Challenge 37: Spies, Lies and Allies (Aug 11, 2021)

[Headspace]

Thanks for the score keeping Byrd, much appreciated.

Was really rooting for Devin but damn he needs to work on the cardio.

In all these years, I believe this is the first time I’ve won a season of challenge fantasy. Vet alliance and Emerald came in clutch for me.

[Byrd]

Challenge All-Stars 3 cast is more or less official, via spoilers.

To be clear, there are no result, format, or elimination spoilers in the article. Just the cast itself.

And that is one hell of a cast.

[Moss]

Challenge All-Stars 3 cast is more or less official, via spoilers.

To be clear, there are no result, format, or elimination spoilers in the article. Just the cast itself.

And that is one hell of a cast.

Omg I am hyped

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[Vil]

In terms of having more "big names", it's a strong cast, but I've got a lot of mixed feelings over some of these weird picks. I'd take all the alternates over at least half the cast.

They're seriously picking people for this that were on the past 6 seasons of RW. Derrick isn't enough to kill the vibe, so they have to bring in Jordan, and throw in Jemmye/Nia for him. I see what they're doing.

Good to see Yes/KA getting a return though. Kendal being brought back AGAIN lmao.

[Byrd]

Just watched the All-Stars 2 final.

Spoiler: show

The winner was a surprise to me, I would have picked them 3rd out of 4 (ahead of Ayanna and Teck).
Surprised that everyone just quit once the safe was opened, figured if the other teams got it quick, there was still a footrace to go.
Disappointed that Phase 1 winners didn't get any advantage in Phase 2.
Algebra is one of those basic skills that you would think anyone who went on these challenges would figure out ahead of time. Like driving a stick shift in The Amazing Race.
Overall, a solid season. I'm generally enjoying All-Stars more than the main Challenge for the most part. If nothing else, it's only 10 episodes instead of 19.

[Byrd]

Well, this is some big news.

“The Challenge: All Stars,” will launch its third season on May 11...

Internationally, the streamer will launch “The Challenge: Argentina,” “The Challenge: Australia” and “The Challenge U.K.” Each will be available to stream on demand in their respective markets. A new series, “The Challenge: CBS” will air this summer on CBS — a first for “The Challenge” — featuring reality TV titans from the CBS universe facing off against one another. After all four seasons air, the winners from each will then face off in a global competition on Paramount Plus, titled “The Challenge: War of the Worlds.”

[Moss]

Damn so I'm gonna have 4 challenge shows to watch at the same time?

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[Byrd]

Damn so I'm gonna have 4 challenge shows to watch at the same time?

I mean, maybe 5 or 6 if the MTV show is still on and All-Stars is running at the same time. Could be nuts. Could be too much. Also not sure how much of Challenge: Argentina I'll be following with the presumable language barrier, unless they are filming it in English, which seems dumb. Not a fan of dubbing or subtitles.

Am very curious how many former Challenge contestants will end up on the US and UK shows. The US show cites CBS reality show vets, so that likely doesn't include MTV folks, but could include the Survivor or Big Brother players who made it to the challenge.

[Moss]

I mean, maybe 5 or 6 if the MTV show is still on and All-Stars is running at the same time. Could be nuts. Could be too much. Also not sure how much of Challenge: Argentina I'll be following with the presumable language barrier, unless they are filming it in English, which seems dumb. Not a fan of dubbing or subtitles.

Am very curious how many former Challenge contestants will end up on the US and UK shows. The US show cites CBS reality show vets, so that likely doesn't include MTV folks, but could include the Survivor or Big Brother players who made it to the challenge.

Yeah that will be too much

Also, unless I'm misunderstanding, if the "US" leg of the tournament is CBS show vets only, that's going to be pretty lame if there aren't US MTV veterans involved in the entire tournament

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[Byrd]

Vevmo's Pink Rose has a cast list out for the Challenge: CBS, but there's alternates included, so some of these people may be eliminated due to casting or COVID. Or pregnancy. Might be some other adds, but this is probably a pretty good starting point.

Whole lot of Love Island, Survivor and Big Brother, just one Amazing Race and a couple others. No Challenge vets, which is interesting. TJ still host, though, which is nice. Will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[Vil]

I'm still iffy on this whole idea, but lmao @ this cast. There are so many people that were flat out bad players on their original seasons or returned to get absolutely exposed. It's incredible.

Not sure what word I'm looking for, but way too many people drawn from common seasons. 6 from last season of BB, 3 from the year before. 3 from Survivor 41 and WaW. I understand favoring (to some degree) recent seasons to get eyes on the show, but you can spread the wealth around a bit. I only watched the 1st season of Love Island US so I don't know much about the others/if they overlapped during their time in the villa.

It's pretty much a guarantee that this season will be strongly pre-gamed. Where this falls on the scale of normal Challenge season, Survivor 40, BB 22, idk.

How the hell are they going to have that many people from last year's BB and Christian isn't one of them? Are they saving him for the main show?

[Xno Kappa]

I like a lot of the survivor casting. They’re all stellar players minus Liana lol. I don’t remember anything about Desi.

[Byrd]

Challenge All Stars 3 Trailer:



Do we want to do Fantasy for this instead of the main show? I have no idea when that show is going to air, and probably won't know half of them when it does air.

[Vil]

If you feel like setting it up for this and there's enough that watch this series, I'm game.

