Survivor: Vanuatu

Survivor: Vanuatu — Islands of Fire, also known as Survivor: Vanuatu, is the ninth season of the American CBS competitive reality television series Survivor. The season was filmed from June 28, 2004, through August 5, 2004, and the season premiered on September 16, 2004. Filming took place in Vanuatu, a chain of volcanic islands in the South Pacific. Hosted by Jeff Probst, it consisted of the usual 39 days of gameplay, with 18 competitors for the second time in the series' history.

This was the second season to initially divide the tribes by gender following Survivor: The Amazon. Chris Daugherty was named the winner and Sole Survivor after defeating runner-up Twila Tanner by a jury vote of 5–2.

Contestants

File:Eliza Orlins.jpg

Eliza Orlins

The cast is composed of 18 new players, initially divided into two tribes by gender: the male tribe was named Lopevi, after one of Vanuatu's volcanic islands; while the female tribe was named Yasur, after Mount Yasur. It was the first season to feature an amputee (Chad Crittenden, who had lost a foot to cancer) and two openly LGBT+ women (motivational speaker Scout Cloud Lee and former Playboy model Ami Cusack). On Day 11, there was a tribal shuffle which ended up moving two people from each tribe over to the other tribe. On Day 20, the tribes were merged with ten contestants remaining; the tribe was named Alinta, a name proposed by Cloud Lee meaning "people of fire."

List of Survivor: Vanuatu – Islands of Fire contestants

Contestant	Age	From	Tribe			Finish
			Original	Switched	Merged	Placement	Day
Template:Sortname	27	Winthrop, Massachusetts	Template:Stribe			1st voted out	Day 3
Template:Sortname	25	Lake Latonka, Pennsylvania	Template:Stribe			2nd voted out	Day 6
Template:Sortname	31	Los Angeles, California	Template:Stribe			3rd voted out	Day 7
Template:Sortname	29	Boston, Massachusetts	Template:Stribe			4th voted out
Template:Sortname	33	Huntington Beach, California	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe			5th voted out	Day 10
Template:Sortname	33	Johnson City, Tennessee	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe	6th voted out		Day 12
Template:Sortname	44	Mandeville, Louisiana	Template:Stribe	7th voted out		Day 15
Template:Sortname	22	Los Angeles, California	rowspan="4" Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe		8th voted out	Day 18
Template:Sortname	35	Des Moines, Iowa	Template:Stribe	rowspan=10 Template:Stribe	9th voted out	Day 21
Template:Sortname	40	Columbia, South Carolina	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe	10th voted out 1st jury member	Day 24
Template:Sortname	34	Oakland, California	11th voted out 2nd jury member	Day 27
Template:Sortname	35	Kansasville, Wisconsin	rowspan="6" Template:Stribe	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe	12th voted out 3rd jury member	Day 30
Template:Sortname	31	Lakewood, Colorado	13th voted out 4th jury member	Day 33
Template:Sortname	23	Gorham, Maine	Template:Stribe	14th voted out 5th jury member	Day 36
Template:Sortname	21	Syracuse, New York	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe	15th voted out 6th jury member	Day 37
Template:Sortname	59	Stillwater, Oklahoma	16th voted out 7th jury member	Day 38
Template:Sortname	41	Marshall, Missouri	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe	Runner-up	Day 39
Template:Sortname	33	South Vienna, Ohio	Template:Stribe	Sole Survivor

Future appearances

Ami Cusack and Eliza Orlins returned for Survivor: Micronesia as members of the Favorites tribe.

Outside of Survivor, John "J.P." Palyok competed on the second season of the Fox Reality Channel reality game show Solitary. In 2006, Twila Tanner competed with Survivor: Pearl Islands castaway Jonny Fairplay on a Reality Star episode of Fear Factor. Orlins competed on The Amazing Race 31 with fellow two-time Survivor contestant Corinne Kaplan.

Season summary

File:Efate Beach 1.jpg

The season was filmed on the island of Efate in Vanuatu.

