Survivor: Pearl Islands

Production
Production location(s)	Pearl Islands, Panama
Filming dates	June 23 – July 31, 2003
Release
Original release	September 18 – December 14, 2003
Chronology
Preceded by	Survivor: The Amazon
Followed by	Survivor: All-Stars

Survivor: Pearl Islands (also known as Survivor: Pearl Islands — Panama) was the seventh season of the American reality show Survivor. It was filmed in 2003 and started being shown on TV on September 18, 2003.

The show takes place on the Pearl Islands, off the coast of Panama, and had a pirate theme. The two starting tribes were Drake (named for Sir Francis Drake) and Morgan (named for Henry Morgan). Later on, the two were merged (combined) into one tribe, which the players named "Balboa". The new tribe was named after an injured snake Rupert found and used as a mascot for the Drake tribe.

Sandra Diaz-Twine won against Scout master Lillian "Lill" Morris in a 6-1 vote.

Survivor: Pearl Islands became available on DVD on February 7, 2006.

This season is the only season so far which has had two of its players returning in two other seasons. Rupert Boneham returned in Survivor: All-Stars and made 4th place, then Jon "Jonny Fairplay" Dalton played again in Survivor: Micronesia, and was the first person voted out that season. While neither of them won any seasons, Boneham did win $1,000,000 in Survivor: America's Tribal Council. Sandra Diaz-Twine returned in Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, along with Boneham, his third time on Survivor. Boneham made 6th place and Sandra Diaz-Twine won the season, again. She was the first person to win Survivor twice. Boneham returned again in Survivor: Blood vs. Water, where he placed 20th. And Diaz-Twine returned to Survivor: Game Changers where she placed 15th. Sandra Diaz-Twine played on Survivor: Winners At War where she was the 8th person voted out, but she left the Edge of Extinction, so she was not a member of the jury.

Gameplay

The start of the game was announced as a surprise to the players, who were told that they would be playing in the clothes on their backs, most thinking they were getting publicity shots before the game started, and that no more supplies would be given to them. The players were split into the two tribes, Morgan and Drake, and given their running shoes, a small bag of money and a map to a close village where they would could use the money to get what they thought they needed for survival as well as a boat trip to their beach, and were told to swim the rest of the way. Drake, thanks to Sandra being able to speak Spanish and Rupert's idea to steal the untouched shoes of Morgan and use them as exchanging goods, was able to get a lot of items, while Morgan did not plan as well. A twist for this season sent one player from the tribe winning reward to steal one item from the other tribe's camp. Morgan lost most of the early Reward and Immunity challenges, leaving them three players down and with less items to work with at camp. During this time, Osten, a member of Morgan, started to say that he wanted to quit the game.

With Drake looking like they were going to continue to win, Burton started a plan to purposely lose the fourth Immunity challenge to get rid of the tribe's weaker players such as Trish and Christa. Though Rupert and others thought this was a bad idea, they did it anyway, purposely allowing Morgan to win. In a twist, Jeff Probst said that Morgan won the right to "kidnap" one Drake member through the next Reward challenge, and Morgan quickly chose Rupert. As a result, Burton was voted out at Drake's first tribal council. The change in power lead to Morgan winning the next two Immunity challenges and leaving the tribes equal, five members on each tribe.

When they arrived at their next challenge, the tribes found out that there was another twist, as the six players they had voted off before returned to the game as an "outcast tribe". In the next challenge, the outcasts tribe won against Morgan and Drake; both would have to vote off a player at separate tribal councils, while the outcasts tribe would vote in two players to return to the game in their place. Osten quit the game at Morgan's tribal council. Host Jeff Probst wasn't happy when Osten quit. The outcasts tribe chose Lil and Burton to return to the game, both, by chance, returning to their starting tribes but having immunity at the next tribal council. While Burton made up with his old tribe, Lil's return didn't make the other Morgan members too happy.

The next day, the two tribes merged (combined) into one tribe which the players named "Balboa", a name given to a sea snake that Rupert had found and tried to nurse back to health but failed. The tribe moved to Drake's beach. Burton and Rupert won individual immunities, and, along with Lil's anger, helped to voted out old Morgan members Andrew and Ryan O. Now there were more old Drake members than old Morgan members. Jon and Burton started to see Rupert as a physical threat for challenges, and wanted to vote him off, bothering Rupert's alliance members Sandra and Christa. In the next reward challenge, where family and loved ones of the players were brought to the islands, Jon had planned weeks before with his best friend to play the story of a "dead grandmother", hoping to use it to gain sympathy. Though Sandra knew he was lying, Jon successfully convinced the other players, making them to give up the reward to Jon and then having to spend one night on Morgan's old beach while Jon and his friend hung out alone, celebrating the lie's success. Jon and Burton planned to vote off the rest of the women players, voting off Tijuana and Christine. With five players left, Burton won a car reward and took Jon with him away from camp. This allowed Sandra, Lil, and Darrah to make a plan to vote off Burton by having Sandra act like she was certainly the next one to go. Burton and Jon knew the woman were probably working against them, and to his surprise, Burton was voted off at the following tribal council, leaving Jon struggling to try to win back the women's' trust. The next immunity challenge had yet another twist, as though it was a trivia quiz, the jury played also. The jury won, so none of the players left had immunity. Darrah was voted off, leaving Jon, Lil, and Sandra as the final three.

