Survivor: Blood vs. Water

Survivor: Blood vs Water is the 27th installment of Survivor. It features previous contestants competing against their loved ones. The season was won by returning player Tyson Apostol who defeated Monica Culpepper and Gervase Peterson in a 7-1-0 vote.

Production
Jeff Probst stated during the Survivor: Caramoan reunion that he was leaving to film Survivor: Blood vs. Water on May 13, 2013. He stated a "game changing" twist would be involved. He then confirmed the season would begin airing on September 18, 2013, with a 90-minute premiere. Casting call was the same, and shortlist contestants included: contestant Ashley Underwood, who couldn't compete due to both her partner and her back-up partner being unable to play. Former  winner, Tom Westman, was asked but declined. Greg Buis from the original Survivor also declined the offer to appear again . Bobby Jon Drinkard from  and  participated in the casting, but was cut. Tom Buchanan and Lex van den Berghe, both from and, declined due the production of their new reality television program, Family Beef. Jamie Newton from Survivor: Guatemala and Jerri Manthey from Survivor: The Australian Outback, Survivor: All-Stars, and Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains were considered for the season, but their partners were unable to play with them. Malcolm Freberg from Survivor: Philippines and Survivor: Caramoan was asked to come back for a third straight season and play with his brother, but he declined. Troyzan Robertson from Survivor: One World and his partner were the male/male alternates for the season.

contestant R.C. Saint-Amour was originally slated to be on this season with her father, Craig. Upon arriving on location (24 hours before "Day Zero"), the older Saint-Amour's blood pressure sharply shot up, and was confined in a hospital in Makati City. They were replaced by Candice Woodcock-Cody and her husband. RC claimed that the theme of the season was initially "blood pairs vs. water pairs", but that production decided to change to "returnees vs. loved ones", when she and her father had to be replaced by Candice and John;  however, this has not been confirmed by CBS.

Twists

 * Returning Players: In mid-May 2013, it was revealed that this season would feature returning players.
 * Blood vs Water: Players will be paired with a competing family member or loved one on the cast. Every castaway will be playing individually, so they will remain in the game even if their family member is voted out. This season, the pairs will be comprised of returning players and their loved ones, where the returnees would be put in one tribe, while all of their loved ones would be put in another.
 * Day Zero: A day before the actual game starts, the 10 pairs will be sent out at sunset to 10 different locations to live by themselves for the night, under the notion that the pairs will be placed in the same tribe. They will then all meet up to be officially welcomed by host Jeff Probst and start the game the next morning.
 * First Impressions: Moments after meeting each other, each team will vote one member off their tribe. They will be sent to Redemption Island.
 * Redemption Island: Anyone voted out will be sent there and will then compete in a three-person duel. The last place finisher in each contest is out of the game for good, while the top two remain. However, if someone’s loved one is on Redemption Island they can take their loved one’s place before a duel.
 * Hidden Immunity Idol: The person who finishes first in each duel will also get to give a clue to the location of a Hidden Immunity Idol to any person from either tribe that they choose. If a castaway wins a game-returning duel, the castaway could also keep the clue for itself.
 * Tribe Switch: On Day 14, the remaining castaways randomly drew for new tribes.

Season Summary
The castaways were pre-divided into two tribes of ten: Galang, comprised of returning players, and Tadhana, the returning players’ loved ones. Before the tribes were sent to their camp, they were asked to eliminate one of their own immediately, where Laura Boneham and Candice Cody were voted out from their respective tribes. They were then informed that Redemption Island was in play, with the added twist that a player could take their partner’s spot on Redemption Island. Shockingly, Rupert Boneham decided to switch with Laura B., sending Rupert to Redemption Island and sending Laura B. to Galang. Tadhana lost the first four consecutive challenges, and was initially dominated by the Five Guys Alliance led by Brad Culpepper. Brad’s decision to blindside his ally John Cody resulted in Brad’s subsequent elimination and the end of the men’s alliance. Meanwhile, in Galang, Aras Baskauskas created the Galang Five, an alliance which approached a no-strategy strategy. When the Galang tribe eventually went to Tribal Council after finally losing at the fifth challenge, Aras spearheaded the elimination of Laura Morett in hopes that she could eliminate Brad from Redemption Island to ensure Monica Culpepper's loyalty to the alliance. The plan was successful, and Laura M. returned to the game at the merge.

The tribes eventually merged to the Kasama tribe with 11 castaways remaining, including three pairs of loved ones: Aras and his brother Vytas Baskauskas, Tina Wesson and her daughter Katie Collins, and Laura M. and her daughter Ciera Eastin. While Aras led the charge against Laura M. again, a recently formed alliance originally from the post-Tribe Swap Tadhana tribe, included Monica and Laura M., planned to eliminate the pairs in the game as all of them are "singles" and eliminate their threat. This alliance was able to blindside Aras, and managed to vote out Vytas and Tina later on, before betraying Laura M. for being the stronger member of the final intact pair. With no pairs remaining, the new players outnumbered the returnees four to three, but the new players’ attempt to seize control was foiled by Ciera, who sided with the returnees. However, with six players left, she had a change of heart, changing allegiances and forcing a tie which was resolved through the Rock Drawing tiebreaker, a tiebreaker only last seen during the fourth season, which resulted in Katie’s elimination. This allowed the returning players alliance of Tyson Apostol, Monica and Gervase Peterson to take control, voting out the others and making it to the end of the game.

