CBS has voted Survivor out of its “fall” schedule as it’s still unclear when the long-running competition series will be able to resume production.
The network made the call late Tuesday, noting that Survivor‘s producers are working with officials in Fiji, where the show films, on when production on the 41st season can start, “with health and safety matters the top priority for everyone involved.”
In its place on Wednesday nights, CBS will air the 32nd season of The Amazing Race, which completed shooting well before the novel coronavirus pandemic brought scores of productions to a halt in March. It had been scheduled to air at 9 p.m. Wednesdays following Survivor but will move up an hour and lead off the night.
SEAL Team, meanwhile, also slides up an hour to 9 p.m., and SWAT, which had been slated for later in the season, will return at 10 p.m. Neither show has begun filming yet, and CBS says additional information about production starts, and thus premiere dates, will be announced later.
CBS announced its “fall” schedule in May that was largely business as usual, with a host of veteran series set to return and two new shows, the Chuck Lorre comedy B Positive the Queen Latifah-led Equalizer reboot, scheduled to debut. Entertainment president Kelly Kahl did acknowledge then that it was “highly unlikely” that the full slate would debut in late September, hoping instead for a staggered start to the season based on when productions could safely restart.
NBC opted for a similar strategy, while Fox and The CW are using acquired programming and previously completed shows (both scripted and unscripted) to fill out their fall slates. ABC is somewhere in between, putting out a schedule that relies more heavily on unscripted series than it has in the recent past but still has originals penciled in across all seven nights.
With COVID-19 cases skyrocketing in California in recent weeks, however, earlier projections for a resumption of production in the summer look overly optimistic. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered movie theaters, bars, family entertainment centers and other indoor businesses to close in an effort to combat the spike. A majority of CBS’ scripted series film in Los Angeles.
Survivor was set to begin filming its 41st season in March when it suspended production. In a normal year, the show would have wrapped filming on season 41, which was to air in the fall, by now and would be well on the way to finishing season 42.
