Shipwrecked: Battle of the Islands 2009 is a United Kingdom reality television series, part of the Shipwrecked strand which aired on Channel 4's youth programming label T4 in different formats from 1999 until 2012. The 2009 series is the seventh series of Shipwrecked overall, and the fourth adopt the "Battle of the Islands" format. The series was recommissioned by Channel 4 on 26 June 2008.
Castaway auditions took place during the summer and filming for the series commenced in September 2008 and finished in early November 2008. It began airing on Sunday 1 February 2009 at 12:30pm on Channel 4.
This is the final original series of Shipwrecked: Battle of the Islands, and the penultimate series overall, following the axing of the T4 brand in December 2012. The series, using the "Battle of the Islands" format, returned in 2019 on E4.
The Game
Shipwrecked is a reality television programme in which a number of people from the UK live on one of two islands (Shark Island and Tiger Island) for a period of sixteen weeks. Each week, one or two new arrivals come to the islands, spend equal time on each island as Tribe Leaders who will create their own island laws that the others must follow. At the weekly beach party, the new arrivals must decide on the tribe they wish to live on. At the end of the series, the island with the most castaways wins, with the winning islanders usually sharing a cash prize of £70,000, though in a surprising twist just one castaway will walk away with this year's prize money. It has not been determined if both islands will be eligible for the prize.
This year, T4 viewers selected a wildcard to be the final new arrival. Liran Nathan, a jeweller from North London, beat Maggie and Jarad in the T4 viewers' vote to join the Shipwrecked contestants and potentially choose the winner.
New arrivals spend an equal amount of time on each of the two islands. During this time the new arrivals act as island leaders and have the opportunity to make new rules which must be obeyed by existing tribe members. At the end of week beach party the new arrivals must make a joint decision as to which island they wish to stay on.
This year, island life is a lot more basic than previous series and resembles life on last year's third Hawk island with islanders having to go without luxuries such as mirrors and toilet papers and survive on only basic food rations. Live pigs and chickens reside on the islands as well, meaning the castaways have the opportunity to hunt for their food.
Controversy
This year shipwrecked received a negative response from a section of its viewing audience and devoted fans. Complaints centered around the interference of the production/editing crew with the flow of the reality concept, corrupting the natural progression of the Shipwrecked series. Other complaints related to a lack of airtime due to the removal of supplementary shows for this year's series, missing hutcam diaries, and over editing.
Some of the contestants from this year's series also commented on production mishaps and editing failures.
One large online Shipwrecked community commenced a Shipwrecked Petition to report the above to the C4 executives. The closure of the official Channel 4 discussion forums only prompted further frustrations.
Island nominations
The following is a list of nominations and the opposing tribe's response;