The Challenge 29: Invasion (premieres Feb 7th)

[Valisk]

Damn, CT looking bloated in the light. Definitely passed his prime. His weight was a factor with the rope challenge, but I'm surprised that he couldn't compensate that with strategy. He is tall and relatively long arms. He should have been able to figure that one out.

How are these kids that bad at math. They aren't THAT far removed from school that they don't know the basics. Cory and Nicole were stuggling! Also weird for Nicole to use the time bonus (5 mins added to an opponent's score) to settle a personal vendetta than to put yourself in the best position to get 1st. No more numbers or puzzles for Nicole!

What are the point totals for placement in the final?

Edit: Nevermind, I found it. Looks like I need CT and Nelson to finish 1st & 2nd and for Cory, Nicole, and Ashley to finish 3rd or not at all in order to have a chance. Need Camilla to be 1st for sure.

[Byrd]

So that was a finale. Awesome that Dadbod CT still won. Ashley M - who knew? Overall, the final wasn't nearly as difficult as previous years. Three days, yes, but not particularly tough overall. And Ashley M won? What the bloody hell? Who knew? Guess it makes sense that they didn't announce the cast of Champs vs. Pros yet, since Ashley M is apparently on that, and that would have been a spoiler.

Oh, the final tally:

Byrd 760
Moss 690
Valisk 675
Xno Kappa 425
Headspace 285

Congratulations go out to me, of course. Despite losing Shane, Laurel, and Darrell in the last episode before the finale, I managed to hold on thanks to Smashley's unbelievable performance.

Final six contestants:
Ashley M 365
Cory 285
Camila 250
Nelson 245
CT 230
Nicole 220

Yes, Ashley M did outscore Headspace's entire team. Good work, Headspace.

By the way, the epic fails challenge Hall of Fame special is pretty good.

Champs vs. Pros actually starts next week. I'll be checking it out, but I don't really think there's much point in doing a score.

We'll see you all back here for season thirty, which looks to be a pretty good cast.

[Vil]

Yeah, I found out a few days ago that she won because I stumbled upon a list for Champs versus Pros. Her and CT winning was the best result I could have hoped for. Camila getting 3rd would have been better, or getting 2nd and getting less money, which she almost did. It's all her partners' fault though, which is hilarious to me since her only win was when partnered with Bananas.

I'm watching the Epic Fails thing now and while they did have a TJ segment, I would watch an hour or a half hour compilation of his greatest hits. All I have to say about his appearance at the Shelter in the finale was that he killed it.

I'll be interested to see the split times between CT and Nelson, but I really didn't like the way they formatted this final. Having times revealed at the end is kind of lame, but showing the final leg was pointless except for giving confessionals/flashbacks. The results ceremony was hilarious to me with their expressions/reactions from the guys + Nicole.

[Xno Kappa]

Was a great season and was awesome to see CT win it all. God damn fucking Cory cost my Camila the win. Dude was garbage and being such a bitch about everything.

Saw the special afterwards and holy shit does it feel like Real World: Paris was forever ago. I used to crush so hard for the asian chick lol.

[Valisk]

I am not pleased. I didn't even get 2nd place.

Season was meh. CT winning was great. Nelson was so nonchalant about 2nd place. His face was priceless. I agree with Byrd that the final wasn't as difficult as past finals. The Iceland one was crazy. Sub freezing temperatures, climbing a damn mountain. This challenge was puzzle heavy and extra tame.

I don't understand the food truce for the time sink bead challenge. I would have kept going or taken shifts with my partner to eat and/or sleep. That 5 minutes actually ended up being the difference in $85,000. CT and Nelson were only separated by 2 mins and 34(?) seconds. CT applied the 5 minute penalty to Nelson. Huge.

Hope they pull out all the stops for the 30th Season of the Challenge. I literally grew up on this show, Real World, and Road Rules back when it was a thing. I always watch these things for the nostalgia if not for anything.

Welp, til next time boys! Congrats Byrd.

[Vil]

One thing was in the back of my mind since that episode where Shane single-handedly beat all the champs, and it was if he and CT ever had history.



Shane's second, CT's first Challenge, early 2004.

[Byrd]

Shane's second, CT's first Challenge, early 2004.

"You won't be able to see Shane after all of these cookies" is a classic line. It was a very different challenge back then.

Shane and Darrell coming back this season was one of the highlights of Season 29. I would love to see more old school players come back, and next season looks to have some similar names coming back. Should be fun. Really bummed Shane isn't on season 30, I'm assuming he'll be back on again at some point.

[ThreeOneLead]

One thing was in the back of my mind since that episode where Shane single-handedly beat all the champs, and it was if he and CT ever had history.



Shane's second, CT's first Challenge, early 2004.

Damn man. Pre-WWE Miz, pre-suicide Dave Mirra.

[Valisk]

Nostalgia. I have to go back and rewatch some past seasons. Any specific season(s) that you guys hold in high regard? Gonna binge watch a few this weekend.

[Vil]

The Island. I really don't remember a ton about that, but I'd suggest simply because it was such a unique format that they've never reused. I might consider checking out some of the older seasons pre-TJ/early-TJ but for me that's very much so because I always watched Road Rules and only watched Real World up to the 1st San Diego, so seeing the Challenge with mostly/only those folks is always nice to me.

[Moss]

Grats to Byrd

Glad you guys enjoyed it but that's the worst challenge and worst final I've ever seen. Was tempted to skip the pitiful last leg of them holding a bar for 5 seconds and jogging on a beach alone with a cheesy recap of their season. So anticlimactic.

Camila was annoying as hell, funny how it was always someone else's fault whenever she screwed up.

