Survivor 1: Borneo

What made it different

The first season, and the one where a voting alliance was first used as a strategy rather than treated as cheating.

All 16 castaways, in boot order

1. 1Richard Hatch2 seasons playedSole Survivor · 39 days
2. 2Kelly Wiglesworth2 seasons playedRunner-up · 39 days
3. 3Rudy Boesch2 seasons played14th voted out · 38 days · jury
4. 4Sue Hawk2 seasons played13th voted out · 37 days · jury
5. 5Sean Kenniff12th voted out · 36 days · jury
6. 6Colleen Haskell11th voted out · 33 days · jury
7. 7Gervase Peterson2 seasons played10th voted out · 30 days · jury
8. 8Jenna Lewis-Dougherty3 seasons played9th voted out · 27 days · jury
9. 9Greg Buis8th voted out · 24 days · jury
10. 10Gretchen Cordy7th voted out · 21 days
11. 11Joel Klug6th voted out · 18 days
12. 12Dirk Been5th voted out · 15 days
13. 13Ramona Gray4th voted out · 12 days
14. 14Stacey Stillman3rd voted out · 9 days
15. 15B.B. Andersen2nd voted out · 6 days
16. 16Sonja Christopher1st voted out · 3 days

Played here, and came back for Season 50

• Jenna Lewis-Dougherty8th · 27 days

Trivia from Survivor 1

• Which Borneo castaway sued CBS in 2001, alleging producers influenced the vote that sent her home?

  Stacey Stillman — Stillman’s suit claimed Dirk Been and Sean Kenniff were persuaded to vote her out instead of Rudy. Mark Burnett counter-sued, and the case was settled out of court.

• The "bar" Borneo’s castaways visited on a reward was really what?

  A set built at base camp, with crew playing the patrons — Probst has said the cast, led by Richard Hatch, threatened to mutiny over a prize of one cold beer, so production built a bar and filled it with crew (Reality Blurred, 2020).

• Who won the very first season of Survivor?

  Richard Hatch — Richard Hatch won Survivor: Borneo in 2000, beating Kelly Wiglesworth 4–3. He also invented the alliance as a Survivor strategy.

• In what year did Survivor premiere?

  2000 — Survivor: Borneo premiered on CBS on 31 May 2000 and became the biggest show of that summer.

• What does "Pagonging" mean?

  A merged majority picking off the minority one by one — Named for the Pagong tribe in Borneo, who were eliminated in order by the Tagi alliance after the merge.