Survivor 50 is bringing back some legendary fan favorites, but a strong case could be made that the entire Mt Rushmore of the show is missing. None of Boston Rob, Sandra, Parvati and Tony made the trip to Fiji for the milestone season, and there are plenty of fans who aren’t happy campers about it. They voiced their outrage about those glaring omissions, as well as some more niche superfan complaints, after the cast was first announced, but in light of Parvati Shallow reminding everyone why she’s so freakin’ good during the most recent season of Australian Survivor, the noise has started to get loud again.
In fact, longtime host Jeff Probst was asked about Parvati not getting a spot on the show while he was at the Emmys by CBS favorite Gayle King. He told her it was because fans recently got the chance to see her during the reality competition’s 40th anniversary season. King didn’t really seem to be buying his answer, and judging by social media reaction, neither were many fans. You can take a look at a portion of his quote below…
That’s unfortunate that she didn’t know, but the truth was if you’re a Survivor fan, we had just done a season of all winners. And it had Parvati and Rob and Tony and all of these great players, and we just felt like we just saw them. Let’s do something different for 50.
The “we just saw them” portion of the quote is what many fans seem to be fixating on, mostly because it doesn’t really make sense given the rest of the cast. The Survivor 50 cast is made up of half so-called New Era players and half OG players. If you’re not a Survivor superfan, that means half of the players (12 total people) are coming from Survivor 41 and beyond. That means half the cast we’ve literally seen more recently than Parvati.
CBS put a video of Probst’s quote out on its TikTok, and most of the top comments are pointing that out, or they’re questioning why Boston Rob was allegedly invited back (and declined) and Parvati allegedly wasn’t contacted at all. I don’t really have a good answer to that last question, but I do think, based on some other comments, that I have a better idea of why Parvati didn’t end up on Survivor 50.
During a recent interview, Probst said he didn’t look at Survivor 50 like he was trying to put together as many legends as possible. He looked at it like he was trying to create a season that had little bits that represented Survivor’s long history. That meant not exclusively going after the big names but instead focusing on getting a diversity of different types of players so it would more closely mirror a real season. Now, maybe he came to that conclusion after Boston Rob passed, which is why Parvati allegedly wasn’t spoken to? I have no idea.
I’ve decided to be excited for Survivor 50. Yes, I have plenty of complaints just like everyone else, but I’m still excited to see Coach, Cirie and other favorites interact with some of the bigger personalities from the New Era. The early buzz is great. That being said, would I take another season at some point filled with more actual legends, starting with Parvati? Yes. Please make that happen too.
