Season 1

## Production

### Casting

In the summer of 2016, host Dominic Raona was working at a brake rotor factory. After weeks of the monotonous work, he decided to end his summer with something fun: hosting a backyard *Survivor* game. While on lunch breaks, he would put together challenges and a rough draft of a potential cast from both his and his brothers friends. However, there was one person that he needed to convince to do the show that he knew would hold the key to get the cast he wanted: Alyssa Witzleben.

By having one girl on the cast, it would be inviting for the already small list of girls to do it and he knew Alyssa would be the only one up for it. So he texted Alyssa, asking if she'd be interested. Alyssa quickly responded with "No Dom, we're not playing *Survivor* in your backyard."

Dominic was in a dilemma, and knew one of Alyssa's weaknesses was his brother's friend, Sean O'Connor. So in an ultimatum, he asked Alyssa to do the show if he could get Sean to participate. Alyssa agreed, Sean was contacted and was in, and thus the casting began.

The show originally had 16 people, 4 girls and twelve boys. Not wanting to exclude anyone, Dominic decided to add two more spots, which went to Brendon Godin and Nate Alford.

People that were contacted but couldn't do this season include Charlie Rich, who was on vacation, and Haley Divis and Ryan Mangulabnan, who were able to film day one, but not film day two.

### Crew

Dominic didn't immediately want to film the show, but upon further reflection, he decided it would be a good idea. He knew there was only one man that could help, David Totten. After a meeting, the two mapped out a plan on what the season would look like. With only a limited number of cameras and no one to operate them, production was tight and needed some reinforcements.

Dylan Smith was contacted to help film, and he stayed both days of filming. Ryan Mangulabnan, Haley Divis, and Delano Dalfonsi were only available for day 1 of filming.

### Pre-Game

Dominic was not feeling confident in his production and wanted to ensure everyone knew what they were doing because only two players had ever seen *Survivor* before. He bought a CBS All Access subscription and allowed contestants who wanted to use it, use it. Only Noah Welker took him up on the offer. Players like Matt Orischak would watch YouTube clips to get an idea of the game and how to play.

To cut down on explanation time, Dominic invited the 18 contestants to do a walk through of the game a day before the game started. They would know what the first day challenges were, how to vote, how to interact at tribal, how to do confessionals, etc. Roughly half the cast showed up and along with the crew, Dominic walked them through it.

## Season Summary

The season began with randomized tribes, each person picking a buff out of a bag. The Green tribe was noticably weaker than the Purple tribe and challenges only supported this. The Green tribe lost the first four challenges, having to send people home. However, it helped that the first four people were volunteers, which only strengthened the remaining players bonds.

At the merge, the Purple tribe was hungry for blood and devoured their own, one by one, leaving three Green tribe members standing in the final three. Despite playing a great social game, the jury did not view Ashley as equal to Martin and Noah. Going into tribal, the jury was indecisive. But Noah's jury performance sealed his destiny of becoming the first *Survivor: Dearborn* champion.