Survivor executive producer Mark Burnett had one wish fulfilled when CBS decided to air the premiere of Survivor: All-Star after the Super Bowl. His second wish -- broadcasting the finale and reunion of Survivor: Pearl Island live from Panama on December 14 -- didn't fare as well.
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Instead, the finale of Survivor: Pearl Islands will originate from CBS's Studio City complex in Los Angeles. Jeff Probst will again serve as host of both the finale and reunion. This will be the fifth Survivor finale to take place in Studio City; the other two (after Survivor: Marquesas and Survivor: The Amazon) were held in New York's Central Park. Since pre-production had not yet begun for the finale, CBS suffered no economic loss from the change ... although Panama will suffer a significant one.
We can't help but see a relationship between Mark Burnett's decision to hold back-to-back series of Survivor in the same country for the first time ever and the collapse of one of the country's best-known landmarks ... a landmark considered to be so stable that it was used to illustrate why the canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans should be located in Panama instead of Nicaragua. Maybe it's a good thing for the United States that all the Survivor series take place in foreign countries.
