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Topic: Probst Ranks Past Seasons (Read 1255 times)

lakelady
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Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« on: Feb 9^th, 2005, 5:36am »

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The Host Has Spoken
(Entertainment Weekly Link)

Jeff Probst ranks past seasons and relives the show's highs. As ''Survivor'' enters season 10, its ringmaster talks on everything from Richard Hatch to Sue Hawk

1 Borneo (SEASON 1)
You'll never repeat those first 39 days never. It was the virgin season, and the show was being created day by day. In many ways, Richard, Sue, Rudy, and the other 13 created it as much as we did. Even though content-wise the show was solid, we weren't always sure where it was going. As for me, I really didn't know what the hell I was doing. Plus, CBS made us put that trunk of cash on the Tribal Council set, which I hated. It was a little corny, but hey, the show was corny, so in that sense it fit. When Sue made her big speech blasting Kelly at the final Tribal Council, the only thing I was thinking was this is money. It's probably still the greatest Survivor moment, and another reason why season 1 will never be repeated. And I honestly thought Richard would be the first person voted off. He's a scheming, pompous, condescending guy, but is so endearing you want to keep him around even though you know he's got a dagger with your name on it.

2 Australia (SEASON 2)
I could almost put Australia as a tie for No. 1. It had the incredible cast led by Colby and Elisabeth. You had forest fires, a flood, Mike Skupin killing a pig and then falling in a fire, burning his hands so severely that the skin was falling off. And rarely do you have a choice in the final three that makes people drop their jaw, and Colby's choice to take Tina to the final two over Keith made people's jaws drop. And then Colby lost. That show delivered every damn week. Everybody wanted to marry Elisabeth, and Jerri was maybe the best female villain ever. And as for that season's biggest controversy: I do think Kel had the beef jerky. Just a gut feeling on what I heard and saw. People try to smuggle things all the time, and if you're really good, you can get away with stuff. It's part of the game. We've had people try to smuggle things up their a--! And I won't say who, because we caught them and it never made the show, but yes, somebody tried to smuggle something up their anus. So beef jerky is no big deal.

3 Pearl Islands (SEASON 7)
There are many reasons why Pearl Islands was good. Top of the list would be casting one of the greatest heroes and greatest villains in the same season with Rupert and Jonny Fairplay. You know you're in for a good season when Rupert immediately starts stealing people's shoes. And then you have Jonny Fairplay, who's completely despicable. It was actually fun to work with Fairplay on the show because he's a producer's dream. When he shows up drunk or flips somebody off, he's bringing you gold every time. I wish we had a Jonny Fairplay every season. Personally, however, he's an absolute jackass whose actions at the Vanuatu finale after-party pissed me off so much that he's banned from any event that I'm at from now on. I'm done with Jonny Fairplay. Osten was the complete opposite. Outside of the game, Osten is a very likable guy, but on the show he frustrated me because every time he showed up, he wanted to quit. When he finally did quit the first person ever to do so on the series we didn't want to give him the honor of being voted out. Instead, we said, ''We're just gonna lay your torch down and you can go home loser.'' The other thing about Pearl Islands is one of the most debated twists ever the Outcasts. I hated the Outcasts. I felt it went against everything we say the show is about that if you are voted out, you are out of the game. In addition, it cost us a great player in Andrew Savage and in return gave us Lill, the most undeserving final-two member ever. But the flip side is, you ask people what the memorable things are about the show and Outcasts always comes up. So, was it a good twist? I guess so. I just philosophically hated it.

4 All-Stars (SEASON Cool

All--Stars, I thought, was great to watch and miserable for me to experience. Worst season I've ever had. I even considered quitting many times. I thought, I'm done with this show, I don't like it anymore, I don't like these people and their out-of-control egos, I don't like what the show's become. Now, I've gotten some distance from it and realize, it was just a really, really personal season. But it's incredible what happened. First off, there's Jenna with this dramatic gut feeling that something's wrong at home with her mother, who died eight days after Jenna left the island. And then you had this horrible, ugly incident when Sue accused a naked Richard of rubbing himself against her during a challenge. This prompted the single worst Survivor moment I've ever had standing on the beach with Sue just yelling at me for what happened. That's the only time in nine seasons of Survivor when I had absolutely no idea how to respond. The whole thing between Sue and Richard was a personal train wreck. On the flip side, Boston Rob did something no one has ever done before: He came right out and said, ''I'm running this game, and I'm doing it with my woman tucked under my arm just try to stop me.'' And somehow he did it, in no small part due to Lex falling for it. Lex will continue to say, ''Hey, I was doing a buddy a favor.'' Bulls---. Lex is a strategist as much as anybody, and he's a good player, but this time, he got played. Much like the Outcasts, I would hope we never do All-Stars again, because Survivor is a game about strangers living together. Once they have had that experience and have spent time together socially, it's a completely different game. It's stunt casting.

