Jeff Probst would consider hiring Mike White as a Survivor producer

There are always two games happening simultaneously on any season of Survivor. There is the game between the players battling it out for a million dollars, and then there is the game behind the game — a cat-and-mouse contest between the players and producers. The former group is constantly trying to figure out ways to hack the system, while the latter group must always look to tweak and alter the framework of the competition so contestants never get too comfortable.

Would that inside, behind-the-scenes knowledge of production offer a big advantage to a member of the crew, should that person ever end up a contestant? Host and showrunner Jeff Probst fielded that question on the latest episode of the On Fire With Jeff Probst podcast, when he was asked by a listener named Josh, “Are Survivor crew members allowed to audition and compete in Survivor? Has a Dream Teamer ever made it to the actual show, or would the experience of working on the show be too much of an advantage?"

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“It's a really good question,” Probst responds on the podcast. “I can't imagine any scenario where a crew member would become a player. And it's not related to knowing anything. There really isn't that much of an advantage to knowing how we build a challenge or how we make an idol. The issue would be perception. It just wouldn't even be worth considering it.”

But Josh also flipped the script by asking about a reverse scenario: “In contrast, has any Survivor contestant gone on to work on the Survivor crew after they were on the show?” And to that, Probst was a bit more open to the idea. “A former player becoming a crew member, which is also very unlikely, that's not completely out of the question,” says the host, and he used a very familiar — and successful — face as an example.

“For instance, if after Mike White completes what we all hope will be a decades-long run of The White Lotus and he said, ‘Hey, Probst, I'd be interested in being a producer on the show,’ and we happened to have a producing slot that we were looking to fill and there wasn't anybody already in our producing ranks who was in line — which is also very unlikely that that would happen — then in that specific situation, who knows? Mike White could join the producing ranks of Survivor.’”

It’s not as far-fetched as Probst makes it sound. After all, White has already acted as something of a shadow creative producer in the past. Back in 2014, Probst told Entertainment Weekly how White — not even yet a contestant on the show — killed the Redemption Island twist that was supposed to appear again in the San Juan del Sur season.

“In a weird way, I owe thanks to Mike White,” Probst told EW then. “Mike is a big Survivor fan, a former contestant on Amazing Race and a tremendous writer/director/actor/storyteller. He was over at our house for dinner just a couple of weeks before we started shooting. I confided in him about the basic creative for the Blood vs. Water season, and when I mentioned Redemption Island coming back, he had a very lackluster response — ‘Oh, you’re doing Redemption again?’ The words hit me like a stray, leftover Medallion of Power right between the eyes. We had debated Redemption Island during our Survivor creative meetings, and for some reason hearing him say it at that moment tipped the scale.”

White then confirmed to EW in 2018 before appearing on the David vs. Goliath season that he indeed killed the return of Redemption Island for San Juan del Sur. “I take the credit,” he said then. “I’ve never been a fan of Redemption Island. That’s just me. I love the show. I’ll watch the worst season of the show and it is still the best season of TV for me. It’s the ritual killing aspect of Survivor where the stakes at the end are that someone’s dead. The idea that they can come back to life just feels like it takes that away. I think there’s a primal, ritualistic, killing thing that is part of the pleasure of the game, and I think that that kind of undermined it.”

The White Lotus creator was not done influencing the creative elements of the show. Probst revealed to EW in 2021 how White also completely changed the concept for the first post-pandemic season of the series.

"I was in my garage with several white boards, working on creative for Survivor 41," the host told EW. "I called Mike for his insight into a story-related element. He listened politely as I laid out the idea. It was an elaborate and very complicated Survivor capitalist society that would be driven by players earning money (Fire Tokens) and spending them on shelter, rewards, and advantages. When I finished the pitch, I asked him what he thought. He paused for a moment and said, 'Well… it sounds… in-ter-est-ing. But is it fun?'"

As a result of that one comment, the capitalist society crumbled, and Survivor producers went in a completely new direction instead. What massive creative change will White inspire next? All we know is he doesn’t need an official producing credit to make it happen.