Players that production/Jeff clearly wanted to win

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to discredit any of the players or their hard work in going as far as they did, more so to highlight when production seemed to put their hands on the scale in someone's favor.

Borneo (Season 1): Rudy; a Fan favorite, 72-year-old Navy Seal and quote machine. Pretty clear production liked this guy as the Stacey Stillman lawsuit would suggest (you could of course argue they wanted to keep older people interested in the show and needed an older person to root for).

Thailand (Season 5): Ken; the New York City Hero Cop who was cast just after 9/11. The fake merge was a manufactured twist allowing Ken's tribe to go into the actual merge with numbers, though of course this didn't end up working out.

Cook Islands (Season 12): The Aitu 4; kind of a cheat with this one as production wanted any of Ozzy, Yul, Becky, or Sundra to win. Given how this season was initially set up as "Race Wars" and the implications that would inevitably have depending on the winner, plus how the Aitu 4 were all likeable underdogs, production stepped in with the bottle twist right before the merge. This twist was a gamble for sure but due to Ozzy's challenge dominance it was likely the Aitu tribe would win that immunity challenge and send the Rarotonga tribe to Tribal Council and have to vote out two of their members, thus setting the Aitus up for a better shot at the merge.

Heroes v Hustlers v Healers (Season 35): Ben; A US Marine who fit the "Hero" starting tribe he was on. This is the least clear how much or little production stepped in, however both his miraculous finding of 3 idols and the surprise final 4 fire-making twist seemed... convenient.

What are some other examples of times production stepped in for their favorites?