When Was 'Survivor 47' Filmed? Were the Castaways Able to Watch Season 46?

Spoiler alert! This article includes spoilers for Season 47, Episode 3 of Survivor.

There are a lot of things to love about Survivor, but one of the best things is the fact that there are two seasons to watch every year! At any point in the year, you're never more than a few months away from enjoying the challenges, idol hunts, and blindsides — and that's a beautiful thing.

Of course, in order for the show to pump out two seasons per year, that obviously requires a pretty grueling shooting schedule. Seasons are filmed pretty much back-to-back with very little time in between to build new sets and challenges or make big changes to how the game is going to go. It's generally been understood that anyone competing on Survivor has not been able to watch the season before their own. So how were contestants on Season 47 talking about what happened on Season 46?

In Episode 3 of Season 47, Gabe says, "Last season, I saw way too many people go home with an Idol in their pocket" — clearly referring to the fact that five contestants in Season 46 were voted out even though they had Idols. Later in the episode, Kishan says he wants to avoid the tribe having a "Q moment" at Tribal, referencing the Tribal where Q asked everyone to vote for him and sent the whole tribe into chaos. But how did they know that? weren't they filming in Fiji when Season 46 was airing?

Here's some clarification on the shooting schedule for Seasons 46 and 47:

Season 47 began filming on May 13, 2024, and wrapped on June 7, 2024.

Season 46 started airing on Feb. 28, 2024, and the finale aired on May 22, 2024.

This means that contestants on Season 47 could actually have seen almost all of Season 46 before they started filming. Episode 11 (when Venus was voted out) aired on May 8, so that's the last episode Season 47 castaways could feasibly have watched before filming began.

However, they likely had to be in Fiji a while before starting filming, so it's also possible that they were only able to watch the first 10 or so episodes.

This definitely makes for an interesting dynamic with castaways being almost as up-to-date with the goings on in the game as the fans at home are. Although, it's also worth noting that the Season 47 castaways didn't know how Season 46 ended by the time they started filming. For all they know, Q volunteering to leave the game early could have led to him winning the whole thing! Of course, we know that's not what happened.

We won't see the same phenomenon next season, though. Season 48 has already wrapped filming — they started on June 29, 2024, and wrapped on or around July 24.

Catch new episodes of Survivor Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS, or stream the show on Paramount Plus.