“Once the votes are read, the decision is final. The person voted out will be asked to leave the Tribal Council area immediately. I’ll read the votes.” You haven’t heard Jeff Probst say this for a while on Survivor. But why?
Like “the tribe has spoken,” it became an iconic part of Tribal Council throughout Survivor‘s many seasons. There’s a reasonable explanation for why Probst stopped using the phrase before the votes were counted, a reason he shared in the finale Part 1 episode of the On Fire podcast’s fourth season, which breaks down each episode from Season 47 (the winner of which was crowned on December 18 on CBS — they break down their game here).
The topic came up during the fan questions portion of the December 11 episode. As Probst explained, the “once the votes are read” line started out as a necessity, but it was eventually cut for time. He does admit that he “hated” taking it out and oftentimes forgets that he needs to while filming.
“I love that line. I hated letting it go,” Probst tells cohosts Charlie Davis and Jay Wolff. “But the history on it is, it actually started as a real direction to the players because the show was so new. I had to tell them the rules. And the rules are whoever gets the most votes is out, and you’ve got to go. You can’t stay, you can’t debate, you can’t negotiate. But over the years, at first, it started to become sort of iconic. And then it got to a point where we’re like, now it’s a little unnecessary.”
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Probst continues to say that even mere seconds of screen time for a player can be more valuable than prioritizing including this beloved line.
He explains: “As we talk about this on this podcast a lot, timing is so important. And that sentence is probably about five seconds. That doesn’t sound like much, but those five seconds could be used somewhere else that would be more impactful in terms of the storytelling. I’ll give you a specific example. You could be a Tribal Council where I was going to say that in about 10 minutes. And instead of me saying that, you hold on a shot of Charlie as he listens to something a player is saying, and you register in his eyes, he’s re-deciding about what he’s going to do right now. Well, that might take five seconds. You need that. You don’t need me saying those words.”
“What’s really funny is sometimes on day 21 when I too am tired, I’ll be up there with the votes and I’ll have to remind myself, you don’t say that anymore! Take that out!” Probst adds with a laugh. “Like it’s so embedded in my head that I’m just going to say it. I’m like a robot sometimes.”
Survivor brought the jury walk back in Season 47, aka the moment where the members of the jury are shown walking in with serious looks on their faces. This was the result of the show having more time to spare thanks to the 90-minute episodes. So maybe there’s time to throw this line back in every once in a while, especially when there’s a tense round of interviews leading up to the reading of the votes.
Listen to On Fire wherever you get your podcasts.
Survivor, Season 48 Premiere, Wednesday, February 26, 8/7c, CBS
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