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Transcript by SurvivorFever.net

PLEASE NOTE, THIS WAS TRANSCRIBED BY SURVIVORFEVER.net!!!
9.12.07

Question: You've been doing Survivor for so long. I want to know if there is anything at this point that impresses you or anything shocks you or have you just seen it all?

Jeff Probst: I'm reaching a point, I've been reaching a point for several seasons where I like to have somebody to root for. Sometimes you get that and sometimes you don't. I certainly understand that conflict is central to this kind of storytelling. Within that, I love it when we have one or two or three people that are positive stories, people that you can look at and say, "Gee, I hope she wins", or "Man, I'd love it if that guy goes far." You also need your villains and we have some good villains this season and we have some people that I think you'll root for and there are some people that stay deep into the show. That's for me, that's when it's fulfilling. When I feel like, this is a season I'd want to watch.

Follow-up: What will this season have to offer in terms of difficulty?

JP: There's two things. Difficulty, especially in the very beginning, you'll see, it's hard, it rains a lot. It's very muddy and I think in the second episode one tribe comes back to their camp and it's flooded out. Those kind of things are so demoralizing because those first six or seven days are really hard on people and I always try to remind people of that when we're out there and they get a little down that "you did step into a major for real adventure and you're not going back to a hotel room." Nobody expects that and nobody can anticipate it, that those first few days are hard and in this case they were difficult and it got off to a tough start, which is good for the show. There's a lot of conflict and people are stressing out fairly early but then it evens out. The difficulty was the heat and the rain initially. It was blistering hot, I'm not kidding you. I did some behind the scenes stuff this season where I just took a little camera and shot myself. We're starting to post them on CBS.com and YouTube. One of them is just me walking to a challenge up this hill. You can see how friggin hot it is. There was that and then the fishing was difficult because these waters have to be fished a certain way. That does come into play. At a certain point there's a reward that lets a family come in and show you how you need to fish to get fish out of the water. So they had a rough go of it for sure. In terms of your other question, what does China bring...culture. We've been in the South Pacific for quite awhile and all areas of China was exciting from a creative point of view. It gave us different things to draw on in terms of building challenges. It gave us different inspiration in terms of challenges. It gave us a different visual palette to work with, different colors. This culture dates back 5000 years. It gives you so much to draw on that we really had a fresh season. Survivor looks different again. For several seasons in a row it visually looked somewhat the same, palm trees and coconuts. We have bamboo and temples this time. I think you'll feel the difference. The viewers also will get a chance to see things like The Great Wall. You'll get to see the Shaolin Temple where Kung Fu was born. You'll go to this 1000 year old village. In a sense it's like Africa where in addition to this fun show and adventure you're also going to get a little insight into the culture of China.

Question: Jeff, if someone says Survivor: China...if you said Survivor: America...you could be talking Death Valley or you could be talking Alaska. It's such a huge place. Tell me what is distinctive about this section of China that you chose and did you guys go straight to that or was it tough to decide where to locate it?

JP: What's distinctive about the area of China that we're in is that there are not millions of people. We wanted to go somewhere like China for a long time. We honestly didn't think we could find anywhere remote enough and unpopulated enough that would work. Our scout team went out and found this little area. The closest city is Nanchang, that would be the nearest city and that is maybe two hours away, driving. Just to give you an idea in the difference of China versus Fiji, in Fiji our nearest city was about the same difference, an hour and a half. When you went to it there were 100 people. In Nanchang, an hour and a half from where we were, there are 4 million people. I was learning how China is growing that where we are right now shooting the show in probably two or three years, will be very populated. It will be yet another new small city. We found this place, it's a man-made lake, it's called The Lake of a Thousand Islands. It's only about 50 years old but it's beautiful. It's sorta like Palau in terms of when you're in the helicopter. It's a land just dotted with islands everywhere and it's extremely rural. We were out in the middle of nowhere and on a couple of my days off I would wander into little side streets and people have set up their houses. There's nothing to it. It's a brick house, a brick structure about the size of an executive's office. Like I said, not an hour and a half away, four million people.

