Tiebreaker Trivia
Tiebreakers have changed over the years, and in its early seasons, Survivor was still finding a fair way to break any ties that occur. During Africa, if a tied vote occurred, the contestants who received the votes would state their case as to why they deserve to stay and then the contestants who weren’t a part of the tie would re-vote.
If things were still deadlocked, it’d go to past votes. That usually solved the issue, but in episode three of Africa, the Samburu tribe (who we’ll dive more into later) were deadlocked between Lindsey and Carl. Since Samburu hadn’t been to Tribal Council, neither could have any previous votes, so tiebreaker trivia was born.
Lindsey and Carl were then asked a series of questions about Africa and survival aspects with the first one to answer incorrectly being the one who’d leave the desert. Spoiler alert: Carl missed a question first and was the third person voted out.
While this might not be something casual fans remember about this season, it was the first (and to my recollection, only) time this technique was used. Survivor has since gone to drawing rocks as a way to break a tie, forcing those not involved in the vote to consider flipping so they don’t risk going home instead.