Survivor (TV series)/Awesome

Borneo

• His legacy has been tainted numerous times over, but let's give it up for Richard Hatch, who sussed out, almost immediately, the one path of secret alliances, game theory, random challenge competence and just plain luck that would convert a tubby, often-naked Smug Snake into a Magnificent Bastard and first Sole Survivor. His crowning moment was probably intentionally throwing the final immunity challenge, even explaining his reasoning right there and then: that if either Kelly or Rudy won the challenge, both had an incentive to take him, an admitted slimeball, to the finals over their relatively likable other competitor. From that point forth, it was clear that if this guy could win, anyone had a shot at a million dollars.
• Kelly, from the same season, won four consecutive immunity challenges (as well as a reward challenge) when the target was on her back after she betrayed Rich's alliance.

Australia

• Colby's streak of 7 individual Challenge victories right up to the end, interrupted only by a reward challenge in which family members played instead of the castaways. It's pretty much taken for granted that he would have won the season if he had taken the very-beatable Keith to the finals, instead of staying loyal to Tina.
• The reward challenge from episode 3. Both Colby and Mike are holding more than 400lbs of water on their backs for several minutes before the pole Mike is carrying snaps in half from all the weight.

Africa

• Although she didn't win the actual game, it was quite impressive to watch fifty-seven year old Kim Johnson from Africa beat out two guys who were respectively twenty and thirty years younger than her in the last endurance contest that featured scorching heat and after going through a previous 38 days of physical hell.

Marquesas

• Maraamu's surprise challenge victories in Episode 5 and 6 - after Gabriel fumbles at the Reward Challenge for Rotu, Maraamu go on a short but meaningful challenge streak that involved not one but two come-from-behind victories at Reward Challenges, and although all original Maraamu members are gone by the end of Episode 6, it was still worth watching one of the biggest train wrecks of a tribe actually win something.
• Neleh and Paschal finally listening to Kathy and Sean telling them that they were on the bottom of the Rotu alliance, and with their effort perform the biggest power shift in the show's history at that point.
• Vecepia Towery may have been Out of Focus for the good half of the season, but for a good part of the show's history she was the only person before Chris in Vanuatu to seamlessly backstab and worm her way in and out of alliances and into the Final 2 and still' get the jury to vote for her at the end.

Thailand

• He may be a borderline sociopath and a convicted animal-abuser, but Brian Heidik's run during Thailand took Richard Hatch's template for strategy and did it even better than him. In fact, he so thoroughly dominated everyone in his season that Thailand is often considered one of the worst seasons due to his win being practically written in the stars (although many do like the season on its own terms and/or actually enjoy watching Brian run rings around everyone). Bonus points by being able to do so after his wife CC showed off his huge house, grand piano, Cadillac and Mercedes in the video from home, despite him putting up an image of a humble, down-on-his-luck used car salesman.

The Amazon

• Just from how the first episode was set up, one could probably tell immediately that it was going to happen, but the all-female Jaburu tribe absolutely pulverising the all-male Tambaquis in the first immunity challenge in not one but two parts, the balance beam and the puzzle (where a rocket scientist and a computer guy were beaten in the puzzle by none other than a school counselor and a mother of three) was one of the most satisfying (if you were a female) and humbling (if you were a male) premiere moments of the entire show.
  • The men roared to life in the fourth round. At the reward challenge, the men were down two points. They literally banded together, putting their bare hairy legs in harm's way to protect their fire, and rapidly scored their four points while the women remained stuck at two.
• Rob Cesternino managing to orchestrate two (three if you count Heidi) consecutive blindsides of former allies, one right after the other, and still being able to make it almost to the end (he ends up getting booted just a day before the finals, and according to most, would have won had he been in the final two). Rob is also arguably the first person to introduce modern style game play to Survivor, influencing players for years (including fellow Chessmaster Jonny Fairplay one season later).
• Matt takes notes from alliance partner Rob, and blindsides him in the final three by throwing the immunity challenge. The student doesn't win the million, but hey... he beat his sensei.
• Jenna becoming the first winner to win in a "blowout" (she beat Matt 6-1). In previous seasons, the runner ups at least got a few votes from the jury.

