With the landmark 50th season of Survivor in the rearview mirror, all eyes are now on No. 51.
Per tradition, the first-look trailer for Survivor 51 debuted at the end of the finale and reunion for Survivor 50, which aired May 20 on CBS. Host and showrunner Jeff Probst recently teased several things about the new season, including that it has wrapped production and that the fresh cast will be “launching us into something new.” Hmm, could this be the start of a “new-new era”?
Read on for everything to know about Survivor 51: The Open Era.
THE CAST
CBS will officially announce the cast at a later date. Note that while Season 50 was an all-stars cycle that featured returning fan favorites, Season 51 is resetting with a cast of brand new players. “We might be able to pull off something that includes returning players sooner than the period of time we had since the last one,” Probst told Variety on May 19. “But I don’t know. We know what we’re doing for 51 and 52. That’s it.”
THE PREMIERE DATE
Season 51 will debut in late September on CBS and Paramount+, most likely on a Wednesday night. The episodes will once again be 90 minutes in length, though it’s possible the premiere will run longer.
THE TRAILER
The two-minute trailer for Survivor 51: The Open Era was officially released at the end of the finale and reunion show for Season 50. In it, Jeff explained, “For the first time ever, our entire history — every advantage, every idol, every twist we’ve ever done, 50 seasons of Survivor — is in play … along with dangerous new elements never seen before. It’s now a shape-shifting game, changing without warning, creating permanent uncertainty.” The featured contestants liken the twists to an “epic rollercoaster” and “what the people have been begging for.”
THE THEME
“The Open Era is taking the massive uncertainty [from Survivor 50] and making it permanent uncertainty,” Probst explained at the 50th reunion. “The idea is that anything that has ever happened at any time on the show can happen in any season at any time in any order without any warning. We’ve shot 51. It is very fun!”
Aside from Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans, there were no themes or subtitles in the “new era” that began after the COVID-19 pandemic. “Our job is to keep the game off balance,” Probst said at a special Emmys FYC event on May 19. The future of the show will be about “moving forward,” he added. “The teaser for 51 kind of speaks to where we want to take the show. You cannot let [future players] know what’s coming. They’re way too good.” Furthermore, Probst explained how the castaways in Survivor 51 are “launching us into something new.”
THE LOCATION
Mamanuca Islands, Fiji, will once again be the location of Survivor 51 — and presumably all future cycles. After 16 years of globe-trotting and exploring, the show officially moved to this beautiful locale in the South Pacific Ocean in Season 33 and never looked back.
“The truth is, it’s a logistics issue and not really a creative choice,” Probst told Emmy voters on May 19. “When we used to do Survivor, 20 years ago, there were all these islands we could go to, and we would have a scouting team that would go out way in advance. We don’t have that anymore. In a lot of places, islands that were empty now have hotels on them, because Survivor brought a lot of awareness and tourism. There’s a lot of political unrest in places we don’t want to go to anymore. There’s the value of the dollar, and how it stacks up against other countries. Weather is a real thing. Fiji has actually saved Survivor, and our relationship with their government and all the landowners is amazing. If that changed, we’d be back looking desperately for somewhere.”
FUTURE TWISTS
Also at the Emmy event, Probst teased that a celebrity wanted to sign up after seeing country singer Zac Brown and internet celebrity MrBeast appear on Season 50. “There’s one person that I would love to have on the show who I’m talking to now,” the host acknowledged. “They called me and said, ‘Now that I just saw what you did, I think I’d like to be a part of something.’ I’m not saying we will do it or won’t do it, but I’m definitely open to it 100%. We see Survivor as a canvas that you can do anything with. We’re going to try things, and that’s always going to be what pushes us.”
He’s also “open” to bringing back family visits, an emotional hallmark of the show. They were halted in the COVID era, but returned briefly in the Season 50 finale. And the show’s editors have brought up a wild idea that Probst is excited to try out. “What if we cut an episode from back-to-front?” he asked aloud. “We show you who’s getting voted out, and then we walk you through what happened. We just haven’t had the right episode happen where somebody goes, ‘I see the structure, I can do it, I know how to do it,’ and then we’d do it.”
NUMBER OF DAYS
The 51st season takes place over 26 days, just as it has in all of the “new era” cycles. As longtime Survivor fans are well aware, the competition used to span a total of 39 days (with Season 2 being 42 days long), so the castaways have had to adjust to a faster pace. Notably, CBS still produces the same amount of episodes, 13, even though the time frame is much shorter.
