Survivor will finally resume production and film its next season after a year-long delay due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Longtime Survivor host Jeff Probst, 59, announced Monday on Twitter that production of the show's upcoming 41st season will begin soon in Fiji.
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Jeff tweeted, "I am thrilled to tell you all that @survivorcbs is going back into production and I will see you on the island for #Survivor 41! @CBS."
Along with his tweet, Jeff posted a video of himself and revealed, "Hey Survivor fans, I have some exciting news to share! Survivor is going back into production. Fiji has invited us back to their beautiful country to shoot season 41."
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"We have all of our COVID protocols in place so that everybody in Fiji will remain safe, all of our crew will be safe and, of course, our players will be safe."
The host continued, "And I've got to tell you, I can't remember a time when I've been this pumped to shoot Survivor, and I'll tell you why: The past year has reminded me -- and I hope it's reminded you -- that you've got to live your life like it's one big, great adventure, and Survivor fulfills that."
"So I am thrilled to say I will see you on the island for Survivor 41. Let's do it!" Jeff concluded.
CBS first announced in March 2020 during the onset of coronavirus Survivor would be postponing the back-to-back production of its 41st and 42nd seasons that were originally scheduled to air in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021.
Season 41 of Survivor was supposed to begin filming on March 24, 2020 in the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji, however Jeff informed crew members at the time cameras would not start rolling until at least May 2020 due to COVID-19, according to Entertainment Weekly.
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Season 42 of Survivor was reportedly set to begin filming on May 24, a few weeks after Season 41 was scheduled to wrap production.
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When May rolled around, CBS announced that Season 41 of Survivor was slated to air in Fall 2020 in its longtime Wednesday at 8PM ET/PT timeslot.
However, Jeff admitted in July 2020 that producers still didn't have a plan in place.
"There are all kinds of things happening in the world right now -- certainly they impact the physical aspects of production... Shooting in a foreign country is exponentially more complicated, and we are still exploring them," Jeff explained to The Hollywood Reporter at the time.
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"I'm on the phone every couple of days, either with the government of Fiji or with our executive teams that are in charge of logistics and planning. We're continuing to lay out ideas. We don't have a plan yet."
"It's what we're spending all our time doing because it's not like we're going to Atlanta to shoot a show," he added.
The Hollywood Reporter, however, pointed out to Jeff that Fiji had declared itself coronavirus free.
"They've done an incredible job of controlling the virus. They've had a total of only 15 cases in their entire country, and they've had no active cases for months," Jeff said.
"They have figured out how to handle it, and they just want to ensure that when we come shoot there, we don't change that. We're working together with them, but they've been very production-friendly in terms of wanting it to happen."
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But since Survivor's crew is comprised of people from all over the world, closed borders and travel bans amid COVID-19 prevented the show from being able to commence filming in Fiji, which has served as Survivor's filming location since Season 33 in 2016.
The start of production was therefore pushed back again until at least September, and Survivor was ultimately pulled from the network's Fall 2020 schedule.
The reality series, which debuted in 2000, had previously aired two seasons per calendar year since 2001, and the 2020-2021 television season marks the first time in nearly two decades Survivor has not aired a fall or spring season on CBS.
Survivor's most recent edition, Season 40 dubbed Survivor: Winners at War, aired its finale on May 13, 2020.
Returning castaway Tony Vlachos became the franchise's second two-time winner and walked away with the show's largest cash prize in history of $2 million.
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