Survivor: Vanuatu

Survivor: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire (also known as Survivor: Vanuatu for short) was the ninth season of the American reality show Survivor. It was filmed in Summer 2004. The game took place on Vanuatu, a group of volcanic islands in the South Pacific. 

Survivor: Vanuatu started being shown on TV on September 16, 2004. Also starting that day was Survivor Live, an hour-long Internet talk show hosted by the first Sole Survivor Richard Hatch and Entertainment Tonight correspondent Chris Booker. The talk show was shown every Thursday and Friday on the CBS website. It interviews  players from earlier seasons and reviews the players' gameplay. 

On December 12, 2004, Chris Daugherty won against Twila Tanner by a vote of 5-2 to become the sole survivor. This seasons became available on DVD on December 5, 2006.

For the first time, not including the season before, All-Stars, there were eighteen players. In the first seven seasons, there were only sixteen. This was the second season where the starting tribes were divided by gender. It was also the first season to have an amputee (Chad Crittenden, who had lost a foot to cancer) and not one, but two open lesbians (motivational speaker Scout Cloud Lee and old Playboy model Ami Cusack).

The season began like Survivor: The Amazon. The tribes were divided by gender. The male tribe was Lopevi, named after one of Vanuatu's volcanic islands; the female tribe was Yasur, named after Mount Yasur. On Day 11, there was a tribal switch like in other seasons, which ended up moving two people from each tribe over to the other tribe.

On Day 20, the tribes were merged (combined) into one tribe. They named the new tribe "Alinta", a name suggested by Scout meaning "people of fire."

Eliza Orlins and Ami Cusack were chosen from this season to return for Survivor: Micronesia as members of the Favorites tribe, where they placed 10th and 11th.

Gameplay
The players were brought into the game at a native gathering, with the natives dividing the group into men and women. The men were clearly worshiped at the ceremony, suggesting they would have better luck in the game. 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, however, the older men of the tribe started an alliance and worked to vote off one of the younger men, Brook. This would continue through the next two tribal councils that Lopevi took part in. In Yasur, a strong clique started around Ami, and the women that did not fit in were voted out. 

The tribes were switched on day 11, mixing the two tribes; later voting only strengthened Ami's alliances. On Day 19, the two tribes, now with 6 women and 4 men, merged into one tribe, which they named "Alinta". The men were quickly targeted at the next three tribal councils, leaving Chris as the only male. By this time, the players in Ami's alliance were her, Julie, and Leann, while Twila and Scout had formed a closer pairing, with Eliza as an outsider among the women. When Chris didn't win the next immunity challenge, Twila brought Chris into a plan to vote out one of Ami's group if they could bring Eliza into their foursome. Chris was successful at this, and Leann was voted out at the next tribal council. Ami and Julie soon followed, even though they had tried to vote off Chris. The final four was Chris, Eliza, Twila, and Scout. Chris won the last two immunity challenges, and took Twila with him into the final two. The jury saw Chris' power to stay in the game with the odds against him, both from the first challenge and as the last man standing, and voted him the Sole Survivor 5-2.

Players

The Total Votes is the number of votes a player got during Tribal Councils where the player is able to be voted out of the game. It does not count the votes they got during the final Tribal Council.

The game

If more than one tribe or player wins reward or immunity, they are listed in order of finish, or alphabetically if it was teamwork, or where one player won and invited others, the players they invited are in brackets.

 John K. had to spend a day with the other tribe for the point of giving immunity to one of them at tribal council that night. He chose Ami because he thought she was safe even without immunity.

 When Eliza won the reward challenge, she got her own car and the players who finished second and third in the challenge were able to join her at a spa retreat.

Voting history

Other websites
 Official CBS Survivor Vanuatu Website
 

09
Vanuatu