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.

The season was won by Jeremy Collins in a unanimous jury vote, the fourth of its kind in the series, over Spencer Bledsoe and Tasha Fox.

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 Show 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 was 32nd to be produced, but the first to be aired, while the 31st season to be produced,, was pushed back and slated as the 32nd season to air.

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

According to Jeff Probst, some of the former players who declined the chance to come back to this season were Greg Buis from, Elisabeth Filarski from , Ian Rosenberger from , Shambo Waters from , and Jeff Kent and R.C. Saint-Amour from. Josh Canfield of confirmed on his Twitter he was approached to return, but he had to decline because his Broadway contract wouldn't allow him to leave. Jaclyn Schultz revealed on her Twitter account that her fiancé Jon Misch (also of San Juan del Sur) missed the call and opportunity to compete in Cambodia.

Ponderosa was filmed at Sandy Beach Bungalows, located on the neighboring island, Koh Rong Samloem.

The pre-merge contestants were sequestered in Vietnam.

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: Twenty 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  columnist Dalton Ross.
 * Tribe Expansion: For the first time since, a third tribe will be introduced after the start of the game, but before the merge. At the tribe switch, the contestants will be informed they will be split into three tribes instead of the expected two. The tribe, wearing gold buffs, was introduced on Day 7 of the game.
 * 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.
 * Merge at 13: For the first time, the merged phase of the game will commence with thirteen players left in the game.
 * Vote Steal: Similar to, a player would get the right to vote twice at the same Tribal Council, but this time while also preventing another player of their choice to vote.

Season Summary
The 20 former players who were voted onto the season by fans, returned to finish off what they started. They were initially divided into two tribes: Bayon and Ta Keo. On Ta Keo, a power struggle quickly formed between the "Beach People" and the "Shelter People", based around different approaches to playing the game. Bayon was lead by an alliance which was spearheaded by Jeremy Collins and Andrew Savage.

Throughout the two tribe swaps the original Ta Keo tribe fractured; Ta Keo lost six of their members before the merge while the original Bayon tribe only lost one. However, original Bayon members Kass McQuillen and Ciera Eastin were non-committal to the Bayon alliance, creating a new alliance on the second Ta Keo tribe. On the third Ta Keo tribe, Ciera and Kass' new alliance blindsided Woo Hwang because both believed that he was too closely aligned with Andrew.

The tribes merged with 13 players remaining: 9 former Bayon's and only 4 former Ta Keo's. The original Bayon alliance held the majority over Kass and Ciera's minority alliance. Though the Bayon alliance initially held the majority, the tribe's large size and multitude of intertwining relationships as a result of the tribe swaps caused the players to eschew long-term alliances in favor of creating temporary voting blocs to get rid of common threats.

While the voting bloc strategy prevailed well into the merge, stable alliances began to form as the numbers dwindled. Jeremy established an alliance with Spencer Bledsoe, who had had no consistent allies throughout the game, and original Bayon members Tasha Fox and Kimmi Kappenberg. However, with six players remaining, Kimmi betrayed her alliance to align with outsiders Keith Nale and Kelley Wentworth. Kimmi was eliminated after the ensuing deadlock tie. This enabled Jeremy, Spencer, and Tasha to make it to the Final Three.

At the Final Tribal Council, Jeremy was praised for playing with honor and integrity, and Spencer was commended for making strategic moves, but both he and Spencer were criticized for their moments of arrogance and Tasha was castigated for doing Jeremy's dirty work and was accused for not making significant moves post-merge. Ultimately, the jury of ten unanimously voted for Jeremy to win the title of Sole Survivor, believing he played the best strategic and social game and made it to the end without being targeted.

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.
 * This is the first season consisting of entirely returning players to have been won by a male.
 * 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 finishing post-production or airing.
 * 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".
 * Jeremy Collins, Spencer Bledsoe, Tasha Fox, Kelley Wentworth, Kimmi Kappenberg, and Joe Anglim all placed higher this season than in their original.
 * This is the second season to have banned a contestant from attending the Reunion Show. Vytas Baskauskas was banned for having returned home early and potentially spoiling the season. The first contestant to be banned from attending their season's Reunion was Brandon Hantz in .
 * This is the first season to feature a jury with 10 jurors, thus holding the record for largest jury in Survivor history. Also, this season's Sole Survivor is the first to receive 10 jury votes.
 * This record is matched in.
 * Cambodia is the first season with multiple African-American contestants competing in the season in which all of them made it to Day 39 and the Final Tribal Council.
 * Cambodia is the first season since All-Stars to have three pre-merge tribes without having a black merged tribe.
 * This season holds the record for most votes negated by Hidden Immunity Idols, with 20.
 * This is the only season to feature returning players from.
 * Every player from Survivor: Blood vs. Water that competed in this season has been first voted out at some point in their career.