The 20 players who enter Survivor Ghost Island will know about the Final Four twist from season 35 before they talk to Jeff Probst on the starting mats.
The current Survivor filming schedule operates like this; during the spring, they will air episodes from the most recently filmed season. After the first few weeks, CBS will fly the crew out to Fiji to film whatever season 37 is after Survivor Ghost Island starting in late March/early April, wrapping in mid-May so Jeff Probst can show up at the Ghost Island reunion. A short few weeks later, CBS will fly production back to Fiji once more so they can film whatever season 38 will be.
This means that season 37 players won’t get to watch season 38 players and see what happens on television. In order for Survivor to keep the game fresh with new twists, that means the players will have to be kept up to speed in order to avoid looking confused, as the viewing audience will be aware of new gameplay formats having watched them on television.
As Entertainment Weekly reports, this is exactly why Survivor Ghost Island players are made aware of the Final Four twist that first appeared in Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, even though they never got to see the season on television. However, this means that they are made more aware of endgame twists in their season than the last four players from the previous season.
Not everything is openly told to the contestants, however. They have no idea the names or occupations of the 19 other people they’re set to compete against, they don’t know what the major twist will be; they don’t even know they’re competing in what is called Survivor Ghost Island. Some have guessed it’s about young people or superfans, but nobody has guessed exactly what they can expect.
Still, it throws the logic behind changing the Final Four mechanics without knowledge of the twist prior to the season’s beginning into question. All these changes are to help avoid the “best” player get voted out right before the final Tribal Council, but had they known about that twist, perhaps Devon, Lauren and Ashley would never have included Ben into their secret alliance.
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Now that the Survivor Ghost Island players know that they might need to make fire in order to make it to the end, we’ll have to see how that changes the strategic mindset of these superfans playing the game.