Survivor: Cambodia

Survivor: Cambodia, also known as Survivor: Cambodia - Second Chance, is the 31st season of Survivor.

In a change to previous installments, Survivor fans were given the chance to vote for who would appear on the cast through social media.

Development
On May 6, 2015, an announcement was made that for the first time in Survivor history, fans had the ability to vote for and assemble the cast for the next season. Through social media, fans voted for ten men and ten women from a pool of 32 former castaways, each of whom had played only once. Voting ended one hour into the finale, where all of the nominees were present at the reunion with their luggage already prepared for filming.

The final roster of 20 was revealed at the end of the show, and were flown to Cambodia immediately afterward. It should be noted that this season, which will be the 32nd to be produced, will be aired as the 31st season, while the 31st season to be produced, which was filmed during the original run of Worlds Apart, will be slated as the 32nd season.

Filming commenced in May 31, which also marked the 15th anniversary of the series' debut episode,.

Second Chance Vote
Immediately following the episode, a shortlist of 32 candidates, all one-time, non-winner contestants, was posted on CBS.com. Contestants were nominated from across 16 seasons, ranging from the first installment,, to the most recent,. Fans were allowed to vote starting from the end of the said episode until the Worlds Apart finale.

At the time of the launch of the poll, two nominated contestants from Worlds Apart, Mike Holloway and Carolyn Rivera, were still in the game. Jeff Probst explained that if either one of them eventually wins their season and garnered enough votes to return, they would be ineligible to compete for this season, giving their spot to the candidate of their gender who garnered the 11th highest amount of votes. This did end up being the case, with Mike winning Worlds Apart and finishing in the top ten.

Twists/Changes

 * Returning Players: 20 former contestants, all of whom have played only once and did not win the game, and whom were determined by public vote, returned for a second chance.
 * Hidden Immunity Idol: The Hidden Immunity Idols for this season will look different from each other, making it more difficult for the players to know if the idols are real or fake. Also, for the first time, the idols will be hidden in challenges, while the clues will be hidden at camp. This is an idea originally proposed by Entertainment Weekly columnist Dalton Ross.
 * Auxilliary Tribe: For the first time since, a third tribe will be introduced later in the game before the merge. Disguised as a tribe switch, the tribes will be informed they will be spread into three tribes.
 * Challenges: The challenges for this season will also feature the Second Chance theme, as production will incorporate past challenges in which the cast has previously participated in their previous seasons. The lineup of challenges includes some that they have lost before, but not exclusively.
 * Impromptu First Tribal Council: The tribe that loses the first Immunity Challenge will be immediately sent to Tribal Council after the challenge.

Trivia

 * Cambodia is the third season with a cast consisting entirely of returning players, following  and . Unlike the aforementioned seasons, the theme of Cambodia excludes former Sole Survivors.
 * It is also the first to have a full cast of one-time returning players since All-Stars.
 * It is the first time when a male and a non-finalist contestant is voted out first in all returning player seasons.
 * This season marks the first time where everyone competing has had the opportunity to watch everyone else's full season, compared to, , and  where those competing back-to-back had seasons filming or finishing post-production.
 * Cambodia is the second season to have contestants with homophonic names, following . Kelly Wiglesworth and Kelley Wentworth have homophonic names.
 * The font used for the season logo and buffs is a modified version of the premium font, "Anglo-Angkor".
 * According to Jeff Probst, some of the former players who declined to come back to this season were Greg Buis from, Elisabeth Filarski from , Shambo Waters from , and Jeff Kent and RC Saint-Amour from.