After 32 full seasons and 16 years of airing, CBS’ Survivor shows no signs of slowing down. The show, going into its 33rd season with the theme of the season Millennials vs. Gen X, just finished as the third highest rated show on CBS for the past season, according to TV by the Numbers.
So, when does it look like when the show is going to end? If you ask Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor since the beginning and one of the executive producers, the show is still going strong, and he said to Entertainment Weekly that “40 is the next big goal.”
Not only is the potential for a season 40 a huge milestone for the show, but another milestone is closer on the horizon. For the premiere of season 34, that will most likely premiere in February of 2017, the show will officially have aired 500 episodes, something that many shows that air today don’t get to see.
As for why Probst wants the show to continue, he said “I feel like there is a commitment that we made to our audience which is, I promise that we are out here doing our very best to give you a great adventure, and if you just keep watching, we’ll keep taking big swings … So getting to 40? Entirely possible. It looks like forever to get to 40 because just coming up with one theme is a gigantic hurdle. To come up with two, we always feel like we just conquered the beast. But that’s the goal.”
In terms of adventure, Survivor hasn’t shorted any of the viewers on excitement in the last season. In one of the episodes that aired on March 9, three players collapsed following a challenge and one of them had to be medically evacuated, something that happens occasionally on the show, but none of the evacuations were as serious as that one. Here’s a video of Caleb’s moments on Survivor, with his medical emergency situation starting around the seven-minute mark.
Throughout past seasons of the show, there’s been many memorable contestants, including season one winner Richard Hatch, Rupert Boneham, the fan-favorite, tie-dye wearing contestant who appeared in seasons seven, eight, 20 and 27, and Rob and Amber, the couple who met during season eight of the show and ended up getting married after he proposed to her when she won the first All Stars season of the show.
Survivor is a show about a group of 39 castaways, who leave America and go to another country and compete to see who can become the sole survivor and win one million dollars. The first season, which was in Borneo, was watched by an average of 28.3 million viewers and the finale brought in 51.69 million viewers. Throughout the show’s run, it has never been outside of the Top 35 shows on television and has never dipped below an average of 10 million viewers per season.
Survivor has been nominated for multiple Emmy Awards, with Jeff Probst winning for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality Competition Show from 2008 through 2011.
Season 33 of the show, Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X, premieres on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 8 p.m. for an hour and a half long episode.