We’re a few days away from the premiere of Survivor: 50 – In the Hands of the Fans, another historic season that brings 24 former players—the biggest cast in the show’s history—from Borneo to Survivor 49. To commemorate the show’s 25th anniversary, producers decided to put some of the show’s key elements in the hands of the fans through a public vote.
While we count the days before the premiere, we’ve decided to take a trip down memory lane and relive 50 of the best moments in Survivor.
To keep up with the new season’s theme, we decided to ask Survivor fans to select and rank their favorite moments of all time.
Let’s continue with 30 to 21!
30. Survivor: Africa, First tribe swap
Animosity is in the air In Samburu. The younger and older people are clearly against each other. For the past two tribal councils, Samburu has voted out older players, leaving Teresa “T-Bird” Cooper and Frank Garrison in the minority against Silas Gaither, Lindsey Richter, Kim Powers, and Brandon Quinton.
On Day 13, both tribes received instructions to send three representatives to where the game began. Boran sent Lex Van Den Berghe, Kelly Goldsmith, and Tom Buchanan. Frank, T-Bird, and Silas went from Samburu.
Jeff explains that they were at the spot where the game started—symbolic of what’s going to happen next. From that moment on, the six players will have a new beginning because they will be switching tribes.
“Smokes,” was all Silas could say. He knows karma’s gonna come knocking.
T-Bird and Frank went from being in danger of going home to a safe position over at Boran. They were soon able to get their new tribe mates to eliminate Silas. Over at the new Samburu, Lex, Kelly, and Tom eventually found out about past votes against Lindsey and used that to get rid of her.
All five remaining swapped players made it to the merge.
29. Survivor: Marquesas, Minority takes control of the game
Prior to Marquesas, the tribe who comes into the merge with the majority has always dominated the game. And no one from the minority has gone on an immunity streak.
More notably, no one from the minority has ever reached the Final Three.
Neleh Dennis, Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien, Paschal English, Vecepia Towery, and Sean Rector changed Survivor history by being the first minority to take power.
Neleh, Kathy, and Paschal were original Rotu members who were swapped to Maraamu where they joined Sean and Vecepia. Entering the merge felt like a reunion with their old family. That leaves Sean and Vecepia out of the majority alliance. It was determined that Sean and Vecepia are to be voted out next.
However, Kathy feels suspicious about her old Rotu allies, so she tries to convince Neleh to take out John instead he has too much power. He’s also gotten a bit arrogant.
But Neleh wants to remain solid with Rotu. She warns Kathy to not over-strategize because it might get her voted out. Paschal is also not willing to flip.
“If I could form an alliance with Sean and Vee and Paschal and Neleh and myself, I would have a huge shot at it. But that’s not gonna happen. Paschal wants Sean off and so is everybody else,” Kathy seems ready to accept defeat at this point.
Then comes the eye-opening immunity challenge.
Players need to answer a series of questions. Whoever answers correctly gets to chop someone’s rope. Each player has three ropes attached to coconuts. Whoever is left with a rope still intact, wins.
At the challenge, John, Tammy, Zoe, and Rob systematically eliminated the others: Sean, Vecepia, Kathy, Paschal, and then Neleh. Neleh and Paschal sensed something doesn’t feel right.
“It signaled to us there was a pecking order and we’re included in it even though we’ve been told that that wasn’t true,” Paschal says.
Realizing that they were indeed on the target list, Neleh tells Paschal she doesn’t want to vote out Sean anymore.
‘I’m not going to go out at six. We worked too hard. We’ve been here for too long. We worked too hard and I’m not going to go out like that,” Neleh finally admits.
With that, the two banded with Kathy, Sean, and Vecepia and decimated the Rotu Four.
28. Survivor: 45, Kaleb successfully plays Shot in the Dark
Despite the tribe having an initial target at Final 13, Kaleb Gebrewold suddenly becomes at risk after someone throws his name because of his social skills.
Lucky for him, Emily Flippen gave him a heads up.
So, at tribal council that night, he decided to use his Shot in the Dark.
After Jeff has tallied the votes, Kaleb hands Jeff his scroll. Jeff opens it and reveals that he is safe. Everyone erupted in cheers when Jeff revealed that the scroll had the words “safe” which meant Kaleb is immune from the votes.
A Survivor first.
Each parchment had Kaleb’s name on it. Kaleb is still shocked and amazed that his gamble paid off. All this time, J Maya, the original target, is the only one in the group who looks scared. When Jeff revealed the last parchment with Kaleb’s name, they went into a revote.
A mad scrambling ensued, but eventually, everyone decided to revert back to their initial plan to vote out J Maya.
27. Survivor: Borneo, The first alliance was born
In the early days of Survivor it’s rare to see people lock in their votes before heading to tribal council. Understandably since people are still trying to figure out the game.
Lucky for us viewers, three people are ahead of their time: Richard Hatch, Kelly Wigglesworth, and Sue Hawk.
