Survivor: Caramoan

Survivor: Caramoan — Fans vs Favorites is the 26th installment of Survivor. This season was the second season to feature the Fans vs. Favorites format, originally introduced to viewers in.

John Cochran was crowned the Sole Survivor after achieving the second Perfect Game in Survivor history. He beat out Dawn Meehan and Sherri Biethman in an 8-0-0 Jury vote.

Production
This season repeats the back-to-back filming seen since 2009. The Production Team filmed this season immediately after finished filming. CBS announced on January 11 that the season premiere would last for 2 hours; however, on February 7, CBS changed the premiere to be only 90 minutes long.

A casting call happened the same way as it did in. Jeff stated that they would have liked to have Shambo Waters and Matthew Elrod back, but they said they're "done with Survivor" and Lisa Whelchel was considered difficult to be brought back on back-to-back seasons due to being a mother. Troyzan Robertson was originally going to be on the season but got cut in favor of Malcolm Freberg. Peih-Gee Law was considered for this season, but was not cast. Tyson Apostol was considered for the season, but was not selected due to the season taking a "different casting direction." Colton Cumbie stated in an interview that he declined the offer to compete in the season.

Twists/Changes

 * Fans versus Favorites: Similar to past season, this season will feature one tribe made up of die-hard Fans of the show, while the other tribe will be made up of Favorite returning players from previous seasons.
 * Returning Players: As implied by the theme, ten returning players are going to return to compete against ten new castaways.
 * Hidden Immunity Idol: Like previous seasons, at least one Hidden Immunity Idol is hidden in each tribe's camp.
 * Tribal Council at Challenge Site: Due to Brandon Hantz's rampage at camp, the Favorites decided to forfeit the Immunity Challenge on Day 13. Due to this, a Tribal Council vote was commenced verbally at the challenge site.
 * Tribe Switch: On Day 15, three Fans were switched to the New Bikal tribe and four Favorites were switched to the New Gota tribe.
 * Merge-Jury Configuration: For the first time since, the first castaway voted out after the Merge would not be a member of the Jury.

Season Summary
Stranded in the Caramoan Islands, ten Favorites (representing the Bikal tribe) will get a second shot against ten die-hard Fans (representing the Gota tribe) of Survivor.

At the Favorites, Phillip Sheppard started playing differently than his first time in the game, and rapidly orchestrated a second edition of his past alliance, Stealth R Us. He recruited former alliance-mate Andrea Boehlke along with several other members of the tribe. As a result, Francesca Hogi was the first voted out again in a 6-4 vote. In the following days, Brandon Hantz tried to infiltrate Phillip's alliance as going far as threatening to dump their food supply should they try to eliminate him.

At the Fans, things weren't much better. Reynold Toepfer and Eddie Fox formed the Cool Kids Alliance with Allie Pohevitz, and Hope Driskill, targeting the tribe's loudmouth and complainer, Shamar Thomas who they disliked due to his laziness around camp. Sherri Biethman however, noticed the four bond in the ocean and rallied the other six members of the tribe, to form a coalition. With the Gota Alliance in the majority, Allie and Hope were voted out in the Fans' first two Tribal Councils. Luckily for Reynold and Eddie, Shamar was evacuated due to an eye injury that could affect his vision. Also, Reynold had found his tribe's Hidden Immunity Idol, and played it the night Laura Alexander was voted out because of her weakness in challenges. Reynold quickly found another Idol the next day.

Enjoying a winning streak, the Favorites had a 9-6 majority over the Fans. Unfortunately, Brandon felt he was shunned from the tribe after being in the minority, and dumped all of the Favorites' food out on the ground. This caused the Favorites to forfeit the Immunity Challenge and vote Brandon out in an impromptu Tribal Council.

A Tribe Switch occurred on Day 14 mixed up the fans and the favorites, where the new Gota got all of the physically strongest players, leaving Bikal with the three of the season's oldest tribe cast members. Nonetheless, the favorites had the upper hand, outnumbering the fans on both tribes, 4-3. Meanwhile at Gota, Malcolm Freberg decided to betray Stealth R Us, and align with Reynold and Eddie. While the new Gota dominated the challenges, Phillip's Stealth R Us alliance was in control of Bikal despite tensions between Phillip and Corinne Kaplan slightly heating up, voting out the members of the Gota alliance.