Pearl Islands

• Though he ended up having quite the Broken Base, Rupert swiping the other team's stuff to sell in the marketplace during Pearl Islands. One would like to think that he knew that since he was in a season with a Pirate theme, the Manipulative Editing would be on his side all the way to the end.
• Sandra's entire performance while in the town counts as well. While the people from the Morgan tribe were running around confused, disorganized and having problems with the language barrier, Sandra already spoke Spanish, so she had no problem communicating, but then she also shows herself to be very skilled at dealing with the merchants to get the best prices on what they needed, including things like a living chicken, kerosene, lamps and toothbrushes, amongst other things. And then she stumbles upon a barbeque party, where she exchanges a gold chain she had for aluminum foil, ketchup, condiments, BBQ sauce, cutting board, knife, and all their grilled chicken.
• Johnny Fairplay getting nearly everyone to throw a reward challenge because he's convinced them his grandmother died, while Arch Rival Sandra, the only one not convinced, has to sit there and let him win. Moral Event Horizon? Possibly. But man was it hilarious.
  • Let's not forget his very impressive game, being able to manipulate almost everyone post merge into voting out who he wanted. And when he was in danger, in every instance but one, he was able to talk his way out and throw the dirt onto someone else.
• Jeff Probst bringing Johnny Fairplay's alive grandmother to the reunion show. Take that, Fairplay!
• Lill had been overall very emotional and would cry at the drop of a hat, and she became Jonny Fairplay's personal Butt Monkey. And then the final Immunity Challenge comes up, an endurance challenge, where Lill changes from meek and mopey to absolute Badass. Throughout the challenge, a desperate Fairplay tries several times to cut a deal with her to let him win Immunity, only for her to constantly shoot him down and taunt him as he struggled, and ultimately failing as Lill wins the final immunity with astonishing ease.

Lill: Do you know what? I do aerobics. My knees are great.
Jon: Uh, okay.
Lill: My ankles are great.
Jon: Okay.
Lill: These are called squats in aerobics.
Jon: (weakly): Okay.
Jeff: I think Lill just said "Game on."
Jon (defeated): I think Lill just said "Game over."

• • Also, her voting Jon out of the game, sparing us from what would have been a horrible final two after one of the show's best seasons.

All-Stars

• Boston Rob shows he's the one whose learned the most from previous seasons and spins a web of manipulation that takes him and girlfriend (and now wife) Amber to the final two.
• A shark bites Richard Hatch. Richard bites back.
• At the reunion, Richard utterly demolishing Lex and Kathy's argument that Boston Rob had somehow personally betrayed them by making a move in the game, even pointing out that Kathy made part of his argument for him by saying they had other reasons besides personal friendship to keep Amber in the game as Rob had requested.
  • And this came right after the audience's Crowning Moment, where they boo Lex while he's in the middle of claiming that it was okay for him to do to Ethan what Rob did to him because Ethan "didn't fit into his gameplan".

Vanuatu

• Chris during the entire second half of Vanuatu. Stuck in an outnumbered alliance, watching his teammates voted off one by one, seemingly without a prayer... and then taking advantage of the growing dissent among the dominant alliance and letting all the other remaining contestants crash to pieces around him, even noting at one point "I don't trust any of them, none of them trust each other, but the weird thing is I think they all trust me." He ultimately rode the momentum all the way to winning the season. Bonus points because the Manipulative Editing seemed to have presumed a female victor from that season's Battle of the Sexes

Palau

• Angie basically single-handedly winning a reward challenge for Ulong after just having been deemed weak at the previous Tribal Council.
• The Koror get to determine individual immunity for the Ulong. It takes only three votes to decide on Ibrehem... and some of the Ulong are visibly crushed.
• The final Immunity challenge where Tom and Ian competed in an endurance test for 12 hours.

Guatemala

• Rafe Judkins, a longtime fan of Survivor since his youth (sort of like a successor to Rob Cesternino and a proto-Todd Herzog), very nearly won this season by controlling the majority alliance during the merge via a figurehead (Stephanie) who he planned to take all the blame for the various betrayals that he actually cast. His only flaw was perhaps being a little too Genre Savvy (bordering on Wrong Genre Savvy) and assuming that Lydia would somehow squeak by like many other "weak" female players who won the final Immunity Challenge in seasons past (such as Kim Johnson, Neleh, and Jenna Morasca). So he voted Lydia out, sparing the much more athletic Danni (who, by all accounts, was almost dead on her feet), who would go win the final challenge, vote out Rafe, beat Stephanie at the Final Tribal Council, and win the game.
• Just Danni Boatwright. She was at the top of a majority alliance on her original tribe and had working relationships with everybody besides two people. When the tribal shuffle happened and it hurt her numbers by losing her two allies who changed tribes, she just axed one old ally (Blake) in exchange for two new ones (Gary/Amy) to maintain her numbers. Her tribe ended up losing the final challenge, and she got Amy voted out so that she would be in an alliance of all athletic males (Gary/Brandon/BJ), who she knew would get voted out before her, and they did. At the final six, she was all alone up against the Nakum alliance of five, but won a crucial challenge. That split the majority by getting the hot-headed Judd voted off, and Danni's sway over Rafe allowed her to outlast other Nakums Lydia and Cindy at the next two Tribal Councils, putting her in a final three with season-long friends and allies Rafe and Stephenie.. where she managed to take them both down in the final Endurance challenge, take America's hero Stephenie to the end, and completely demolish her in a 6-1 jury vote, having only had one vote against her the entire game. Danni's entire legacy was a Moment of Awesome, because she seemed to do no wrong and always won crucial challenges and was always in the best possible position, and nobody out there knew she was doing any of it... unfortunately, because she wasn't a big character, the viewers never caught on either, and she went down as the forgotten winner of Survivor.