Follow-up: You're able to incorporate the people some of the time, you got to visit tribesmen. You mentioned that you bring in a couple to teach people how to fish. Were you able to incorporate very many Chinese people into the show in one way or another?

JP: Within the show, like I reference a local family coming out to fish, but like you said, China is so vast. We wanted to experience as much of it as we could. We send the Survivors to the Great Wall of China. They sleep, they spend the night on the Great Wall, which I did after the show was over. It was one of the ten best nights of my life. It was so fantastic. We also send them to the Shaolin Temple. where they get a Kung Fu demonstration. We start the show in a Buddhist temple where they experience a Buddhist ceremony. In that sense I think we did a very good job of bringing the culture into the show and making it an organic part of the show either via a reward or the opener or something like that.

Question: One of the things that interested me most in the press release was the information that each tribe was given a copy of Sun Tzu's, "The Art of War". Did anybody actually make any use of it?

JP: Yeah, it surprised me because when we came up with that as one of our themes we looked at The Art of War and we thought, this is really Survivor. It's strategy. Whether you're in an actual war like we're in now or whether you're just playing a game of strategy, the philosophy is pretty similar. You need to know your opponent. You need to know yourself. If you don't know yourself and you don't know your opponent then you're never going to win. If you want to be a leader you need to first be liked. If you're not liked then your team will never follow you. We thought, we'll give it to them and then we'll see what happens. We also included little phrases in things like treemail. I might bring up in a challenge that this is an opportunity to get to know your opponent. I was surprised that early on at a Tribal Council, I believe at the first or second one, that somebody was saying that they were reading "The Art of War" and they didn't think their leader was doing a very good job of leading because of this reason. So, yeah, I think a few people did. This is one of those ideas that could sound a little corny or maybe a little forced but I really believe it was a solid idea. I studied it quite a bit. I read it quite a bit just so that if a situation ever came up at a challenge or at Tribal I might be able to say that in "The Art of War" it would tell you that you should do this. There's a lot of basic stuff about how to get along with people and how to win at a game like this. So, yeah it got used.

Follow-up: I hate to bring up some more serious issues but China is hosting the Olympics next year and there has been extensive discussion about the ongoing human rights abuses in that country and talk about boycotts in different circles. Was there any concern about endorsing tacitly or otherwise, that situation?

JP: No, there wasn't. We're there to shoot our show and use their land and their culture in a way that enhances the show. It wasn't lost on us that this is a country with a philosophy at least from the government that's very, very different from ours. We had a lot of interpreters. Everybody had interpreters because the language barrier is so severe. If you bring up Tiananmen Square to a local, they don't talk about it. They can't talk about it. They can't publicly talk about it. If you are on the internet and you searched Google for Tiananmen Square you'll see all kinds of entries but when you go to click on one in China, it says "cannot access that page." The restrictions from the government are so clear and so strong that it's kind of mind blowing. It was fascinating to be working with young people as our interpreters who are so bright and gifted and understand our culture and how to speak with us and understand our language and yet they're living in a society in which they're prohibited from talking about some of the most significant things that have happened in their own country. I think it's part of the reason that makes going to China relevant. I hope that it will inspire some chatter.

Follow-up: You're always a straight shooter with us about these things. Did you personally have concerns or worries about how it would appear?

JP: No, I didn't. Thank you for the question. Now I've got something to think about tonight.

Question: ON a lighter note, this is your 15th season. Do you have any inside jokes about some of the crew members that have been with you this whole time? Do you guys take bets before the show on who's going to hook up with who and who's going to go home first? Kind of like an NFL pool in the back room?