When the two tribes merged, forming the Enil Edam tribe, Corinne and Michael Snow decided to switch to the new Cool Kids Alliance (Malcolm, Reynold and Eddie), while Phillip put together a solid core for Stealth R Us consisting of himself, Andrea, John Cochran, and Dawn Meehan (who were his other allies). Corinne also said to Dawn her plan in blindsiding Phillip after they voted out Sherri, but Dawn used it against Corinne instead, telling the Stealth R Us 2.0 alliance to target Corinne. Phillip then brought in former outsiders Brenda Lowe and Erik Reichenbach, as well as Sherri in order to form a majority against Corinne. Corinne was blindsided as a result in a 7-5 vote.

With Stealth R Us in the majority with a 7-4 numbers advantage, the Cool Kids decided to put Reynold's rehidden Idol to good use. He played it on Malcolm, but Andrea convinced Stealth R Us to turn the vote to Michael as a failsafe, and he was eliminated. Now with the numbers 7-3, Reynold won immunity which left Malcolm & Eddie vulnerable, but Malcolm found Reynold's rehidden Idol, having him possess two Idols at once. At a dramatic Tribal Council, Malcolm gave Eddie his Bikal Idol and blatantly announced they were targeting Phillip. With Reynold immune and Malcolm and Eddie both having Idols, paranoia took over Tribal Council, with Stealth R Us in a state of shock. In the end, the "Three Amigos" successfully put a dent on the alliance, eliminating Phillip.

Powerless after not finding the rehidden Idol, Malcolm and Reynold were eliminated. With Phillip gone, the remnants of his alliance began to fall apart. Cochran and Dawn stayed together however, and got strategic threats Andrea and Brenda voted out before Eddie. Erik was medically evacuated the same night Brenda got voted out, and Eddie, the last of the Three Amigos completed the Jury on Day 38.

At the Final Tribal Council, the Jury ignored Sherri for being highly inactive after the swap, lack of understanding of her role in the game, and her combative responses to them. The Jury accused Dawn as overly-emotional, which was disruptive on strategy and in camp life, and hiding behind her character of a mother of six. Meanwhile, Cochran was respected after apparently mastering the social game, strategic game, and even the physical game in a degree. With this, Cochran was declared the Sole Survivor, in an unanimous 8-0-0 vote.

Trivia

 * The theme of the season is inspired from the, as seen in , where the masks used for the Immunity Challenge are Ifugao dragon masks, while the Hidden Immunity Idols resemble the people's fertility charms.
 * This is the eighth season to feature returning players.
 * However, this is the first season since  to feature returning female players.
 * This is the second season in a row to feature a returning player who was voted out before the merge/jury phase of the game.
 * This is the first and so far only season to feature multiple three way ties.
 * This is the first season since  to feature 20 castaways.
 * Like the original Fans vs. Favorites season, the tribe colors are purple for the Favorites, orange for the Fans and green for the merged tribe.
 * Francesca is the first returning castaway to be voted out first from their original season. Coincidentally, she was voted out first in this season as well.
 * The font used in the "Caramoan" part of the season logo is HFF Splintered Dream.
 * This season's Tribal Council set is inspired by the Nipa Hut, a local traditional dwelling in the Philippines.
 * This is the first season to have a tribe win the same challenge twice in a season, although the first win was by default, and the two wins were with different members due to the Tribe Switch.
 * This is the first season since to have the first eliminated person on the Merged tribe not be a member of the Jury.
 * This is the third season in which multiple Hidden Immunity Idols were played at the same Tribal Council, the first two being and.
 * This season holds the record for the latest medical evacuation day in the show's history with an evacuation on Day 36.
 * This is the only season that the Reunion Show had only members of the Jury appear on stage and no pre-Jury vote offs, as the live reunion show only featured the contestants who made it on the jury phase. All of the pre-jury evictees sat in the front row, which caused controversy.
 * This is also the only season in which all of the castaways are not present for the reunion, as Brandon Hantz was banned due to his altercation with Phillip, and Brenda had to stay at home because she was in the last stages of her pregnancy.
 * The Reunion show also has the record of least amount of people talked to, with only 7/20 people being allowed to speak. (Cochran, Dawn, Brenda, Andrea, Reynold, Malcolm, and Phillip). The most notable exclusions were Michael (made the jury), Eddie (final member of the jury), and Sherri (co-runner up).
 * John Cochran becomes the second Sole Survivor to play a "perfect game", receiving no votes against him and getting all of the jury votes, following J.T. Thomas who won.
 * Like the original "Fans vs. Favorites", a Favorite was the first voted off of the game and a Favorite ended up winning the game.