Jeff Probst Teases ‘Real Battle’ at Survivor 47 Final Tribal Council

Jeff Probst

is hyping up Survivor 47’s upcoming final Tribal Council.

“The finale of Survivor 47 offers a fantastic two-hour conclusion to a great season,” the longtime Survivor host, 63, said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly published on Monday, December 16. “Including a dramatic fire-making showdown and a real battle at the final Tribal Council.”

During the penultimate episode of season 47, fans saw Rachel LaMont, Sam Phalen, Sue Smey and Teeny Chirichillo secured their place in the final four. While Rachel, 34, has been the frontrunner following Andy Rueda and Genevieve Mushaluk’s recent eliminations, Probst made a case for all the remaining players’ chances at being crowned the Sole Survivor.

“Any type of person can win. At the start of the season, you would have never predicted this would be our final four because Survivor changes moment by moment, day by day, and only those who can adapt quickly will survive,” he told the outlet. “Rachel, Sue, Sam and Teeny have all encountered obstacles this season, but they’ve each done a great job of maneuvering their way out of trouble.”

Unlike previous seasons in the New Era, Survivor 47’s finale has undergone a different format change. CBS announced in November that the finale would be aired in two parts — both running for two hours. In previous seasons, Survivor would come to an end with a three-hour finale that includes the final vote of the season, the final four fire-making challenge, the final Tribal Council with jury questioning and a post-game after-show that is filmed immediately after crowning the winner.

Probst previously set the record straight on why Survivor 47 decided to use an extra episode to break up the final moments in the game.

“It really started with CBS asking us months before we shot if it would be possible for season 47 to do 14 episodes instead of 13,” Probst said on the Thursday, December 12, episode of the “On Fire” podcast. “They had some things they wanted to try in their schedule, and part of that working out would depend on whether or not we could do 14 episodes. So [executive producer] Matt [Van Wagenen] and I sat down and broke the finale down into parts and examined if and how we could pull it off.”

Probst acknowledged that Survivor has a heavy load of “content” that they ended up “not having enough time to show all the stories” they would like to show the viewers.

“It actually really worked out because we could highlight things we didn’t typically highlight,” he explained. “And it was a great reminder to us that sometimes you need to step back and examine what you’re doing — just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean it always has to stay that way.”

The Survivor season 47 finale airs on CBS Wednesday, December 18, at 8 p.m. ET and streams on Paramount+ the next day.