The eighteen players were brought into the game at a native gathering, with the natives dividing the group into men and women. The men were clearly favoured at the ceremony, creating animosity between them and the women. After the ceremony, the men were named the Lopevi tribe, and the women the Yasur tribe, and sent to find their camps in the dark. Lopevi lost the first challenge mainly due to Chris, but he created a majority alliance with older tribe members Lea, Travis, Rory, and Chad, and worked to vote off the younger men. In Yasur, two factions began to emerge, one composed of Julie, Mia, Lisa, and Eliza and the other of Ami, Twila, Scout, and Leann. While both factions lobbied for Dolly's vote, her refusal to commit resulted in her elimination. Both tribes were sent to tribal council on Day 7 as a result of a twist. The older men continued to eliminate the younger ones, and Ami's faction, now in power, voted Mia off. The Yasur tribe continued their dominance over the tribal challenges by winning the next reward and immunity challenges, bringing the men's numbers down to six.

A tribal switch occurred on day 11, mixing the two tribes; Rory and Travis were sent to Yasur while Twila and Julie were sent to Lopevi. The first Yasur loss resulted in Travis being eliminated for trying to publicly ask Lopevi to throw the immunity challenge. However, concerned over Lisa's loyalty, Ami arranged for the tribe to eliminate her at the next Tribal Council. At Lopevi, Lea, Chad, and Chris aligned with Twila and Julie, not trusting John K. as the last young man remaining. He was voted off and the five remaining Lopevi tribe members agreed to stick together after the merge.

On Day 19, with six women and four men remaining, the two tribes merged into Alinta. While Rory joined the Lopevi alliance, Julie and Twila broke their word and reformed the women's alliance. The men were quickly targeted over the next three tribal councils, leaving Chris as the sole male. By this time, Ami's core alliance consisted of her, Julie, and Leann, while Twila and Scout had formed a closer pairing and Eliza on the outside. Despite Chris losing immunity, Ami decided to spare him and vote Eliza out instead. However, Twila and Scout took the opportunity to align with Chris and Eliza, creating a new majority alliance and systematically voting out the others.

Chris won the last two immunity challenges, and ultimately took Twila with him into the final two. The jury saw Chris' ability to effectively stay in the game with the odds against him, from the first challenge to being the last man standing, and voted him the Sole Survivor in a vote of 5–2.

Challenge winners and eliminations by episode

Episode			Challenge winner(s)		Eliminated
No.	Title	Original air date	Reward	Immunity	Tribe	Player
1	"They Came at Us with Spears!"	September 16, 2004	colspan="2" Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Brook
2	"Burly Girls, Bowheads, Young Studs, and the Old Bunch"	September 23, 2004	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Dolly
3	"Double Tribal, Double Trouble"	September 30, 2004	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe	Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Template:Stribe	John P.
			Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Template:Stribe	Mia
4	"Now That's a Reward!"	October 7, 2004	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Brady
5	"Earthquakes and Shake-Ups!"	October 14, 2004	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Travis
6	"Hog Tied"	October 21, 2004	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Lisa
7	"Anger, Threats, Tears...and Coffee"	October 28, 2004	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	John K.
8	"Now the Battle Really Begins"	November 4, 2004	Template:Stribe	Lea	rowspan="9" Template:Stribe	Rory
9	"Gender Wars...It's Getting Ugly"	November 11, 2004	Leann [Julie]	Ami	Lea
10	"Culture Shock and Violent Storms"	November 18, 2004	Ami, Chad, Chris, Eliza	Twila	Chad
11	"Surprise and...Surprise Again!"	November 25, 2004	Eliza	Ami	Leann
12	"Now Who's in Charge Here?!"	December 2, 2004	Eliza, Ami, ChrisTemplate:Efn	Chris	Ami
13	"Eruption of Volcanic Magnitude"	December 9, 2004	Julie [Chris]	Eliza	Julie
14	"Spirits and the Final Four"	December 12, 2004	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe	Chris	Eliza
			Chris	Scout
15	"The Reunion"

In the case of multiple tribes or castaways who win reward or immunity, they are listed in order of finish, or alphabetically where it was a team effort; where one castaway won and invited others, the invitees are in brackets.

