Survivor since 2000: Reliving the game’s greatest moments year by year

Survivor 2005: And Then There Was One

The early seasons had smaller casts and smaller juries, meaning players would not swap tribes as often. This season’s winner showed that the Final 2 situation would not work long-term, but it’s the path of Stephenie LaGrossa to make it far that showed CBS was willing to push the limits of their players.

A schoolyard pick cut down 20 players down to two teams of nine. One team was filled with young players, and the other team skewed a lot older. The other team has Tom Wesson, though, and his leadership and strength helped his tribe systematically eliminate Stephenie’s Ulong tribe one by one.

Probst and production went buck wild in pushing the limits of Bobby Jon and Stephenie, bringing forth a fire-making challenge to determine who would make it further in the game. Stephenie prevailed, and in a final twist of fate, did not immediately make her way to the Koror tribe. She went back home to fend for herself, taking care of a tribe’s worth of responsibilities as a tribe of one.

Thankfully, she packed her bags not much longer after, and her historically awful tribe was no more.