Survivor: Panama

Survivor: Panama — Exile Island, also known as Survivor: Exile Island and Survivor: Panama, is the twelfth season of the American CBS competitive reality television series Survivor. The season was filmed in the Pearl Islands, off the coast of Panama from October 31, 2005, through December 8, 2005, and premiered on February 2, 2006. Hosted by Jeff Probst, it consisted of the usual 39 days of gameplay with 16 competitors, and was the first season with 16 competitors since Survivor: Pearl Islands five seasons prior.

The season included a twist that originally came from Survivor: Palau called Exile Island. Each week at least one castaway is banished to an island away from all other contestants for the time period between the reward and immunity challenges. The castaway is given a single machete, a flint, a pot and a bucket of non-sanitized water. The island also contained a hidden immunity idol that could be used at tribal council after the votes have been cast. During the season finale on May 14, 2006, it was revealed that Aras Baskauskas was named the Sole Survivor over Danielle DiLorenzo in a 5–2 vote.

Contestants

The 16 players were initially split into four tribes by sex and age: young men (Viveros), older men (La Mina), young women (Bayoneta), and older women (Casaya). These four tribes were named after four islands located in the Pearl Islands. Shortly after the first Tribal Council, the Viveros and Bayoneta tribes were dissolved and a "schoolyard pick" formed two new integrated tribes using the Casaya and La Mina tribe names and camps. When there were ten contestants left, they merged into one tribe named Gitanos, the Spanish word for "gypsy." Coincidentally, a member from each of the original four tribes was represented in the final four.

Notable contestants from this season include former NASA astronaut Dan Barry and former Miss Texas Teen USA Misty Giles. Tina Scheer was originally slated for the previous season Survivor: Guatemala, but she backed out due to her son's death prior to that season.

File:Daniel Thomas Barry.jpg

Dan Barry

File:Cirie Fields Qatar.jpg

Cirie Fields

List of Survivor: Panama – Exile Island contestants

Contestant	Age	From	Tribe			Finish
			Original	Switched	Merged	Placement	Day
	44	Hayward, Wisconsin	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe			1st voted out	Day 3
	32	Sevierville, Tennessee	Template:Stribe	2nd voted out		Day 6
	24	Dallas, Texas	Template:Stribe	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe		3rd voted out	Day 8
	48	Greenville, South Carolina	Template:Stribe	4th voted out		Day 11
	32	Los Angeles, California	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe		5th voted out	Day 14
	51	South Hadley, Massachusetts	Template:Stribe	rowspan="4" Template:Stribe		6th voted out	Day 15
	25	Tempe, Arizona	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe	rowspan=10 Template:Stribe	7th voted out	Day 18
	24	High Point, North Carolina	8th voted out 1st jury member	Day 21
	27	Chicago, Illinois	Template:Stribe	9th voted out 2nd jury member	Day 24
	57	Simi Valley, California	Template:Stribe	rowspan="4" Template:Stribe	Medically evacuated 3rd jury member	Day 25
	31	Los Angeles, California	Template:Stribe	10th voted out 4th jury member	Day 30
	35	Los Angeles, California	Template:Stribe	11th voted out 5th jury member	Day 33
	35	Walterboro, South Carolina	Template:Stribe	Eliminated 6th jury member	Day 36
	46	Simsbury, Connecticut	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	13th voted out 7th jury member	Day 38
	24	Pompano Beach, Florida	Template:Stribe	rowspan="2" Template:Stribe	Runner-up	Day 39
	24	Santa Monica, California	Template:Stribe	Sole Survivor

Future appearances

Cirie Fields was selected from this season to compete in Survivor: Micronesia. She competed again in Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains as part of the Heroes tribe, and would return for a fourth time on Survivor: Game Changers. Danielle DiLorenzo also competed on Heroes vs. Villains as part of the Villains tribe. Aras Baskauskas returned for Survivor: Blood vs. Water, alongside his brother, Vytas. Terry Deitz and Shane Powers were included on the public poll to choose the cast of Survivor: Cambodia; Deitz was chosen to compete. Fields will represent USA on Australian Survivor: Australia V The World in 2025. Fields is set to compete on Survivor 50.

