Episode 1: "Slay Everyone, Trust No One"
Survivor 51 Episode 1 boxscore
Filmed: August 9-11, 2009 | Aired: February 11, 2010 | Rewatched: July 9, 2026
- Ep.1 arrival: Both tribes are flown in aboard four (two per tribe) RNZAF (Royal New Zealand Air Force) helicopters, which is quite dramatic. Although a bit odd, since they're in Samoa. Foreign invasion, indeed.
- Ep.1 Reward challenge: "Battle Dig" - Two injuries (Stephenie's shoulder, Rupert's toe "is broke in at least two places"), one contestant made topless (Sugar), but Heroes come away with a win ... of flint.
- Ep.1 fire: Boston Rob leads the Villains in making fire without flint. Oh well, sucks to be the Heroes.
- Ep.1 IC: "Lock and Load, Light" - The Heroes get out to a huge lead on the puzzle boat portion, then implode on the compass rose puzzle. Villains win easily.
- Ep.1 Tribal: Sugar is voted out, 9-1 over Amanda.
Episode 1 scoring notes
- No sit-outs, although it's unclear why either tribe needed four people on the compass rose puzzle in the IC.
Vote count:
- Sugar received 9 votes, from Amanda, Candice, Cirie, Colby, James, JT, Rupert, Stephenie, and Tom (voted out, 9-1).
- Amanda received 1 vote, from Sugar.
Other S51 boxscores
| Reward challenge | Immunity challenge | Tribal Council stats | Overall scores | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contestant | ChW | ChA | ChW | ChA | VFB | VAP | TotV | TCA | SurvSc | SurvAv |
| Candice | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1 | - | 10 | 1 | 1.50 | 7.10 |
| Cirie | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1 | - | 10 | 1 | 1.50 | 7.10 |
| Colby | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1 | - | 10 | 1 | 1.50 | 7.10 |
| James | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1 | - | 10 | 1 | 1.50 | 7.10 |
| JT | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1 | - | 10 | 1 | 1.50 | 7.10 |
| Rupert | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1 | - | 10 | 1 | 1.50 | 7.10 |
| Stephenie | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1 | - | 10 | 1 | 1.50 | 7.10 |
| Tom | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1 | - | 10 | 1 | 1.50 | 7.10 |
| Amanda | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 1.40 | 5.70 |
| Sugar | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0 | 9 | 10 | 1 | -0.40 | 0.10 |
| Coach | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
| Courtney | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
| Danielle | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
| Jerri | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
| Parvati | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
| Randy | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
| Rob | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
| Russell | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
| Sandra | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
| Tyson | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.10 | - | - | - | - | NA | NA |
Glossary of terms
- Challenge
stats
- ChW: Challenge Wins. For tribal challenges, a contestant earns a fraction of 1 win, depending on if they participated (no points for sitting out). So in a five-person tribe's win, each participant gets (1/5) of a point, or 0.2 points. Duels (or individual RCs as in Ep1) at Redemption Island count as half a challenge (and half a win). Individual challenge wins count as a full point.
- ChA: Challenge Appearances. Used to calculate ChW%. Fractional for tribal challenges (same as ChW), except sit-outs get charged for an appearance, because they could have participated.
- ChW%: Challenge Win%. Simply, ChW% = ChW / ChA.
- SO: The number of times a contestant sat out of a challenge.
- Tribal
Council stats
- VFB: Votes For Bootee. The number of times the contestant has voted for the person who was ultimately voted out. Applies only to initial votes (no points for revotes in case of a tie). Special case: In a final three TC, where only one vote is cast (by the F3 IC winner), only that vote counts.
- VAP: Votes Against the Player. The total number of tribal council votes cast against the contestant. Again, only initial votes count (no penalty for revotes), and here a hidden immunity idol (if played) erases the votes. In the special case of a final three tribal council above, only the F3 bootee receives a vote against.
- TotV: Total votes cast during the tribal councils the player has attended (again, only initial votes count). Used to adjust for different vote totals as tribes shrink.
- TCA: Tribal council appearances. The number of times a contestant has attended tribal council (at which they voted).
- TC%: Tribal Council percent. Attempts to reward voting for the bootee (which players controlling the vote almost always do), while punishing receiving votes yourself. The formula is: TC% = [VFB - (VAP/TotV)] / TCA.
- wTCR: weighted Tribal Council Ratio. Very similar in intent to TC%, but calculated as a ratio of VFB to VAP, while also scaling to a uniform number of TC appearances. The formula is as follows: wTCR =2* [VFB / (4+VAP)] x (14/TCA). I originally tried (1+VAP) to avoid dividing by zero, but this overly rewarded getting zero votes against relative to just one vote against, which seemed silly. (4+VAP) scaled that effect back comfortably. 14 was used as the scaling factor for TC appearances because there are usually 14 episodes, then a final scaling factor of 2 to bring maximal scores up to roughly even with ChW and JV% high scores.
- Jury
stats
- JVF: Number of jury votes for the contestant to win. Maximum nine (Earl Cole, Fiji), theoretically.
- TotJ: Total number of jurors. Necessary to not punish unanimous 7-juror winners (JT Thomas, Tocantins).
- JV%: The percent of total jury votes cast for the contestant, or Jur% = JVF/ TotJ. This number is used, raw, in SurvSc, and is scaled in SurvAv (multiplied by six) to make it similar in size to ChW and wTCR.
- Overall
scores
- Survival Score (SurvSc). It's simply the sum of Challenge Win% (ChW%) + Tribal Council% (TC%) + Jury Vote%, for a maximum possible score of 2 (3 after the finale).
- Survival Average (SurvAv). It's a simple sum of fractional Challenge Wins (ChW), weighted TC Ratio (wTCR), and (eventually) a weighted Jury%. The latter two max out at six points total, for a theoretical maximum score of around 18 or so.