Survivor: The Amazon is the sixth season of the American CBS competitive reality television series Survivor. The season was filmed from November 4, 2002, through December 12, 2002, in the Amazon and premiered on February 13, 2003. Hosted by Jeff Probst, it consisted of the usual 39 days of gameplay with 16 competitors. This was the first Survivor season to initially divide the tribes by gender. At the live finale, swimsuit model Jenna Morasca won and was named Sole Survivor after defeating Matthew von Ertfelda by a jury vote of 6–1.

Format

Survivor is a reality television show created by Mark Burnett and Charlie Parsons and based on the Swedish show Expedition Robinson. The series follows a number of participants who are isolated in a remote location, where they must provide food, fire, and shelter for themselves. Every three days, one participant is removed from the series by majority vote, with challenges being held to give a reward (ranging from living and food-related prizes to a car) and immunity from being voted off the show. The last remaining player is awarded a prize of $1,000,000.

Contestants

The cast is composed of 16 new players initially divided into two tribes by gender: the all-female Jaburu (named for a native stork) and the all-male Tambaqui (a native fish). They were eventually merged into the Jacaré (Portuguese for "alligator") tribe when ten contestants remained.

Christy Smith became the first reality show contestant with a disability overall, and as well to compete in any edition of Survivor.

+List of Survivor: The Amazon contestants Contestant Age From Tribe Finish Original Switched Merged Placement Day 23 Ellicott City,Maryland 1st voted out Day 3 46 Manchester,Missouri 2nd voted out Day 6 26 Houston,Texas 3rd voted out Day 9 31 Orangeburg,South Carolina rowspan="3" 4th voted out Day 12 40 Massachusetts 5th voted out Day 15 23 Los Angeles,California 6th voted out Day 18 56 Valencia,California rowspan="2" rowspan="2" rowspan="10" 7th voted out Day 21 23 Pasadena,California 8th voted out1st jury member Day 24 35 Riverside,California rowspan="2" 9th voted out Day 27 32 Los Angeles,California 10th voted out3rd jury member Day 30 24 Basalt,Colorado rowspan="2" rowspan="3" 11th voted out4th jury member Day 33 24 Jefferson City,Missouri 12th voted out5th jury member Day 36 50 Olney,Illinois rowspan="3" 13th voted out6th jury member Day 37 24 Wantagh,New York rowspan="3" 14th voted out7th jury member Day 38 33 Washington,D.C. Runner-up 21 Bridgeville,Pennsylvania Sole Survivor

Future appearances Jenna Morasca and Rob Cesternino later competed in Survivor: All-Stars.

Outside of Survivor, Morasca competed on a "Reality All-Stars" episode of Fear Factor in 2005. In 2011, Morasca competed on The Amazing Race 19 with her then-boyfriend and winner of Survivor: Africa, Ethan Zohn. In 2026, Cesternino competed on the fourth season of The Traitors.

Season summary

The season began with the contestants divided into tribes split by gender for the first time. The men's tribe, Tambaqui, wearing blue, was quick to get their camp life squared away, building shelter, and alliances were quickly formed. The women's tribe, Jaburu, wearing yellow, experienced quarreling within their tribe, and spent almost the entire first week without a shelter. On Tambaqui, an alliance of four was formed, led by Roger, which included Butch, Alex, and Dave. However, Rob quickly emerged as an arbiter between Roger's alliance and the outliers of the tribe, solidifying allegiances with both. On Jaburu, the younger women, Heidi, Jenna, and Shawna quickly began to coalesce, pulling in Deena and Christy to control the voting on Jaburu.

On day 13, Dave and Jenna traveled to an isolated location to act as tribal ambassadors. Jenna gave Dave crucial information about Jaburu, giving Dave an advantage when, the next day, they were forced to choose new tribes, equally distributing the men and the women. Rob, Matthew, and Alex were sent to Jaburu while Heidi, Jeanne, and Christy were sent to Tambaqui. At Tambaqui, Heidi decided to align with the men to vote off Jeanne. At Jaburu, the men and women joined forces to vote off an untrustworthy Shawna. Deena and Rob created an alliance and when the merge occurred, they aligned with Alex, Matthew, and the rest of the women. At the merge, Deena and Rob's alliance controlled the votes against sexist Roger and physical and mental threat Dave, leaving Butch as the last player remaining outside of Rob and Deena's alliance.

Convinced she had control over the game, Deena decided to spare Butch in order to vote out Alex for being a social and physical threat. The women quickly informed Alex of Deena's betrayal and he was able to convince Heidi, Jenna, and the men to eliminate Deena at the next Tribal Council. With Deena gone, Alex was convinced he was solid in an alliance of four with Jenna, Heidi, and Rob. However, he revealed to Rob that his plan was to vote him out at the final four to avoid a tie with Heidi and Jenna. Rob used this information to form a counter-alliance with Matthew, Butch, and Christy, where they voted out Alex. With three men and three women remaining, Christy became the swing vote but was voted out after failing to commit to either side. The next Tribal Council, the men stuck together and voted off Heidi, perceived to be the more physical of the two women left.

