The crew member also explains what it is like to get a pitch turned down by Jeff Probst.

Survivor producer Jimmy Quigley explains why season 50 is ‘not a greatest hits album’

The crew member also explains what it is like to get a pitch turned down by Jeff Probst.

By Dalton Ross

Dalton Ross is a writer and editor with over 25 years experience covering TV and the entertainment industry. *Survivor* is kind of his thing.

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February 16, 2026 11:15 a.m. ET

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The cast of 'Survivor 50'. Credit:

Scott Duncan/CBS

*Survivor* likes to keep players on their toes. The key to its longevity rests in the show’s unpredictable ability to evolve. However, an anniversary season billed as a celebration of the past would seem to be the perfect spot to bring back some of the most famous twists and advantages of yesteryear.

So, beyond what viewers voted for as part of the “In the Hands of the Fans” campaign, how did producers want to handle the balance between classic and new twists while putting together the creative elements for *Survivor 50* (premiering Feb. 25 on CBS)? Was the approach to honor the past and bring back some of the best elements of the first 49 seasons? Or was it to hit this cast of all-stars with a bag of completely new tricks?

We asked that question directly to the man chiefly responsible for putting such tricks into the game. Jimmy Quigley started on *Survivor* 33 seasons ago on *Survivor: Gabon* as a tape coordinator shuttling footage back and forth between Africa and America. Now, the co-executive producer heads up Team F.L.I.N.T. (which stands for “Fields, Logistics, Idols, Notes, Twists” and helps drive all the twists and turns of the game).

Jimmy Quigley with 's Alison Wild and Kristen Harding at EW's' Survivor 50' cover shoot.

When ** sat down with Quigley at production base camp the day before filming on *Survivor 50* began, we wanted to know if the anniversary season would be bringing back blasts from the past or — like season 40’s *Survivor: Winners at War*, which introduced Fire Tokens — be introducing brand new elements?

“I think it's a marriage of both,” Quigley tells EW. “Season 50 is a celebration of the legacy of the show, so how do you mine that while also bringing something new to it too, because it's not a greatest hits album. This is a new album. But you want to hear some of those same music notes that you're familiar with, that you love about that music. But it’s not a cover, and we're not just playing the hits. You're giving something new for people to enjoy.”

Some of those new elements would later appear in the *Survivor 50 trailer* — why is Mr. Beast carrying a box and what exactly is a “Billie Eilish Boomerang idol”? — and we have yet to see how the viewers voted on their creative elements, but we poked and prodded Quigley for more answers on the eve of the game in terms of how the fan voting impacted their jobs, what it’s like to get a pitch turned down by Jeff Probst, his favorite addition to the game so far, and just how long the show can go on.

Charlie Davis, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, Jenna Lewis-Dougherty, Dee Valladares, Savannah Louie, Rizo Velovic, and Tiffany Ervin on 'Survivor 50'.

Gail Schulman/CBS

**: What's it like personally to be here filming season 50? Obviously, it’s a big deal to everyone, but you all are also just running another season of your production. So how much do you think about it being 50?**

**JIMMY QUIGLEY:** It goes both ways, right? The number 50 doesn't change your day to day or what you're trying to do. What it does is it adds a layer to what you're doing and it gives a shine to it, meaning there's a reverence that you're talking about. The fans are excited for it because they love the show. And so there's the excitement level in that sort of reverence.

It gives you a little something extra to work with in the creative. 50 is a special number, so what's a special thing that we can bring to it? 25 years of having a show on the air is special. 50 seasons of a show is special. So that special thing, how can you dive in and take from it and sprinkle it in to elevate the season?

**You’ve got day 1 of filming tomorrow. Did day 1 of season 40 feel different at all then? That was a huge season. Or were just so wrapped up in what you needed to do that day that it didn’t register.**

I don't think it does. I think every shoot day 1, it's the same feeling every morning. There's a tingle in the air, right? You do so much prep to get to this spot. I've heard Jeff say it where you do all this work and then you hand it over to the contestants and then what they do with it is what they do with it. And there's a freedom to that, an excitement to that.

And so, in essence, you get to become the audience that morning too. You have all these ideas and you have thoughts about how you think things might play out and what would be cool and all that stuff. And then you get to see what they do with it because it's their game at the end of the day and we're just trying to create the guardrails and the parameters in which they get to play.

