Survivors Ready? Less Than Two Weeks to Fiji!

Yep, the new season is almost upon us. Graphics artist Zoetawny has made me a new logo - have I mentioned lately that she rocks?

Survivor 14: Fiji begins on Thursday, February 8th, at 8 PM ET/PT. As it always has been (and we always complain), the season premiere is an hour, not the 90 minutes or two hours we often see with other reality television shows.

Similar to last season's diverse cast, we're in for a heck of a lot of diversity this year ranging from age to color to culture and beyond. I personally support this kind of mix on the show because, to me, it's more like the real world in which I live. Perhaps other areas of the country are different, but I live in a huge mix of cultures and colors within the Greater NYC Metropolitan Area. I love the mix and would find it a boring world if everyone looked alike, held the same beliefs, etc. I outlined the cast with bio information and photos in four separate entries - Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.

As I tend to do, I've been poking about the Internet in search of more information and any spoilers I can find regarding the upcoming season. The biggest spoilers I really know come from my Unknown Castaway contact, but I'm not at liberty to divulge all that I know about that castaway. I made a few corrections to that initial article here.

I found several sources which reveal the reason we're seeing the odd number of 19 castaways at the start of the season. There were actually 20 castaways as they flew off to Fiji, but one dropped out before they were placed on the island. In stead of replacing her with an alternate (Sundra, an alternate, made it to the Final Four last season), they decided to leave it be and work around it.

In my travels, I visited one of my favorite Survivor sites, Survivor Fever. They always have some great pre-show footage and photos, as well as a spoilers area and cool things like a peek at the Survivors Base Camp for the production staff. Of particular interest to me on my latest visit was an interview with Jeff Probst originally posted by The Slug.

An excerpt from the interview (go to The Slug for the whole interview):

The Slug: Now there was some criticism about your influence during "Cook Islands," specifically when you pointed out Yul brought Jonathan his hat to Tribal Council. When is too much, you know, too much?
Jeff Probst: It's a fine line I walk. The line is being a moderator on the show and being an instigator. That fine line is when you start influencing the game too much. It's always a judgment call. It's never really any formal discussion about it. We all know that line. There's a lot of trust in me to not step over it. I'm sure at times I do, and I have. I'm sure there are times when I've been too heavy handed or hard on somebody. I usually can justify it in my head.

There was a time in the Cook Islands when Yul had skated through Tribal Council after Tribal Council and never really got hammered on anything. There was a point where he had revealed he had the Idol, he had revealed he was in control of the game and after that.

At the next Tribal Council, I felt like there were certain questions the audience was gonna want to know, which was "Why would you let a guy rule the game like this, have the Idol, let him tell you he has the Idol, let him tell you he's in control of the game and not try to stop it? Are you just gonna let him waltz to the finish line?" And Yul got upset. He's like, "Jeff, why are you picking on me?" And I said, "Yul, you've had a free pass for the last several Tribal Councils. I'm saying everything that everybody's thinking." So that's how I look at it.

I know there was controversy here on this blog and elsewhere about Jeff's "interference" in that incident. I see his reasoning, but I still think he went a bit further than he should at the Tribal Council. What do you think?

There are mild show spoilers in regard to how the show starts out and the have/have not theme comes into play, but nothing within the article spoils beyond the premise of the season.

I think we're in for another great season. Survivors ready?