Survivor
Host: Jeff Probst
Created by: Mark Burnett
Premise: Sixteen strangers are abandoned in a harsh environment and must, well, survive.
Play: Sixteen contestants are divided into two tribes of four men and four women. They are given a crate of provisions, including cooking utensils, tarps, knives, and a supply of rice. It is up to the teams to start a fire, catch fish or wild animals, and so forth.
Challenges: Every episode shows two challenges, except the first. The first challenge during the three-day period is a Reward Challenge. The winning tribe wins something nifty like a local feast, snorkel gear, fireproof matches, or in Survivor 4, the opportunity to raid the opposing tribe's base camp for five minutes.
The second challenge is the Immunity Challenge, whicch can test physical skills, mental ability, or any combination of skills. The winning tribe is safe, the losers must make the long trek to...
Tribal Council: Every third night, Tribal Council is held. The tribe that lost the Immunity Challenge must vote out one of their members. Host Probst asks various questions of the tribe members, and after the discussion, each person enters the voting booth, writes down the name of the person they want ousted. Probst then reads the votes, and the person with the most is out. If there is a tie, each tying member gets a minute to plead their case, then everyone else but them votes again. If there is still a tie, the tying parties play Sudden Death, where Jeff asks a series of questions, first to miss while the other is right is out.
The Merge
Midway through the series, the two tribes merge into one tribe of ten members. Challenges are solo endeavors, and rewards can be shared with other tribemates. Immunity is also available to only the single winner of the challenge, everyone else is up for elimination. For the fifth season, the two teams were told that they would be living on one beach, but not told that they were still two tribes. The misunderstanding caused the strategy of one particular player to go completely off track.
Additionally, a jury begins to form, starting with the eighth person ousted from the game. The jury is allowed to attend the Tribal Council, but does not get to say anything. The players ousted win $2,500 for every three days he or she manages to stay in the game. The third place player gets $85,000, and the two remaining move on to...
THE FINALS
During the final, each juror gets to make a bit of a speech, then ask a question to each of the finalists. After all that is finished, the two players make a final case, and the jurors vote. The 15th player ousted from the game wins $100,000, the Sole Survivor wins a cool million dollars, and a car from the company sponsoring the series.
NOTES
If you ever come across reruns of the program, a few patterns and things to watch out for.
The first three seasons had the second challenge as one where each tribe member would have to eat or drink some kind of local delicacy that most squeamish Americans wouldn't touch. From the fourth season on, that challenge moved around on the schedule.
For the first seven seasons, the first Immunity Challenge was "Quest for Fire." Using various methods, teams must transport a fire cauldron over an obstacle course. The winners were immune; the seven remaining castaways would take their torches back to the beach with them. For the "All-Stars" version; no such luck; they didn't get to hang on to the torches. Oops.
Starting with Africa, every season has had some tribe members switching sides at some point. For Africa, three tribe mates were sent to a mystery Reward Challenge, only to return as members of the other team. In the Marquesas Islands, each of the 13 players picked a marker determining who would be on which team. In Thailand, the teams had an opportunity to switch, but no one chose to. In the Amazon, one man and one woman went to a secluded location and held a sort of draft lottery.
For season seven, set in the Pearl Islands, near Panama, the rules and the game were changed significantly, and mostly for the better.