Supplemental Post 4 - Sabrina

I’m going to take my supplemental post this week to talk about a piece of TV news that’s probably only exciting to me: Survivor is back in production! I love watching the show with my friends and have fond memories of staying up “late” to watch it as a kid, but I’m also particularly fascinated by the set of circumstances that has led to it lasting this long as well as it not filming sooner than this during the pandemic. Though other shows have managed to change locations or enforce a quarantine to continue production into the pandemic, Survivor is currently only viably able to be produced in Fiji, in part because their sets and such are already there, and in parts because of the tax breaks they get for filming there. So there’s this somewhat problematic framework of the show where Americans go to a “deserted” island that appears only populated for the occasional reward challenge of experiencing the culture. And the show now finds itself locked into this framework by financial necessity (or at least unable to change its location easily; they could change the approach to it). The recurring location in addition to a desire to keep people watching for new gimmicks has also created a shift in the show where for the past several seasons the show has been subtitled around a premise (Game Changers, Winners at War, Millenials vs. Gen X) as opposed to its location (early seasons are named after locations like Gabon, Pearl Islands, Samoa, etc.). This shifts the setting to truly become a backdrop, instead of an exploration of a new place. There’s a sense of appreciation for the location (beautiful shots of the nature surrounding the players frame scenes), but in some ways this distance from the place that the show films in, a place that the show at this point cannot feasibly separate itself from. The government of Fiji is clearly happy to have the show film there or I doubt they’d be invited back season after season, and the show itself does at least acknowledge where they’re filming in a positive way (the host will bring it up on occasion), so I’m not sure if there’s a problem or not, but it’s interesting to look at the financial necessity of filming in Fiji to the show, as well as the extent to which the show does or does not acknowledge its setting. 

 

https://tvline.com/2021/03/22/survivor-season-41-production-resumes-fiji-jeff-probst-video/