At the Final Tribal Council, Gervase was berated by the Jury for his perceived rudeness and hiding behind more dominant players, while Monica was castigated for threatening to flip to the other alliance but ultimately never following through. This led the jury to award Tyson the title of Sole Survivor, receiving seven of the eight votes to win, and Monica receiving one.

Trivia

 * With the Day Zero twist, this season' is the second longest season in terms of number of days, lasting 39.5 days, following, which was filmed in 42 days instead of the standard 39.
 * The US Survivor franchise is the second version to adapt a couples format, following the Philippine version, which had pairs of celebrities, each with a pre-existing relationship.
 * Instead of revealing the location during the previous season's Reunion Show, Jeff showed a clue, which was a short clip of blood spreading in water. The second clue was the same as the first, only with the season logo shown for a split second afterwards.
 * This is the first time Survivor has filmed three consecutive seasons on the same country, with, and Blood vs Water all being shot in the Philippines.
 * This is the second season that is filmed in another location within a previous host country. and  were both filmed in Brazil, albeit in different locations; namely, Rio Negro and Rio Novo, respectively.
 * This is the ninth season to feature returning players.
 * This is the third season in a row to feature returning players. This is the longest consecutive streak of seasons with returning players.
 * This is also the third season in a row to feature returning players who were eliminated before the Merge/Jury phase.
 * This is the first time to have two back-to-back seasons with half (10 contestants out of 20 total) the castaways being returning players.
 * Like  and Caramoan, the game was won by a Returning Player.
 * Also, like Micronesia, the Final 3 was made up entirely of Returning Players.
 * It was revealed in Ashley Underwood's interview that all participants had a partner, and a back-up partner.
 * This is the first season to feature returning Sole Survivors but not have four returning Sole Survivors.
 * Other seasons to feature Sole Survivors are and  each had four former Sole Survivors competing.
 * This is also the first time that former Sole Survivors are competing in a season with new players.
 * This season marks the return of Redemption Island, which had been absent since.
 * This is also the first season to feature Redemption Island and female returning players.
 * This is the first season to feature both Redemption Island and returning players but have more than 2 returning players.
 * This is also the first season to feature Redemption Island in a 20-castaway format.
 * This season has the most castaways return to the game after being voted out, with three castaways returning to the game.
 * This season marks the only time Rupert Boneham and Candice Cody didn't make the Merge or Jury phase.
 * This is also the only time Candice didn't place 8th.
 * This is the first season with Redemption Island in which a male castaway was the 1st person eliminated.
 * This is the second season where the first two castaways eliminated from the game were eliminated by means other than being voted out. The first was.
 * Also after Palau, this is the second season where the first two castaways eliminated from the game had no votes cast against them.
 * However, while Palau had this as an intentional twist, this was purely coincidental.
 * This is the second season where the first two people eliminated from the game were male. The first was.
 * This is the first season ever to have three players eliminated (Rupert, Colton Cumbie and Candice) without any of them ever attending Tribal Council.
 * This is the first season where three people were eliminated without getting voted off (Rupert, Colton and Katie Collins), and none of them were evacuated.
 * The font used for the tribe names this season is "Totally Glyphic."
 * This is the first season to not have the entire opening sequence shown in any of the episodes.
 * This is the second season to see the Rock Drawing tiebreaker being utilized.
 * The first season using said tiebreaker was.
 * This is the first season since to have a Second Runner-Up, since Lisa Whelchel & Michael Skupin and Dawn Meehan & Sherri Biethman ended up tie for Runners-Up in Philippines and Caramoan.
 * This is the first season of returning players vs new players to have only returning players remaining at the Final Four.
 * This is the first season to feature a returning player win for the second time in a row, with Tyson Apostol winning this season after John Cochran won Caramoan.
 * This is the first season where two castaways entered the Merge with only one challenge win.
 * This season had more players survive at least one Redemption Island duel than any other Redemption Island season with 7 (Candice, Marissa, John, Brad, Laura M., Vytas, and Tina).
 * Coincidentally, the highest  ranking  returnees were paired with the three  lowest  ranking  loved ones.
 * The reunion saw the return of having all castaways present on stage after Caramoan forced the pre-jurors to sit in the audience.
 * However, they were not seated from winner on the bottom right to first boot on the top left. Instead, they were seated as pairs in order of rank, with the higher-ranking of the two sitting on the right.