‘Survivor: Worlds Apart’: Jeff Probst explains casting new players, not doing All-Stars

We remember this past spring, looking ahead to the future of “Survivor” and very much thinking that we were going to be getting a cast of all-star players for the landmark 30th season. After all, conventional wisdom suggested that this would be the way that the producers would want to go with the show.

However, this turned out to not necessarily be the case. Jeff Probst and Mark Burnett decided that they wanted to go with all newbies for this season, which has become the White Collar vs. Blue Collar vs. No Collar “Survivor: Worlds Apart.” The premise seems strong, and after “Survivor: Cagayan,” we got a great reminder that all-new players can create one of the best seasons ever. (With that being said, “Survivor: San Juan del Sur” was a relative letdown.)

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about this choice, Probst explained that it was a conversation with Burnett that allowed him to make up his mind on what he wanted to do:

“Leading up to 30, we spent almost a year talking about whether we should do some sort of all-star season with returning players … And that seemed to be the conventional wisdom. A lot of people were expecting us to do that. But Mark and I were talking on the phone one day and Mark said something so simple. Mark said, ‘Just keep in mind, Jeff—it is our 30^th season, but it is also just our 30^th season.’ And that really struck me, and from that moment on I realized, yeah, this is not the end of Survivor. It just happens to be a big number. Let’s just do a great season.”

There is obviously plenty of time for another All-Star season, and in all honesty, we’d rather wait to season 32 or longer if this means that you can have a great crop of returning players who have never been back. We want people back like Tony Vlachos, Kim Spradlin, Abi-Maria Gomes, Spencer Bledsoe, Josh Canfield, and our reigning champion Natalie Anderson. We want all of our All-Stars to be at this cross-section of entertainment value and strategy. No fillers!

We’ll have more on this season when further details are released in the weeks ahead, but for now, take a look back at some of the season rankings and interviews that we did after this past season! Also, sign up if you want to get some further TV updates via email, courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)