In Episode 2, tensions between members of the Tagi tribe made Richard realize that he needs to find a sure way to get people on his side.
“I know the resolution to the conflict that exists right now…” he starts. “But I’m actually planning something different that might benefit me and it’s a little sneaky. I think I’m gonna handle this by beginning to develop alliances with some folks to ensure I move to the next round.”
Incidentally, Kelly and Sue are already talking about the possibility of building alliance to have one common vote to advance to the next rounds. They think Richard is open to that idea.
Of course, he is. Richard is all in.
“So, the alliances have begun and I didn’t have much to do about it.”
“The more people you know are going to vote for somebody else you might as well go with that. You might as well keep yourself safe and keep it in the majority,” Kelly shares in a confessional.
“It’s kinda hard to trust people completely and thoroughly but I think until the next segment if the three of us can work together really well,” Richard tells Kelly and Sue.
“I trust you completely,” Kelly affirms.
“Yeah, I think we can trust the three of our votes. That’s it.”
Sue then says: “three of us against the world.”
They thought of recruiting Rudy Boesch to the alliance. However, he doesn’t like the idea of “ganging up on somebody.” He eventually warms up to the idea and joins what would go down in history as the first ever alliance to successfully dominate the game by voting together as one.
26. Survivor: Australian Outback, Mike Skupin falls into the fire
Mike Skupin falling into the fire still remains one of the most horrifying moments in reality TV even after more than a decade has passed.
It’s unprecedented and made it clear to everyone that Survivor is a game that carries a lot of risks. It showed that there’s a lot at stake in the quest for a million dollars.
It’s also one of the best edited episodes in the series. There was foreshadowing at the start of the episode. In the “previously on Survivor” segment, Jeff used the phrases “fired up” and “sparks flew.” The previous episode also talked about how the firepit was “getting a little bit dangerous” with Jeff Varner casually joking about fire embers landing on someone’s face.
The episode opens with Mike talking about surviving the elements and how playing the game changed his perspective—all while he’s shown tending the fire.
All this time, the music is somber, almost tribute-like.
We are not shown the actual incident. All we see is a bird perched on a tree, disturbed by a piercing scream.
Mike runs towards the water, screaming. We see a shot of Mike’s hands with skin falling off. The skin on his face looks weird and there are raw red patches on his shoulder. He is screaming in pain, unsure of what to do.
His tribe mates are scared, unsure of what to do.
“The smoke was right in my face, and I inhaled it, and I passed out. Look at these things,” he shows up his hands, bright and red from the burn.
The medic arrives. In between grunts of pain, Mike asks them repeatedly what they want him to do. He said he’ll do anything, take whatever. When the helicopter arrived, Mike asks to see everyone before they take him away. It was an emotional moment. More importantly, a grim reminder that Survivor is more than a game. It is real life.
At the end credits, we see Mike’s confessional. “You don’t want to leave. The longer you’re here, the longer you want to stay here. And it’s not even about winning as much as playing. The winning would be anticlimactic.”
25. Survivor: 41, The Hourglass twist
For Survivor 41, producers decided that players need to earn their way to the merge by subjecting them to an immunity challenge where only half of the players become immune.
Well, if you think about it these anyone who make it to the merge did earn it.
And then introducing the Hourglass twist which allows a player sent to Exile Island the power to turn back time and reverse the results of the most recent immunity challenge.
Because Erika Casupanan was not part of the challenge after drawing the odd rock, she was sent to Exile Island. Jeff drops her a visit and presents to her the hourglass. He explains she has the option to leave today’s events as is or smash the hourglass and reverse history.
Seems like a no-brainer, right?
Erika chose to smash the hourglass, switching the fates of the two groups. When she returned to the game, the winning team from the previous day is now at risk of getting voted out. Erika now becomes immune as well, rendering her safe at tribal.
Smashing the hourglass made Erika immune at the impending tribal council. It also allowed her to mess up a lot of plans, including the one where she’s supposed to go after returning from Exile. She then went on to become the Sole Survivor.
24. Survivor: Caramoan, Francesca voted out first—again
Francesca was the first eliminated player in Survivor: Redemption Island which is why some still wonder why she’s asked to return to play Survivor: Caramoan – Fans vs Favorites 2.
I still wonder, at times. But knowing what I know now about how things turned out, I’m glad they did.
Returning as part of the Favorites tribe, it seems like Francesca does not have much to lose. She’s coming into the game with no threat level simply because she hasn’t made it past Day 3. She should be safe, right?
Wrong.
For the second time, she’s in a tribe with Phillip Sheppard, her rival from her first season. And although Francesca tries to bury the hatchet between them, Phillip is not amused.
“She annoys me greatly,” he says.
Much of his distrust stems from her perceived ability to strategize too much, too early on.
When the Favorites lost the first immunity challenge, Francesca manages to get with Erik Reichenbach, Brandon Hantz, and Brenda Lowe but was too quick to drop Phillip’s name. Andrea Boehlke then tells Phillip. Phillip then targets Francesca.