Panama - Exile Island

• Cirie's Triple Play. To put it simply, she manipulates everybody else left in the game to vote exactly how she wanted.
  • One tiny hiccup, though: this play throws the door wide open for the only event that could threaten her game: Aras winning immunity at the Final Four.
• He might be the more pretentious, less charming version of Tom Westman from Palau, but Terry's immunity run during this season (while his entire tribe was being Pagonged, no less) was definitely a sight to behold. And the other players grew to respect him as a result.

Cook Islands

• Yul, Ozzy, Becky and Sundra completely owning an opposing tribe twice as large as them after Candice and Jonathan's mutinies by winning challenge after challenge for the next two episodes and managing to become the majority alliance in spite of a 4-5 deficit at the merge with Yul cleverly using his Immunity Idol to get Jonathan to flip back over to their side.

Fiji

• Voting off Edgardo in Fiji, catching the arrogant "Four Horsemen" alliance completely off-guard.
  • Extra points go to Stacy. Earlier in that episode, a Q&A challenge centered around the contestants showed her that pretty much everybody in there hated her guts. This makes her realize she has to get in good with these people, and she's the one who comes up with the idea of blindsiding Edgardo and not telling blabbermouth Dreamz about it.
  • Earl becoming the show's first unanimously chosen winner.
• Michelle made fire by using Sylvia's bifocals and water. Not everyone thought it was going to work, but it worked!
• Yau-Man's very first scene. All of the buff guys like Rocky, Alex, and Dreamz couldn't open a crate that was dropped at the beach, no matter how hard they kicked it or smashed it. So up waddles this 54-year-old, scrawny Asian man who looks like he's going to starve to death by the end of the first day, and he says he can open the crate. People laugh but decide to humor him, and give him the crate... and he immediately hits its corner against a rock, causing the whole crate to crack open. That Master's degree he has in physics is good for something!

China

• Todd shutting up Jean-Robert in the final tribal council. The jury members are, well... astounded. Watch from 7:03-8:28.

Micronesia - Fans Vs. Favorites

• Cirie successfully blindsiding Ozzy, in spite of him having an Immunity Idol in his possession.
• Amanda's Oscar-winning performance with her putting on a extremely convincing "I know I'm going home and it sucks" act and then shocking everyone by playing the Immunity Idol at Tribal Council. The best part of this is that she actually dumped out her bag in front of her tribal mates beforehand to show them that she didn't have the Idol, and that she wasn't even lying because she knew the Idol was buried at camp and only had to dig it out before Tribal Council.
• The Black Widow Brigade is in trouble. It's the Final Five, and Erik has won immunity. If he keeps it, they're going to have to sacrifice one of their own. Their solution? Trick him into giving immunity away.

Gabon

• Bob winning a string of Immunity Challenges and surviving a Final Four showdown to win Gabon. Creating his own fake Immunity Idol might have been the highlight.
• In episode 11, Bob and Corinne decided that she should sucker Kenny into helping to evict Matty. This sets up an absolutely glorious saga of trust and betrayal which ends with Kenny getting crushed and humiliated by his own lies and trickery.^[1] Episode 13 sees Bob necklaced yet again, and then he shuts Kenny down:

Kenny: I really feel that Bob is acting only to back down on his deal, because the deal was that if he won the next challenge, he'd give it to me, and then he said, "...only if I think you're going". Apparently, there was some small print at the bottom of the contract that you had to look through the magnifying glass to see, so I think that he's putting some loopholes around the deal, and trying to back out of it somehow.

Bob: Well, what I didn't realize was, he went back to the tribe and discussed with people that when I gave him the necklace that they would then blindside me. I was trying to take care of him, and he was gonna take advantage of me! That changed things quite dramatically. (to Kenny) That was the small print at the bottom of the contract that you forgot to read: "if I help you, you help me", not "if I help you, you stab me In the Back".

