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Post by bbg95 on Dec 26, 2023 22:51:34 GMT -5
Finally, do you watch The Challenge as well, or did you just watch The Challenge USA? Just curious because it doesn't really seem like anyone else here watches it. I actually think the best Challenge seasons (e.g. War of the Worlds 2, Inferno 1) are on par with great Survivor seasons I watch The Challenge sporadically. It's my brother-in-law's favorite show, so I tune in randomly to talk with him about it. I think it's a more entertaining show at times, since they do a good job at switching up the format while still maintaining the heart of the show. I have been considering binging some seasons—so maybe I'll check out one of the ones you mentioned. I thought I would try Big Brother next, but I gave the most recent season with Cirie a shot and it was one of the most miserable viewing experiences of my life. Yeah, I'm not a huge Big Brother fan either. I've only seen like 2.5 seasons. I watched S12 because I enjoyed Hayden so much on Blood v. Water. I watched S22 because it was All Stars, and it was during the pandemic, so I had plenty of time. And I watched the second half of Cirie's season just to see how she would navigate after her top two allies got voted out. The main problem with Big Brother is its length. It's three episodes a week, so it's three times the length of Survivor. I have a similar issue with Australian Survivor, which is also about three times the length of US Survivor. I really feel like ~13 episodes in US Survivor is optimal for these reality shows. I have no real desire to go back and watch other Big Brother seasons. More recent seasons of the MTV version of The Challenge also have this problem to a lesser degree (maybe double Survivor's length), though the Challenge USA spinoff has avoided it for now. One thing I did enjoy from Big Brother this season was its holiday spinoff Reindeer Games. And that's because it seems to have a lot of Challenge DNA. Instead of 40+ episodes over three months with one person eliminated per week, it was just six episodes over two weeks. And someone gets eliminated in each of the first five episodes before setting up four people to compete for the grand prize in the last episode. There are also no eliminations via votes. Everything is decided in an elimination round called "Santa's Showdown." Your social game still matters in the way it does in The Challenge, as the winner(s) of one of the earlier challenges decides who goes into elimination. But at the end of the day, you only go home if you get beat at a challenge. And unlike some eliminations in The Challenge, these eliminations were pretty even when it comes to muscle and body weight and stuff like that. They got a pretty strong cast of nine players for this first version with a bunch of winners and fan favorites. I actually was at least somewhat familiar with many of them from the 2.5 seasons I've watched plus the ones who have been on The Challenge. And even though the winner was my least favorite person on the cast, I can't say that they didn't earn it. Supposedly, this will be an annual thing, and I sure hope it is. In fact, I liked it so much that I don't even thing it has to be limited to Big Brother. Like The Challenge was originally Real World and Road Rules, but they cast from a lot of shows now, including Survivor and Big Brother. I wouldn't mind seeing a CBS Reindeer Games that features legends from Big Brother, Survivor and The Amazing Race.
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Post by bbg95 on Feb 9, 2024 1:58:34 GMT -5
So Sandra and Parvati are on Season 2 of The Traitors. Here's Sandra teaching a bunch of Bravo reality TV types about numbers in a game like this.
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Post by bbg95 on Feb 26, 2024 16:48:16 GMT -5
Survivor 46 premieres this Wednesday, February 28th with a two-hour premiere. Let's hope it's better than Survivor 45 was.
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Post by bbg95 on Feb 28, 2024 22:30:23 GMT -5
That was a very good premiere. Jelinsky might be the second-most entertaining first boot of all time behind only Zane Knight.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Feb 29, 2024 12:58:01 GMT -5
That was a very good premiere. Jelinsky might be the second-most entertaining first boot of all time behind only Zane Knight. Halfway through the episode - I thought Jelinsky presented himself as a particularly bad player. Then he got worse from there. Now - this could have been editing, but I doubt all of it could.
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 6, 2024 17:20:53 GMT -5
Well, I may have to move Survivor 45 even further down in my rankings in light of recent (okay, it was in January, but I wasn't on the Survivor sub much since 45 ended) revelations that Dee had an affair with Wendell, even though he had a live-in girlfriend and a newborn baby. Yikes.
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 6, 2024 22:13:59 GMT -5
Well, not an especially good episode that was stretched out to two hours for some reason (I'm getting Australian Survivor flashbacks). It's one thing when you have a generational star like Jelinsky to carry all that time. When it's focused on poor Jess going home, it's not nearly as fun. I'm also a little worried that this cast seemed pretty dumb strategically tonight, so we might have back-to-back seasons with bad strategic casts, though it's too early to say.
