The Moment:

Survivor introduces the tribe swap for the first time, providing a necessary shake-up for the game.

We’re counting down the 30 Moments That Shaped Survivor, events that happened on the show that helped create and evolve the game and the series that we know and love. Go here to view the criteria we are using to determine what qualifies for the list. And since these posts are covering the first thirty seasons of Survivor, there will be spoilers for various Survivor seasons.

Why It Matters:

It’s hard to believe now with Survivor about to premiere its 31st season, but by the third season Survivor knew they had to start switching things up. Survivor strategy was still in its infancy, so producers couldn’t rely on the contestants to keep things interesting. Thus, a game mechanism was introduced, and it would have an effect on nearly all future seasons.

Even without the benefit of hindsight, the third season of Survivor was shaping up to be a little dull. A miscalculation in the survival aspect had the contestants devoid of energy and/or cowering from the LITERAL LIONS OUTSIDE THEIR CAMP. That tended to make sneaking away to discuss strategy a bit more difficult than in previous seasons.

Then on day 13 of Survivor: Africa, each tribe received tree mail instructing them to send three of their members (both Boran and Samburu had six members) on a mysteriously vague quest. After a little tribe wide discussion, Kelly, Big Tom, and Lex- my hometown hero- were selected for Boran.

Having gained control of Samburu early in the game due to his alliance of the young, Silas volunteered to go along with the only two tribe mates not in his alliance: Frank and T-Bird. Silas would go on to regret this decision once the three Samburus met up with the trio from Boran and discovered the purpose of their “quest”.

For the first time ever, Jeff announced a twist that would change the course of the game: Kelly, Tom, and Lex would now be on the Samburu tribe, with Frank, Teresa, and Silas now joining Boran. As we all know, this would not go so well for Silas.

Now at the Boran camp, T-Bird told the original Boran members (Kim Johnson, Clarence, and Ethan), that she and Frank would be loyal if they all voted off Silas first. Silas also attempted to scheme, mostly with Boran outsider Clarence. However, Teresa even suggested that Boran throw the next immunity challenge, desperate as she was to be rid of Silas. Wanting to protect his friends Big Tom and Lex (and knowing that two extra allies with nowhere else to go are better than one with a group of friends on the other side), Ethan- though initially hesitant to intentionally lose at anything- seems to have gone along with the plan.

Ethan, Kim, and T-Bird were able to throw the giant puzzle challenge with ease, despite Silas’s best efforts to lift all the pieces and solve the puzzle itself. Silas’s subsequent attempts to convince the original Boran members to vote for Frank were unsuccessful and he was swiftly voted out, becoming the first person to be screwed by the swap.

Luckily for the show, Silas wasn’t exactly well-liked by the audience, so the twist was a success and a new layer to the show was in place.

The Impact:

The effect came as early as the next episode, with Lindsey’s reaction to Silas’s ouster being one of the earlier times one tribe is noticeably shocked by the other’s elimination. While it can occasionally happen with a particularly shocking early vote off, such reactions are usually due to someone seeing their former tribe mate, be they friend or enemy, voted off (e.g. Max Dawson’s elimination in Worlds Apart).

To Survivor‘s credit, they quickly embraced their show’s evolution into a competition show rather than a chance to watch strangers build a society. They also realized that adjusting the game itself was important to both the entertainment value of the show and the strategy of the game.

The first two seasons of Survivor were fairly straight forward, with one tribe ultimately voting out the other. Sure, Jerri and Amber went a little early in Australia, but the final three were still from one tribe in each season. But isn’t that true of Africa as well, you ask? Sure, but how about Marquesas? The Amazon? With the tribe swap, there’s now the question of whether the original tribe will stay together, or if the newly formed swapped tribe will form an alliance. It’s gone either way. The earlier examples were swapped tribes sticking together, but that can lead to an interesting premerge as well. As in Africa, people have worked to save their friends on the other side so they can get back together at the merge. Sometimes they do that by throwing a challenge, like Peih-Gee and Jaime in China, or Mike and Rodney in Worlds Apart.  Unfortunately, Boran’s subtlety and finesse at throwing challenges was apparently not as influential.

Survivor has tweaked the tribe swap, which comes in many forms. Marquesas and China don’t hit the reset button by evening up the numbers, as Kathy, Paschal, and Neleh of Marquesas and Aaron and James of China go from the larger tribe to the smaller tribe. China also had the trade format, a la Africa‘s original swap recipe. Then there’s your schoolyard picks: Panama, Micronesia, Gabon. Usually though, it’s random (unless you’re a conspiracy theorist): a buff draw, a rock pulled, a smashed egg… I’m sure they’ll have the key party Tyler dreamed of soon enough.

Though some fans complain about tribe swaps being unfair — because seemingly good players can find themselves in a bad spot at the drop of a buff — the tribe swap keeps the game from getting stagnant. And it’s true there have been some hilariously one-sided tribe swaps when it comes to physical strength: Caramoan, Blood vs Water, Worlds Apart. But just as it is in Game of Thrones, seeing characters interact with people they haven’t met before is exciting! Even better, the threat of the swap keeps the players on their toes. While several future players would still be considered screwed by the tribe swap, many others also learned the importance of not ostracizing those outside of your initial tribal alliance, as they could soon be your only allies.

What Else Made the List?

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