To say
Survivor‘s iconic first season was building the plane as it flies would be an understatement. Nobody truly knew what they were getting themselves into when they flew out to Pulau Tiga to forever change their lives — and the face of television. And that includes not only the 16 castaways but also everyone behind the scenes. Including
Jeff Probst.
The veteran host gets into his initial thoughts on filming back in 2000 in the new book Survivor: Forged by Fire. The tome serves as largely a photographic recounting of 25 years of the hit CBS reality series, curated by the show’s Director of Photography, Scott Duncan. The pictures depict everything from camp life to challenges to Tribal Council, spanning everything from Borneo to the upcoming Season 50. And scattered throughout the pages are some of Probst’s musings, as he looks back on where his headspace was before he set foot in the South China Sea, and his life would be changed forever.
“I took it all seriously right from the start,” he writes. “After I got the job, but in the weeks before I left for Pulau Tiga, I decided to go to therapy—not for myself, but to try to get a better understanding of what the players were about to encounter. What happens to a person when you take away everything familiar? When you drop them into the middle of a jungle and leave them to figure it out?”
“I crammed in as many sessions as I could,” he continues, “trying to imagine the emotional shifts, the moments of doubt, the ways they might surface—sometimes in ways even the players themselves wouldn’t see coming.”
There’s been a lot of talk in modern discourse about how the Emmy winner wears many hats on the island, especially during Tribal Council. He’s a simultaneous moderator, storyteller and therapist, both commenting on the dynamics he believes he’s seeing while simultaneously making sure the space is an open forum for players to speak their minds — or even stand up and change plans. And it seems that, long before he became an executive producer, Probst had an innate interest in the constantly shifting psychological state of the players as they battle starvation, exhaustion, and competition.
But Probst underwent even more preparation than just a recurring spot on the therapist’s couch. He researched various studies on group dynamics, and did a deep dive on Joseph Campbell. He had a fascination with the concept of the “hero’s journey,” particularly the idea of “Separation, Initiation, and Return” when it comes to people leaving the real world behind, immersing themselves fully in the wilderness, and going back to their lives forever changed (and perhaps with a big paycheck to boot).
“I kept a folder filled with all my notes,” he writes, “little reminders about the ways groups could influence individual thinking, and how difficult and important trust would be, given the players are strangers. I just wanted to be of service to the format, whatever that ended up meaning.”
It’s safe to say, given both his immense preparation before such an unknown experience, as well as his immense dedication for 26 years and 50 seasons, he has succeeded in that mission.
