Survivor 45: Jeff Probst on retiring past puzzles

As some of you have realized at this point, Jeff Probst has listened to at least some criticism when it comes to Survivor 45. After all, there is a big change to the rules of who can sit out a challenge and when. Meanwhile, they have also put some puzzles out to pasture after multiple contestants over the years have 3D printed versions of them to practice in advance of being out on the show.

On this past episode, Probst made a key point of noting that the puzzle during the immunity challenge was a brand-new home never before seen on the show. Moving forward, it does appear that this could continue to be the case.

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Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the host / showrunner notes that the show did appreciate on some level the “meta” moment of having a superfan like Carson benefit from knowing the puzzles in advance. However, it is also not something that they want to see continuously replicated:

 “We understand that the idea can run its course and we feel it has … So we did retire some puzzles, and we have new puzzles in season 45, so I think it’s unlikely that we will find ourselves in that spot again simply because we aren’t looking for it anymore.”

Is Carson somewhat the scapegoat in all of this, given that other contestants have done this in the past? Sure, and it is hard to blame anyone for being smart or resourceful enough to practice in advance. Personally, though, we never liked the idea that the show recycled so many puzzles — in addition to the 3D printing that could be done, it also just felt like the series was losing some originality. Also, we prefer the show when it’s honestly not that meta and we can live out the fantasy a little bit more.

Related – Be sure to see some sneak peeks moving into this Survivor 45 episode

Do you think that rebooting a lot of puzzles on Survivor 45 is a good idea?

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(Photo: CBS.)