A sneak peek for the season was aired at the finale of the previous season, where it was revealed that Bruce Perreault, a contestant who was medically evacuated in the previous season, would return for the forty-fifth season. The season, which was the fifth aired since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, continued to observe the strict safety protocols introduced in season 41, thus it continued to feature the reduced 26 days of gameplay, with 18 contestants starting in three tribes, as with every season since then. On February 21, 2023, CBS renewed Survivor for its forty-fifth season. It is the thirteenth consecutive season to be filmed in the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji, and premiered on September 27, 2023, on CBS in the United States. Survivor 45 is the forty-fifth season of the American competitive reality television series Survivor.