The 100 Best TV Episodes of the Century

The final episode of the first season of the game show-reality hybrid sensation set the template for a new kind of dramatic TV, where ruthless gameplay trumped narrative. Richard Hatch, a scheming, arch citydweller, outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted an octogenarian marine, a truck driver, and an adventuring outdoor guide to reel in the first place prize of $1 million. America, drop your buffs.

What is the most memorable line from this episode?All of Sue Hawk's iconic speech during final tribal council:

"I have no questions. I just have statements. Rich, you’re a very openly arrogant, pompous, human being. But I admire your frankness with it. You have worked hard to get where you’re at and you started working hard way before you’d come to the island. So with my work ethic background, I give that credit to you. But on the other hand, your inability to admit your failures without going into a whiny speech makes you a bit of a loser in life.

"Kelly, the rafting persona queen. You did get stomped on, on national TV, by a city boy that never swam, let alone been in the woods or jungle or rowed a boat in his life. You sucked on that game. Anyways, I was your friend at the beginning of this, really thinking that you were a true friend. I was willing to be sittin’ there and put you next to me. At that time you were sweeter than me. I’m not a very openly nice person. I’m just frank, forward, and tell you the way it is. To have you sit there next to me, and me lose $900,000 just to stomp on somebody like this.

"But as the game went along and the two tribes merged, you lied to me, which showed me the true person that you are. You’re very two-faced and manipulative to get where you’re at anywhere in life. That's why you fail all the time. So at that point of the game, I decided then just to go out with my alliance to my family and just to hold my dignity and values in check and hoping that I hadn't lost too many of them and play the game just as long as possible and hang in there as long as possible.

"But Kelly, go back to a couple of times Jeff said to you, ‘What goes around, comes around.’ It's here. You will not get my vote. My vote will go to Richard. And I hope that is the one vote that makes you lose the money. If it's not, so be it. I’ll shake your hand and I’ll go on from here. But if I were to ever pass you along in life again and you were laying there dying of thirst, I would not give you a drink of water. I would let the vultures take you and do whatever they want with you, with no ill regrets.

"I plead to the jury tonight to think a little bit about the island that we have been on. This island is pretty much full of only two things: snakes and rats. And in the end of Mother Nature, we have Richard the snake, who knowingly went after prey, and Kelly, who turned into the rat that ran around like the rats do on this island, trying to run from the snake. I feel we owe it to the island's spirits that we have learned to come to know to let it be in the end the way that Mother Nature intended it to be. For the snake to eat the rat."

How did this episode influence the future of TV? A stunning 51.69 million viewers tuned in to watch the season finale of the first season of Survivor, and that audience immediately observed, along with the contestants, the revolutionary nature of elimination television. The show's intricate strategy unlocked a layer of viewer involvement and analysis that remains unmatched through 36 seasons. And a legion of imitators tried to recreate the magic of Survivor, building competition around cooking, dating, and American Ninja Warrior-ing. But nothing beats the original.