THE SUMMIT Showrunner Kevin Lee Breaks Down the Premiere’s ‘Emotionally Devastating’ Moment

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for THE SUMMIT series premiere.]

In the series premiere of THE SUMMIT, a group of contestants started their trek up a mountain in the hopes of taking home their share of a million dollars…but things quickly took a scary turn.

Tony, a media director, collapsed a few hours after they began, requiring medical attention. And though Tony wanted to continue on, for his own safety, he had to leave the series.

“To be completely honest, it was devastating,” THE SUMMIT showrunner Kevin Lee tells Give Me My Remote. “What people don’t know, really, is that you actually kind of get to be friends with them during the casting process. It goes on for weeks and weeks and weeks. He and everybody else, they went to their doctor; their doctor signed off on ‘They can do all these activities.’ They go through stress tests, all that sort of stuff. He passed [those tests] just like anybody. And, as you saw with his backstory package, he was running marathons. It was such an important part of his emotional life to do this.”

“So when he collapsed, it was emotionally devastating,” he continues. “And at first I thought he was having a heart attack or something. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what the hell? Did all of our processes fail?’ Luckily, we found out that, no, he just collapsed from exhaustion, and he was completely fine. Even hours later, he was completely fine, but we didn’t know that at the time, so it was really scary. But even later that day, he was like, ‘Bring me back, coach!’ He was wanting to come back. And he stayed with us in New Zealand—the interviews you see with him are [done] after the fact.”

Lee notes Tony has continued to work out and run marathons since his brief time on the show. “He’s like, ‘If there’s a season 2, maybe I can come back,’” he shares. “So it could be kind of a cool story if he does. But it was sad and devastating at the time.”

“I’m only one of many decision-makers, but if they listen to me, I would love to bring him back, because he’s such a rootable guy,” Lee continues. “And I do think what happened was he hadn’t drank enough water; he didn’t have enough electrolytes, and it just kind of got him. But if he hadn’t had that problem, if he had made it through the first night, I bet you he would have been there for days and days and days. He would have been fine. I think it was a temporary thing that he came up against.”

However, not everyone was supportive of Tony and his medical emergency: A number of contestants downplayed it and were upset—both visibly and in their interviews after the fact—about the delay this was causing them.

“Whenever something extreme happens, it’s dramatic for the show and all that—but also reveals character,” Lee points out. “It reveals the character of the crew [with] everything that’s going on, including the producers, but [also] the cast members. And I do think that was an unexpected story, [a] character-revealing moment, that plays out big time. As you will see, the chickens come home to roost to some extent.”

“That’s the beauty of reality TV,” he continues. “If I’m writing that, there’s no way I could have thought of that happening and it being such a powerful, character-revealing moment. But if you’re doing reality TV, things like that happen. And that’s why it’s a great genre.”

THE SUMMIT, Time Slot Premiere, Wednesday, October 9, 9:30/8:30c, CBS

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• THE SUMMIT’s Manu Bennett Previews CBS’ Wild New Competition Series: ‘This Mountain is the One with the Final Word’

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