Lifting the veil of secrecy and giving Cast members their freedom back.

Over the course of Cutthroat, I read various blogs, interviews and even podcasts that surprised me about how much the Challenges have changed over the past few years. Gone are the days when on off days they could sight see, party or even call a family member to let them know how they were. Now its apprently like living inside Fort Knox, rare if any communication with the outside world, and forced to stay in the house only going out for Challenges or a really rare day day they get to party. Recently one cast member said it was one of the reasons a lot of the vets and even himself don't like coming back, and who can blame him? You are 20 to 30 or even 40 in some cases and are being told you can't leave a house? Especially when they remembered how fun it got. Now stories are they can't even take their own music. Some are ridiculous rules, while others don't make sense. It is obvious why BMP does some of them.

1)Locked in the house: causes more tension, bores them and eventually leads to the drama, drama=good tv. But in the case of the Challenges do they even need it? The being sent into eliminations, and bickering in the teams leads to enough drama as is..why do they need to force it? Hell on Inferno 1, a night on the town caused Trishelle to get voted into the Inferno. Now what they get is increase in actual personal insults and even violence. Before Inferno 3, the only two acts of violence on a Challenge happened between Ayanna and Christean, which was on the RV and Stephen/Shane during the heat of the moment. Since then..CT/Davis(although by reports it wasn't as it seemed on TV), CT/Adam (one of the bloodiest brawls on reality tv), Tonya/Veronica (there was a comment that was edited..and I've heard what it is and Veronica deserved it), Brad/Darrel. Seriously from 1998 to 2007 only 2 acts of violence, in which the physical contact was just one blow...since 2007 (I use this as this mostly around the times things got stricter)the violence has increased a lot, to actual fights. (I will get into the actual fight things later on). Also why take them to exotic locations (which I am guessing doesn't come cheap) if you aren't even gonna let them sight see? Hell if you are gonna do that just hold the Challenge in the US, the costs would be less!

2)Minimal contact with family members or work: During the Brad podcast with Derrick he mentioned how hard it was for Tori to get in contact with her job because production was being a hassle with the phone. It is not the first time I've heard of this, family members no knowing were the cast members are at, and cast members prohibited from telling them. I get the not wanting spoilers to get out..but trust me the location of the Challenge isn't gonna give anything away, and it might make the cast members a bit happy to talk about their loved ones. Its like if BMP wants them to be as miserable as they can..which honestly I don't see the point at all, sure it makes drama but its at the expense of these people who you consider your "Tv family". Just let them talk to family but put them on notice that if spoilers get out from them, they get fined. And honestly spoilers get out anyways no matter how secretive BMP wants to be, so why not give them that luxury at least.

3)Casting members who aren't in a state to be on the show: There are two recent examples of this. Tonya and CT. CT was just 6 weeks past the death of his brother, by all acounts he said he shouldn't have gone on the show but the allure of money will always get someone. Tonya on the ruins looked like a shell of her former self. A drunken sloppy mess who was pathetic. These are two people that have been with BMP for years, yet people like Tonya was exploited for being a drunken mess on the Ruins, yes she knew what was getting into..but for Christ's sake BMP should have some humanity and say "you know what for her own good lets skip her", this is the company that helped Ruthie resolve her alcohol issues in Hawaii or offered Joey rehab in Hollywood, why can't they step in for people they've known for ages and just say "resolve your issues and we'll call you next time". Give them a small interview before the Challenge, see where they are mentally.

4) Fighting: You know what truly sickened me? During both CT/Adam, and the Brad/ Darrel fights, you had the camera just there and you knew something was going to go down. Why didn't production step in? Tell Adam or Brad to go to another room and avoid both situation? Same with Tonya and Veronica? Oh but yes they have that famous "no physical contact" rule in effect and honestly its bullshit. If production loves forcing the social situations like they do, they should also intervene when something as big as those 3 fights is about to occur, yes it makes great tv, but one day someone is seriously going to get hurt. Yes, I know production doesn't break the fourth wall, only in extreme circumstances like the aforementioned Ruthie and Joey situations, but isn't physical violence like in the case of CT/Adam, Brad/ Darrel extreme enough? If they can sense it is going to happen..just step in and stop it! In some cases, like say the Shane/Stephen situation I get it, it was in the heat of the moment but in the other two cases you could see what was gonna happen a mile a way and I truly believe that one day production will regret standing back with their arms crossed instead of stepping in. No matter how great it makes for TV it isn't worth it.