JP: To the pool question, we don't anymore. In the beginning it was hard not to. The show was so new and everybody was worried about appearances and we would be told from a CBS executive, "absolutely no discussion about favorites, who you want to win, that could be perceived as cheating." So we were on our best behavior. I gotta tell ya, I wanted Rudy to win the first season. I was PULLING for Rudy in the final challenge. They're out in the sun and I remember thinking, "oh man, he picked the wrong spot. He's got the sun beating down on him. Hatch fell off. This is great. This is an opportunity for Rudy." I was so into it. Then Rudy pulls his hand off and Richard wins. Turns out to be probably the best first winner you could ever imagine. He became so notorious and so bigger than life. But yes, in the beginning, I definitely pulled for people. I've learned in the years since doing the show, it just doesn't matter. There are so many variables. There are so many factors. Who you get stuck on a tribe with on day one can determine your fate. If you don't get along you're in trouble. But like I said early, secretly inside, I'm always hoping, hoping, hoping, hoping that there's somebody likeable that sticks around cause I don't like giving a million dollars to an asshole. Do they deserve it? Absolutely. They absolutely deserve it if they win because this game is hard to win. You've gotta manage a lot of stuff. But I think of my mom watching or my eight year old niece. She wants to see somebody she likes win, like Yau-Man or Earl. That's what goes on for me. When it comes to longevity I think there's enough negativity going around that it's nice once in a while to see the good guy win, the fun woman win.

Follow-up: Do you have any inside jokes? Or does anyone stay with you a long time?

JP: We don't have any inside jokes. We do have a club. We just lost one guy, China was his last season, Mark Powell, who has made all the snuffers, every season. Has always taken pride in them, he never just shows up and slaps something together. He spends a couple weeks designing it. He's one of our key art guys. He has a family now and he just can't keep coming out. I think we're down to like 7 people. Colleen [Sullivan] is one of them and then a few other crew members, so yes we do have a club and we always talk about it each year, how many people are left in the club that have been in every single season.

Follow-up: Since you guys kind of paved the way for reality TV, do you have any guilty shows that you watch religiously?

JP: Not religiously. I'm trying to think what I do watch and enjoy. I'm burning out on reality in this sense, I feel like the level of BS, of loosely scripted moments is reaching a plateau for me. I'm not interested in most shows because I can write them before they're finished and they're so obvious in their direction of where they want the people to go. I don't like that. Part of that is because I come from television so I can see it. I think that an audience can sense it on an emotional level. It doesn't feel real. Idol has its moments where, that guy just got kicked out and he's crying. It's real. I think you see it on Survivor. People get betrayed. Those kind of moments are getting more and more tough to find. I think it actually bodes well for us. I think we've hung around long enough that our legitimacy is going to start to work for us again. We've never once caved into trying to script this show or trying to make somebody be something they're not. We keep working on casting. That's my feeling on reality. I love "Cops". I think that's a great show because it's real.

Question: I know this is the first time you've tried it but how did the castaways being kidnapped compare to Exile Island?

JP: I think it worked better. The problem with Exile Island, and not to say that it won't come back, but if it does we will hopefully do it in a different form. The problem is, you only have one person on the island. It's sort of basic storytelling. They've got to talk to somebody. You've either got to give them a volleyball like Tom Hanks in "Castaway" or they're going to sit there and talk to themselves. Ironically, what I was just speaking about a moment ago, we struggled with finding ways to make Exile work where it didn't feel like we were just having a guy sort of talk to himself when he's very much aware that we're there with the camera. We decided to just trying kidnapping. Kidnapping works. Kidnapping now takes one person from one group and forces them into another. They're carrying with them some very valuable information. It's even more complicated. To complicate it even further nobody knows where the information is because it's sort of in the form of a secret. I think that works better because you get a chance to spy or be spied on. Maybe the person who goes over gives away too much information, maybe they give away bad information, maybe the tribe that they visit puts on a show to make them think they're not getting along. There's a lot more opportunities for deception. It's a lot of stuff that's referenced in "The Art of War", spying and reading your opponent. I think it worked out pretty well. You're always trying to, on a show like Survivor, you're always trying to do several things simultaneously. If you want to develop strong tribes that want to beat each other, you want to find holes in their alliances that are vulnerable so that if you do a switch or a merge they might flip.

