Season 14
With one million dollars at stake, the gloves are coming off as 19 castaways prepare themselves for the toughest Survivor yet.
Battling against the elements, nature and each other, the contestants have no idea of the cruel twist which awaits them, or the fact that one player has an advantage over them all.
In a twist from previous seasons of Survivor, all contestants have to participate in a challenge before being split into two tribes and moving to two different camps.
One camp (built by all contestants in the initial challenge) is furnished with several luxuries, including shelters built from pre-cut wood, a kitchen area with dishware, a shower, a toilet, furniture, and the means to maintain fire.
The other camp gets a water well and a machete. That's it.
These two tribes will become the "haves" and the "have-nots". This is how Jeff Probst described it in an interview:
"The game is about one tribe living a life of luxury, and the other tribe really scraping to get by while the other tribe has it so good it almost doesn't feel like Survivor to them.
"They have a couch. They have tables. The tribe that wins the first challenge goes back to this reward, which is all these luxury items.
"They're not necessarily better. They just make life better like hammocks and umbrellas and bottles and decanters and all this silverware and plates and china and a bush shower. So you see them eating. It looks like some sort of Ralph Lauren picnic.
"The other tribes show up and they're dragging their butts because they haven't even had water. What was really interesting was how quickly you started to see the attitude change where the winning tribe started to have this sense of entitlement.
"It was fascinating to watch the rich tribe get lazy and entitled and the poor tribe get desperate and resentful."
Exile Island is once again in play for Survivor: Fiji, with some new tweaks. Unlike previous seasons, there are two hidden immunity idols, with one hidden at each camp.
The idol now has to be played before Jeff reads the results of the voting, rather than after.
Casting
There were initially supposed to be 20 contestants on Survivor: Fiji. Mellisa McNulty, a 27-year-old talent manager from Los Angeles, would have been the 20th castaway but dropped out and returned home the night before the show began because of panic attacks, making this the first season of Survivor to have an odd number of castaways, with 19.
Because of the timing and lack of alternates, her spot could not be replaced. Jeff Probst explained that although other seasons have had alternates, it usually only happens when the crew are worried about one or more contestants - this season they had no such worries.
Gary Stritesky is the only contestant to have applied to be on the show - the remaining 19 (including McNulty) were all recruited.
As in Survivor: Cook Islands, the cast is once again ethnically diverse. There are five Asian-Americans, five African-Americans and four Latin-Americans.
The Winner
The final three were Earl Cole, James "Dreamz" Reid and Cassandra Franklin.
The show was won by Earl, who was the first Survivor to win the show with unanimous votes from the jury.