Survivor 47, Episode 9, featured a moment where two castaways wanted host Jeff Probst to intervene during a challenge.
The final 10 castaways were split into pairs and forced to compete in an obstacle course as partners. The two teams that made it to the end (final four players) then competed for Immunity.
Part of the challenge involved digging in the sand for a board buried in a bag. The pairs were tasked with digging out the bag.
Sam Phalen and Andy Rueda competed as a duo and dug just enough to reach the bag. They grabbed the bag and tried to force it out of the sand.
As they were pulling, the bag ripped, sending the duo sprawling with a large piece of the bag in hand. “Our piece is out of the bag,” Sam stated as he called for Jeff.
“Yep. That’s on you all,” Jeff responded as the duo tried to dig up their board.
Jeff Probst addresses the Sam and Andy ripped-bag situation
During a new episode of On Fire With Jeff Probst, Jeff and his co-hosts addressed the situation from the episode.
Jeff was asked if it was a “real-time decision” he made during the episode [regarding Sam and Andy]. He stated that it was and that he didn’t need to stop the challenge or even think about what had happened.
The host noted that it was a great question and that it’s always situational when something like that happens. He also revealed that the production team goes over what could go wrong during a challenge beforehand so they know how to handle it at that moment. It saves time as they are filming.
“They weren’t digging as much as pulling,” Jeff stated. “So that’s on them. But if it had been a situation where something broke, which rarely happens but has happened, then I stop the challenge immediately, the art department comes in [and fixes the challenge].”
Jeff also referred to his art department as a racecar pit crew, where they work quickly and often have backup pieces to ensure fairness.
Below is the full podcast episode. Jeff discusses everything about that intense challenge and explains [in detail] why they decided to take away votes.
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Survivor 47 airs Wednesday at 8/7c on CBS.
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