The Host Has Spoken
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 8)
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?!? 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