For the first time in the 42-season (!) history of Survivor, host Jeff Probst was forced to stop a challenge during Wednesday’s episode.
The challenge involved retrieving a ladder from the bottom of the ocean floor and using it to reach a key to unlock a set of sandbags, but it didn’t go as planned. “This was one of those days where you could feel the turbulence swirling in the air from the moment we arrived at the challenge location,” Probst explained to Entertainment Weekly. Everything went fine during rehearsals when the water was calm, but to paraphrase George Costanza, the sea was angrier than a White Lotus guest not staying in the Pineapple Suite that day, my friends.
“The two struggling tribes were in the water for 22 minutes. That is an incredibly long time in those conditions. At times, the ocean pulled them so far off the course they were running into our camera platforms. It was insanity. But to their credit, not a single player ever called for help. Nobody asked us to stop the challenge and rescue them. They kept fighting. They kept working together. They kept trying to finish the challenge. I was truly impressed.”
One of the three tribes was able to complete the challenge, thanks to the efforts of Jason Momoa stand-in Jonathan Young (Probst called it the most “dominating individual performance in any challenge in Survivor history”). But the other tribes were called back in and the swimming part of the challenge was stopped “because we could see that the conditions were continuing to get worse,” the host said. “The swells were getting bigger, the waves more intense. There was no let-up coming and we knew that they had exhausted themselves to the point of simply not having enough strength left to finish.”
They didn’t have much time to collect their breath, though: the keys were collected by behind-the-scenes folks, and play was resumed as soon as they were out of the shot. “THAT’S how you do it on Survivor,” Probst exclaimed. You can watch the clip above.
(Via EW)