[The Jury silently goes wild at this revelation.]

• Sugar putting Randy through a Humiliation Conga by convincing Bob to give his fake Immunity Idol to him. It might not have had any strategic purpose, but damn it was hilarious to watch, especially since it relied on Randy and Corinne believing that Sugar was too stupid to have found the Idol on Exile Island before Bob was sent there. (Which she had. On her very first trip to Exile Island. Who's the stupid one now?)
• Randy delivers an Ironic Echo (based on Crystal) when casting his jury vote:

"All three of you. Kiss. My. Ass!!!"

Tocantins

• J.T., from Tocantins, is the only player to have a "perfect game" to his credit; he managed to reach the final tribal council with no votes cast against him and won the final vote unanimously.

Samoa

• Though, in retrospect, his strategy was deeply flawed, at the time, Russell Hantz's first game of Survivor was a sight to behold. The top moment was how he managed to survive a very unfavorable merge by playing his immunity idol at just the right time. Finding immunity idols without hints is a bit more commonplace now, but it single-handedly turned the game upside down... Though, of course...
• Natalie staying quietly in the background and letting Russell destroy himself with his unethical game and arrogance in the final tribal council of Samoa, then hilariously smirking at him when he loses to her, 7-2.

Heroes vs. Villains

• Again Russell has a Broken Base, but he made some very clever moves in his second go round, particularly tricking JT into giving him an idol for essentially nothing in return.
• Seeing Russell lose again in Heroes vs Villains, Your Mileage May Vary there. But it was still awesome to see him by bragging "who's the man?" at the tribal council and acting like his arrogance and utterly sociopathic gameplay should be rewarded... and getting ripped apart by Hero and Villain, foe and ally alike. And then, at the live reunion, he ends up without any votes.
• Jeff Probst telling Russell off at the Heroes vs. Villains reunion, after spending two seasons more or less favoring him over everyone (though thanks to the Manipulative Editing; we can be for certain whether or not he actually was favoring Russell or the parts where he mentioned Russell in anything but a positive light were merely cut out) even being nice to Russell when he was almost in tears at the Samoa reunion, he quickly tells Russell off when he begins to say that America should have control of the votes because he lost, Sandra won, and therefore the rules were flawed. He literally says, "That's not Survivor, that's a different game".
  • Boston Rob weighs in: "He plays a good game to get to the end, but he doesn't play the game to actually win the game. And that's where he and I differ, among other things." He challenges Russell to another go-around, and Russell, being Russell, has no clue what he's set himself up for.
• Parvati's clever distribution of her Immunity Idols at Tribal. At least, until she sees Russell's reaction.
• Sandra, in Heroes vs Villains, gets two, first in burning Russell's hat, and then proceeding to become the first (and so far only) two time Sole Survivor, by knowing how to play the social aspect of the game. Russell never knew (and still doesn't know) what hit him.
• Rupert tricking Russell with a fake immunity idol bluff, scaring Russell into voting off an alliance member instead. The big dummy outfoxes the puppetmaster without breaking a sweat! Didn't work out in the end for Rupe, but hey, it bought him another few rounds.

Nicaragua

• One immunity challenge gives wins to the last man and woman able to hold up an iron bar purely through keeping tension on it. Jane becomes the female winner...and keeps going until the challenge is completely over just to prove a point.
• Jane making fire with no problem because she had practiced it before coming on the show.
• Fabio going on an immunity run at the end to win it all and proving that he wasn't as dumb as he let the other players think he was.