Outside of Survivor, Dan Barry competed on the seventh season of BattleBots in 2016. Fields competed in the USA Network reality competition series Snake in the Grass. Fields also competed on the first season of the Peacock reality TV series The Traitors and Big Brother 25 in 2023.

Season summary

File:Playa Blanca, Saboga, Panama (Unsplash).jpg

The season was filmed in the Pearl Islands in Panama.

The game began with the 16 competitors split into four tribes by both relative age and gender. They were introduced to the concept of "Exile Island" with the promise of a hidden immunity idol located somewhere on it, while one person from the losing tribe at challenges would be sent to the island and given clues to look for it. After the first four days, the four tribes were merged by schoolyard pick with mixed genders into two tribes, Casaya and La Mina. On Casaya, a majority alliance consisting of Aras, Shane, Courtney, and Danielle was formed. Cirie was later integrated into the group thanks to her strong social bonds, particularly with Aras and Danielle. On La Mina, Terry was viewed as the tribe leader. Casaya generally proved the stronger tribe, and opted to send Terry from La Mina over to Exile Island multiple times, which gave him the opportunity to discover the hidden immunity idol.

Going into the merge, Casaya was up 6 members to 4. While Terry won several individual immunities, he did not use it or the hidden immunity idol to save his former La Mina tribe members, leaving him as the sole remaining La Mina member and a perceived immunity challenge threat by the former Casaya tribe. Bruce was evacuated due a medical emergency, leaving six players at the game. At this juncture, Cirie, who saw both Terry and Shane looking separately to take Courtney, a weaker player, into the final Tribal Council as an assurance to win the jury's favor, convinced Aras and Danielle to blindside the other three, and succeeded in achieving Courtney's elimination, followed by Shane's. At the final four vote, Aras won immunity and Terry possessed the hidden immunity idol. The vote came down a fire-making tiebreaker between Cirie and Danielle; Danielle ultimately prevailed. Danielle won the final immunity challenge and opted to take Aras to the final Tribal Council, eliminating Terry. The final jury saw both Aras and Danielle as capable players but ultimately voted Aras as the Sole Survivor, five votes to two.

