The First Challenge

From Survivor Fever

Jeff Probst:  We have some big challenges.  Right off the bat we have a nice opening challenge.  Second episode we have a brawl in the water which is going to be a blast.

John Kirhoffer:  We like to play with the names of our challenges.  This one's called "A River, Run Through It".  Our first challenge we try to make fairly epic, using the river, using the beach.  We set up a tower with a staircase.  On "Go" six of our players will run up and over a series of sand hills out into the river and then they grab a raft with some wooden planks that are puzzle planks, bring them back to shore.  Once they have both rafts back to shore they untie all the planks, race back to the staircase where the two players left behind use them and try to figure out where they fit in the staircase. Once they've got the 16 pieces in they go to the top, two other players have to go do a table maze.  We came up with these little handles with rope to move a peg through a table maze.  The first tribe that got out of the table maze and raise their flag, wins. 

The Marooning and Exile Island

From Survivor Fever

Jeff Probst:  This is the desert.  It's hot.  You have a lot of sand dunes and beautiful rivers with water clean enough that you can just drink straight out of.  

David Burris (Co-Executive Producer):  It's really one of the most beautiful rivers I have ever seen in my entire life. 

Jeff:  This is a very open area. It's going to be extremely hard on them because of the heat.  

David:  It's a little bit unique for us.  It's the first time we've ever done a sort of a highland location.  Just a combination of how remote it is, how extreme the environment is, and how beautiful it is, it's a triple threat.

Jeff:  There have been a lot of fires in Brazil.  Tribal Council was nearly burned down about 5 nights ago.  It's something that we're going to be fighting the whole time we're out here. 

Jeff: Anytime we can keep the game changed up is good for us.   

We're trying to set a tone this season right off the bat about the importance of first impressions and we've got an opening twist that is going to speak to that.   This season is going to open up with about a four hour trek to their respective camps.  But before they start on their trek we're going to ask them to vote one person out of each tribe and the words I'll use will speak to the notion that maybe they're out of the game, they're not sure.  Somebody's going to get voted out of the tribe.  They're going to think it's a bad thing, what's actually going to happen is the rest of the tribe takes the trek but they will get helicoptered to the camp.  So they'll skip the whole trek, they will have about a four hour head start.  We're going to leave plenty of supplies to start building camp, we're also going to leave a clue to the location of a hidden immunity idol.  They're not going to have enough time to do both.  So the choice is going to be: do I try to change the first impression by starting work on the camp and see if I can get back into the good graces or do I just stay selfish and look for that idol and try to save myself for the first Tribal Council?  I think it's going to set the tone for this season that you have to be aware of the social integration that is going on at all times. 

Exile Island is desolate.  It is a big sand dune.  This year two people will go to Exile Island.  The winning tribe will chose somebody from the losing tribe, that person will then chose somebody from the winning tribe.  So there will always be two people out there.  When they get out there they'll find two eggs, two choices.  They'll have to figure out amongst themselves who gets which one.  They break them open and inside one will be nothing, inside the other will be a note that says, "here's a clue to the location of the hidden immunity idol."  Nobody except them will know it is back at their camp.  Two, you also have power.  You can decide to go back to your original tribe or you can mutiny and go back to the other tribe. So we're hoping to get some mutinies this season. 

Jeff:  I love this group. 

David:  It's the best cast I've seen in a long time.  It is such a great cast.

Jeff:  There's a couple of characters that you're going to go, "I cannot believe it.  Where do they keep finding these people?"