Survivor: Kaôh Rōng

Overview

Survivor is a reality television show based on the Swedish show Expedition Robinson, created by Mark Burnett and Charlie Parsons. The series follows a number of participants isolated in a remote location, where they must provide food, fire, and shelter. One by one, a participant is removed from the series by majority vote, with challenges held to give a reward (ranging from living- and food-related prizes to a car) and immunity from being voted out of the series. The last remaining player receives a prize of $1,000,000.

Production

Survivor: Kaôh Rōng was filmed on the island of Koh Rong in Cambodia between March 30 and May 7, 2015. The season originally aired on CBS between February 17 and May 18, 2016. Although it was filmed before Survivor: Cambodia, it aired after, marking the first time the show aired its seasons out of filming order. As it was filmed first, it became the first CBS reality show to film in Cambodia. Three medical evacuations from the game occurred during the season's filming, the most to ever occur during a single season. Host Jeff Probst named the first of the three evacuations, which occurred during a challenge, the most frightening moment in the show's history. A previous season of Koh-Lanta, a French variant of Survivor, which filmed there saw a contestant die during its first challenge, resulting in the cancellation of its thirteenth season.

The 18 new contestants were divided into three tribes based on personal attributes: "Chan Loh" ("Brains"), "Gondol" ("Beauty"), and "To Tang" ("Brawn"). Kaôh Rōng became the second season to employ this theme, after Survivor: Cagayan, season 28. Probst said that the decision to do the theme again emerged during casting: "As we started seeing people, it became obvious we had another really clear division of brains, brawn, and beauty."

The season introduced a new mechanic for the show's hidden immunity idol to the game, being that if two were used together, they could be used to save a player from elimination after they had been voted out. It later introduced a new advantage, which allowed a member of the final three to remove a member of the jury at Tribal Council after winning a final Reward Challenge.

Contestants

The cast is composed of 18 new players, initially split into three tribes of six based on personal attributes: "Chan Loh" ("Brains"), "Gondol" ("Beauty"), and "To Tang" ("Brawn"). On Day 12, the remaining 13 players were redivided into "Chan Loh" and "Gondol". On Day 17, the 11 remaining players merged into one tribe, "Dara", named after the Khmer word for "star", for the remainder of the game. Notable castaways include former NBA player Scot Pollard.

Future appearances

Caleb Reynolds, Debbie Wanner, Aubry Bracco, and Tai Trang returned for Survivor: Game Changers. Bracco returned again for Survivor: Edge of Extinction. Michele Fitzgerald returned to compete on Survivor: Winners at War. Bracco once again competed on Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans where she won.

Outside of Survivor, Reynolds competed on the premiere of Candy Crush. Reynolds also competed on a Survivor vs Big Brother episode of Fear Factor. Fitzgerald competed on the thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, and fortieth seasons of The Challenge, and also on the second season of The Challenge: USA. Cydney Gillon competed on Beast Games: Strong vs. Smart.

Season summary

The 18 new castaways were divided into three tribes based on primary attribute: Chan Loh (Brains), To Tang (Brawn) and Gondol (Beauty). Though the Brawn lost three of the first four immunity challenges, being reduced to only Cydney, Jason, and Scot, all three survived through the tribe swap, reaching the merge alongside four Brains and four Beauties.

Upon merging, the Brawns and Beauties initially aligned against the Brains but, put off by their male allies’ attitudes, the Brawn-Beauty women (Cydney, Julia and Michele) decided to team up with the Brains instead to form a new majority alliance. Though the minority alliance of Jason, Scot and Tai had two hidden immunity idols, Aubry convinced Tai to betray his allies, getting rid of one of the idols and joining the majority.

Aubry and Cydney were the primary strategists of their alliance, and turned against each other when there were four players remaining; Aubry won the tiebreaker to join Michele and Tai in the finals. The next day, Michele won a challenge against Tai and Aubry in which she had the power to remove a member of the jury from the Final Tribal Council. She chose Neal, due to his support of Aubry's game and his persuasiveness.

At the Final Tribal Council, Tai had difficulty explaining his choices, and was accused of having played his idols and advantages at the wrong time - especially by Scot, who was eliminated due to Tai withholding his idol. Aubry and Michele both emphasized how different their games were, with Aubry stating that she made multiple strategic moves to position herself in the game and making fire two nights ago. However, they felt that her social connections were lacking in comparison to Michele. Michele stated that even though she did cruise until the merge, that she still affected the game largely due to her relaxed social game. In the end, Michele beat Aubry and Tai in a vote of 5–2–0.

Voting history

Notes

Reception

Critical reception

Overall, the season received a positive response from critics and commentators, who praised its unpredictability and strong players including Fitzgerald, Bracco, Gillon, and Trang. The members of the jury, the lackluster final tribal council, and the final twist that gave one of the finalists the right to vote out a jury member (which resulted in Gottileb's removal), however, were received poorly by many.

Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter praised the season's unpredictability but panned the final Tribal Council, saying "this was one of the rare seasons that came into its last leg with no inherently 'wrong' winner;" but was critical of the jury members for providing a very dull final tribal council. He praised Fitzgerald for her alliance management and for winning challenges at crucial points in the game and was of the opinion that the last two challenge wins, which provided "nice [moments] of release and catharsis", were what won her the title in the end. Fienberg, however, criticized the jury, Pollard and Jason in particular, for not voting for Bracco, who he thought had been a stronger strategic player and the undue attention given to Tai during the reunion show; he went on to call the whole two hours "awful".

Andy Dehnart of Reality Blurred echoed Fienberg's sentiment, stating that it "ended up being a strong season overall, with some exceptionally dramatic moments and interesting game play throughout" but the finale was a "disappointing three hours." He was especially critical of jury members Pollard, Jason, and Maiorano, the editing of the final episode, Probst's undue discussion on non-game related things, and lack of attention on players including Bracco and Gillon during the final episode and the reunion show respectively.

Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly ranked this season 25th out of 40 praising this season's unpredictability but stated that there "were not enough transcendent players in the cast." In 2020, "Purple Rock Podcast" ranked this season 19th out of 40 saying that the "cast is fairly good, with several memorable players. Despite a few unfortunate setbacks that throw off the gameplay, it’s an enjoyable season." Later that same year, Inside Survivor ranked this season 14th out of 40 calling it underrated and an "incredibly entertaining, character-rich, and, at times, surprising season."

In 2021, Rob Has a Podcast ranked Kaôh Rōng 17th during their Survivor All-Time Top 40 Rankings podcast.

Ratings

Ratings for the premiere were down considerably from both the Worlds Apart season and Cambodia season, attaining a 1.9/7 rating/share among adults 18-49; this was largely due to American Idol airing at the same time as the show and attaining a 2.0/7 rating. Including DVR playback, the premiere was watched by 10 million viewers and got a 2.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic, slightly surpassing American Idol's 9.76 million viewers and 2.5 rating.

It was often in the top ten most watched broadcast shows among adults 18–49, a trend that started with episode three. By April, the show became the No. 1 unscripted program among adults in all demographics, beating The Voice.