During the last immunity challenge, Sandra fell out early, so Jon to try to convince Lil to take him to the final two. Lil said no, and won the immunity challenge. Lil struggled with her decision of who to take to the last tribal council, but chose Sandra. During the last tribal council, they jury said that Lil's behavior during the game was not what people expected of a scoutmaster, and they asked questions Lil could not easily answer. Sandra was voted the Sole Survivor on a vote of 6-1. In the reunion show, she found out that if she had taken Jon to the final two, she likely would have won.

Players

Player	Starting tribe	Merged tribe	Finish	Total Votes
Nicole Delma 24, Hermosa Beach, CA	Morgan		1st Voted Out Day 3	7
Ryan Shoulders 23, Clarksville, TN	Morgan		2nd Voted Out Day 6	6
Lillian "Lil" Morris Returned to game as Outcast	Morgan[1]		3rd Voted Out Day 9[2]	5
Burton Roberts Returned to game as Outcast	Drake[3]		4th Voted Out Day 12[4]	5
Michelle Tesauro 22, Pittstown, NJ	Drake		5th Voted Out Day 15	6
Trish Dunn 42, Annapolis, MD	Drake		6th Voted Out Day 18	4
Shawn Cohen 28, New York City, NY	Drake		7th Voted Out Day 19	5
Osten Taylor 27, Boston, MA	Morgan		Quit Day 19	2
Andrew Savage 39, Chicago, IL	Morgan	Balboa	8th Voted Out Day 21	6
Ryan Opray 30, Los Gatos, CA	Morgan		9th Voted Out 1st Jury Member Day 24	8
Rupert Boneham 39, Indianapolis, IN	Drake		10th Voted Out 2nd Jury Member Day 27	7
Tijuana Bradley 26, St. Louis, MO	Morgan		11th Voted Out 3rd Jury Member Day 30	5
Christa Hastie 24, Los Angeles, CA	Drake		12th Voted Out 4th Jury Member Day 33	7
Burton Roberts 31, San Francisco, CA	The Outcasts		13th Voted Out 5th Jury Member Day 36[5]	10
Darrah Johnson 22, Liberty, MS	Morgan		14th Voted Out 6th Jury Member Day 37	6
Jon "Jonny Fairplay" Dalton 29, Danville, VA	Drake		15th Voted Out 7th Jury Member Day 38	7
Lillian "Lil" Morris 51, Cincinnati, OH	The Outcasts		Runner-Up[6]	10
Sandra Diaz-Twine 29, Fort Lewis, WA	Drake		Sole Survivor	0

The Total Votes is the number of votes a player got during Tribal Councils where the player is able to be voted out of the game. It does not count the votes they got during the final Tribal Council.

^  Lillian Morris and Burton Roberts were brought back into the game on Day 20, so they are both listed as having placed in two different points in the game. The tribes they were in for a short time upon their return were the same tribes they started in.

The game

Episode name	Date shown on TV	Challenges		Sent	Eliminated	Vote	Finish
		Reward	Immunity
"Beg, Barter, Steal"	September 18, 2003	None[7]	Drake	None	Nicole	7-1	1st Voted Out Day 3
"To Quit or Not to Quit"	September 25, 2003	Drake	Drake	Sandra	Ryan S.	5-2	2nd Voted Out Day 6
"United We Stand, Divided We... ?"	October 2, 2003	Drake	Drake	Christa	Lillian	5-1	3rd Voted Out Day 9[8]
"Pick a Castaway... Any Castaway"	October 9, 2003	Drake	Morgan	Trish	Burton	5-2	4th Voted Out Day 12[9]
"Everyone's Hero"	October 16, 2003	Morgan	Morgan	Andrew	Michelle	6-1	5th Voted Out Day 15
"Me and My Snake"	October 23, 2003	Drake	Morgan	Jon	Trish	4-2	6th Voted Out Day 18
"What the...?, Part 1"	October 30, 2003	The Outcasts[10]		None	Shawn	4-1	7th Voted Out Day 19
					Osten	No Vote	Quit Day 19
"What the...?, Part 2"	November 6, 2003	None[11]	Burton (Rupert)ep 8 6		Andrew	6-4	8th Voted Out Day 21
"Shocking! Simply Shocking!"	November 13, 2003	Rupert (Burton)ep 9 7 [Lillian]	Rupert		Ryan O.	8-1	9th Voted Out Day 24
"Swimming With Sharks"	November 20, 2003	Burton (Jon)[12], Lillian	Burton		Rupert	5-2-1	10th Voted Out Day 27
"The Great Lie"	November 26, 2003	Jon	Darrah[13]		Tijuana	5-2	11th Voted Out Day 30
"Would You Be My Brutus Today?"	December 4, 2003	Darrah, Lillian, Jon	Darrah		Christa	4-2	12th Voted Out Day 33
"Mutiny"	December 11, 2003	Burton [Jon]	Darrah		Burton	3-2	13th Voted Out Day 36[14]
"Flames and Endurance"	December 14, 2003	None	Jury[15]		Darrah	3-1	14th Voted Out Day 37
			Lillian		Jon	1-0	15th Voted Out Day 38
"Reunion"	December 14, 2003	Jury Vote			Lillian	6-1	Runner-up[16]
					Sandra		Sole Survivor

