The exciting 21^st season of Survivor came to a close on December 19, 2010. Jud Birza, a male model from Lake St. Louis, Missouri, won both the season and the honor of being the youngest winner in Survivor history.Birza was by no means a shoe-in throughout the season. Early on, he earned a reputation for being a less-than-serious opponent. La Flor tribemate Shannon Elkins even went so far as to nickname him Fabio after the famous Italian fashion model, actor, and romance writer.However, this early laid-back demeanor appears to have been a ruse. Birza, who graduated Wentzville Holt High School in 2007, later told interviewers, “I always knew I was going to wait to the last minute to be aggressive.” Hints of his true strategy came out as he won four individual immunity challenges. This helped him beat out the majority alliance of Chase Rice, Matthew Lenahan, and Holly Hoffman.In the final Tribal Council, Birza emphasized his friendly playing style, which helped him succeed without hurting people’s feelings. His own feelings came out when NaOnka Mixon asked him about seeing his mother near the end of the season. Through tears, the young player admitted that it was the thought of his family and his mother especially that kept him going on the island.Season 22 of Survivor is called Redemption Island. Filmed at the same location as Nicaragua (San Juan del Sur), the season nevertheless marks the appearance of a new wrinkle in the show’s tapestry. Instead of immediately going home after being voted out, each new outcast will be taken to “Redemption Island,” where he or she will have to survive alone. When a new outcast arrives, the two contestants compete in a duel, and only the winner is allowed to stay.This concept has already been featured in foreign Survivor editions, such as the Israeli Island of the Dead, the Phillipine Isla Purgatoryo, and the Serbian Ghost Island. It is also similar to the “Outcast” tribe used in Survivor: Pearl Islands, the seventh season of the American show. In episode seven, “What the?, Part 1,” previously voted-off players returned as a “ghost tribe,” which competed against the two main tribes. However, the concept didn’t go over particularly well, as both players and contestants were upset at not being informed of the concept ahead of time.