Survivor: Palau – Janu, Probst, and Much Ado About Nothing

In my Survivor recap, I asked people to e-mail me their thoughts on whether Janu should be inducted into the Reality TV Hall of Shame for quitting. I received boatloads of responses, and will answer that question in another article. But right now I’d like to address another issue that hit me out of left field – the claim that host Jeff Probst “coerced” or “forced” Janu into quitting.

When I was watching the show, I didn’t see any hint of Probst being out of line in his questioning to Janu and the others. So it surprised me to find that others did. Some of the e-mails I received suggested that Probst had “stepped over the line” and deserved a mention in the Hall of Shame himself! Mind you, this is the only host to so far be inducted into the Reality TV Hall of Fame!

I looked around a little and found that other sites – even MSNBC – had articles accusing Probst of going too far. What, I wondered, had I missed? As it turns out, I believe the answer to that question is, “Nothing.”

In the very first season of Survivor, when Jeff Probst first started asking questions in Tribal Council about whether or not there was an alliance, I was outraged! Why should a game show host be insinuating himself into the game like that? Obviously, I thought, he knew what was going on and tried to expose it. Since then, however, we have found that it’s not the case. Tribal Councils are much longer than the portions shown on TV, and we only see the parts that hit home. So if Probst asks questions for 15 minutes that don’t go anywhere, but then hits on a key point, we will likely only see the key point. This makes it look like he immediately knew what to ask, but in reality that was not the case.

Also, Probst is part of the game. How often have we seen him try to entice contestants to quit from endurance challenges by offering them food? In the second series, he agreed to a deal with Elisabeth to bring out a boat so she wouldn’t have to jump into the cold water after standing on a post for hours on end. In Amazon, he made a deal for Jenna and Heidi to get naked for food!

We need to keep in mind that there is no “right” way to be the host of a reality show. Phil Keoghan, on The Amazing Race, barely gets involved in anything going on with contestants. Jeff Probst, on the other hand, is very involved. Probst won the RealityNewsOnline Award for “Best Host” in 2003; Keoghan won the same award in 2004. Neither is right or wrong, there is no official job description that they should be following. It’s a matter of style, and Probst’s style has worked well on Survivor for ten seasons now.

Even so, if Probst truly had coerced Janu to quit, it would have been going too far. However, despite what many people think they remember from Tribal Council, that simply is not the case. Many readers had two points: “She wasn't going to quit until Probst pressured her.” And: “Probst saved Stephenie by pestering Janu until she finally quit.” The problem here is that what Janu said on The Early Show contradicts this:

Julie Chen: When did you make that decision to quit? Right then and there while Jeff Probst was having this Tribal Council discussion or did you go into Tribal Council that night thinking you were going to snuff out your torch?

Janu: I think I went into Tribal Council thinking that that's what I was going to do. Spending that night by myself on the island kind of took me there, so...