Template:Infobox Television Survivor Survivor: Vanuatu - Islands of Fire is the ninth installment of the reality television game show series Survivor. Filmed in summer 2004, the game took place on Vanuatu, a chain of volcanic islands in the South Pacific.
Survivor: Vanuatu debuted on September 16, 2004. Also debuting that day was Survivor Live, an hour-long Internet talk show hosted by the original Sole Survivor Richard Hatch and Entertainment Tonight correspondent Chris Booker. The talk show, airing every Thursday and Friday on the CBS website, interviews former contestants and reviews the players' gameplay.
On December 12, 2004, Chris Daugherty became the Sole Survivor of the Vanuatu series. The DVD for this season was released on December 5, 2006.
Contestants
For the first time outside of the All Star edition that preceded it, there were 18 contestants. In the first seven seasons, there were only 16 contestants. This was the second season to initially divide the tribes by gender. It was also the first season to feature an amputee (Chad Crittenden, who had lost a foot to cancer) and not one, but two open lesbians (motivational speaker Scout Cloud Lee and former Playboy model Ami Cusack).
The season began like Survivor: The Amazon in that the tribes were divided by gender. The male tribe was Lopevi, after one of Vanuatu's volcanic islands; the female tribe was Yasur, after Mount Yasur. On Day 11, there was a "tribal shuffle" 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; the tribe was christened Alinta, a name proposed by Scout meaning "people of fire".
| Challenges | Tribes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episode Title | Original Date | Reward | Immunity | Voted Out | Original | Episode 5 | Merged | Finish |
| They Came at Us With Spears | 2004-09-16 | Yasur | Yasur | Brook Geraghty | Lopevi | Voted out 1st - Day 3 | ||
| Burly Girls, Bowheads, Young Studs and the Old Bunch | 2004-09-23 | Yasur | Lopevi | Dolly Neely | Yasur | Voted out 2nd - Day 6 | ||
| Double Tribal, Double Trouble | 2004-09-30 | Lopevi | John Kenney | John "J.P." Palyok | Lopevi | Voted out 3rd - Day 7 | ||
| Mia Galeotalanza | Yasur | Voted out 4th - Day 7 | ||||||
| Now That's a Reward | 2004-10-07 | Yasur | Yasur | Brady Finta | Lopevi | Voted out 5th - Day 10 | ||
| Earthquakes and Shake Ups! | 2004-10-14 | Lopevi | Lopevi | Travis "Bubba" Sampson | Lopevi | Yasur | Voted out 6th - Day 12 | |
| Hog Tied | 2004-10-21 | Lopevi | Lopevi | Lisa Keiffer | Yasur | Yasur | Voted out 7th - Day 15 | |
| Anger Threats, Tears...and Coffee | 2004-10-28 | Yasur | Yasur | John Kenney | Lopevi | Lopevi | Voted out 8th - Day 18 | |
| Now the Battle Really Begins | 2004-11-04 | Lopevi | Sarge | Rory Freeman | Lopevi | Yasur | Alinta | Voted out 9th - Day 21 |
| Gender Wars ... And It's Getting Ugly | 2004-11-11 | Leann | Ami | Lea "Sarge" Masters | Lopevi | Lopevi | Voted out 10th - Day 24 | |
| Culture Shock and Violent Storms | 2004-11-18 | Chad, Chris, Eliza, Ami | Twila | Chad Crittenden | Lopevi | Lopevi | Voted out 11th - Day 27 | |
| Surprise! And... Surprise Again! | 2004-11-25 | Eliza | Ami | Leann Slaby | Yasur | Yasur | Voted out 12th - Day 30 | |
| Now Who's in Charge Here?! | 2004-12-02 | Eliza(Car), Ami, Chris | Chris | Ami Cusack | Yasur | Yasur | Voted out 13th - Day 33 | |
| Eruptions of a Volcanic Magnitude! | 2004-12-09 | Julie | Eliza | Julie Berry | Yasur | Lopevi | Voted out 14th - Day 36 | |
| Spirits and the Final Four | 2004-12-12 | Chris | Eliza Orlins | Yasur | Yasur | Voted out 15th - Day 37 | ||
| Chris | Scout Cloud Lee | Yasur | Yasur | Voted out 16th - Day 38 | ||||
| The Reunion | 2004-12-12 | Twila Tanner | Yasur | Lopevi | Runner-up | |||
| Chris Daugherty | Lopevi | Lopevi | Sole Survivor | |||||
Elimination notes
- Brook - After the male tribe (Lopevi) had lost the first immunity challenge, Brook, John P, John K and Brady (the four most athletic men) saw Chris as their weakest link and not as strong as they were because he had caused Lopevi to fall behind in the challenge and lost. In the tribe, Chris was one of the five "unfit" men, along with Lea, Travis, Chad and Rory (known to TV viewers as the Fat Five, even though at least two of those five were in great physical condition). The Fat Five felt obviously targeted, and realized that the best strategy for them would be to stick together and vote out the seemingly more athletic men before it was too late. Brook was eliminated in a 5-3-1 vote.