Follow-up: What was the castaways' food situation in China? Did you give them rice?

JP: We gave them rice. They wouldn't have made it without rice. No chance. We gave them rice and then the first tribe gets a chance to win first [fire at first challenge] and the second tribe gets fire after Tribal Council. There's no way without it. The difficulty they have is, rice is just not enough. We've got some big guys out there this time. Strong guys and strong women that need their calories. They got hit the hardest.

Follow-up: You already mentioned fishing a little bit. Do they do any fishing on their own or is the technique too difficult?

JP: Fishing will definitely become a part of it. That's always a staple, winning fishing gear. Palau had so many fish and the Pearl Islands had so many fish. This is a different kind of fishing. So that was part of the struggle.

Question: Now that you have the perspective of China and you used "The Art of War", do you think that the show's philosophy has change?

JP: No. I think that subconsciously we always knew that "The Art of War" was playing a part. It might have reminded us a little more in storytelling. This is a good angle. Leaders that aren't first liked by their tribe. I think it formed the questions that producers would ask on the beach and things like that. It certainly reminded me that this is a game of strategy. Sometimes I forget and think it's a game of arguing. It's a game of strategy. Sometimes the strategy is to argue. We have a guy this season, Jean-Robert, who actually came in with a pretty interesting strategy which was, I'm going to come in and not be liked. I want people to not like me and then I'm going to become likeable. His reason was, psychologically, and we talked about this to our psychologist and she said, it was absolutely correct. Psychologically if you meet somebody and the first time you meet them you don't like them very well, the minute you get to know them, you do like them. You end up liking them more than you would have had you liked them initially. That was his philosophy. I'm going to be the guy that everybody thinks is a big chump and doesn't pull my weight and is lazy. Then I'm going to start pulling my weight. Then I'm going to become funny and people are going to like me more than they ever would have. That kind of strategy, while not exactly out of "The Art of War," is part of it. It's how do you get to know your opponent and play them in a way that will let you win. I thought it was a pretty good idea.

Follow-up: Did Julie come with you to China?

JP: No, she did not. She's deep in school and it was a long ways away. There's just nothing out there. Nothing to do other than sit in your little room and twiddle your thumbs.

Follow-up: We're you able to contact her?

JP: Oh yeah. We have the internet and phones. They take really good care of us.

Follow-up: There seem to be a couple of rumors going around, are you guys engaged?

JP: No. I don't know where that started. But I know I've heard it as well.

Question: What was the thought process about bringing people that already had a notoriety? Such as Leslie being a radio talk show host and especially Ashley from the WWE. Like Survivor needs any help bringing people in?

JP: It was actually a bit of coincidence. We didn't go out and say, "Hey let's get some people that are known." In the last few seasons, really since Cook Islands, we started looking for people as much as we do take applications. That, I think, has lent itself to seeing people and saying, "Hey, they might actually be a good contestant on our show." Jean-Robert probably would not have applied. Once we approached him his ego was like, are you kidding me, that's what I do for a living, I play poker for a living. Ashley, I think, certainly it's a platform for her but for us, it was a really good character when we met her. She is a ...crazy. She's altered her body in a way that it's hard not to notice her. She's got a wrestler's mentality when it comes to challenges. She's very physical. She said, "I make my living throwing people around. I love this idea." In both cases I think those guys were naturals for the show that we only found because we went out looking for them. It just so happens they had a professional career. As far as Leslie, a Christian radio talk show host. I think that's a slam-dunk. That plays out in the first four minutes of episode one when she's forced to go inside a Buddhist temple and she's a Christian talk show radio host. Anytime you have any of those hot buttons, if you have a gay person and a homophobe, you have a Christian, somebody that's very religious, we had a woman, I think in The Amazon, that wouldn't touch the Immunity Idol because she says, "I will not bear down to any other idol" or whatever. She wouldn't even touch that. She couldn't get her mind into the fact that this was just a silly piece of wood. For her, you called it an idol. That's money in the bank.