At the final four, Jenna, the final woman remaining, won immunity, forcing the men to prematurely turn on themselves. Faced with either avenging Alex and Heidi by voting off Rob or getting rid of an undeserving Butch, she ultimately sided with Matthew and Rob to vote off Butch. Jenna continued her winning streak and won immunity again, giving her the sole vote at the next Tribal Council, where she voted off Rob due to his strong strategic gameplay. Facing the jury, Matthew was praised for his survival skills and work ethic, but he was criticized for hypocrisy and lack of strategic gameplay for the majority of the game. On the other hand, Jenna was criticized for her lack of work ethic and even wanting to quit a few days earlier. However, as a result of having better relationships with people on the jury, and being seen as playing the game more strategically from the beginning, Jenna was voted to become the Sole Survivor in a vote of 6–1.

+Challenge winners and eliminations by episode Episode Challenge winner(s) Eliminated No. Title Original air date Reward Immunity Tribe Player 1 "Boys vs. Girls" February 13, 2003 Ryan 2 "Storms" February 20, 2003 Janet 3 "Girl Power" February 27, 2003 Daniel 4 "Trapped" March 6, 2003 JoAnna 5 "Pick-up Sticks" March 13, 2003 Jeanne 6 "More Than Meats the Eye" March 19, 2003 Shawna 7 "Girls Gone Wilder" March 26, 2003 Deena rowspan="3" Roger 8 "Sleeping With the Enemy" April 3, 2003 Dave[Deena] Jenna Dave 9 "The Chain" April 10, 2003 Alex[Jenna] Matthew Deena 10 "Amazon Redux" April 17, 2003 Recap Episode 11 "Q and A" April 24, 2003 Rob rowspan="5" Alex 12 "Sour Grapes" May 1, 2003 Matthew[Butch, Christy,Heidi, Jenna,Rob] Jenna(Heidi) Christy 13 "The Amazon Heats Up" May 8, 2003 Matthew[Rob] Matthew Heidi 14 "...And Then There Were Four" May 11, 2003 rowspan="2" Jenna Butch Jenna Rob 15 "The Reunion" In the case of multiple tribes or castaways who win reward or immunity, they are listed in order of finish, or alphabetically where it was a team effort; where one castaway won and invited others, the invitees are in brackets.

Episodes

Voting history Original tribes Switched tribes Merged tribe Episode 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13 14 Day 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 37 38 Tribe Eliminated Ryan Janet Daniel JoAnna Jeanne Shawna Roger Dave Deena Alex Christy Heidi Butch Rob Votes 4–3–1 5–1–1–1 6–1 4–2–1 4–2 4–2 7–3 8–1 6–2 4–3 4–2 3–2 3–1 1–0 Voter Votes Jenna Janet JoAnna Shawna Roger Dave Deena Matthew Christy Rob Butch Rob Matthew Roger Daniel Shawna Roger Dave Deena Alex Christy Heidi Butch Rob Ryan Daniel Shawna Roger Dave Deena Alex Christy Heidi Butch Butch Ryan Daniel Jeanne Christy Dave Deena Alex Jenna Heidi Rob Heidi Janet JoAnna Jeanne Roger Dave Deena Matthew Christy Rob Christy Jenna JoAnna Butch Roger Dave Alex Alex Jenna Alex Ryan Daniel Matthew Roger Dave Deena Matthew Deena Janet JoAnna Shawna Roger Dave Alex Dave Daniel Daniel Jeanne Christy Matthew Roger Ryan Daniel Jeanne Christy Shawna Janet Christy Matthew Jeanne Janet Shawna Butch JoAnna Christy Shawna Daniel Roger Roger Janet Jeanne Ryan Roger Jury vote Episode 15 Day 39 Finalist Jenna Matthew Vote 6–1 Juror Votes Rob Butch Heidi Christy Alex Deena Dave Note

Reception

Reception to Survivor: The Amazon was mostly positive with common praise being the tribe division by gender and bearing colorful players such as Rob Cesternino. Jeff Probst ranked The Amazon as his 10th favorite season, citing the women's alliance led by Jenna, among other factors. Dalton Ross, the official Survivor columnist of Entertainment Weekly, ranked it as his seventh favorite season, calling it "probably the most unpredictable season ever." In 2012 and 2013, "Survivor Oz" ranked The Amazon in the top 10 greatest seasons in its annual polls ranking every season of the series; it was 9th in 2012 and 7th in 2013. In the official issue of CBS Watch commemorating the 15th anniversary of Survivor, The Amazon was voted by viewers as the 8th greatest season of the series. Also, in another poll for the same magazine, Rob was voted as the #3 greatest player in the series for his performance in The Amazon. In 2015, when Rob himself eventually held a poll on his reality TV podcasting website, The Amazon was ranked by his viewers as the 5th-greatest season in the series; Rob himself personally ranked it as the seventh-greatest. This was updated in 2021 during Cesternino's podcast, Survivor All-Time Top 40 Rankings, ranking 8th. In 2020, "Purple Rock Podcast" ranked this season 14th out of 40 saying that "this season earns its rank based on several memorable moments of both gameplay and comedy." Later in the year, Inside Survivor ranked this season 8th out of 40 saying "The Amazon takes Survivor strategy to new heights, which makes for exciting and unpredictable television." In 2024, Nick Caruso of TVLine ranked this season 11th out of 47.

References

External links Official CBS Survivor The Amazon Website