- Dolly - Dolly, a young farm girl who was friendly with Scout and Twila, two of the older women in the female tribe (Yasur), was caught between the opposing alliances of "youngins" (Mia, Julie, Eliza and Lisa) and older women (Scout, Twila, Ami and Leann). The older women at first wanted to eliminate Eliza, and counted on young Dolly to have a five vote majority in a tribe of nine. However, they targeted Dolly after she indecisively wavered among several possible elimination votes and would not commit to a firm voting decision with them. When Eliza learned from "older woman" Ami that Dolly had played both sides and had considered voting against the youngin alliance at Tribal Council, Eliza herself betrayed the youngins and joined the older women to preemptively get rid of Dolly, in a 5-4 vote.
- John P. - Lopevi, with the "Fat Five" alliance in total control, voted 5-3 against another athletic man, John P., after he failed to gain immunity before the first of two separate tribal councils in which each tribe had to eliminate a member.
- Mia - Before knowing there would be tribal council at each camp that day, youngin Mia became confrontational with older woman Twila. While the youngins and older women alliances apparently held at four and four, Lisa, the oldest woman in the youngin alliance, became distrustful of Eliza and the youngin alliance, as a result of Eliza's earlier vote against Dolly. Lisa switched sides after Scout convinced her she had the age requirement to join the older woman alliance. Mia was voted out 5-3.
- Brady - Handsome Brady became the third casualty of the Fat Five alliance at Lopevi, after John K, the other pretty boy left in the island, put into question Brady's loyalty to the majority in the tribe and turned against Brady in a 6-1 Lopevi vote.
- Travis - After a tribal shuffle, two males, Travis and Rory, landed in the female-ruled Yasur tribe. Travis and Rory were not accepted by the five-woman tribe, and Travis realized the women would eliminate the two male minority and make the tribal merge with majority. When the two tribes met again at the next immunity challenge, Travis attempted to send a signal to Chris and warn the male-ruled Lopevi tribe to get rid of their female members too, and Ami caught him. Although the Yasur women had originally planned to vote out Rory first, Ami led the women to eliminate Travis in a 6-1 vote.
- Lisa - Lisa said to Ami that she would like know where to find manioc in case Ami wasn't around, leading Ami to suspect Lisa was sneaky and disloyal towards her. Ami and the women also realized they needed Rory to beat Lopevi during the reward and immunity challenges, so Lisa's position in the game came back to haunt her as she was not a member of either Yasur alliance, the youngins or the older women. Although Ami had told Rory that he would be going, she led the women to vote out Lisa at Tribal Council in a 4-2 decision, in spite of Scout's mild objection to Lisa's expulsion.
- John K. - As a merge was coming, the three remaining "Fat Five" members in Lopevi felt that they could trust their two female tribemates (Julie and Twila) but not John K., the last athletic male in the tribe. Lea, Chad, and Chris made a promise to Twila that they would ally with her after the merge. Julie, wanting to protect herself, lied to Twila in a private conversation that the three men made the same promise to her (which they hadn't). This planted a seed of doubt in Twila as to whether or not to stay with the men. Julie also began to openly flirt (mainly with Lea, the apparent leader of the men), at one point taking off her swimsuit while sunbathing with the men so she could tan her buttocks. This opened the door for John K's elimination. He became very distrustful of the remaining members of the Fat Five alliance after they had systematically eliminated all others like him, and the men didn't like him, so he was the next to go in a 5-1 vote.
- Rory - At the merge, Ami and Julie enticed Twila to betray Lopevi. Julie and Twila joined the Yasur women to form a six-woman alliance and pick off the four men one by one. Because the male leader and original target (Lea) won individual immunity, the women decided to dispose of another male, Rory, in a 6-4 vote, and blindsided the men at tribal council.
- Lea - Lea was the next man in line and the strongest challenge threat. Chris, knowing that it was hopeless to stay with the dwindling men, joined the women in voting off Lea. In Chris' dramatic voting confession, he said that his vote was for, not against, Lea, and he swore that he would find a back door to the woman alliance and burn all the women to avenge Lea.
- Chad - Continuing the elimination of the men, Chad was voted off after Ami maneuvered to keep the woman alliance's momentum going. Most noteworthy is that, after everybody got back to camp after Lea was voted out at tribal council, Chris falsely stated that Lea whispered and told him on to go ahead and vote for him while they were walking to the council site. This turned out to buy Chris some time, as either he or Chad were next to go. Scout and Twila's plan to turn the tables on Ami and Leann actually took root in this episode; they at first invited Chad and Chris to join them. However, Twila and Scout could not convince either Julie or Eliza to go along with it and neither wanted to risk a tie vote at Tribal Council, so they decided to stay with the rest of the women, in 6-2 vote.
- Leann - In a surprise twist, Leann got voted off as a result of two main factors: Twila and Scout's decision to overturn Ami and Leann's cocky and dictatorial leadership after Ami and Leann told Scout that they had excluded Scout from their final four plan, and Ami and Leann's decision to eliminate Eliza before Chris because they felt he was more deserving than her. Although Scout and Twila hated Eliza and vice versa, Chris persuaded Eliza to join him, Twila and Scout to save herself from being eliminated next. When Ami won individual immunity, the four ragtag rebels came together to target her loyal ally, Leann. The four overpowered the other three female votes for Eliza. Leann was voted off in a 4-3 vote and Ami was blindsided. The women's alliance with Ami as boss was history.
