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, Ian Rosenberger, Candice Woodcock , Sandra Diaz-Twine , Lydia Morales , Shane Powers, Terry Deitz , and Edgardo Rivera. However these players did not make the final cut. No past winners were recast for this season. However, Richard Hatch (Survivor: Borneo) 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.

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 Survivor: Samoa and Survivor: One World
 * This was the first season where the Final 4 was comprised of castaways of the same gender.
 * However, this would be surpassed in Survivor: One World, whose Final 5 was comprised of castaways of the same gender.
 * Until Survivor: One World, this was the only season with a final episode comprising of one gender (both seasons had all-female finales).
 * 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 Survivor: Palau.
 * This season holds the record of the most number of episodes in which more than one castaway was eliminated with 4.
 * 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 Survivor: China, 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.