Getty Winner Parvati Shallow attends the Survivor: Micronesia finale
“Survivor” alum Parvati Shallow made an appearance on the May 9 episode of the “Drop Your Buffs” podcast and the fan-favorite didn’t hold back from sharing her honest thoughts on the “new era” of “Survivor.”
In a promo video for “Survivor 41,” Jeff Probst announced that season 41 would mark the start of a new era, referring to “Survivor 41” as “Survivor 2.0” and calling it a “brand-new game.”
Season 41 and 42 introduced a series of new twists and advantages that upset longtime fans who felt the game had become too complicated.
Parvati agreed with fans that the game had become too convoluted.
“I think it’s gotten pretty distracting,” she told hosts Sean Ross and Evan Ross Katz on the May 9 episode. “As a player watching the show, to me, there’s overload. It’s like system overload.”
The former winner said she thinks the “overload” of twists and advantages has made it difficult for the castaways to strategize.
“How can you come up with a strategy to get you from day one to the end of the game when you don’t know who [has advantages and] when they’re [going to] come?” she said. “Can you really start to develop relationships with people and create the bonds of trust that are required to move a player through each phase of the game?”
Parvati criticized the new era of “Survivor,” telling Sean and Evan, “It’s so all over the place. For me, it’s hard to get a sense of solid ground.”
Parvati Shallow Thinks Jeff Probst Is ‘Having an Identity Crisis’
Parvati’s recent appearance on “Drop Your Buffs” is not the first time the “Survivor” alum has spoken out about the changes made to the game.
During an appearance on “Rob Has a Podcast” in October 2021, the 39-year-old claimed Jeff Probst was “having an identity crisis.”
“This might be a controversial thing to say, but I’m going to say it anyway. I think Jeff might be having a bit of an identity crisis,” she told host Rob Cesternino.
“I think he’s coming in and he’s like ‘I got to be super woke,'” she continued. “‘I got to make sure I say all the right things to make sure all the different groups of people are feeling heard and seen’… I’ve noticed that. Jeff is like really embracing his therapist version of host. And on top of all that, there’s the long hair. There’s also getting rid of the ‘come on in, guys.”
Parvati is referring to Jeff’s controversial decision to retire his signature catchphrase, “come on in guys” in season 41.
Parvati Shallow on Cook Islands Controversy
On the May 9 episode of “Drop Your Buffs,” Sean and Evan asked Parvati her thoughts on the controversy surrounding “Survivor: Cook Islands.”
The season received backlash for dividing the castaways by ethnicity. Parvati came in sixth place on the season.
The “Fans vs. Favorites” winner told Sean and Evan that the decision to split up the tribes by ethnicity felt illegal.
“It was so wild,” she said. “It felt like it should be illegal when I was playing that game. I was like, ‘you can’t be dividing people in races.’ It’s cool to have all different types of people and to have more minorities represented in ‘Survivor’…I’m down with that, but separating the tribes in races, I was like, ‘I don’t know about this.'”
Parvati went on to say that she is supportive of the CBS diversity pledge, which stated that from now on, all unscripted programming will have casts “with at least 50% of the contestants being Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), beginning in the 2021-2022 broadcast season.”
“It’s amazing,” she said. “I think it’s wonderful to have this kind of diversity in the game. I think it makes it more entertaining [because] people from different cultures and different backgrounds do play differently and interact with people differently.”
“Survivor 43” will air in the fall of 2022.
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