- Ami - Chris, Scout and Twila again banded together to usurp Ami, the "Queen" of the former six-woman alliance. Ami tried to save herself by attempting to convince Eliza to reform the alliance between the two of them and Julie, but Eliza's trust in their alliance was gone after Ami tried to eliminate her from the game. As the swing vote, Eliza joined Chris, Scout, and Twila because of her fear of a "Purple Rock" scenario in case of a tie at tribal council. The queen of the woman alliance was dethroned in a 4-2 vote. (The players believed that in case of a deadlock tie, everyone whose name did not appear on the vote ballots would have to randomly draw rocks from a bag, and the unlucky person who drew the colored rock would be eliminated. Much later, it was revealed that the show's producers decided they would not use this tie-breaker again after its controversial outcome in Survivor: Marquesas. In case of a tie, the tie-breaker would consist of a fire-building challenge, which would first be seen in Survivor: Palau between Stephenie and Bobby Jon.)
- Julie - The four-person alliance that overthrew Ami and Leann began to splinter as the two remaining youngins, Eliza and Julie, realigned themselves against the two remaining older women, Scout and Twila. Chris seized control of the game and became the swing vote at tribal council. He joined Scout and Twila to vote out Julie because she led the betrayal of the Lopevi men and was too well-liked by Ami and Leann on the jury.
- Eliza - Chris again joined Scout and Twila to vote out Eliza, breaking his promise to her. Eliza had switched sides too often during the game, gained a reputation as a backstabber and would be too strong a physical and mental threat for the final immunity challenge.
- Scout - After winning the final immunity, Chris eliminated Scout and chose Twila for the final two because he had a final two agreement with Twila and he believed he could more easily defeat her.
- Twila - Prior to facing the final tribal council, Chris prepared Twila for the jury by telling her not to "not take any crap" from them, and he told Twila that he would do the same. At the council, Eliza demanded apologies from Twila and Chris. Twila followed Chris' suggestion and got into an angry argument with Eliza, but Chris readily apologized to Eliza for breaking their pact. Twila lost Eliza's jury vote for insulting Eliza. She lost the two male jury members' votes for betraying Lopevi at the merge. She lost Leann's jury vote for voting her out after swearing on her son's name she would not break the alliance. She received only two jury votes from open lesbians Ami (who thought Twila spoke from the heart when she called Ami "too nice" to play the game) and Scout (who had an alliance with Twila since day one.)
- Chris - Received a majority of five jury votes (out of seven) at the final tribal council to become the Sole Survivor. Female jury member Leann and the two men from Lopevi, Lea and Chad, were impressed that he became the last man standing to break through the female alliance of six women. The two men also voted against Twila for betraying them at the merge. Eliza voted for Chris because Twila insulted her in front of the jury and then refused to apologize to her like Chris did. Julie voted for Chris because he apologized for voting against her. Chris won the game by 5-2 votes.
Voting History
Here is a chart showing who voted for who at each tribal council. Here is how tribes will be indicated:
Beginning of game - Episode 4: The person's name will indicate whether they were male or female, thus indicated Lopevi or Yasur. If the person did not make it to Episode 5, their background will be red (indicating Lopevi) or yellow (indicating Yasur).
Episode 5 - Merge: Red signifies Lopevi; yellow signifies Yasur.
Merge - Orange (Alinta)
Black squares signify that that person has been voted out.
| Starting Tribes | Mixed Tribes | Merged Tribe | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Episode: | Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5 | Episode 6 | Episode 7 | Episode 8 | Episode 9 | Episode 10 | Episode 11 | Episode 12 | Episode 13 | Episode 14 | Runner- Up |
Winner | |||
| Eliminated: | Brook 5/9 votes |
Dolly 5/9 votes |
John P 5/8 votes |
Brady 6/7 votes |
Travis 6/7 votes |
Lisa 4/6 votes |
John K 5/6 votes |
Rory 6/10 votes |
Lea 7/9 votes |
Chad 6/8 votes |
Leann 4/7 votes |
Ami 4/6 votes |
Julie 3/5 votes |
Eliza 3/4 votes |
Scout 1 vote |
Twila 2/7 jury votes |
Chris 5/7 jury votes | ||
| Mia 5/8 votes | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chris | Jury Vote | ||||||||||||||||||
| Twila | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scout | |||||||||||||||||||
| Eliza | |||||||||||||||||||
| Julie | |||||||||||||||||||
| Ami | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leann | |||||||||||||||||||
| Chad | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lea | |||||||||||||||||||
| Rory | |||||||||||||||||||
| John K | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lisa | |||||||||||||||||||
| Travis | |||||||||||||||||||
| Brady | |||||||||||||||||||
| Mia | |||||||||||||||||||
| John P | |||||||||||||||||||
| Dolly | |||||||||||||||||||
| Brook | |||||||||||||||||||