Follow-up: There's a lot of people out there that kind of boycott reality as a whole viewing thing but those same people always tend to be Survivor fans. What makes you think Survivor speaks to those people?

JP: I think Survivor, slap me if I'm being presumptuous, I kind of feel like Survivor has earned a little respect. We're not the new kid on the block. We're not on the cover of In Touch anymore but we're still here. I'm pretty sure it's because we're telling good stories. We have the same group of people busting their ass to give good real drama in a contrived situation. I think when a person says, "I don't watch reality but I watch Survivor", I think what they're saying is, "Survivor is it's own form of storytelling. It's good storytelling." Reality has become, I don't even know the word, I was going to say, crap.

Question: The show has been a long time... that if you have a contestant like you did this year, who is 20, he could have been watching it since he was 13. Does that change people who have sort of grown up with the show? Do they come in and really think they know how to handle everything?

JP: Absolutely. There's a guy on this season, Todd, he's one of the biggest fans ever. The first day he says something like that to me. He goes, "Jeff, I've been watching this show since I was 16. I've been waiting until I could apply." This kid couldn't drive when we started. He did know the game. It's because he's been watching since he was a kid. I'll tell ya, in his case, it pays off. He knew going in how to start the game. He had a gameplan how an alliance best worked and how you worked people. Versus a guy like, I keep bringing up Jean-Robert, I don't' know why. But Jean-Robert, who didn't have a clue about Survivor but was so certain that just the fact that the was a professional poker player would take care of itself. That dude had a quick learning curve. He did. He started realizing, okay, I don't know what the hell is going on out here. The people are all talking behind my back and I don't know what they're saying. Hello, Jean-Robert. You should have watched a couple of episodes, you numbskull. So, yeah, I think we're starting to get young people who have really become fans of the game. I like that.

Question: With someone like Ashley I'm curious, did other contestants know who she was, did it change things if she was someone who was famous to them.

JP: I don't know the answer to that. I'm not sure if that ever came up. I think, I'm guessing, knowing Ashley, she probably told people, four minutes in. You'll see in the very beginning, we only let them wear the clothes on their back. They go from Shanghai, the ultra modern city of the world and then they go backwards from a high speed train to a truck and then they end up in rural China where we're going to do this show at this Buddhist monastery. After lugging their luggage around for however long, I tell them part of the culture of China, Buddhism philosophy, a part of that is leaving behind all worldly possessions. That includes your suitcases. You're not going to be needing them. Cut to Ashley who is wearing fishnet stockings, knee-high leather boots, tattoos on both elbows, rings on either side of her bottom lip. She's got huge implants and she's physically fit. She's lean and strong. You cannot miss her. I'm guessing that she said, "By the way, I'm a wrestler, I'm on television."

Follow-up: I wanted to ask a little bit about last season and what was your reaction to the huge Dreamz/Yau-Man situation.

JP: It was mixed. I get it. If I'm Dreamz I don't have the life experience, the wherewithal for the...greed is too big of a word in my life when I'm smelling a shot at a million dollars. I don't have the capability to get it that by betraying Yau-Man I've just cut my own throat. So, I get Dreamz. Dreamz was just an excited kid who never, ever had a shot at something like this. He didn't know what to do. As a guy on the show, as a producer I'm looking at it going, Dreamz make the right decision and your life will change. I would do the Colby Donaldson, I would lay down and say I kept my word and I hope you guys will reward me. Ultimately I was sad because people don't give you a second chance. All they see is a greedy kid and can't put themselves in his shoes.

Follow-up: There have been rumors that there might be another All Stars next season.

JP: I've come around to understand that even though the All Star that we did was a pain in the ass from a production point of view, it was one of our best seasons because we had our best people back. I get that. I wouldn't be looking forward necessarily to doing another 20 All Stars because I know how the minute you call them an All Star, suddenly the contract has a four page rider on it where they need their green M&Ms removed. We're in our 16th season, going into our 16th season, it wouldn't be a bad idea.