**Season 50 is so unique in the sense that Jeff's been talking about it for a while, you had the fan voting going on during 48, you've had all these announcements and articles and things so far in advance, and obviously the casting went on forever. What about for you and your department? Have you been working on 50 for a long time too? Or is it more like: *We're focusing on 48 and 49, and we will get to 50*? Has it been different for you in terms of when you had to start looking at plans for this?**

Personally, I was lucky enough to be a part of the process earlier than normal. So we started diving in fully into 49 and 50 as a whole in August [2024]. So right after 48 is over, it's onto the next one because we want to mine that extra special stuff and use all that stuff that's unique and new. And so you want to spend the time to really, really make something special for a special season.

On the beach for 'Survivor 50': An exclusive, all-access first look at the biggest season ever

Watch cast members of 'Survivor 50' vote their first players out of the game (exclusive)

**What's your favorite twist or wrinkle that you and or your department has ever put in the game?**

The key scramble in *Survivor 44.* That was cool in a lot of ways and was fun to utilize the cage because it starts early on, and then it has another purpose later in the game with the key scramble. And what I remember about the key scramble the most was the smiles on everybody's faces.

And you can do that with this cast for 50. These people smile when they get something thrown at them. For a person who's not eating and maybe just got blindsided or covered in dirt and sweaty and all those things, for them to be presented with something to make them smile as an opportunity to do something fun, I think that's what really connects and makes me excited.

Jeff Probst and the cast of 'Survivor 50'.

**I feel that your team was maybe one of the ones most impacted by the fan voting, so how much did you have to react to the fan voting on things like idols and advantages and how many of them and how powerful they should be?**

We like to often start with a blank page, so what the fans did was just really help fill in the page in terms of what we're doing and whether we were doing this or not. Because whether they voted idols in or not, the question mark is still there. So the outcome is going to exist, but the question mark is there for the players to play with.

And for us, I wasn't waiting for the results to find out if I had to start thinking about this or not. And that's the beauty of it too is I think the real special part about *Survivor* is that say the fans voted for no idols, whatever idea I have [that wasn’t used] I can use later on. We call it our bag of tricks. Team F.L.I.N.T. is a relatively new thing. So we build our reservoir and our bag of tricks up, and then we get to go back and be like, “What worked about this? What didn't work about this? What didn't we like?” Things like that.

The cast of 'Survivor 50'.

**Have you had stuff that you felt really passionate about that Jeff just wasn’t feeling? What's it like when you guys have this great idea and he's not feeling it?**

Definitely the job of a producer is to be able to articulate what's in your brain in a way that makes someone else's brain see it the same way you do, right? And the pitch is where it all is. And I remember this is pre-F.L.I.N.T. and when I was still moving up in the creative world of the show, we had this thing called the Spaghetti Scramble from season 35 [*Heroes v. Healers v. Hustlers*].

It was a reward based on that feast of diminishing returns that we used to do way back in the day with five contestants or so and one a plate of spaghetti — but they only could eat it one at a time. And it had a message underneath the spaghetti.

So you have this idea, and then it's a ridiculous thing to try to translate of how this would work. So definitely the first time, and even I think the second time we talked to Jeff about it, he was like, “I don't know what you mean. So they're eating spaghetti but they're not eating it together? But then there's a note in the spaghetti, but it's on the plate?” That was a process, but we kept going back. It was fun every time we thought about it.

And that's the beauty of working with Jeff too, is that you're able to go back and give your idea again because when he gives you feedback, you're like, “Okay, this isn't what he's seeing and I'm not able to articulate it, so let's go back to the drawing board and figure out what he isn't seeing that I'm not giving him.” And then we went back and then finally he was like, “Okay, I really get it now. Thank you for taking the time.” And then it was super fun!

**Jeff told me before the season he had very specific ways he personally would vote on certain categories, like he would never do anything like giving rice to players that made it easier for them. How much did you agree with the fan vote results?**

I don't have a preference on a lot of the things, but it was interesting in terms of this world to be able to hear what the fans say and be like, “Cool, I got a new person to interject into the process to give me my parameters and I get to work within the parameters that the fans gave us.” And that's cool for me as a challenge, because I’m happy to do it either way.

**We’re now at season 50? How long is this show going to continue?**

Indefinitely? I'm serious! I think there's so much left in the tank for this show. I think it's the willingness of Jeff and Matt [executive producer Matt Van Wagenen] to do new things and the way they want to approach the show that makes it so collaborative. And those collaborations are endless in term of whoever the segment producer is now and the ideas they're going to have five years from now to interject. And the willingness to take anyone's opinion and then see what works and what doesn't and what's good about it.

And there is an alchemy to a returning player season like this in that most of the time we do this, there's a huge amount of appreciation on the crew for what the cast and the contestants go through and everything like that, and these folks who have come back have that appreciation for us and what we're creating for them. That alchemy of appreciation just makes for our unique season that's really fun and special.

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Source: “EW Survivor”