The bottom line is..this isn't the Real World or the Bad Girls Club. This is the Challenge we watch because of the game show aspect, not to see how strangers (and they aren't strangers) interact in a house..thats what Big Brother is for, party, hook up and have fun. The fights are pointless, and even cause people to get turned off. The forced drama, is even more pointless as you already have enough from the game itself and the hook ups. People have been clamoring for a return to how Challenges used to be, but when you think about it Challenges themselves are the same but how the people act on them has changed and it is all a forced issue. BMP/MTV you lose nothing giving these cast members what you gave them before, spoilers will get out no matter what (if big blockster hollywood movie spoilers get out..so do these), the drama will be there thanks to the game..but in the end you will get happier cast members and less risk of something really bad happening down the line.

Cutthroat season thoughts

So Cutthroat is in the books, and boy was this season pretty good. The main thing about Cutthroat that I noticed, is that MTV was attempting to do different things to kinda freshen it up. New concepts, new rules, new team structures and a lot of new people. Some of the missiosn were pretty bad ass (riot shield), some sucked (martini glass and upside down), and some were just hardcore (gas chamber/tight rope). We had drama, Laurel/Easy, Laure/Sarah vs Grey Team, the red team dysfunction, Ty and typical mission fights. We had twists: teams were chosen first day in by captains, secret voting and the heavy hitters. We had a hook up, and the finale had some surprises mainly with the fall of Abe. In my opinion, this season did not dissapoint. Sure there was a little lag, especially once Brandon and Camila left, but Laurel/Sarah quickly grabbed the baton to take over the central storyline, as was the Red teams continued issues. Other notable changes, two of the usual Champions left the Challenge, and the never winners finally won. Some things didn't change at all, Shauvon sucked, and Paula blamed someone else for her losing..well you can't do everything in one challenge.

So onto some thoughts on the season. First off, once I heard about the location I was excited, I just imagine being a cast member and finding out I'm going to of all places Prague (funny enough they found out as they boarded the plane, they were told to pack for tropical weather, then at the first airport they are told they were going to England, and in England they finally found out it was Prague..oh Bunim Murray and MTV one day you will get these kids arrested for suspected terrorism), one of the most beautiful places on this planet. Then the cast got me even more psyched: Abe, Derrick, Bananas, Jenn, Cara Maria, Laurel (I was a fan on FM2), Brad (before he turned into pussy Brad) and many others. I was also excited for a lot of the newbies who I hadn't seen before. It felt different right off the bat, but as time went on some things truly did change while others stayed the same.

The teams.. from looking at the first episode, before the first mission even happened you would've thought Blue team was winning this in the end. They had the "stacked" team, while gray was full of misfits, and red was full of players who had never won a challenge bar Tori but still stacked. Then the first challenge happened and the group of misfits surprised everyone. It became the trend of the season with Gray winning the most Challenges on Cutthroat.

How about Blue team? How could the team with proven Champs like Bananas and Derrick, and great female competitors like Jenn and Emily fail? If you actually analize it, they just got bad luck on all accounts. Ty gassed out, CT/Tina arrived, and Derrick faced off a bigger Tyler in an elimination round that favored bigger guys. Not taking anything away from Tyler who went from underdog to top dog in this Challenge with his performance, but Blue team was dealt a bad hand of luck this Challenge.