Question: What does a typical Survivor day for you look like? Obviously, you're off doing other things while everybody else are in their tribes.

JP: I took a camera around and did a behind the scenes thing and one of the things I did was a day in the life. I don't know when that gets released. They're dumping one every day for the next week. Waking up at 5:30. So the days are very different. Some days I don't work at all. If it's a down day or a merge day and maybe there's no challenge and we don't have a rehearsal and there's no tribal, I could have the whole day off. Then the next day might be a day where you have a rehearsal in the morning and a challenge in the afternoon and then Tribal Council at night. Maybe that doesn't even sound like a lot but by the time you factor in travel to there, especially if you're on boats. Like in Palau, it will take you an hour to get there and an hour to get back. Most of the day is spent preparing either through a rehearsal or creative meeting or we're talking through the switch and how we're going to execute it. The least amount of time is actually spent on camera. What you see is what you get on the show. We show up, we do a challenge. I talk some nonsense at the challenge and then it's over. For a challenge we have it on the grid, we have a drawing of it, we talk through it as a group, then we go out and start to build it. We have a test with no cameras, we run it with the dreamteam. We make some changes then we rehearse it with cameras. Then we look at tapes and say, "Okay, here's where I should be on this. Get a good shot here." We have a long process to make sure that when it actually runs, we get it right.

Follow-up: Have you guys ever considered doing a season in a cold location?

JP: Not in winter. We talked about it. I think Mark is pretty against winter simply because if you're talking like snow and cold, from a production point, it would be very difficult. As human beings you tend to just hibernate. You're not going to frolic around in the water. We have talked about going to somewhere in the spring that might be rolling hills of grass or like somewhere in British Columbia where you get just a completely different look. I think that has a chance of happening.

Question: This is the first season in awhile where there has only been 16 castaways. I was wondering if that had anything to do with ratings declining over recent years or if it was a creative decision.

JP: Let me be really clear how I feel about the ratings. I've learned now in 8 years that the only thing people report is ratings going down. Our ratings have gone down since season two. We were the number one show and we've gone on down since then. Ratings are relevant compared to who you're next to. Who's in that block next to you at 8 o'clock? We're still winning. Ugly Betty gets all the press in the world, she'll probably win another Emmy but we're still winning [the timeslot]. Our ratings are declining. A lot of shows are declining because of the internet. We're still a very profitable show for CBS. We've done 20 people a lot. 20 people are really hard to get to know. We like having 20 or 18 people in the sense that we can do a double tribal, we can put somebody off in the middle of an episode. If somebody quit or got sick we're not in trouble. There's a lot of pros to having more people. We went back to season one in this way, 16 people, every three days is an episode. What happened is that when we got to 20 people we had to get rid of more people. We needed an extra episode, we would do a one day episode. We would actually shoot an entire episode with a challenge and a Tribal in one day. That's really tough to tell the story. We went back to our old schedule. We had time off, we had afternoons free to go kick around. I think the 16 people is something we might stick with for a little while.

Follow-up: How many episodes is Survivor: China? Is it 13 or 14?

JP: I think it is 13 with a clip show on Thanksgiving.

Follow-up: And were there alternates this year?

JP: We always have alternates.

Follow-up: I'm asking because last season you guys ended up having 19 when Melissa dropped out.

Colleen Sullivan: That was Fiji.

JP: We didn't bring an alternate with us. We had an alternate in Cooks because we had somebody we weren't sure of so we brought somebody. We had an alternate for Fiji but when we got out there she [Melissa McNulty] quit like five hours before we started. There's just no way. There's no way to get anybody there. Had she quit three days before we would have probably brought an alternate out. It's a little bit of a guessing game. We don't typically bring anybody to location that's not going to be on the show because you're getting their hopes up. We did do it in the Cooks, it's a good thing we did. We didn't do it in Fiji.