5 The Amazon (SEASON 6)
I liked the battle of the sexes. I liked how it exposed the differences between men and women, especially in regards to competition. Initially, it seems that women dominate because guys are still preening for the ladies, but as the game becomes more competitive, the men bond and the women begin to fall apart. Rob Cesternino, of course, was a breakout character and really reminded people how to play this game. Specifically, that if you're fifth on the totem pole, you can get with the folks who are third and fourth and knock off the people above you. Plus, he was obviously full of great one-liners and had a quick wit. And this was definitely the most unpredictable of seasons. How do you ever predict Jenna and Matthew making it to the final two, and the spoiled college-sorority girl winning Huh

And she only won because the jury thought Matthew was crazy. And they didn't want to give him the million dollars.

6 Vanuatu (SEASON 9)
Vanuatu is a great example of how I can never predict how a season will be viewed. Personally, I really enjoyed this group of people. They were fun and easy to get along with. But we didn't have the huge characters, so there were no big events from Vanuatu. Oddly, we did have one of the best final Tribal Councils ever, and I think that was because the relationships were so personal. The things that I liked about the season I loved that we had two gay women on the show, although Scout has since informed me that she's ''omnisexual.'' As for repeating the battle of the sexes again, it's simple: If you do a show long enough, you're going to have to repeat some things. The characters on Friends can only date each other so many times before they start re-dating each other. Every season of Survivor is not going to have a jaw-dropping restructuring. What frustrated me about Vanuatu, watching it as a viewer, was the double standard applied to Chris and Twila. Chris lied more often and with more brutality than Twila ever did. Twila lied once, swearing on her son's life that she'd remain true to her alliance, but Chris lied the entire time. He's probably still lying!

7 Africa (SEASON 3)
On paper, Africa should have been a better season. We had some great players and characters in Lex and Big Tom. We had the most epic locale ever the middle of Kenya, with giraffes and zebras and gazelle. But I think the fact that there was no water source made it miserable for them to live and miserable for everyone else to watch. It wasn't a fun season. And you ended up with a final two of Ethan, who is a nice guy but boring television, and Kim Johnson, who is a wonderful woman, but again boring television. That's hard to hear when you're one of those Survivors. It's hard to hear that people didn't like your season, because you take it personally, but this group didn't work. As for the decision to do our first tribe switcheroo 13 days in, that was something we had talked about doing for a while, but the players hated it. I remember Lex looked at me like he wanted to kill me. I'm not sure he feels any differently today.

8 Marquesas (SEASON 4)
One thing that Marquesas has going against it is worst location ever. I will never go back to Marquesas ever. The No-No sandflies were eating people alive. Dramatically, I just felt like Marquesas never got any momentum, and by the time you got to the final two with Neleh and Vecepia I'm sleeping. In terms of casting a good player, we cast well with Vecepia, but in terms of casting for the show she was a snoozer. And Neleh was no better. It was one of the worst final Tribal Councils ever. It was sooooo boring. At least Kathy was around this season to pee on someone's hand. Although she says what really happened is that a couple of guys tried to pee on John's hand first and had some performance anxiety. So she did it. And then she couldn't stop. The most interesting thing about Marquesas and what nobody knows is that we screwed up on the colored-rock tiebreaker that knocked out Paschal. In the event of a Tribal Council tie, Survivors pull rocks out of a bag, and whoever pulls the colored rock is eliminated. The way it's supposed to work is that once the tie is revealed, the people for whom votes have been cast and the person with immunity all become safe; the others have to pull rocks. We didn't realize that process works for all numbers except for four. (With four people left, only one person is eligible to pull a rock since one has immunity and two have received votes.) I realized something was wrong about halfway through as Paschal, Neleh, and Kathy were all pulling their rocks out. Even if I had figured out exactly what was wrong, there would have been no way to correct it because we had already done it. Let me be clear no rules were violated. It's just not what we meant to happen. And that's the truth.