Gray Team? The band of misfits that weren't supposed to work well, actually became the team to beat, even when the team itself wasn't working. The infighting between that team was 10 times worse than the Red team one, as Laurel and Sarah came real close to throwing two Challenges, but thankfully pride (and a pissed off Abram) intervened. Was Laurel right? or was she wrong? Technically she was right about sharing money with unworthy people, but she chose the wrong target. All season long she had a parrot with her in Sarah, who is still on her ego trip from the Ruins (let's face it as awesome as Katie is, Sarah's claim to fame is beating Katie and Johanna in the Ruins two girls who have never been strong girls), every time Laurel said something Sarah was right behind her saying the exact same thing. Yet who failed in the final? Was it Cara and Luke? No it was Sarah and Abram. Abram surprised the hell out of me as he has done a ton of these but apparently he didn't eat well before the mission and heat stroke affected him as well. Sarah? Not surprised, as soon as TJ said the rules she broke down claiming "I am not a good long distance runner", HELLO? Haven't you been in a final before? Haven't you seen finals before? Isn't that one of the things you and Laurel loved taunting the rest of your team with? At least Laurel pulled through in the end, as did Cara Maria who seemed to hold her own in the end.

Red Team? Going into this Challenge, I knew it was Brad's last. Tori is very vocal in hating how the Challenges affect their relationship, and I guessed Brad promised it would be the very last win or lose. Some have criticized Brad and Tori's play the entire season..but honestly can you blame them? If they can make it so that they didn't have to put a foot in the Gulag why not take advantage of it? Isn't the whole point of the game to make it to the end? They played the smart game, was it scummy? Sure it was, but in the end they won the Challenge so they weren't wrong. Sure Gray team's collapse in the final helped win that final but it was still a win.

The missions themselves this season were pretty hardcore all around. They all weren't awesome missions but they were pretty cool. My faves were.. Riot Shield, which I still believe should've been done earlier. Surf's up, I so wanna get on that surf board thing. Bottle Neck Stampeed, reminded me alot about the older Challenges and it looked way fun. The Martini glass one, just because it look frustrating as fuck so I loved the reactions from the cast. The tight rope one was hardcore as hell but it wasn't anything new, reminded me a lot about the zip line from building to building on Inferno 1. The rest I could give or take, but the Gas Chamber one was in poor taste considering where they were, and from what I've heard the conditions were a bit more dangerous than we saw on tv.

The drama? We had some good drama with the infighting on Red and Gray team, but the gray team drama just became really annoying at the end, and at times made me switch off the show. We also had the Laurel/Eric stuff, which as fate would have it actually aired on "National Stop Bullying Day", and even more ironic Eric had a purple shirt on during that segment. I was sickened by the segment at first watch, but hey we all make mistakes Laurel has owned up to it countless times so its time everyone moved on from it. Then we had the cliched Paula drama of this Challenge, and honestly its not even worth getting into. Either quit coming on Challenges or trust no one. We also had the love story between Abram and Cara, which as Johnny said the first day "these two weird bastards found each other" and are made for each other.

The Gulags. The Gulags this season bar the stupid slapping one, were kinda cool. Back Up Off Me takes the cake as the best one, followed by Pole Me Over. Dice was pretty cool as it was physical and a puzzle at the same time. Slapping one was funny the first 5 seconds then it became pointless, I'm glad they only did it during that episode.

Final thoughts.. I enjoyed this season, best one in my opion since Duel 1. It had a good mix of old and new cast. For once the same people didn't win, and the usual suspects left before the final. It had some good surprises. The production value was the best its ever been. I'm glad they started showing where the cast was from in their interviews again. The final was intense and at one point a nail bitter due to the editing but red had it in the bag once Abe fell. I'll give this season 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. I do hope they re-do the three team format but do Real World vs Fresh Meat vs Road Rules as it has been a long time coming, and with 10 on each team they can pull it off.

Deconstructing the Johnny, Evan, Kenny and Derrick alliance.

For the past few years on the Challenge, there has been a hatred for Johnny, Evan and Kenny, to some extent Derrick is added because he usually wins with them. People call It the JEK alliance or the JEKD. They say the 3 of them come on Challenges, dominate or are afraid to get in elimination rounds and throw everyone they can under the bus. These are all lies. The truth is all 4 have been on 2 Challenges together (Duel 1 and Ruins) and only on one did they actually work together (Ruins). To help out here’s a timeline of Challenges and how “JEKD” performed or what not on them.

-FM 1 – Evan and Kenny’s first appearance, Evan was taken out due to to injury, and Kenny got 2^nd in the final no alliance there.

-Duel 1 – Johnny’s first Challenge appearance was eliminated first, Kenny went home 3^rd, Derrick went 5^th and Evan was 3^rd to last eliminated. On screen they barely talked, once again no alliance.

