The Survivor: South Pacific finale aired Sunday night capping off the reality show’s 23^rd season. As with all seasons past there was no shortage of drama, personal conflict, and amazing feats of mental and physical endurance. In the end there can only be one Survivor and that honor went to medical student Sophie Clark from Willsboro, New York. Sophie beat out three-time contestant and fan favorite (at least my favorite) “Coach” Benjamin Wade and Albert Destrade.

Personally, Sophie didn’t make much of an impression on me in the beginning. It was very clear from the get go that Sophie was highly intelligent but I thought her quiet nature would end up seeing her voted out in the first couple of weeks. In that event that didn’t happen I figured she wouldn’t make it much past the merger. Last nights finale showed just how much I know!

As readers of my blog here at Radian6 know, I’ve spent much of the fall season charting the social statistics from this fall’s television line up. Compared to other shows from CBS Survivor has spent much of the season well behind the number of social conversations enjoyed by the network’s other programs. However, those that do tweet while watching Survivor comprise an extremely loyal fan base led by Jeff Probst himself who engages live during every broadcast.

Looking back over the whole season the social buzz for Survivor was fairly steady however after the premiere generated over six thousand mentions on Twitter those numbers would dip over the next four weeks. As you can see in the graph below, conversations increased at the midway point of the season and remained steady until the finale, which generated a total of 27,524 tweets.

There were a lot of conversations being carried out on Twitter last night but two in particular that generated a lot of focused and emotional reaction: the Survivor finalists and the confrontation between Brandon Hantz and his uncle Russell Hantz.

Of the Survivor finalists, Sophie edged out conversations related to Coach. Coach is a three-time contestant on Survivor and has been one of those characters fans of the show love to hate because of his goofy antics. This season Coach came back and toned him self down a bit but he was still a polarizing character that generated a lot of conversation during the finale.

If there was one contestant on Survivor: South Pacific that generated the most negative emotional reactions from viewers this season it was Brandon Hantz. Brandon is the nephew of three-time contestant and Survivor mega-villan Russell Hantz. Unlike his uncle Brandon proved to be a conflicted individual who relied heavily on his religious beliefs when things got rocky in the game. This had a polarizing effect and if you followed the #Survivor hashtag during the season you know that many people grew to dislike the younger Hantz about as much as they disliked his uncle Russell.

Even during the finale conversations around Brandon were pretty negative but that changed on a dime during the Survivor reunion broadcast.

The tweets above are examples of negative comments directed at Brandon, however they are far from the worst. People who disliked Brandon really disliked him and used language that we just can’t publish on our blog!!!

During the cast interviews Jeff asked Brandon how his family felt about his game and Brandon stated that he had been given a hard time and that no one from his family had bothered to come to the show to support him. Probst then went to the audience and pulled Russell out of the audience to ask him what he thought of his nephew’s time on Survivor. After initially saying that he wouldn’t critique Brandon’s performance unless his nephew gave him permission Probst pushed Russell who unleashed a really brutal summary of his nephew’s mistakes.

With that conversations changed from being about how much people disliked Brandon to an outpouring of sympathy for him.

The social web weighed in heavily during the finale. It was an extremely social event if you were watching the show and Twitter at the same time. It was also interesting to watch Russell and Brandon’s Twitter exchanges throughout the finale. Social media is definitely breaking down the fourth wall of television and this finale shows some of the ways that’s happening.

What did you think of Survivor: South Pacific? Do you live-tweet along with host Jeff Probst? Are you as excited as I am for Survivor: One World??!!