Survivor 49’s “game began during pre-game,” second-runner-up Sage Ahrens-Nichols wrote recently, at the start of what’s become an avalanche of Instagram story videos and thousands of words.
Sage says several players who were on Survivor 49 broke the rules by creating an alliance and strategizing before the game officially began.
On New Year’s Eve, Sage said she’ll “eventually be naming names” of those players. She’s yet to do that, because Sage is better at creating suspense than Survivor 49’s editors.
In a 16-page document, Sage claimed that, besides the two people removed from the cast, “there were at least four others who ultimately played who should have been removed during pre-game,” including three players who “met up at night to talk in secret.” In the 16-page part two, she wrote, “Production did try to intervene, but they had no idea the extent of what was happening.”
I’m here for the gossip and appreciate the detailed breakdown of the game from her perspective. But this game is over; the checks cashed; Survivor 49 is a distant memory.
Even if she has verifiable evidence and, say, accuses Savannah and Rizo—who are on Survivor 50 along with MrBeast, a third-grade class of kiddos who are Survivor fans, and eleven pipers piping—their season is already done and filmed, too. Any new information won’t change what happened.
But! Survivor does need to make a change. Even before Sage’s accusations, we’ve known that what happens at Ponderosa affects the game. That’s why I think it should be included in the TV show.
“Ponderosa” is what production calls the space where players live before the game begins and after players are eliminated. In Fiji, Ponderosa is currently a hotel, the Malolo Island Resort, and was previously the same resort that Love Island used.
Before the game, players meet with producers, medics, and the press, but cannot talk to each other. It’s eerily silent at Ponderosa as a result, except for casting producers calling out players by their initials.
Survivor 49’s pre-game Ponderosa was not silent, and we learned about that before the season began. On his podcast, showrunner and host Jeff Probst said:
…this season, season 49, we had two players who were disrespecting that rule. They just kept talking. So much so that I got a call from our Ponderosa team saying there’s a level of concern. And so we asked them, please remind them with a stern warning that you can’t talk. And I went and met with our executive team and said, ‘Look, we might have a situation. And before we could even finish our discussion, I got a second phone call saying that the level of disrespect had reached an even more blatant level. And that was all it took.
Candidly, the decision was made in that moment to immediately remove those two players from the game and replace them with our alternates, Jason and MC.
That’s why Probst talked to Jason and MC about being alternates in the first episode, which he previewed in an interview with Dalton Ross: Jason and MC “thought they were there just as insurance knowing that most likely they would be invited back next year to play — were suddenly thrust into the game. It was a shock, for sure. … the big question is, will that be an advantage or a disadvantage?”
I find that interesting, too. Before Survivor: Tocantins, I interviewed Spencer Duhm, an alternate who was added to the cast at the last minute—not as a replacement, but as part of the producers deciding last minute to expand the cast from 18 to 20.
“I was devastated,” he told me. “They say [the cast] fits like a puzzle; you fit with whatever people, and if you don’t fit, then […] I just don’t see why I can’t have my spot, why I’m missing from the puzzle.”
That’s how he spent the week at Ponderosa: thinking he’d been rejected, that he wasn’t good enough, that he didn’t fit in with the group that’d been selected. And he talked to me about it in an on-the-record story, so of course I included that.
Someone at CBS and/or in the production was upset my story included that fact, and a publicist relayed that to me, wondering why I’d included it. (Neither the press nor the alternates were told that information was off the record.)
Flash forward to Survivor 49, with Jeff Probst talking about this very thing on TV and his podcast, and players talking about being in Fiji during previous seasons as alternates who were then sent home.
I’m glad that’s no longer a secret. It’s also not a secret that the players are actively starting the game even when they’re not talking.
On his podcast, Probst admitted that players “can obviously look at each other. You can try to make eye contact. That might work for you. It might not.” He added, “A lot of people scribble down assessments of their players like I think this or maybe I’ll get aligned with that person. Whatever. The only thing is we have rules and the rules are you cannot talk to each other for obvious reasons.”
Does that happen? Absolutely. Dalton Ross wrote an entire piece about S49 players’ pre-game perceptions of each other.
Survivor 49 winner Savannah said that she was drawn to her alliance member Sophi early on: “even from Ponderosa, before we were really even able to speak, I just saw her as someone who really reminded me of my friends from back home. And I say that based off her fashion choices, for example, or just the way that she carried herself. She’s such a silly person, and she just has this aura of just happiness about her.”
Before Survivor: Gabon, Crystal told me she was worried how others perceived her when she was helping unload luggage, while she was annoyed at several of the guys who were cutting in line and otherwise being rude. They “are such dickheads,” she told me. “I can’t wait to write their name down–as soon as I figure out what it is.”
That’s hilarious. It was also not on Survivor, but it could have been. I don’t think Survivor needs cameras filming all this before and after the game—though I do miss CBS’s Ponderosa web series. Even with 90-minute episodes, Survivor already struggles to include the nuances of the game without having to include footage about what happens beforehand.
The reason Survivor producers—and producers of other reality TV shows—place their casts “on ice,” which means not allowing them to talk, is to ensure cameras don’t miss any pivotal moments during, say, a long boat or car ride.
There are pivotal moments, though, especially at Ponderosa. So why not let the players talk about it? Who did they get good vibes from during casting and at Ponderosa? Who freaked them out?
If it affects the game, let them mention it, and include that in the edit. Imagine Crystal saying in a confessional, I’m voting him off because he cut me in line at lunch and took the last brownie and I’ve hated him ever since! It’d break the illusion that the game starts and stops like a board game, but that’s the reality of televised, strategic competitions.
I’ve been discussing pre-game impressions, but we also have to discuss the jury. We see them sitting silently at Tribal Council; in reality, they’re engaged in active deliberations and arguments during the day.
Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X juror Will Wahl described this bluntly:
Ponderosa is pick who you want to win, try to sway any vote you can and really gather your thoughts on who you want to win and why.
As more and more people fill the jury, it becomes clearer and clearer who’s going to be in the end. And that’s when people become more and more passionate on debating why this person should win or why that person should win.
Meanwhile, during the final Tribal Council, we have to endure jurors acting like they don’t know who they’re going to vote for. Some jurors may truly enter that Q&A with a truly open mind, but they still probably talked about what they were observing.
Why not have the jurors share with us—and the final three—what they’ve been discussing? I mean on TV, because the players already do that for us in their pre- and post-game interviews and on social media. But I think it should be on TV because plenty of Survivor viewers never read an interview or see social media posts.
Last summer, Survivor 45’s Sabiyah and Katurah revealed that they broke Ponderosa rules by going into a bathroom and talking briefly. That probably didn’t affect the game—they were on different tribes and Sabiyah was voted out third—but it did affect their lives. They’re now in love and in a relationship.
If pre-game Ponderosa is hosting a meet-cute and secret late-night alliance meetings, that’s worth acknowledging, at the very least. Or maybe CBS could bring back Ponderosa the web series—and add a pre-game version, too?
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