The Challenge 39: Battle for a New Champion (Premieres Oct 25)

[Byrd]

About six weeks out, probably a little after Challenge USA 2 finishes, and who knows when All Stars 4 airs.

Cast announcement is here

There's a bunch of vets on the cast, but they are not part of the contestant pool that can win it all. I don't think we need to include them in the fantasy draft, assuming we do it.

Who still wants to do Challenge Fantasy?

[Vil]

Holy crap. I'm just far too happy to see Asaf back.

So those people are just an annoying constant barrage of heavy hitters or something? Meh. I like Brad and Darrell, could take or leave Kaz, but the rest are either overexposed or I don't care to see. I'm just dreading the idea of them living in the house anyway, meaning that they can get involved in things with zero repercussions. Or them giving them their own house. They're not going to advertise these people and have them only there for the last 10 minutes of some episodes, are they?

I think 24 is a good number, but that seems weirdly low for this show with their moronic casts of 30+. I'm cool with just picking from the 24 "players", unless it becomes clear that the champs have potential to do much more. My wild speculation is that all eliminations are against them and they may be chosen per elimination game based on their "specialty".

[Xno Kappa]

No vets in the main cast? I’m 100% down.

[Byrd]

Full EW.com article here.

I kind of want to wait until we have a trailer or something which shows if the champs will be in the house at all in order to determine if they are draftable or not. Seems like if we see some champs that win eliminations, that would make sense to include them (even if they aren't in the main game or in danger of getting voted out), but their maximum point value would be pretty dang low.

[Vil]

An alternative that came to mind would be just drafting the regular players than having a supplemental draft of the champs. The question is if they'll even have actual "wins" or is it just who did better, and it kind of makes a weird situation for this, but doing a whole(?) game format that way.

Semi-related, a few familiar names, and a LOT of familiar names depending on how much you're into other reality shows. There were more that were rumored as of yesterday that made it seem like some Bill Simmons fantasycast. Still kind of is.

https://twitter.com/peacock/status/1704873235286736904

[Xno Kappa]

Man some of the chicks on this season of survivor…



Lol

[Byrd]

Ok, regardless of the specific format of the fantasy league, who is in?

[Vil]

You guys think Brandon from this season of Survivor is Challenge material? lmao

I'm up for fantasy.

[Vil]

Cory getting his first screentime in the past 2 months gave me hope that he'd just get eliminated this episode. Nah, it turns out that he'd just disappoint like he always does. The guy seriously sitting in there trying to say that Tori is someone that won't target him as if anybody will bother targeting him is laughable. I'm really over the running the final in pairs stuff. It makes it easier from the production side of thing, but it sucks from this side of it.

Michele is such a snake I just have to laugh at this point. It's just that she's doing it with the vets on her side now.

Can we go back a few months and have Chris NOT suggest that Blue throw that one challenge to Red? There's been problems from the start and as much as the Secret Garden thing seemed to finally be a rookie alliance with numbers and their heads screwed on, it came across like the guys were isolated only connected to certain pockets. Even if that was by design, they did a poor job of pointing their heads in the right direction all season.

[Vil]

Even if she is a disaster in the final or gets knocked out next week, this season has been a proper redemption for Michaela. I don't know how well she would mesh with a cast that was more of the regulars, but this has been kind of what I would have expected when she was first announced for w/e that season was that she was eliminated first.

Simple daily that actually was pretty cool. One of my favorites of the past few years the way they actually used the site. Good thinking by Michaela pushing her people to the top and pulling off that lie to Bananas.

Josh really acting like his family is finally able to see him on tv and he has a chance (lol) to win "life changing money" when he's been on like the last 10 seasons of this and over 3 months of BB, where he won double the prize of this season. Sure thing, man. The guy telling the boys that he wants to be the one to go into the final elimination to take out Chris is certainly a nice offer.

On the other side, I kinda would love to see Cassidy beat Chanelle, but I don't think that's possible. The best option that would be certainly possible is Tori taking out Chanelle.

We'll see how next season goes, but Michelle is in that "might need a couple seasons off" range just to kind of get her head straight and also to maybe give some people time to forget what a mess these past few seasons have been. I appreciate the unintentional drama that surrounds her, but can't say I was disappointed to see her go there.

[Byrd]

So the only people who said they were in for fantasy were Headspace (I think) and Vil (here). That's probably not enough to do it unless more people just didn't respond and still want in. Going to plan on not doing it unless there's a sudden resurgence in response.



Only one champion for this? That's disappointing, was hoping for one from each gender. Oh well, we'll see how it works out.

[Xno Kappa]

I'm up for it as usual.

[Vil]

Only one champion for this? That's disappointing, was hoping for one from each gender. Oh well, we'll see how it works out.

Welp, it was in the (atrocious) season name all along, so I shouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't expect like a full team win in a season like this, because that would absolutely feel like a participation trophy, but only 1 winner is laughable because this franchise sucks at making things interesting and competitive when they've got to do like single winners. I guess they could do it like the All Stars ones with points on each leg, but it's most likely just top 2 men + women make the final event and it's just a fairly quick mental-ish task so that they can aim for having a close finish.

Some of the challenges in the trailer look cool, so hopefully there's substance and not just a "oh, neat stunt" thing.

[Vil]

If you'd have told me that was the finishing order for the men and that Tori would get last, I would have wondered what fantasy land you're in. Chris definitely had potential, and I kind of had Desi as T-2 alongside Michaela, so I'm not shocked by either of their wins, but basically everything else is just brilliant.

I see plenty of people hating on the final, but I wonder how many of them are the "nooo, we can't have Survivor people winning!" types. In terms of the multiple steps just to set a starting order, this was one of the better ones, and then the axe basically eliminating both, whatever. There are complaints about production only having two scales too and I'm thinking that actually put some "risk" in it... waiting for someone else to do it, or just going ahead. It didn't work out here, may not have mattered.

Really up and down season, but I'm cool with the finish. Cory needs to get like an album or something... maybe laminate the pictures. Showing them off to the camera for his 4 minutes of footage per season is great content, man.

[Byrd]

Watched Season 39's episode zero, if you will. It consisted of about ten minutes of TJ calling contestants to let them know they're in, and their first night in the game. Did a good job introducing the people I didn't know, and if we were still doing fantasy, would have been lots and lots of making out points. Worth a watch. Also, episode one is tonight as a reminder.

[Xno Kappa]

Chauncey is so bad lol

[Xno Kappa]

Jordan 100% knew what the elimination was before going in. Also, if we were still doing fantasy Nurys would be killing it with cleavage of the week lol.

[Xno Kappa]

If we did fantasy for this season Colleen and Nurys would be killing the cleavage category lol

[Byrd]

If we did fantasy for this season Colleen and Nurys would be killing the cleavage category lol

Yeah, I didn't typically like giving it back to back weeks to the same woman barring an outfit change, but it feels like they would be flipping back and forth every other week. I think Olivia was providing some competition for a while, but I might be getting that mixed up with last season, too.

[Xno Kappa]

Have you guys seen the Squid Games challenge? Wifey and I binged it this weekend and we thought it was awesome lol.