tribal. Time for scrambling is over, we’re here to vote.

    2. I agree. I now record the show, watch in fast forward, then when George is still standing, delete. How are they all believing, falling etc for him?!?!?!?

  8. The giveaway is the product placement. how many times do the contestants refer to prizes with the full corporate name. Its not natural. If that is scripted what else is?

    Then again, there have been seasons where the good players leave early and the rest of the season is pretty bland, maybe manipulation is ok in moderation.

  9. Just in general, whenever a viewer favourite is voted off, that is going to affect the ratings.

    The difficult question that should be asked of the show producers is how they mitigate the pressure to gain or maintain ratings when the favourites leave the shows. I think the risk of being exposed as staged should be enough to maintain honesty in the production portrayals, as long as viewers keep the scrutiny on these shows.

  10. I really enjoy Survivor but have always been suspicious of the production. Way too many “coincidental” immunity idols found and then the jury twists, just when one of the big players is about to depart.

    Of cource, Jonathan is going to say they are hard to orchestrate but maybe he doesn’t know. The film crew could easily drop the idols to help a contestant and the producers would be steering the ship.

  11. But aren’t the producers and cameras hiding around listening to everything the contestants say and do? Isn’t that where Jonathon gets all the info on what questions to ask and stir things up before they vote at tribal council?

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