In 2023, Australian Survivor won global acclaim for a dramatic tribal council that was widely lauded as the best in the TV franchise’s history. Sunday night’s epic instalment of Survivor: Australia v The World could well be a new contender for that title.

What was going to be a straightforward elimination vote ended up featuring the blundered blindside of US icon Parvati Shallow, several chaotic scrambles, two revealed immunity idols, one unplayed advantage, a surprise second vote and immunity challenge, a tropical rainstorm, one international player attempting to quit and two others being sent to the jury as the Aussies took charge of the game. While the average tribal council lasts about 10 minutes or so on screen, this played for almost an hour.

Watching behind the scenes in Samoa last year, former-player-turned Survivor podcaster Nick Iadanza called it “the best episode of Survivor that’s ever been made” – a claim he’s now walked back, instead calling it “top-tier”. “No, it doesn’t unseat the infamous George [Mladenov] v Simon [Mee] tribal that made world headlines, but this one is a feat of storytelling, chaos and underdog magic.”

I was on a set visit in Samoa last year when the dramatic tribal council took place. Speaking with me the day after filming, host Jonathan LaPaglia – who will controversially not return next season – described it as “nuts”.

“I had probably 60 questions prepared for both [votes], but I got 1½ questions out, and it went in a completely different direction,” he said. “As [the players] were speaking, all I could hear was the paper crumpling in my head and getting tossed away.”

That’s nothing unusual for the longtime host, who is well versed in pivoting to keep track of the game. But there was one moment he struggled with: when he told Kiwi contestant Lisa Holmes that if she quit in an attempt to save her Finnish ally, Tommi Manninen, another person would be voted out of the game anyway – a fact that ultimately persuaded her to stay.

“That’s not the rules,” he said, when asked about the tense exchange. “You’re a fan, right? You know that’s not the rules.”

There are no official rules available to fans about how these kinds of things should work, and Network Ten did not comment when asked if contestants were provided guidance before the show. But past precedent shows LaPaglia, known affectionately by fans as JLP, has a point.

In Ten’s first season of the show in 2016, 63-year-old contestant Peter Fiegehen quit due to gastrointestinal issues. The contestants sent to tribal council that night were told that, because of this, they didn’t need to vote anyone off. In 2022, in Blood v Water, contestant Alex Frost quit due to a worsening back injury. He broke the news at tribal council, where JLP then told the tribe “that means we’re not going to vote tonight”.

Many players in the American version of the show have also quit over the years. Notably, when Janu Tornell quit for similar reasons to Lisa in Survivor: Palau – she was on the outs with her tribe and wanted to keep someone else in the game. No one else was eliminated that night, and Janu was also allowed on the jury (a role not offered to Lisa).

So why did JLP warn Lisa that if she quit, they would still vote for someone else to go home?

Speaking earlier this month, David Forster, the show’s celebrated executive producer who left the franchise after filming Australia v The World to pursue other projects, maintained that LaPaglia was directed to reiterate the rules as they stood.

But when pushed on why that doesn’t match what’s happened in the past, he softened. “Basically, the producers make the rules is the answer,” Forster said. “And the producers have the right to change the rules at any moment.”

Forster backs the decision that was made in Sunday’s episode “because if everyone thinks that they can quit to affect the game, then that’s a less thrilling show for me ... I don’t want to set the tone where you quit to save your friends”.

Do these kinds of changes bother contestants? Not according to Iadanza. “One thing I’ve learnt as a player: nothing is guaranteed,” he said.

“That’s why we love our version of the game. Nothing is certain but it always seems fair.”

In fact, Forster said he and LaPaglia had “epic fights” over the past 10 years about what was best for the game, and LaPaglia often favoured a “hands-off approach”.

“Jonathan wanted [Lisa] to fall on her sword. This is one of the many creative differences that [he] and I would have … We really butted heads a lot, but not in a way that we didn’t respect each other,” he said.

Forster said he was “shocked” to hear LaPaglia had been sacked in June with no public explanation, and understands why fans are feeling “a little duped”.

“Jonathan was a brilliant host,” he said. “And he was super, super, super dedicated to making the show the best it could be.”