9 Thailand (SEASON 5)
They're going to hate me for saying this, but this final four of Brian, Clay, Helen, and Jan was the least likable final four ever. And that, in a nutshell, explains why Thailand is No. 9 for me. There was so much negativity, with Ted and Ghandia's he said/she said sexual ''grinding'' incident, and Robb strangling Clay during the ''attack zone'' challenge. And then you felt like you needed a shower after watching Brian play, because he was so sleazy. It was a mean-spirited season. There was a lot of hostility, a lot of ugliness, and that's not fun to watch. We love conflict on Survivor, but conflict that is fun to watch, not conflict that is uncomfortable to watch. It's kinda odd that on the season I liked the least, they decided to ask me to host the reunion special for the first time, although I honestly think that's just because they couldn't find anybody else. I don't think it was that they suddenly thought I could do it. They just couldn't find anybody they liked, so they were like, ''Okay, we'll try Jeff.''

By Jeff Probst, as told to Dalton Ross

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Rupey
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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #1 on: Feb 9^th, 2005, 10:24am »

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Wow! Lake, thanks so much for posting that. It was very interesting to get Jeff's perspective on all of this.

I don't know what Johnny Fairplay did at that party to upset Jeff but I'm glad he's booted from any future parties that Jeff attends.
Cool

Oh, and I TOTALLY agree with his feelings about the outcast tribe in Pearl Islands. I felt the same way. His opinion of Lill...well, I had to LOL!

« Last Edit: Feb 9^th, 2005, 10:26am by Rupey »

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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #2 on: Feb 9^th, 2005, 11:59am »

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I like this list, my feelings exactly

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luci
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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #3 on: Feb 9^th, 2005, 12:44pm »

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I couldn 't have said it better Wink

Can't say I blame him one bit about Johnny Fairplay, whatever his reason. My thought is he got too drunk, high, or stoned!
Whatever the reason JF ranks with up there sleazy as Brian.

« Last Edit: Feb 9^th, 2005, 12:45pm by luci »

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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #4 on: Feb 9^th, 2005, 12:51pm »

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I liked what he said about the egos in All Stars.

You don't think of Survivor as an ego inducing game, but it is. Had Lex toned down the ego, he might have made it further.

As for Brob, what an Ass

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lakelady
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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #5 on: Feb 9^th, 2005, 5:22pm »

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Can't say I blame him one bit about Johnny Fairplay, whatever his reason. My thought is he got too drunk, high, or stoned!
Whatever the reason JF ranks with up there sleazy as Brian.

Yes, I imagine JF was all of the above. As for his sleaziness, I would say he's MUCH worse than Brian.

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Jenna
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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #6 on: Feb 9^th, 2005, 6:16pm »

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I agree with Jeff on season 1, even though All Stars was my favorite

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Genius
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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #7 on: Feb 9^th, 2005, 7:23pm »

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Why does no one like Brian Huh

I thought he was great!

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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #8 on: Feb 9^th, 2005, 9:20pm »

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My favorite is Borneo! No one knew what to expect or how to play the game therefore nothing was predictible. My choice far and away as best ever!

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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #9 on: Feb 11^th, 2005, 1:25am »

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i dont understand about "the purple rock". so it is not meant to be? I love Paschal that season... now im angry.... :furious:

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CallMeRob
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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #10 on: Feb 11^th, 2005, 11:54pm »

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I really likd Pearl Islands and Africa

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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #11 on: Feb 15^th, 2005, 12:38pm »

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I really likd the first season and the Al-Stars, and I loved Rob and Amber...THe power couple. Rob did what he wanted and no one stopped him, all the power to him... Cool

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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #12 on: Feb 15^th, 2005, 6:22pm »

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Vanuatu, Thailand and The Australian Outback are my favorite seasons. Nobody seems to like Thailand, but I loved its characters... Jan getting drunk, Helen wishing the final three to 'break a leg... and I mean it!', Clay's redneck comments, Erin. On the other hand, I hated All Stars... it nearly killed my love for the show!, IMO they should never do another one ever again.

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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #13 on: Feb 16^th, 2005, 9:12am »

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I also liked Erin! I won't rank Thailand as my lowest, but that's because I haven't seen all the seasons yet.

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Re: Probst Ranks Past Seasons
« Reply #14 on: Feb 26^th, 2005, 4:05am »

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I like Pearl Islands but Rupert is super strong!!! Pearl Islands is the highest!!! Marquesas is the lowest!!! The both members of Maraamu in days 1-12 and they lost one of their members.

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