Watch Survivor: Pearl Islands Online

The show takes place on the Pearl Islands, off the coast of Panama, and had a pirate culture theme. The two original tribes were Drake (named for Francis Drake) and Morgan (named for Henry Morgan). Eventually the two were merged into the Balboa tribe (named for Vasco Núñez de Balboa).

Survivor: Pearl Islands - Panama was the most watched since Survivor: The Australian Outback, in part to unique twists (Outcasts, Looting, Buried Treasure) and colorful, memorable contestants (Rupert Boneham, Jon Dalton). In some cases, the official title Survivor: Pearl Islands is referred to as Survivor: Pearl Islands - Panama (as indicated by CBS and the opening titles of the season)

On the very first day, the castaways, who earlier were to dress up for a promotional event for the show on board a ship, were shocked to learn that they were going to be marooned with only the clothes they were wearing. They were then given 100 Panamanian balboas (exactly US$100) which they could exchange, along with any personal items such as earrings, gold chains, and sneakers for supplies at a nearby fishing village on the first day. While in the village, Rupert sat down with his tribe's supply raft. The Morgan tribe stopped beside him and left their raft unguarded, thus giving him an idea he considered common in pirate culture: stealing the supplies. Meanwhile, the bi-lingual Sandra Diaz-Twine communicated well with the locals (one of whom seemed enamored with Drake member Trish Dunn's eyes and seemed to want to barter for them) in Spanish for a wealth of extra supplies for Drake, whereas the Morgans were nowhere near as adept or successful. Some of the items bought were lighters, chickens, aluminum foil, waterproof matches, pots, and knives.

Young and muscular African-American, Osten Taylor ended up bartering all his clothing except his boxer shorts for goods for his tribe. On day 3, while participating in the tribes' first immunity challenge, Taylor decided to take off his boxer shorts, which had become extremely loose due to rapid weight loss in the preceding days, and complete the challenge in the nude to eliminate the trouble of having to keep his shorts up. His two alliance partners, Andrew Savage and Ryan Opray, decided to honour that alliance and so stripped down as well. Ultimately, however, their efforts went unrewarded when their tribe, Morgan, lost the challenge.

Burton Roberts made a significant error at a critical point. Having seen three of the Morgans eliminated and none of the Drakes yet at Tribal Council, he encouraged his tribe to throw an immunity challenge. (Boneham did not appreciate this idea but felt bringing it up against the majority view would be counterproductive.) However, he failed to consider the consequences of this decision and ended up being eliminated in place of the player he had in mind.

Osten Taylor was not voted off. He became the first contestant in Survivor history to quit the game, saying that his health was more important to him than the million dollar prize. While other players had quit in essence by asking their teammates to vote them off, Taylor's elimination was the first in which voting was foregone completely and host Jeff Probst simply accepted his resignation at Tribal Council. Taylor did agree to let his tribe vote him out, but Probst said this was not necessary.

Jon Dalton gained notoriety on the show when, in a challenge where the contestant's loved ones competed, he had his friend say that his grandmother had died. The lie convinced the others to let him win the challenge; he continued to milk the lie by frequently swearing loyalty on his grandmother's grave. In the reunion show that aired after the season finale, host Jeff Probst did a brief interview with Jon's grandmother, who was not only alive and well, but much younger than many expected.

This series of Survivor had a surprise feature where the first six contestants voted off were given an opportunity to win their way back on to the show. Lillian Morris (who was originally the third person voted off) and Burton Roberts (who was the fourth) rejoined the contest in this manner, and were each given individual immunity at their first Tribal Council to allow them time to "integrate" back into their tribe. Known among Survivor fans as the Outcast twist, this feature was the cause of huge controversy among Survivor fans and was also viewed as unfair by many of the contestants still in the game, notably Andrew Savage (this partly resulted in him being voted off immediately after Morris and Roberts rejoined the contest). Roberts became the first — and thus far, the only — contestant in Survivor history to be eliminated twice in the same season, while Morris managed to find her way to the Final Two.

• Official CBS Survivor Pearl Islands Website
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