-Inferno 3. Johnny was on the blue team, Derrick/Kenny red team. Kenny was sent into elimination, but saved himself via life shield. He and Derrick won their first Challenge together, but no alliance involved.

-Gauntlet 3. Johnny, Evan and Kenny on this one. Johnny was the first veteran male sent home, by Evan. He was thrown under the bus by CT. There were few chances for Evan or Kenny to throw people into elimination as the vets dominated. Once again no alliance.

-The Island. The first time a true alliance was formed with Johnny and Kenny, with Derrick working behind the scenes but fair. They never did throw anyone under the bus, as the whole Paula business was just clever editing. Kenny has gone on record saying multiple times that he did his part with Paula by getting her a key, but his main alliance was Johnny and the only way to save Johnny was to get Evelyn on the boat.

-Duel 2, Evan won by himself.

-The Ruins. The one Challenge all 4 where on working together. Some say they screwed Wes over but truth is Wes screwed himself. He was picking fights, he tried to throw a Challenge, so what were they supposed to do? Let him keep doing his shit? If Wes had been calm I can imagine them not throwing Wes so many times into the Ruins as they did, but truth is Wes did it to himself. The Evelyn-Kelly Anne situation, it was a smart play get rid of the toughest girl on the other team and the only two girls on the vets team who could do it were Evelyn and Susie, but Susie hadn’t made waves with these guys before. They controlled the game they kept themselves out of the elimination round bar Johnny, who owed these guys from the island and won, and you know what they did what they had to. (More on this later)

-FM 2, the first Challenge that Kenny’s dominance was threatened when he was outnumbered by Wes’s alliance but truth is this Challenge proved who the real asshole was. Wes instead of throwing in people from Kenny’s alliance against themselves or giving his best friend an easy elimination, he sacrificed those around him to keep himself safe. Kenny played the game as fair as he could, did he have an alliance? Sure, but he didn’t screw them when it came to it like Wes did with CJ or Danny.

Can you honestly blame them? It’s a game show, many times they say “I came to win money not make friends” and it is true. Why go into an elimination round when they don’t have too? If any of us would be in a Challenge we’d play it the exact same way. Eric on Cutthroat for example, he screwed it up on Gauntlet 3 for the vets he and Derrick didn’t wanna risk it so why not sacrifice Big Easy. If he survived the Gulags then he earned his spot, if he didn’t tough loss but Eric had to prove himself. This famed alliance while it does exist, it doesn’t dominate and ruin every single challenge. The Ruins is the one Challenge they where all on, and Wes asked for what he got. As for the Island, Johnny did what he had to do to win, was he gonna stand back and let it all slip away? No, people go on these Challenges to win not let it all up to chance if not, they wouldn’t even go. They just know how to play the physical and social game, and honestly you can’t blame them. As for Derrick who’s been a part of it..can you blame him? Before joining up with the guys he always fell a bit short, always deserving but never got to win since then he’s won 3 straight, but he also plays it fair. These guy are just doing what they can to play the game they go on and they do a damn good job at it.

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This is the true story..

So the most frequent question I have gotten since I started the twitter is who am I? Am I associated with MTV or Bunim Murray Productions? The answer is no. Who I am is actually irrelevant. To steal a line from the Christine O'Donnel ads.. I am you. A true Challenge fan, I've watched since the very first unofficial Challenge between Real World: Boston vs Road Rules Islands were Syrus busted up his knee, to wednesday's episode of Cutthroats. Lots of Challenges, some great memories and a lot of interesting and some useless facts have happened along the way. Before I continue a lot of the credit goes to the fine folk at vevmo.com as they have a great post with a lot of facts. You could just easily go there and ignore my tweets if you want, so thats why I'm making the blog to give my thoughts and yours on Challenges past, present and future.

I will not be giving away spoilers on this blog as I find it to ruin the fun of those who like to be shocked. So if you are looking for spoilers move along. I will try my best to get some cast interviews and my main goal is to get Challenge Legend and future hall of famer (oh I will for sure make a Challenge Hall of Fame post down the line) Derrick as the first interview. So sit back relax and suggest topics for the blog. Feedback is accepted!