Returning Players

Returning Players in Survivor offer the opportunity for former contestants who have won or been voted out to return for another shot to become the Sole Survivor.

Origins
The idea for former players to return occurred in, Executive Producer Mark Burnett wanted to showcase "The best of the best" after the ratings increase of. During pre-production for All-Stars, Burnett wrote down the series' most likable, villainous and memorable players on a legal pad and shortlisted eighteen names within a matter of minutes.

All-Star Seasons
Although proving to be a success for fans of the show, some critics argued that the survival aspect had been completely removed in favor of strategy and exuberant challenges. Fans also responded negatively to players who returned that had no plausible reason, and that they were merely reservists (most notably, Amber Brkich who had been a backup to Elisabeth Filarski and Colleen Haskell)

Fans of the show overall enjoyed and accepted the plausibility of "returnees" as long as there was a justification for them to return, something that would be later questioned in with Candice Woodcock.

Versus New Players
It appeared that later on in the series' run that the more popular a contestant was with the audience (regardless of placement) there would be a higher probability in returning for a second shot. During the events of, two former castaways from , Bobby Jon Drinkard and Stephenie LaGrossa joined to tribes of new contestants for a shot at redemption after being members of the infamous Ulong tribe.

With Survivor experimenting with different twists, the Production team opted to have ten well-known players go against "die-hard" fans of the show which would produce and become one of the series' most popular installments. would later adopt the same format.

During and, returnees were once again brought in as unofficial leaders of their tribes in the advent of the Redemption Island twist. The reasons differed from previous justifications of former survivors; Rob Mariano and Russell Hantz were brought back to settle their rivalry from, whilst Coach Wade and Ozzy Lusth were brought back to improve on their weak social games.

introduced three previous contestants, Russell Swan, Michael Skupin and Jonathan Penner, all of whom were evacuated due to medical reasons. They joined three tribes of five.

Success in the Game
It should be noted that during every season thus far that has featured returning players, at least one has made it to the Final Two/Three in every season. These players include Rob Mariano (All-Stars and Redemption Island), Amber Brkich (All-Stars), Stephenie LaGrossa (Guatemala), Amanda Kimmel (Micronesia), Parvati Shallow (Micronesia and Heroes vs. Villains), Russell Hantz (Heroes vs. Villains), Sandra Diaz-Twine (Heroes vs. Villains), Coach Wade (South Pacific) and Michael Skupin (Philippines).

Reception
Fan reception has evolved from universal acclaim, to mixed, to negative over the series' run.

Trivia

 * Survivor: Micronesia currently has the most returning players out of all seasons, with 7.
 * As of Survivor: Caramoan, Survivor: One World is the only season that has no players returning in another season.
 * Coincidentally, all 3 returning Asian-American contestants are currently the only representatives of their season.