Redemption Island

• Kristina hits the beach and immediately begins to hunt for idols. And she pulls one out before the first tribal council.
• Episode 1. Philip is caught in a bad alliance with two other women, one of which is planning on using a hidden immunity idol to take out Boston Rob, team leader with the rest of the tribe behind him. Even when Philip calmly asks how they plan on doing that without votes, he receives dismissal and is treated like an idiot by his own alliance. To top it all off, Boston Rob has expected the possibility of an idol, and split the votes to win regardless. Just like Philip expected stepping into the alliance, this would typically put him on a sinking ship of distrust outside the rest of the tribe, doomed. Without even batting an eye, Philip breaks 21 seasons of tradition and loudly pronounces in Tribal Council everything. His alliance, the idol, their target of Rob, all the while his alliance members denying and trying to act like he's crazy. Instead of selling them out, he merely tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In the end, Philip changed the game by being the one thing nobody has been yet; 100% truthful. And yes, he walked away from that episode still in the game, his old alliance mates giving him votes anyway for spite. This act has since broken the Metagame to the point he went from next on the chopping block to the Final 3. No one on the show or at home can determine to what degree Philip's Cloudcuckoolander personality was genuine and hilarious, genuine and annoying, a masterful play of the metagame, a terrible play of the metagame, or any combination thereof.
• Episode 3, when Russell Hantz was finally, finally, voted off of his tribe for the first time in two years. Russell haters across the country relished in the sight of his torch getting snuffed. And then he was voted off for real in the next episode when Matt beat him in a competition. Yes! YES. Finally his reign of terror is over! And There Was Much Rejoicing. Bonus points for the fact that he cried.
• Matt's undefeated duel rush in Redemption Island. Boy, that dude really can play the physical game. Even after being voted out a second time, he's still on a roll.
  • YMMV as he only had to beat Russell and five girls in his first run.
• Boston Rob finding an idol clue in a cookie, successfully hiding it from everyone, then tossing it in a friggin' volcano.
• After four attempts and a record 117 total days played, Rob Mariano won a season of Survivor, with an 8-1 jury vote in Redemption Island (Philip was the only other player to get a vote). He did so by playing what Probst called "the closest thing to a perfect game ever played". He earned trust in his tribe early on by helping out to build the camp. He found the hidden immunity idol with only one very esoteric clue, and kept all the other clues out of anyone else's hands. He used a blindside of Matt in the second tribal council to make an example of what would happen to any player who showed any signs of fraternizing with the other tribe. He kept every other member of his tribe thinking that he was bringing them to the finals. He successfully Pagonged the Zapatera tribe after the merge, even blindsiding Matt a second time before he could get in with the minority tribe. He was lucky enough to never have to face a food challenge and only have to face a couple endurance challenges and obviously had the producers on his side with puzzle after puzzle thrown at him for challenges. He won four individual immunity challenges, including the last one. Finally, he picked the two best people to serve as his rivals in the final tribal council: the girl who had ridden Rob's coattails the whole way and made no plays of her own the entire game, and the obnoxious Jerkass who everyone on the jury despised. Even Russell Hantz ended up giving props to Rob during the reunion for dominating the season from start to finish. Even if you think Rob is a Creator's Pet, you have to be at least happy that he'll be taking some time off.

South Pacific

• Jim and Brandon setting a Survivor record in the weight holding challenge, 240 pounds. It doesn't last long, but damn.
• Coach convincing Cochran to switch sides after the merge by A. Laying out an entirely correct explanation of all the secret plans of Cochran's tribe B. Simultaneously playing on Cochran's ego and resentment at exactly the right time in exactly the right way. Pagong'd!
• Sophie overcoming Ozzy's commanding lead in the final immunity challenge and beating the seeming unstoppable challenge machine. She gets dubbed the New Dragonslayer by Coach, eliminates Ozzy, and goes on to become the Darkhorse victor of the season.

One World

• Colton's downfall, you can hear people singing Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead when he was evacuated.
• Kat's boot episode, full stop. Especially the Tribal Council where she said blindsides would be fun ("cool beans"). Then the votes come in for her, and she is stunned. For viewers complaining about the predictability, if not the practicality, of the way the votes were going, this was a shot in the arm.
• Alicia had perhaps one of the best Karmic evictions in the series, She pretty much spends almost the entire game thinking she's got it. Cue an elimination in 5th place.
• Say what you will about Christina, her performance in the final immunity challenge was nothing short of Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass. Christina doesn't perform well in challenges in the game, yet is the only person who gives Kim a run for her money in the final immunity challenge. The immunity challenge itself might count as a Crowning Moment of Awesome too, it's one of the most creative challenges they did in the series.

1. ↑ Bob's second fake Immunity Idol would help with the illusion. All went according to their clever plan... until Kenny and Crystal agreed that Crystal would vote against Corinne instead of Matty. (Kenny assumed that his switch wouldn't matter because Corinne's Idol would shield her.) As she couldn't save herself with a fake, she was voted out that night. Episode 12 begins with Kenny realizing why she left, calling Bob out on the ruse. The elder tries to make amends by offering to give up the next Immunity Necklace he wins. Sugar warns Bob that he'll seal his own fate by doing so, and thus he "clarifies" to Kenny that the necklace will be given if Kenny appears to be vulnerable. During that night's Tribal Council, no such switch is made, because Sugar surprises everyone else by finally using her hidden Immunity Idol... to protect Matty. This leads to Crystal (Kenny's closest ally) checking out!