Voting history

	Original tribes					Switched tribes			Merged tribe
Episode	1	2	3		4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
Day	3	6	7		10	12	15	18	21	24	27	30	33	36	37	38
Tribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe
Eliminated	Brook	Dolly	John P.	Mia	Brady	Travis	Lisa	John K.	Rory	Lea	Chad	Leann	Ami	Julie	Eliza	Scout
Votes	5–3–1	5–4	5–3	5–3	6–1	6–1	4–2	5–1	6–4	7–1–1	6–2	4–3	4–2	3–2	3–1	1–0
Voter	Vote
Chris	Brook		John P.		Brady			John K.	Ami	Lea	Eliza	Leann	Ami	Julie	Eliza	Scout
Twila		Dolly		Mia				John K.	Rory	Lea	Chad	Leann	Ami	Julie	Eliza	Template:Stribe
Scout		Dolly		Mia		Travis	Rory		Rory	Lea	Chad	Leann	Ami	Julie	Eliza	Template:StribeTemplate:Efn
Eliza		Dolly		Twila		Travis	Lisa		Rory	Lea	Chad	Leann	Ami	Twila	Twila
Julie		Leann		Twila				John K.	Rory	Lea	Chad	Eliza	Scout	Twila
Ami		Dolly		Mia		Travis	Lisa		Rory	Lea	Chad	Eliza	Scout
Leann		Dolly		Mia		Travis	Lisa		Rory	Lea	Chad	Eliza
Chad	Brook		John P.		Brady			John K.	Ami	Julie	Eliza
Lea	Brook		John P.		Brady			John K.	Ami	Eliza
Rory	Brook		John P.		Brady	Travis	Lisa		Ami
John K.	Chris		Rory		Brady			Chad
Lisa		Leann		Mia		Travis	Rory
Travis	Brook		John P.		Brady	Rory
Brady	Rory		Rory		Rory
Mia		Leann		Twila
John P.	Chris		Rory
Dolly		Leann
Brook	Chris

Jury vote
Episode	15
Day	39
Finalist	Chris	Twila
Vote	5–2
Juror	Vote
Scout		Template:Ya
Eliza	Template:Ya
Julie	Template:Ya
Ami		Template:Ya
Leann	Template:Ya
Chad	Template:Ya
Lea	Template:Ya

Notes

Reception

The season has generally been negatively received, with the primary criticism being the repetition of the "battle of the sexes" theme, and how the theme arguably did not work as well in this season as it did in Survivor: The Amazon. Host Jeff Probst, ranking it as the 5th-worst season in 2010, admittedly felt that he "liked this season more than the audience did, and that has probably influenced why it has dropped since my last ranking." Tom Santilli of Examiner.com ranked it among the bottom 10 at #21, while Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly ranked it the seventh-worst season of the series, only better than San Juan del Sur, One World, Thailand, Fiji, Nicaragua and Island of the Idols, saying that although "the battle of the sexes worked well the first time around," he felt it wasn't as strong in this season. In 2020, it was ranked 31st out of 40 by Survivor fan site "The Purple Rock Podcast", saying that "the casting was below average on this season," and since "the gimmick/twist for this season was one the show had used before…the issue here is whether you like that narrative." Andrea Deiher of Zap2it ranked it as the 3rd-worst season, saying that "we can barely remember anyone from this season…this was just kind of a dud season." In 2015, a poll by Rob Has a Podcast ranked Vanuatu 17th out of 30 with Rob Cesternino ranking this season 19th. This was updated in 2021 during Cesternino's podcast, Survivor All-Time Top 40 Rankings, ranking 23rd out of 40. In 2020, Inside Survivor ranked this season 22nd out of 40 saying that while "there are a few casting duds on Vanuatu, and the early merge suffers from a predictable Pagonging against the men, there's still a lot to love in this season thanks to its characters, unexpected moments, and a fantastic endgame." In 2024, Nick Caruso of TVLine ranked this season 31st out of 47. Part of the show's mixed-to-negative legacy has been defined by how different observers feel about the season's winner, Chris Daugherty. Jeff Probst said in numerous forums that Chris was a liar and a bad winner, and while fans mostly liked Chris and were happy when he won, the fact that he has never returned to any other Survivor season has made his legacy more faded than most winners who have been back at least once after they originally triumphed.

External links

• Official CBS Survivor Vanuatu Website