Cinema Science

CBS today announced the 16 new castaways who will compete in "Survivor: China" when the 15th installment of the series premieres Thursday, Sept. 20. There are a few new twists in the series but seems to be following the same basic premise as the past few seasons with immunity idols being located at the contestants camps. To see the cast and a short commercial for the season, click here.

"Survivor: China" will feature a cast of 16 Americans who will begin the series amid the bustle of downtown Shanghai before moving to HuangPu Mountain's Mi Tuo Temple for a Buddhist ceremony where they will be instructed to leave all of their worldly possessions behind. The castaways will then be marooned with the clothes on their back at two separate islands on Zhelin Lake (translation: the Land of 1,000 Lakes) located in the Jiangxi Province. They will split into two tribes, Fei Long (translation: Flying Dragon) and Zhan Hu (translation: Fighting Tiger), and will each be given a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War for tribe motivation and assistance throughout the game.

"Survivor: China" will once again afford each tribe the opportunity to obtain a Hidden Immunity Idol which may save someone from elimination at a future Tribal Council. This time, two Hidden Immunity Idols will be in plain sight (one at each camp), although the castaways will not realize this at the start of the game. Each week, the winning tribe of the Reward Challenge will be allowed to kidnap someone from the losing tribe. The person who is kidnapped will receive a note from host Jeff Probst before departing for the enemy camp and will be instructed to give it to one member of the enemy tribe (the kidnapped victim will decide who receives it) in private. The clue will inform this person of the Hidden Immunity Idol located somewhere at their camp. This person must then decide if they wish to share the information with their tribe or keep it to themselves. The kidnapped victim will return to their original tribe at the following Immunity Challenge.