[Xno Kappa]

C'mon bro. Really? Corey was awful that final challenge and clearly brought everyone down. Camila even more so with him practically giving up that leg.

[Vil]

Camila and Cory deserve each other.

I wouldn't say the season was redeemed by CT and Ashley winning, but it did help. The final sucked, but mostly because of the way they cut this down. No need for them to have 3 episodes of the final 6. They could have done the Diem stuff and then at least one leg in one episode, maybe 2. The whole format once they got to the house just felt pointless. If they wanted to force it to have a certain # of each gender from each team in the finals, fine. They did that while having the imbalanced #s for challenges which is what irks me.

Not sure what I'd say was the worst and maybe it's recency bias, but I'd throw Bloodlines up there as a contender. I can handle a boring format. That format was bullshit. You'd get eliminated b/c your partner lost an elimination duel? That's harsh. I know they changed things up at some point, but the m/f teams at the start were at a huge disadvantage.

[Moss]

C'mon bro. Really? Corey was awful that final challenge and clearly brought everyone down. Camila even more so with him practically giving up that leg.

Cory sucked but how are you gonna act like fucking up that puzzle was just his fault?

She was also the one to fall off the rope thing. Then she could barely carry that thing with Nelson lol.

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[Valisk]

Eh, I think you are being a little hard on Camilla. She single handily solved the first triangle puzzle with CT and was the faster swimmer. When she was paired with Nelson, they had a bad strategy because she was in the back with the longest rope/bucket. That was a height issue, not a strength issue. She was literally too short to keep the bucket from dragging without lifting it off her shoulder and exuding more energy. Cory not only gave up on multiple parts, but he also tried to dictate the strategy like a know-it-all and was completely wrong. And he was fussing at her like he wasn't the weakest link. Demoralizing on top of wasting time/energy.

[Moss]

Eh, I think you are being a little hard on Camilla. She single handily solved the first triangle puzzle with CT and was the faster swimmer. When she was paired with Nelson, they had a bad strategy because she was in the back with the longest rope/bucket. That was a height issue, not a strength issue. She was literally too short to keep the bucket from dragging without lifting it off her shoulder and exuding more energy. Cory not only gave up on multiple parts, but he also tried to dictate the strategy like a know-it-all and was completely wrong. And he was fussing at her like he wasn't the weakest link. Demoralizing on top of wasting time/energy.

All fair.

My point was, to hear her tell it, she's perfect and it's everyone's fault but her own. Think her communication style ever gets a little grating on her teammates?

[Valisk]

All fair.

My point was, to hear her tell it, she's perfect and it's everyone's fault but her own. Think her communication style ever gets a little grating on her teammates?

Normally, I would agree with you when it comes to Camilla and her communication style. I'll take it one step further, I agree with you on everything except her pairing with Cory. I was actually surprised that she was taking it so easy on Cory because she liked him. I was in awe that she didn't go off on him in typical Camilla fashion. I was expecting the "Camillanator" to make an appearance. While watching, I remember thinking she had gotten soft because of her little crush. But you are 100% right on her typical communication. She's usually a terrible partner because of her reactions when she loses or in the process of losing.

[Byrd]

Not sure what I'd say was the worst and maybe it's recency bias, but I'd throw Bloodlines up there as a contender. I can handle a boring format. That format was bullshit. You'd get eliminated b/c your partner lost an elimination duel? That's harsh. I know they changed things up at some point, but the m/f teams at the start were at a huge disadvantage.

Bloodlines was the worst season ever, IMO, or at least since I've been watching, for two key reasons. First, once they split up the teams from Bloodlines pairs, it was advantageous for certain players to throw certain challenges, and it just became a big game of South Park Softball, where it comes down to who can lose better. It wasn't a political thing, which is annoying but understandable, it was a function of the design of the game. Was terribad.

Also, with half the cast being entirely new (selected from a very small group of possible competitors), and another large portion of the cast coming from AYTO or the newest RW seasons, I knew 25-30% of the cast. Generally speaking, I think I was a 75% or so familiar player : unfamiliar player ratio. Some of that is my problem for not watching AYTO or RW, but if you've got at least 50% new players, there had better be some pretty good new players. And while there were a couple that were OK, the fact that they cut the contestant pool down to only family of existing players made it that much harder to cast dynamic players, and the experiment (in my opinion) flopped miserably.

Regarding Camilla, she's remarkably un-self aware when it comes to performance failures at challenges. She's a good competitor, but she's not nearly as good as she thinks she is (although she did beat Laurel, so there's that), and definitely deflects too much of the blame to others.

On the plus side, she looks as good as she ever has. Now that Playboy is back to doing nudes, I wish they'd do another Girls of The Challenge pictorial. Pretty sure Camilla would be front and center, and I, for one, would be happy to purchase that issue.

[Headspace]

Champs vs Pros is HYPE AF

The season preview at the end of ep 1 was better than the entire season of Invasion of the Champs


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[Vil]

Yeah, that episode was better than most of the last few seasons. Of course, after being fairly quiet (by his standards) at the reunion, Bananas was of course back to weaseling his way into like every camera shot and has to comment on literally everything. At least some of the pros offer a wonderful counterbalance to him. I love how it's taken them no time to start with the "Bananas is obnoxious" comments.

And that reunion? Terrible. There were people that looked bad, and then people that said next to nothing. Camila, Laurel, and Cory were the worst, not that it's any surprise. Miz was one of the few highlights of it. Yay for the fake and/or stupid fights presumably just to set up the next Exes/Rivals. Looking at you, Cory. Also, worst surprise guest ever. What was the point of that?