The Philippines, a land of dreams well known for its black rocks, its turquoise waters… And its twenty-four candidates for Koh Lanta. Finally that, it will be to discover on Tuesday February 22 on the occasion of the launch of the new season of the adventure game of TF1 named The cursed totem. The production and the channel intend to wipe the slate clean with new faces that the public will get to know over the weeks.
“As a former school principal [de la Star Ac], I would have given two or three slaps to the old promotion, launched Alexia Laroche-Joubert to the press this Friday morning in reference to the cheating which tainted the previous season. But I’m very happy with the news. Twelve men and twelve women make up this cast which had to face natural and strategic elements.
The “evil twin” of the immunity totem
The great novelty of this edition is this dark totem which should worry all adventurers. “We wanted to touch something strong, which is the totem, while maintaining the totem of immunity that everyone has known for twenty years,” explains producer Julien Magne. The idea was then to create “his evil twin”: before reunification, the team that wins the comfort test will leave with a reward and the one that finishes in third and last place will suffer the curse of the cursed totem.
Third and last place? Well… Surprise, three tribes will take part in the competition! “When there are three teams, there is also more suspense, more twists in the games. It’s something that makes it possible to reinforce the dramaturgy from the start,” says Denis Brogniart.
If different curses will fall on the adventurers each week during the collective part, we also know that they will return after the reunification but “in an episodical way”, promises the producer, whether on the occasion of the comfort or immunity test. For the time being, it is not yet clear what type of misfortune the candidates will face. On the other hand, at the end of the very first event of this season, which will be individual, the two losers will leave with a handicap: a vote against them at all the councils up to the reunification council included.
A health protocol still very supervised
After Polynesia, production decided to set up camp in the Philippines, a country it hadn’t visited since 2008. water to such an extent that we had to delay filming,” recalls Alexia Laroche-Joubert. The participants still had to make do with the elements during the first days of their adventure before finding respite, at least climatically speaking.
Unfortunately, the weather was not the only challenge facing the candidates and the technical teams. The territory required a complete vaccination schedule in order to be able to set foot on the ground and several tests were carried out upstream, ten days then three days before departure. On site, a health bubble was formed “in which there were local teams who do not always have access to vaccines”, specifies Alexia Laroche-Joubert. For them, antigen testing was part of the routine.
The Tuesday evening box, a “wish” of the channel
The season of The legend faced two cases that caused a stir. The first is obviously the history of cheating. While one would have thought that additional security measures could have been taken, this had no repercussions on the filming of the cursed totem. “This is what we had already put in place in Polynesia, namely two guards per camp, equipped with a boat to be able to ‘upgrade’ security on the camps”, confides Julien Magne who was only aware of the fault of Teheiura when the recording of this new edition started.
The other business is that of the broadcast of the program on Tuesday evenings. Many were the fans who deplored this choice at the start of the last school year. However, TF1 has decided to continue the experiment. Why ? Because there is more entertainment today than ever before on the channel. “It is a wish to have a third entertainment box for part of the year, relates Rémi Faure, director of TF1 stream programs. Other schedule constraint factors come into play, such as sporting events between now and June, and make it easier for program continuity to be scheduled on Tuesdays. »
For those who dreamed of returning from their Friday evening in front of a pizza and Koh Lanta, so it failed. There still remains the replay which broke records during the previous season: one million people caught up, on average, with the episodes of The legend. But we don’t know how many have kept the pizza ritual.