Challenge winners and eliminations by episode

Episode			Challenge winner(s)		Exile Island	Eliminated
No.	Title	Original air date	Reward	Immunity		Tribe	Player
1	"The First Exile"	February 2, 2006	Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Template:Stribe	rowspan="3" Template:Stribe	rowspan="3" Template:Stribe	Tina
			Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Template:Stribe
			Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Template:Stribe
2	"Breakdown"	February 9, 2006	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	BruceTemplate:Efn	Template:Stribe	Melinda
3	"Crazy Fights, Snake Dinners"	February 16, 2006	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Misty
4	"Starvation and Lunacy"	February 23, 2006	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Ruth Marie
5	"For Cod's Sake"	March 2, 2006	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Bobby
6	"Salvation and Desertion"	March 9, 2006	colspan="2" Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe	Dan
7	"A Closer Look"	March 15, 2006	Recap Episode
8	"An Emerging Plan"	March 30, 2006	Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Terry	Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	rowspan="11" Template:Stribe	Nick
9	"The Power of the Idol"	April 6, 2006	Aras, Bruce, Sally	Terry	Austin	Austin
					Danielle
10	"Fight for Your Life or Eat"	April 13, 2006	Bruce, Courtney, Sally, Terry	Terry	Aras	Sally
11	"Medical Emergency"	April 20, 2006	Cirie [Aras, Danielle]	Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Terry	Bruce
12	"Perilous Scramble"	April 27, 2006	Courtney, Danielle, TerryTemplate:Efn	Terry	Aras	Courtney
13	"Bamboozled"	May 4, 2006	Terry [Shane]Template:Efn	Terry	Danielle	Shane
14	"Call the Whambulence!"	May 11, 2006	Aras [Cirie]	Aras	Danielle	rowspan="2" Template:StribeTemplate:Efn
					Terry
15	"The Final Showdown"	May 14, 2006	colspan="3" Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Cirie
			Terry	Danielle	Template:Stribe	Terry
16	"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	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
Day	3	6	8	11	14	15	18	21	24	25	30	33	36		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	colspan="2" Template:Stribe	Template:Stribe
Eliminated	Tina	Melinda	Misty	Ruth Marie	Bobby	Dan	Nick	Austin	Sally	Bruce	Courtney	Shane	Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Cirie	Terry
Votes	3–1	5–2	5–2	4–2	3–2–1–1	3–1	6–4	6–3	6–2	EvacuatedTemplate:Efn	3–2–1	3–1–1	2–2	ChallengeTemplate:Efn	1–0
Voter	Vote
Aras		Melinda			Bruce		Nick	Austin	Sally		Courtney	Shane	Danielle		Template:StribeTemplate:Efn
Danielle		Melinda			Bobby		Nick	Austin	Sally		Courtney	Shane	Cirie	Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Terry
Terry			Misty	Ruth Marie		Dan	Shane	Aras	Aras		Aras	Aras	Cirie		Template:StribeTemplate:Efn
Cirie	Tina	Shane			Bobby		Nick	Austin	Sally		Courtney	Shane	Danielle	Template:StribeTemplate:Efn
Shane		Melinda			Aras		Nick	Austin	Sally		Danielle	Danielle
Courtney		Melinda			Bobby		Nick	Austin	Sally		Aras
Bruce		Template:StribeTemplate:Efn			Courtney		Nick	Austin	Sally
Sally			Ruth Marie	Ruth Marie		Template:StribeTemplate:Efn	Shane	Aras	Aras
Austin			Misty	Ruth Marie		Dan	Shane	Aras
Nick			Misty	Ruth Marie		Dan	Shane
Dan			Misty	Sally		Austin
Bobby		Melinda			Bruce
Ruth Marie	Tina		Misty	Sally
Misty			Ruth Marie
Melinda	Tina	Shane
Tina	Cirie

Jury vote
Episode	16
Day	39
Finalist	Aras	Danielle
Vote	5–2
Juror	Vote
Terry	Template:Ya
Cirie	Template:Ya
Shane		Template:Ya
Courtney	Template:Ya
Bruce		Template:Ya
Sally	Template:Ya
Austin	Template:Ya

Reception

Survivor: Panama has received mixed to positive reviews from fans and critics. The personalities of the Casaya tribe members, in particular fan-favorite Cirie Fields, were praised. However, aside from Terry Deitz, the members of the La Mina tribe was criticized for being perceived as less entertaining compared to their Casaya counterparts. As such, critics believe that the season is uneven due to the contrast in entertainment between the members of the two main tribes. Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly ranked this season 27th out of 40 criticizing the season's final immunity challenge for being unfair to Terry Deitz which led to an "unmemorable" final two. The gameplay of winner Aras Baskauskas received mixed to negative reception. Baskauskas placed 23rd out of the first 34 winners in a fan poll conducted by Entertainment Weekly in 2017 and also received the fewest first-place votes out of every winner in the poll. In 2014, Joe Reid of The Wire ranked this season 8th out of 27. In 2015, a poll by Rob Has a Podcast ranked this season 12th out of 30 with Rob Cesternino ranking this season 14th. This was updated in 2021 during Cesternino's podcast, Survivor All-Time Top 40 Rankings, ranking 15th out of 40. In 2020, The "Purple Rock Podcast" ranked this season 10th out of 40 saying the "casting here is good" and the "gameplay is almost more interesting for what doesn’t happen than what does". Later that same year, Inside Survivor ranked this season 12th out of 40 saying it is a GREAT season that "features some of the best characters of all-time, has innovative gameplay, superb blindsides, an underdog story, and is perhaps the funniest season ever." In 2024, Nick Caruso of TVLine ranked this season 28th out of 47.

External links

• Official CBS Survivor Panama Website