[Byrd]

If you feel like setting it up for this and there's enough that watch this series, I'm game.

Good point. Not everyone gets Paramount Plus.

I'm also not sure when the next time we're going to have Season 38, as it appears that the CBS Challenge is the next one up. I would rather do fantasy for just one of those, and I'd prefer All Stars, although the potential for hook up and coitus points is probably pretty low.

Anyone else?

[Vil]

First two All Stars episodes are up.

I don't think I could care less about everyone having at least been to a final before on this. For that specific spinoff or even the main show, fine. There's just so many potentially fun randos that could be brought in for this rather than forcing in certain "all stars".

Is Syrus in the best shape he's been in for any Challenge?

TJ must have run out of names for things. "The Arena"?

Spoiler: show

My first look at Jordan, I'm thinking "wow, he actually isn't wearing a ratty shirt and has his hair cut neat", and then he turns his head. The fact that he and Nia were even on speaking terms was more shocking to me than the idea of Wes/Bananas finally deciding to work together that one season.

The shorter episodes are more focused and streamlined, but it feels like they're showing their hand early in terms of people going to elimination and there's not much time for others. Until Brad was announced as one of the top 3 in the second episode, I actually forgot he was even on this season.

When I saw Wes (among other recent people) in the cast, I didn't like it. He does belong here, but I think it was just overexposure of so many seasons since his return. It's kind of a full circle thing with me. When All Stars 1 rolled around, I remembered the name Nehemiah, but not much about him because it was the Austin crew (Wes, mostly) arriving on the series that made me kind of stop following the show for a bit. Now these 3 (well, 2 now) are among the people I'm most hoping to see do well.

Does Sylvia have a relative running the casting department? Knowing my luck, she'll probably be here til the end.

Were the top 6 completely different both times? I expect that within a couple weeks, it'll start to be mostly the same people, but I'll take that for now. This format could go terribly if they don't get plenty of variety up there. See: Whatever season had that Troika and also let them basically stack the teams the following challenge so they could keep the same group in power.

[Byrd]

Watched All-Stars episode.

Spoiler: show

Man, Darrell is getting old. Not saying what he was doing was easy, but ugh. I really don't think we're ever going to see another title from him, particularly if they keep casting younger folks on All-Stars.
Beth is gonna Beth.
Veronica is gonna Veronica.
Felt bad for Kendall, I feel like she beats Beth in anything that's not 90% weight or size based.
On the preview for next week ... Beth is gonna Beth. Stirring the pot even at 50 years old or whatever she is.

Cast list up for Season 38, filming started last weekend, sounds like. Maybe an August airing? Half rookies, half vets, I really think that's too much. 75% vets / 25% rookies is about what I would like to see. I realize All-Stars gives us a lot of what we would like to see as far as vets, but more continuity on the main show is better, IMHO. Looking forward to seeing Turbo, Laurel and Bananas (which is weird to say) again, but the rest of the cast seems like basically the same as ever. CT not on the cast is certainly a surprise. Maybe Nam will have something other than bad luck this time.

Also, this:

[Xno Kappa]

They ever make a statement why Nam had to leave the last season?

[Vil]

Yeah, I was going to mention the USA thing, since they had a few previews for that during Survivor the other night. Had that been previously announced it was going to be on CBS proper? I guess I just assumed it was a P+ thing and not on actual tv.

I don't know if a % of rookies is ever good or bad, it's how they treat it/them. The issue with some of these is that they don't give some people a long enough rope, whereas for some reason they are apparently giving Nam way too long of one. Casting people in no-win situations and then just declaring that it was a failure and not evaluating why it didn't work, to see if it was about the person or the structure of the season is something they need to be more cognizant of. But they don't really care, since it's all about catering to certain casting favs, whether or not they're fan favs or not.

Random thoughts on All Stars through 4 eps:

Spoiler: show

Beth should have been there from day 1 anyway.

Melinda, Tyler, and MJ all dealing with some injuries from last season. How soon did they turn around and film this season? Did they even bother to take note of people who got injured on that season before casting them again?

Treehouse, ugh. All the worst people on the cast + Tina, and she had to walk. If they were irrelevant in the power structure and/or only a voting bloc, I'd just think "whatever". The problem being that the other side is causing problems among themselves (Kendal), trying to stay out of it (Darrell), or potentially spiteful to their own detriment (MJ).

But really, out of the people eliminated and those outside the Treehouse, any idea what any of these people are doing? That whole sector of people is basically "Wes and Friends... and Enemies". Well, "nobody wants Jordan in a final" too. There are general ideas, but it's a weird framing of what any of these people want/are doing.

I appreciate at least the effort here this season, with trying different methods to come up with who is the top 3/bottom 1. I'm willing to look beyond just results because sometimes things just play out a certain way.

Did they claim some twist in the preview for next week? What, gonna pair them up like they did around this time last season?

[Byrd]

They ever make a statement why Nam had to leave the last season?

Pretty sure it was Covid. At least that's the common belief on /r/mtvchallenge.

But really, out of the people eliminated and those outside the Treehouse, any idea what any of these people are doing? That whole sector of people is basically "Wes and Friends... and Enemies". Well, "nobody wants Jordan in a final" too. There are general ideas, but it's a weird framing of what any of these people want/are doing.

I feel like the 60 minute format of All-Stars seems to be removing a lot of character moments that the 90-minute format of the main show can provide. Would like to see both of them hit 90 minutes.