Even Jeff Probst couldn’t believe how Sai Hughley swooped in to grab the challenge advantage over Charity Nelms.
“When I saw this in the first cut of the episode, I lost my mind,” the Survivor host, 63, said on the Wednesday, April 2, episode of his “On Fire” podcast. “Because here’s what I saw. The guy who shot that, Louis Powell, one of our South Africans, has been with the show for a very long time. Met his wife on the show, Maria Karakashian, and they got married. They’re an amazing couple. Just another example of family on Survivor.”
Probst continued: “I couldn’t believe his camera work. Because what he did, if you go back and watch that, is he framed that shot so that we only saw Charity as she was running toward it. And then he pans over just as Sai comes into frame.”
On the Wednesday episode of the competition series, the three starting tribes united on one beach as they entered the next phase of the game: the merge. As players vied to earn their spot in the merge with the upcoming challenge, an advantage was hidden on the island.
Viewers saw Nelms, 34, approaching the object in the jungle only to be bested by Hughley, 30, who seemingly came out of nowhere.
“It was like a horror movie!” Probst quipped. “It was unreal. I was squirming in my chair as they [raced] to the advantage.”
Probst couldn’t help but continue to gush over how proud he was of the cameraman for using the opportunity to tell a story with such a “tiny little moment.”
“We talk about what separates Survivor all the time,” he explained. “It’s the instinct of a storyteller behind the lens — like Louis was in that moment that he could see with his left eye, ‘Oh, here comes Sai, I’m going to wait, wait, wait… BOOM! Let her enter the frame.’ And now the audience goes, ‘Oh my God, where did Sai come from?’”
Probst added the moment was “unbelievable” and encouraged fans to try to watch it “frame by frame” to get the full experience.
“I’m telling you, when you see it, it looks like Sai appears out of nowhere. It is really freaky,” he said. “That’s because of great camera work. He just framed it beautifully.”
In addition to giving his production team props, Probst applauded Hughley for her strategic prowess.
“Sai is everywhere. Sai is such a great player,” he shared. “She always kind of knows where to be and how to get at you. And then look at this, she snakes the advantage from Charity.”
Since Survivor premiered in the U.S. in May 2000, the reality competition has continued to be a great success for CBS. However, there have been plenty of controversies on the show along the way. The uproar started from the get-go, when Richard Hatch walked around camp fully naked throughout much of the first season, Survivor: […]
The advantage automatically gave Hughley a plate at the merge feast plus a chance to win individual immunity. During the challenge, the players were divided into two teams and members of the winning team would be the only ones eligible for the safety competition.
While the move was great for Hughley’s game, Nelms ultimately lost out. She was on the losing team with no chance at immunity. And then, at tribal council, the vote ended up between Hughley and Nelms. The tribe sent Nelms home.
Survivor airs Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and is available to stream on Paramount+ the next day.