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Post by storyteller on Mar 7, 2024 1:23:21 GMT -5
Well, not an especially good episode that was stretched out to two hours for some reason (I'm getting Australian Survivor flashbacks). It's one thing when you have a generational star like Jelinsky to carry all that time. When it's focused on poor Jess going home, it's not nearly as fun. I'm also a little worried that this cast seemed pretty dumb strategically tonight, so we might have back-to-back seasons with bad strategic casts, though it's too early to say. I thought last week was so much fun. Then this week, most of the cast annoyed me. Also, I'm sick of people making fake idols. That took up too much of the episode with very little payoff and honestly just feel mean. I would've rather watched the Metallica vs Taylor Swift song naming contest (jkjk but Charlie starting off with "All of the Girls You Loved Before" was such a choice).
Based on what we've seen so far, I'm interested in what would happen if the green tribe goes to tribal council. Also, I want to see Venus decimate her tribe of extroverts because I love her fury in confessionals.
(Side note: CT of Traitors S2 is making me want to watch him in The Challenge.)
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 7, 2024 1:34:48 GMT -5
Well, not an especially good episode that was stretched out to two hours for some reason (I'm getting Australian Survivor flashbacks). It's one thing when you have a generational star like Jelinsky to carry all that time. When it's focused on poor Jess going home, it's not nearly as fun. I'm also a little worried that this cast seemed pretty dumb strategically tonight, so we might have back-to-back seasons with bad strategic casts, though it's too early to say. I thought last week was so much fun. Then this week, most of the cast annoyed me. Also, I'm sick of people making fake idols. That took up too much of the episode with very little payoff and honestly just feel mean. I would've rather watched the Metallica vs Taylor Swift song naming contest (jkjk but Charlie starting off with "All of the Girls You Loved Before" was such a choice).
Based on what we've seen so far, I'm interested in what would happen if the green tribe goes to tribal council. Also, I want to see Venus decimate her tribe of extroverts because I love her fury in confessionals.
(Side note: CT of Traitors S2 is making me want to watch him in The Challenge.) Yeah, I pretty much agree with all of this, especially about Venus. I was out on Randen after he was targeting her for no real reason, but then he decided to befriend her this week, so I hope that goes somewhere. The thing about CT is that he is a real jerk on his early Challenge seasons (a fairly entertaining jerk, don't get me wrong, but still). The older version of him is nicer but still has some jerk tendencies. He's a great competitor, though. He has five titles and is one of the four best Challenge players of all time (Bananas is probably No. 1 with his seven titles, but if CT wins Season 40, he might get the edge). He is prominently involved in my two favorite Challenge seasons, which are Inferno 1 and War of the Worlds 2, though both are a bit hard to find online.
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Post by storyteller on Mar 7, 2024 2:01:32 GMT -5
I thought last week was so much fun. Then this week, most of the cast annoyed me. Also, I'm sick of people making fake idols. That took up too much of the episode with very little payoff and honestly just feel mean. I would've rather watched the Metallica vs Taylor Swift song naming contest (jkjk but Charlie starting off with "All of the Girls You Loved Before" was such a choice).
Based on what we've seen so far, I'm interested in what would happen if the green tribe goes to tribal council. Also, I want to see Venus decimate her tribe of extroverts because I love her fury in confessionals.
(Side note: CT of Traitors S2 is making me want to watch him in The Challenge.) Yeah, I pretty much agree with all of this, especially about Venus. I was out on Randen after he was targeting her for no real reason, but then he decided to befriend her this week, so I hope that goes somewhere. The thing about CT is that he is a real jerk on his early Challenge seasons (a fairly entertaining jerk, don't get me wrong, but still). The older version of him is nicer but still has some jerk tendencies. He's a great competitor, though. He has five titles and is one of the four best Challenge players of all time (Bananas is probably No. 1 with his seven titles, but if CT wins Season 40, he might get the edge). He is prominently involved in my two favorite Challenge seasons, which are Inferno 1 and War of the Worlds 2, though both are a bit hard to find online. Oh yeah, I tried looking for Inferno because that was on a lot of lists of the best seasons. I've watched a little bit of Fresh Meat II since I read that's a good place to start to get backstory for some of the later seasons. But it's been rough, and I've drifted toward doing a Survivor Micronesia rewatch instead (all the black widow references with Parvati were getting to me!) Also, is Trishelle popular on the Challenge? Because she annoys me so much on Traitors.