Question: Talking about great bodies and great shape. Some are making a mistake. They get there and want to look good the first week. Then the guys would come up with excess body fat and gradually lose it during the hungry time and are faring better by the middle of the thing. If you were a contestant would you go in a little overweight on purpose?

JP: Yeah and it would be hard because, vanity, man. I don't want to show up with 20 extra pounds. From a nutrition point of view, we have this guy, James, who, we've never had anybody as big or as ripped as James. He struggled early because he talked about how much he eats a day. He said, "Jeff, I eat all day. I'm eating nothing now." The impact on him versus say, the impact on Courtney, who weighed maybe 90 pounds when we started, is very different. Jean-Robert is like a grizzly bear. He's got this big roll of fat. He had a lot for his body to chew on. I would definitely put on about 15 pounds and start eating less before I got there. I'm amazed people don't do that, go to a nutritionist and say, "Look, here's what my body is going to undergo." They eat big steak dinners the night before and then they're in pain the next morning.

Colleen: At this time, Jeff, if you wouldn't mind, could we just run down the 16 and give a couple sentences on your thoughts on each one of them.

JP: Jean-Robert [Bellande], extremely confidant to the point of cocky arrogance. Part of that is his plan, part is just natural personality. In terms of somebody you want to have on the show, he's gold.

James [Cruser] is a grave-digger from Louisiana. Physically, the biggest guy we've ever had on the show. Surprisingly one of the most agile. I thought that James might be a guy who couldn't really stretch or move and was just all muscle. You see in the very first challenge, he goes up against Frosti, this young parkour kid. They go head to head and Frosti's got nothing on James. James is kind of like a gentle giant in that he's pretty quiet unless you rile him up and then he has no filter and he will say whatever he is thinking at whatever volume he wants to say it. That was interesting and a bit of a liability for him out there.

Dave Cruser is nuts. Dave works to the point of exhaustion, then loses his mind and continues to try to contribute. He's just zany enough to be entertaining and annoying if you have to live with him. At the heart of Dave is a big heart. The guy works so hard from the second he gets out there. He really wants to build something. He really wants to have a group of people but he's a guy that is going to need to study "The Art of War" early if he's going to stay long.

Jaime Dugan is an interesting combination of sorority girl and honor student. She's very pretty and she's from South Carolina. She's got a pretty good head on her shoulders especially when it comes to being with people. Jaime factors into the strategy of her tribe quite a bit.

Todd Herzog is the guy I was talking about earlier. He's very young and never missed an episode of Survivor. He's studied it from when he was a kid. Of all the people on the show this season, Todd knew Survivor the best. Todd knows what to expect. He knows the odds of there being a merge or a loved one visit or an auction. He can tell you based on what day it is what we're probably doing back at base camp. It's kinda scary how much he knew about the show. He's a great storyteller. Like Jean-Robert, Todd is somebody you go to all the time because he always gives you something good.

Eric Huffman is a little bit like Ethan in that Eric is a very quiet polite kid. He's a quite talented musician but out in Survivor he was definitely a follower for most of it. He just wanted to get along. I was a little suspect that maybe there was a little something else going on. His game was from the beginning, I'm a nice guy and that's how I'm going to play it.

Amanda [Kimmel] is a former Miss Montana. She's beautiful. Great physical body in terms of athlete. She's very strong and can pull her own weight at camp and at challenges. She knows the game very well. She totally gets how Survivor is played. She is playing to win. Amanda is somebody you look around and think she's a little like Amber, keep her around until you don't need her anymore. Good luck.

Peih-Gee [Law] has a very strong opinion about everything and that is going to be her biggest obstacle to get over is to not tell you what she thinks...and often it's negative...and often it's delivered in a negative way. What Peih-Gee has going for her is willpower. She will not go away. You're going to have to really want to get rid of her.

Sherea [Lloyd] is a fourth grade teacher. She is out of her element. She ends up with the clothes on her back and quickly finds herself in her bra and underwear and his not that comfortable and then amazingly very quickly begins to sort of embrace it. Sherea, much like Peih-Gee, has a strong point of view. She loves to talk about it. She loves to mix it up. She loves to go head to head with you about anything. It makes for good television.

