Before Survivor 49 was filmed, Jeff Probst had spent years working on the beloved reality show as its host, showrunner, and executive producer. Given all the responsibilities that Jeff has taken on for years, it may seem like he wouldn't have time for much else. Despite that, Jeff has also managed to find the time to speak publicly about many of Survivor's most debated topics.
In recent weeks, Jeff has spoken out about a controversial Survivor tactic, and he revealed what the reality show's players go through before the game begins filming. After Jeff spoke about all of those topics and more, Survivor 49 introduced an intense challenge disadvantage twist. When asked about that twist, Jeff addressed the idea that the disadvantage was so intense that it was "insane."
Jeff Probst defended Survivor 49's challenge disadvantage twist
During the second episode of Survivor 49, Jawan Pitts went on a journey and won an advantage. After being asked to choose between a personal advantage or something to benefit his tribe, Jawan chose to help everyone he was living with. That forced Jawan to choose one of the two other tribes to saddle with a disadvantage during a challenge and announce who he was punishing in front of everyone. If Jawan expected the disadvantage to be minimal, that certainly wasn't the case.
First off, each member of the tribe that Jawan chose had to carry 20 pounds of coconuts on their backs throughout the challenge until the tribe was working on the final leg, which was a puzzle. As a part of the challenge, the tribes had to use a key to open a lock. Instead of getting one key and instantly being able to open the lock, the disadvantaged tribe also got a key ring with 10 of them, and they had to use trial and error to move forward. Once the disadvantage was described, it was so harsh that a clearly taken aback Jawan described it as "savage."
After the episode with the challenge disadvantage twist aired, an episode of the On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast addressed it. During the conversation, one of Jeff's co-hosts, Jay Wolff, called out the severity of what the punished tribe was forced to deal with. "That's an insane amount of disadvantage." In response to that remark, Jeff instantly began defending the twist.
"Well, insane is subjective. I mean, these are really fun problems to solve because anytime somebody earns an advantage, and the advantage is to either help themselves in a challenge, say, or hurt somebody else in a challenge, you want to land on the spot that is satisfying for everybody. So the penalty has to be severe enough that you hear the beat of the drum and you go, 'Oh damn, 20 pounds of coconuts on my back.' You want the audience to have a reaction, and we got that. But you also want a disadvantage that is still achievable for the tribe who's burdened with it to pull out a victory."
After defending the twist and explaining the thought process behind what Survivor's team wanted to accomplish with it, Jeff wasn't done. Jeff told his podcast co-host that Survivor's production team puts a lot of work into calibrating the harshness of a disadvantage like that to make sure they got the balance right.
"And so the only way you figure that out is by testing and testing and testing. And so you have your years of challenge experience and your trust in your challenge teams, but you also have the Dream Teamers that we rely on to give 100% as though their life depended on it. And then you look at it and you say, 'Okay, here's where we're going to land.' And ultimately, yes, it's always subjective and arbitrary, but I want to assure you, we spend a lot of time trying to get it right."
For anyone who doesn't know, Survivor's "Dream Team" members that Jeff was referring to are a group of employees of the show who extensively test things like the challenges. This is done in an attempt to make things fair for the players and to ensure that challenges remain difficult but not impossible.
To Jeff's point, his defense of the disadvantage is compelling since it clearly didn't make it impossible for the punished tribe. After all, the Hina tribe that Jawan punished didn't lose the challenge, and they actually were the first of the three groups to complete it.