Survivor enters a New Era with big rule changes for season 51, Jeff Probst explains
The million-dollar coin flip is back
Survivor 51 premieres tonight at 8 pm ET on CBS with a two-hour episode. We’re going to meet the 21 new players and be introduced to a whole new set of rules and twists. We’re in a new era of Survivor, so what are all the rule changes for season 51?
The open era
Jeff Probst, the famed Survivor host, has declared that Survivor is now in the Open Era. What does this mean exactly? That “every type of advantage, every twist we’ve ever done is in play,” he said in the trailer.
“With the Open Era, we’re deliberately breaking those patterns,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “We’re building each season on its own, using ingredients from all fifty seasons, with no connection to the season that preceded it or the one that will follow it.”
Two starting tribes
In the show’s recent New Era seasons, season 41 and onwards, players have usually been split into three tribes of six. Now, it’s going back to how it was previously, to the classic two tribe format before season 41.
21 players are starting
This is also the first time in the show’s history that a season has begun with 21 players. Usually it’s always an even number. So things are definitely going to be shaken up within the first episode.
The million dollar coin flip
In season 50 they introduced the idea of a million-dollar coin flip. “We said, ‘What if we put that in the show every season? And every season, one player gets to flip a coin, and if you call it correctly, we’ll add a million dollars to the pot for that season,” Jeff told The Hollywood Reporter.
However, there’s one major difference they’re adding: “If you call it incorrectly, you as a coin flipper are out, that million dollars rolls into the next season of Survivor. So in Survivor 51, at some point, a player’s going to flip a coin for a million dollars. If they land it, the prize pool will be $2 million for 51.”
“If they don’t land it, that million dollars will go into Survivor 51, and somebody will flip a $2 million coin, making the prize money $3 million,” Jeff explains. It will continue until someone correctly calls it, or the prize money doubles for the next season.
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