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ShowsSurvivorSeason 31

Cambodia

Subtitled Second Chance, the cast voted in by viewers from a ballot of players who never won, shot off Koh Rong. The construction is the hook — returnees who all want a do-over, without veterans of the late-2000s all-star era, a roster the audience picked. The result is a tactically dense season in the middle of Survivor's idol-and-advantage era, paced like the show knows the cast knows the game. A touchstone the modern returnee seasons keep pointing back to.

Filmed
Koh Rong, Cambodia
Premiered
Sep 23, 2015
CBS · Wednesday 8/7c
Episodes
14
Format
Second Chance · 2 tribes
viewer-voted returnees
Cast size
20 players
Host
Jeff Probst
On this page4 sections
  1. 01The take
  2. 02Where it sits in the canon
  3. 03Adjacent in the canon
  4. 04Also appears in
01The take

Second chances, proven repeatable.

02Where it sits in the canon

The #06 slot.

Slot #06 of 50 in the Survivor Editor's Canon. Cambodia is the rare returnee season that earns the casting twist by playing it straight. The audience picked the cast through a months-long online vote, and the players who arrived were obvious second-chance candidates — talented competitors whose previous runs ended in ways that left meaningful prose unwritten. The result is a season with twenty fully-formed shapes from the first tribal, no soft-introduction problem, no need to teach the audience who anyone is. The canon places it sixth because the season proves that returnee depth on this format is not the Heroes vs. Villains accident — it is something the show can reliably produce when casting is willing to commit.

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04Also appears in

Cross-references.

A second life, built into the formatlist · 12 entriesThe setting talks firstlist · 10 entriesThe doubters had to walk it backlist · 16 entriesWho actually got the votelist · 12 entriesSurvivor — Editor's CanonEditor's Canon · #06