Survivor: Micronesia

Survivor: Micronesia - Fans vs. Favorites is the 16th installment of Survivor. This season featured ten new contestants, dubbed as "the super-fans" facing ten of the most popular castaways at the time. It culminated with Parvati Shallow defeating Amanda Kimmel in a 5-3 Jury vote.

Production
Casting for this season was originally done as an All-Stars with all returning players, but that idea was scrapped. Other former contestants who were asked included: Tom Westman, Coby Archa, Katie Gallagher, Jenn Lyon, Ian Rosenberger, Janu Tornell, Jeff Wilson, Candice Woodcock, Yul Kwon , Sandra Diaz-Twine , Lydia Morales , Courtney Marit, Shane Powers, Terry Deitz , Edgardo Rivera, Earl Cole , Courtney Yates, Peih-Gee Law , Michael Skupin and Twila Tanner. However these players did not make the final cut. No past winners were recast for this season. However, Richard Hatch, was asked, but had to apply to leave the country due to being in federal prison, and his request was denied.

Twists/Changes

 * Fans versus Favorites: Ten new contestants (all of whom are die-hard fans of Survivor) faced ten of the show's most popular contestants. Airai was the tribe of fans, while Malakal was comprised of the favorites.
 * Returning Players: As it is part of the theme of the season, ten returning players are featured in one original tribe.
 * Temporary Immunity Idols: At the beginning of the game, the contestants vied for two individual Immunity Idols, one for each tribe. The first person who gets the tribe's idol will be immune at his/her first visit to Tribal Council.
 * Exile Island: Exile Island returns after being absent in China. Another twist is that one person from both tribes will be sent to Exile Island and compete to find one Hidden Immunity Idol.
 * Hidden Immunity Idols: Hidden Immunity Idols return this season.
 * Tribe Switch: Both tribes swapped four members each.
 * Even-numbered Jury: This season marked the first time that a Jury is comprised of even numbers.
 * Final Tribal Council: The standard two-finalist Final Tribal Council returns after three seasons of having a three-finalist finale.

Season Summary
The two tribes were pre-selected before the start of the show: ten returning Survivor contestants and ten fans of the show. In their first challenge, each tribe competed within themselves to be first at a distance island and retrieve an Immunity Idol that would only be good for that tribe's first visit to Tribal Council; these were claimed by Yau-Man Chan and Kathy Sleckman. In the pre-merge Reward Challenges, the winning tribe selected both a member of the losing tribe and a member of their own tribe to go to Exile Island where a series of clues would lead to a Hidden Immunity Idol. Ozzy Lusth managed to follow the clues to claim the Idol, and following Yau-Man's strategy from Fiji, left a fake Idol in its place. Jason Siska would later find this Idol, believing it to be real.

After 11 days, with the tribes still at equal numbers, the tribes were swapped through a Schoolyard Pick. Despite the separate tribes, the favorites worked within their new tribes to eliminate the fans, who succumbed to infighting. Before and through the merge, three people had to be removed from the game; Jonathan Penner, who suffered an infection on his knee; Kathy, who wanted to quit after suffering psychological trauma; and James Clement, who had an infected finger - James remained part of the Jury though had to use an IV drip during Tribal Council.

After the merge, the remaining fans attempted to form alliances with the favorites that held the majority. A core alliance of Amanda Kimmel, Parvati Shallow and Cirie Fields worked with the other female fans, Natalie Bolton and Alexis Jones, to push through several upsets. First, Eliza Orlins attempted to work with Jason to use his Idol to trick the majority, but her plan failed when she realized Jason's Idol was fake. After luring Ozzy to believe they would be voting off Jason, they were able to eliminate Ozzy without him playing the Idol. Jason was next sent to Exile Island and found the relocated Idol but he too was lured into not playing it, and was quickly eliminated. After James' evacuation, the remaining fans (Alexis, Natalie, and Erik Reichenbach) convinced Cirie to betray Amanda, but Amanda had been to Exile since Jason's elimination and had retrieved the Idol, playing it to protect her and eliminate Alexis. Finally, the remaining women convinced Erik he was safe at the next vote regardless if he won individual immunity; Erik, having won this immunity, gave it to Natalie to engender her trust, allowing the women to vote him off.

After eliminating the last fan, Natalie, and realizing that there would not be three contestants in the Final Tribal Council, Amanda and Parvati both saw Cirie as the likely winner against either of them, and through her immunity win, Amanda voted Cirie off, opting to go to the final with Parvati. The Jury grilled both players, with Parvati ultimately winning in a 5–3 vote.

Trivia

 * This is the first season to have an even-numbered Jury, with eight members.
 * This was the first season to have two contestants be medically evacuated, followed by, , and.
 * This was the first season where the Final 4 was comprised of castaways of the same gender.
 * However, this would be surpassed in, whose Final 5 was comprised of castaways of the same gender.
 * Both times this happened, the Final 5 and Final 4 were all comprised of females.
 * This is the first season to have an equal number of returning players and new players at the beginning of the game. It was followed by.
 * This is the second season to start with 20 contestants and have a Final Two, following.
 * This season holds the record of the most number of episodes in which more than one castaway was eliminated with 4.
 * This season holds the record of most participants returning to a future season with 7: Parvati Shallow, Amanda Kimmel, Cirie Fields and James Clement returned in ; Ozzy Lusth returned in ; Jonathan Penner returned in ; and Erik Reichenbach returned in.
 * This is the last season to date to feature headshot still images of the contestants in the opening credits.
 * For this season, once a player was eliminated, his/her name and images would no longer appear in the opening credits. Then, in continuing what was started in, once the game reached the jury phase, only the players remaining would be shown, divided into "the Jury" and the "the Merged Tribe."
 * This is the fourth season with an evacuation. This is the first season with two evacuations.
 * Parvati Shallow, Amanda Kimmel, and Cirie Fields are the only returning players to place higher than they did on their original season.
 * Cirie is the only one not to make the Final Tribal Council.
 * This is the only season to have Ponderosa and not be in HD.
 * This season holds the record for the most contestants leaving the game, without being voted out, or eliminated in a tie-breaker, eliminated by a twist, or duel at 3. Both Jonathan Penner and James Clement were evacuated, and Kathy Sleckman quit.
 * It is notable that, in addition to these 3, Jon Dalton asked to be voted out after his tribe lost the first immunity challenge. While he technically didn't quit, as he was voted out, he still made for one less competitive castaway.
 * This is the only returning players season to feature returning players from and.
 * Half of the contestants from this season would visit Exile Island.
 * Five of them were fans and the other five were favorites.
 * None of the favorites who went to Exile Island the first time they played would return the second time.
 * While no one of the original Casaya or Aitutaki visited the first time they played, both players originally from those tribes would visit this time that they played.
 * The returning players from Panama, Cook Islands, and China would go on to become 3-time players, while the returning players from Pearl Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji have yet to be brought back for a third season.
 * This was the first returning players season to have the first eliminated be a male.
 * This season has the most LGBT contestants with 4. (Chet, Ami, Jason and Natalie)
 * This season is the first to have 2 tribes of 10 players each, despite there being 20 contestants in 2 previous seasons.