Survivor 44 has aired three episodes so far, and new castaway Claire Rafson sat out a challenge in each one.
This led to many complaints from Survivor fans, many of which thought that people couldn’t sit out back-to-back challenges.
The rule states that the same person cannot sit out back-to-back challenges during the same cycle. A cycle consists of all gameplay between Tribal Council eliminations.
Since the last two episodes had only one Immunity Challenge each and no separate Reward Challenge, it meant Claire could sit them out.
By sitting out, though, Claire put herself at risk and got voted out of the game. The excuse was that she had not proven that she had any value to her tribe.
Then, on the latest episode of the Jeff Probst On Fire podcast, he broached the topic of conversation.
Jeff Probst might change the Survivor sit-out rules
“In the old days of Survivor, we used to have two challenges in most episodes,” Jeff said during Episode 3 of his new podcast.
The “old days” before the competition was lowered from 39 days to just 26, constricting the schedule and making it so that the producers had to present fewer challenges for the castaways.
“That was designed to make the tribe figure out: Where do you want your weak player? Is the reward where you might get food or immunity where you get protection?” Jeff went on to elaborate.
“I do think it’s something that we do need to put on our whiteboard, and we need to examine if maybe we just change that. Because it does need to be updated,” Jeff went on to add.
The Survivor sit-out rule does need to change
Claire Rafson sat out every Immunity Challenge while she was on Survivor 44. The rule may need to be adjusted to protect the castaways from themselves because she was too tempted to rest up for later in the season.
Had Claire competed in one of those challenges, her tribe may have looked at her differently, and she may have survived past the third episode. Instead, Claire became the fourth person eliminated from winning the $1 million prize.
More news from Survivor 44
Another thing that Jeff has touched on is that cheating is allowed on Survivor 44. Some fans might not even consider this cheating since the castaways can do things that bend or break the rules. Jeff explained why everyone is allowed to play the game as they see fit.
In a shocking revelation, Jeff said a castaway threw away an advantage on a prior season. It wasn’t the first time that an advantage went unused.
Survivor 44 airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on CBS.
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One thing I do not think is fair is when they started to allow all the whispering among all the players during tribal counsel. They used to have their mind made up when they left camp. If somebody changed their mind that added to the drama. Now they can all whisper and change what they are going to do.
wish they would go back to 39 days