“I like the idea of voting out Fran first. Again,” Phillip says.
Fran, Erik and Brandon worry that Andrea is playing both sides, so they decided to target her instead.
“If I am voted off first the second time, I will eat—” Francesca reaches down and picked up something. “—this rock. It’s not gonna happen.”
Sadly, other players, particularly Dawn Meehan and John Cochran, feel she’s too strategic and could be a potential future problem, so they sided with Phillip and helped create an icon.
Francesca is now the only player to be voted out first twice.
I wonder how that rock taste like.
23. Survivor: Cook Islands, Aitu 4 success story
No other foursome in the history of Survivor is more popular than the Aitutaki 4.
Yul, Becky, Sunda, and Ozzy were all that’s left of Aitutaki after Candice and Jonathan decided to mutiny on Episode 9. It was a pivotal moment that would give birth to perhaps the most successful game-dominating performance by a group.
It was our first taste of David vs. Goliath: four people up against a group of eight.
With the looming merge, the only hope for these four is to win every single challenge, both reward and immunity—and they did. And often times, it’s a blowout.
After their first taste of victory post-munity, Ozzy told his tribe: “This will take us to the end, guys.”
He was right.
Even with a 4-5 disadvantage at the merge, they managed to eliminate all Rarotonga members. Yul cleverly used his immunity idol to force Jonathan into voting with them. Ozzy dominated the challenges, preventing the opposing alliance from getting immune (except that one time when Adam won).
It’s one of the most impressive—and most celebrated—underdog stories in reality TV.
22. Survivor: Caramoan, Brenda’s “take out your teeth” jury speech
A hurt Brenda Lowe has a score to settle with her ex-bestie Dawn Meehan, who is part of the Final Three.
Despite their bond and pact, Dawn mercilessly took out Brenda at Final 5. Now, Brenda wants something taken out, too.
Brenda started her jury speech by relaying how strong their bond was especially after that fateful day when Dawn lost her retainer in the water and asked Brenda to retrieve it for her.
“I saw you and you were in the most vulnerable state ever.” Brenda says.
She made sure the jury knows that Dawn threatened to quit if she doesn’t get her teeth back.
“I had Dawn’s fate in the game literally in my hands,” Brenda reminds everyone.
The dramatic build-up was done. Time for the climax.
“Would you have quit this game if I did not give you back your teeth?”
Dawn says no, she wouldn’t have.
Brenda doesn’t trust Dawn’s words anymore. “I need you to go beyond words this time. I need you to prove it to me…”
“I want you to take out your teeth, Dawn.”
OMG.
Malcolm flinched.
Dawn is still smiling at this point, not sure if she’s hearing right.
In her heads, she’s probably thinking ‘she’s joking, right?’
“Yeah, I’m not gonna do that.”
“Dawn, it’s my thing. I know it’s harsh—”
“If you’re asking me to take them out and like humiliate myself, I’m happy to do that because truthfully—”
Dawn might be thinking is she stalls long enough, Brenda would let it go.
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
Dawn is still not taking her teeth out. “I really will. But truthfully, all I wanted to do in this game was play hard…”
Not working. She’s still holding on to it.
“Let’s do it,” Brenda is not budging.
“I’m willing to take anyone out—”
“Let’s do it. Dawn. Dawn…”
OMG. It’s really happening.
“… when I want to play the game. Anyone,” Dawn is still talking.
Oh my god. Just do it.
Brenda doesn’t want to hear it. “The whole point of my thing right now is no talking—”
And then finally, she takes them out.
“I’m happy to do it. There.” Dawn shows her teeth. “There they are.”
She opens her mouth to show her lower teeth.
“Okay. Thank you,” Brenda says. “I did not want you to minimize what I did. That’s why I did that. I wanted you to feel that because it’s kinda what I felt…” her voice trails off.
“… a little bit of heart break.”
21. Survivor: Amazon, Jenna and Heidi strip for peanut butter and chocolate
Survivor can get pretty rough. But nothing can be more difficult than going hungry for days you’d do anything even for just a tiny morsel of anything.
In Survivor: Amazon cravings for food got too much people were willing to do anything. Such people include eventual winner Jenna Morasca and bestie Heidi Strobel.
In Episode 7, the newly merged tribe participated in their first individual immunity challenge. They simply need to stand on a wooden perch as long as they can.
Few minutes after the challenge began, Jeff announced that there will be temptations along the way.
Jenna immediately said: “I’d take my clothes off for chocolate and peanut butter.”
“Get the girls some chocolate and peanut butter, Probst!” Rob Cesternino shouts.
Heidi adds: “If you add cola, I’m so in.”
A few moments later, Jeff comes out with a heaping plate of peanut butter, chocolate cookies, and two glasses of ice-cold cola.
True to their word, Jenna and Heidi took off their clothes and jumped off the water to their reward.
“They earned their reward for sure,” Jeff says.
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