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 7, 2024 2:19:54 GMT -5
Yeah, I pretty much agree with all of this, especially about Venus. I was out on Randen after he was targeting her for no real reason, but then he decided to befriend her this week, so I hope that goes somewhere. The thing about CT is that he is a real jerk on his early Challenge seasons (a fairly entertaining jerk, don't get me wrong, but still). The older version of him is nicer but still has some jerk tendencies. He's a great competitor, though. He has five titles and is one of the four best Challenge players of all time (Bananas is probably No. 1 with his seven titles, but if CT wins Season 40, he might get the edge). He is prominently involved in my two favorite Challenge seasons, which are Inferno 1 and War of the Worlds 2, though both are a bit hard to find online. Oh yeah, I tried looking for Inferno because that was on a lot of lists of the best seasons. I've watched a little bit of Fresh Meat II since I read that's a good place to start to get backstory for some of the later seasons. But it's been rough, and I've drifted toward doing a Survivor Micronesia rewatch instead (all the black widow references with Parvati were getting to me!) Also, is Trishelle popular on the Challenge? Because she annoys me so much on Traitors. Fresh Meat II is a great season that has the best winning game in the history of The Challenge in my opinion. Though the villains (Wes and Evelyn) are in control of the early-to-middle part of the game, so I guess I could see how it might be a harder watch. As for Trishelle, I wouldn't say she's especially popular among The Challenge fanbase but not hated either. But The Challenge subreddit is kind of weird. It's the most conspiratorial fanbase I've ever seen. Their takes on The Challenge USA Season 1 were so annoying, as they kept trying to discredit Sarah's win and claim that quitter Tyson was somehow "robbed" because he's bad at Sudoku. A lot of them think Trishelle is getting too much flak, but I can't stand her either. She's so condescending and annoying.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Mar 7, 2024 12:14:43 GMT -5
The orange team has 'predictably' dominated the challenges thus far. Hunter is the most physical player and has a huge impact in the challenges - and then Venus appears to be a puzzle master. The combination should be highly effective together. They do have Liz, who appears to be a particularly annoying player.
Jess was a completely uninteresting player - which was bad for e2, but good going forward (now that she is gone).
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 7, 2024 12:20:28 GMT -5
Yeah, I pretty much agree with all of this, especially about Venus. I was out on Randen after he was targeting her for no real reason, but then he decided to befriend her this week, so I hope that goes somewhere. The thing about CT is that he is a real jerk on his early Challenge seasons (a fairly entertaining jerk, don't get me wrong, but still). The older version of him is nicer but still has some jerk tendencies. He's a great competitor, though. He has five titles and is one of the four best Challenge players of all time (Bananas is probably No. 1 with his seven titles, but if CT wins Season 40, he might get the edge). He is prominently involved in my two favorite Challenge seasons, which are Inferno 1 and War of the Worlds 2, though both are a bit hard to find online. Oh yeah, I tried looking for Inferno because that was on a lot of lists of the best seasons. I've watched a little bit of Fresh Meat II since I read that's a good place to start to get backstory for some of the later seasons. But it's been rough, and I've drifted toward doing a Survivor Micronesia rewatch instead (all the black widow references with Parvati were getting to me!) Also, is Trishelle popular on the Challenge? Because she annoys me so much on Traitors. If you have Paramount Plus and are looking to get into The Challenge, I might suggest World Championship if you haven't seen it already. It has a mix of Challenge USA players (Sarah, Danny, Justine and--unfortunately--Ben), players from international spin-offs, and Challenge legends. CT isn't on that season, but Bananas is, along with other legends like Darrell, Jordan, Wes, Jodi, KellyAnne, Tori, Theo, etc. Also, everyone has different taste, but I tend to prefer the team seasons. So even though Inferno 1 is hard to find, the more accessible Inferno 2 is also really good, and CT is a major player on that season.
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Post by bbg95 on Mar 7, 2024 12:23:01 GMT -5
The orange team has 'predictably' dominated the challenges thus far. Hunter is the most physical player and has a huge impact in the challenges - and then Venus appears to be a puzzle master. The combination should be highly effective together. They do have Liz, who appears to be a particularly annoying player. Jess was a completely uninteresting player - which was bad for e2, but good going forward (now that she is gone). I liked Jess and am sad to see her go. I've got all my eggs in the Venus basket now. Liz is something else. She might be the most annoying sit-out bench cheerleader in Survivor history. If they ever go to tribal council, I would vote her out just for those chants. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next challenge because the new rule (due to Claire sitting out all the time) means that Liz will be required to compete in the next challenge.
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Post by storyteller on Mar 7, 2024 13:27:05 GMT -5
Oh yeah, I tried looking for Inferno because that was on a lot of lists of the best seasons. I've watched a little bit of Fresh Meat II since I read that's a good place to start to get backstory for some of the later seasons. But it's been rough, and I've drifted toward doing a Survivor Micronesia rewatch instead (all the black widow references with Parvati were getting to me!) Also, is Trishelle popular on the Challenge? Because she annoys me so much on Traitors. If you have Paramount Plus and are looking to get into The Challenge, I might suggest World Championship if you haven't seen it already. It has a mix of Challenge USA players (Sarah, Danny, Justine and--unfortunately--Ben), players from international spin-offs, and Challenge legends. CT isn't on that season, but Bananas is, along with other legends like Darrell, Jordan, Wes, Jodi, KellyAnne, Tori, Theo, etc.). Also, everyone has different taste, but I tend to prefer the team seasons. So even though Inferno 1 is hard to find, the more accessible Inferno 2 is also really good, and CT is a major player on that season. From the little I've seen of the Challenge, I like how much the show mixes up the format. Especially compared to New Era Survivor being the same thing for 6 seasons now.
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