Denise Martin is a lunchlady. She is one of the most endearing people we've had on the show in a long time. She has an unmistakable haircut, a mullet. It's a fascinating piece of hairstyle, you can't help but ask her about it. Her answer was so charming. She said, "I work with food so I have a need to keep my hair short to keep it out of the food. I'm also a woman and I'm a wife and I want to be sexy for my husband so I want some length in the back. What you see is what you get.

Ashley [Massaro] is a wrestler. Ashley has one of the most unique looks of anyone we've ever had on the show. She's altered her body in many ways from piercings to tattoos to breast implants. On top of it all she's very physically fit. She makes her living throwing people around. I think Ashley's strength is going to be that she's a strong woman. I think her liability is she's one of the divas of the WWE. That diva part of her is going to have to go.

[Steve] Chicken Morris is a one of a kind. He is a chicken farmer. He doesn't know Sur...he doesn't...Chicken is the oldest guy out there. That's the toughest thing for Chicken the first few days, figuring out the balance between being Chicken, the guy who knows how to build a shelter and being this guy that's playing the game that needs to blend in with all these younger people that only think they know how to build a shelter. That's his big struggle. This is a guy who has lived on his own for so long and does things his own damn way. That doesn't work on Survivor. Chicken found himself in a situation of either "stick to my roots and be the first one gone or adapt and learn how to deal with these younger people."

Leslie Nease, Christian radio talkshow host. Leslie is a really nice woman. She's a mother. She's very accomplished. She's done a lot in her life. Her current occupation is she hosts a talk show. For her, religion will play a part. Early on she's forced to go to a Buddhist temple which was not a worshipping ceremony but has a worship element to it. That was difficult for her. Right away she's exposed as somebody who has a strong faith. The question is, will people manipulate her and her faith or will she use her faith to manipulate others. Where is her line? Will she cross it to win a million dollars?

Surfing instructor Aaron [Reisberger]. I describe Aaron as kind of cold and steely. Aaron told us when we first met him, "When I bartend, I can read people so fast that I know what to say to them and how to treat them to get the maximum tip." I thought that if he's telling the truth he's going to do very well because that is at the essence of Survivor, reading people and knowing what makes them tick and how to get to them. I think Aaron is very good at knowing what people need and how to give it to them. Aaron is probably used to leading and that will either really work well for him or kill him. He's not a passive guy that's going to sit back and say, yeah okay whatever.

Courtney [Yates] is the smallest person we've had. She couldn't have weighted 100 pounds but she passed our physical test and was cleared by the doctors. She is one of the wittiest and negative people we've ever had on the show. I really got a kick out of Courtney. I enjoyed her sarcasm, her extremely dry wit. She always had a comment about what was going on and it was almost always funny and simultaneously insightful. Her liability is going to be her size. Can she contribute anything worth keeping her around? Or does she try to last long enough where her size becomes an asset because nobody thinks she can win so they keep her around. She's in a really interesting position. If I were her I'd just try to bury myself somewhere in the middle and hope I can make it so late that a combination of my personality and my lack of physical ability will make me somebody you want to keep around. Courtney was, for me, a delight because of her caustic personality.

Frosti [Zernow] is the youngest kid we've ever had on the show. He does this sport called parkour. It's sort of like what they did in the latest James Bond movie where they jump over signs and jump up onto railings. He's just very physically gifted. We saw his tape and thought, this guy is great for challenges. In the very first challenge he goes up against James and there's this huge wall and it was built with a rope that you're supposed to use to climb up the wall and pull yourself over. We thought, okay, Frosti might skip the rope. Sure enough, he leaps off of a platform at this wall and pulls himself up. Right behind him is James, this 6' 4" massive guy, he does the same thing. I thought, oh my God, we have some athletes this season between Frosti and James and Aaron and ummm, I just lost the other guy...Amanda and Ashley. We've got some pretty physically fit people.