If more than one tribe or player wins reward or immunity, they are listed in order of finish, or alphabetically if it was teamwork or where one player won and invited others, the players they invited are in brackets.

^  There was no Reward Challenge and was not yet known to the castaways.

^  This was not actually a reward challenge, but what the Outcasts won was a chance to get voted back into the game.

^  There was no Immunity Challenge for this episode.

^  There was no Reward Challenge for this episode due to The Outcasts' Tribal Council.

^  Burton won immunity, but gave it to Rupert during tribal council; it was no use to Burton since he and Lillian already had immunity.

^  Rupert won reward, but gave it to Burton.

^  Burton and Lillian won reward. Burton gave Jon his reward, while Lillian kept hers.

^  Burton originally won immunity, but he lost it when Jeff Probst realized he'd missed a misspelled word ("liaison"). Because of this, a runoff between those not already eliminated was conducted; Darrah eventually won immunity.

^  The immunity challenge was a trivia competition, and the five members of the Jury were allowed to compete as a team against the four remaining players. The Jury won immunity, meaning that none of the four remaining players had immunity for that vote.

Voting history

	Starting tribes						The Outcasts		Merged tribe
Episode #:	1	2	3	4	5	6	7 [17]		8	9	10	11	12	13	14		Reunion
Eliminated:	Nicole 7/8 votes	Ryan S. 5/7 votes	Lillian 5/6 votes	Burton 5/7 votes	Michelle 6/7 votes	Trish 4/6 votes	Shawn 4/5 votes	Osten No vote[18]	Andrew 6/10 votes	Ryan O. 8/9 votes	Rupert 5/8 votes	Tijuana 5/7 votes	Christa 4/6 votes	Burton 3/5 votes	Darrah 3/4 votes	Jon 1 vote	Lillian 1/7 votes	Sandra 6/7 votes
Voter	Vote
Sandra				Burton	Michelle	Trish	Shawn		Andrew	Ryan O.	Jon	Tijuana	Lillian	Burton	Darrah		Jury Vote
Lillian	Nicole	Osten	Darrah	Returns					Andrew	Ryan O.	Rupert	Tijuana	Christa	Burton	Darrah	Jon
Jon				Burton	Michelle	Rupert	Shawn		Andrew	Ryan O.	Rupert	Tijuana	Christa	Lillian	Darrah			Sandra
Darrah	Nicole	Ryan S.	Lillian						Jon	Ryan O.	Rupert	Burton	Christa	Burton	Lillian			Sandra
Burton				Christa	Returns				Andrew	Ryan O.	Rupert	Tijuana	Christa	Lillian				Sandra
Christa				Burton	Michelle	Trish	Shawn		Andrew	Ryan O.	Darrah	Tijuana	Lillian					Sandra
Tijuana	Nicole	Ryan S.	Lillian						Jon	Ryan O.	Rupert	Burton					Lillian
Rupert				Kidnap[19]	Michelle	Trish	Shawn		Andrew	Ryan O.	Darrah							Sandra
Ryan O.	Nicole	Ryan S.	Lillian						Jon	Christa								Sandra
Andrew	Nicole	Ryan S.	Lillian						Jon
Osten	Nicole	Ryan S.	Lillian
Shawn				Burton	Michelle	Trish	Jon
Trish				Burton	Michelle	Rupert
Michelle				Christa	Shawn
Ryan S.	Nicole	Osten
Nicole	Ryan S.

^  Both tribes lost a challenge to the Outcast Tribe made of the first 6 players voted off; as a result, both tribes had to vote out a player.

^  Osten chose to quit the game, saying that his body was breaking down and his health was more important to him than a million dollars.

^  Rupert could not vote because he was captured by Morgan.

Survivor: Pearl Islands Media

• 

  Rupert Boneham on the set of Survivor All-Stars. This image was used by permission by Rupert Boneham and CBS.

• 

  Jon "Jonny Fairplay" Dalton

Other websites

• Official CBS Survivor Pearl Islands Website