While Survivor is in its 47th season on the 2024 TV schedule, the series continues to push the envelope. The franchise has been around for over two decades with no end in sight, and many international spinoffs that U.S. contestants are even competing on, and the show still manages to pull out some firsts every once in a while. Changes to Survivor are occasionally happening to make things fresh for the long-running reality series, and a unique first had host Jeff Probst negotiating with the Season 47 team.
The newest episode saw an immunity challenge, bringing quite a unique challenge, when the Gata tribe brought the three chickens they won earlier since they weren’t laying many eggs. Some of the tribemates wanted to kill them and eat them, such as Sam, but the girls on the team were against it, such as Sierra. So they brought them back in the hopes to swap for eggs. There were some back-and-forth negotiations until an agreement was made for 18 eggs in return. Via Entertainment Weekly, Probst shared on his On Fire podcast about what went down and how he was even surprised by the turn of events:
It surprised me in that we've never had anyone return chickens. That was a shocker. But it's a great reminder of why every season of Survivor is unique because of the group dynamic. You have people from so many different walks of life, approaches to life, different value systems, different priorities. You can never predict what will happen in any given situation when you have multiple people with multiple opinions.
This just further proves how unpredictable Survivor can be and how different each season really is, aside from different locations and different casts. You never really know how a challenge or battle is going to play out, even if it’s been done before. That being said, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was easy, especially since this hasn’t happened before. Not to mention the fact that 18 eggs seemed far too generous. Probst explained the negotiation and why he made the deal he did:
The thought process for me on a negotiation is really pretty simple. I just asked myself: If I am at home watching right now and I'm doing my best to just be objectively fair in that moment within the spirit of what Survivor is about, is this offer a fair one, and not just for this tribe but for the other tribe or tribes as well? And the question always in the back of your mind is: are we going to set a precedent that could come back to haunt us? So you're making that decision in real time. I felt the deal we made was fair and was in the spirit of the game, because I looked at it like this: Those chickens are an asset that tribe earned, and they've decided, 'We don't have any use for them.' Well, it's still an asset, so it still has some value in terms of the negotiation, and I felt the asset of meat, the chickens, was pretty valuable, and their request for eggs seemed fair. So we made the deal.
While trading the chickens does seem to defeat the purpose of receiving them in the first place since they are such an asset, it does make sense that Probst would feel that negotiating for something as equally as valuable would help. Unfortunately, Gata didn’t really learn the value of a good trade since they ended up not even being able to cook the eggs. They lost the challenge and didn’t build the fire before the left and had to give Probst their flint.
That’s just more proof that Survivor is truly unpredictable. Even if a negotiation and trade seems to be good at the time, that’s not always the case. Of course, it also depends on what happens before and after a challenge. It does make the show all the more entertaining, so that’s a plus.
It should be fun to see what’s next for the tribes and what challenges they come across next. Nothing is easy on Survivor, like missing out on Applebee's, but it’s certainly entertaining television. Tune in to new episodes air on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS or streaming the next day with a Paramount+ subscription.