User blog:DCT0473/Reviewing Literally Every Season of Total Drama Part 3: Total Drama World Tour:

Well, after the mixed bag that was Action, I'm really hoping the season quality goes up a notch. Speaking of going up, today we hit the skies and go over one of the best TD seasons, Total Drama World Tour!

Total Drama World Tour takes place sometime after Action's finale special, Celeberty Manhunt: Total Drama Special. 17 contestants (Both old and new) take a trip around the world, while competing in Chris Mclean's lethal challenges and avoiding drama to get one step closer to $1,000,000.

Since Total Drama World Tour has challenges taking place in various countries, the creativity in challenges increases as the challenges aren't limted by one environment or one theme. The challenges could be anything, really, and I quite enjoy that. There is one change to challenges, however. At random during an episode, Chris will force the contestants to put on a musical number or sing a song, making the challenges harder and more embaressing for the contestants. While most of the songs are pretty good since they don't take up too much screen time, they aren't exactly songs I'm dying to listen to again (Save for a couple).

Returning from Action are reward challenges and the Aftermath Show, and they are just as good, if not better than ever. The Reward Challenges really step up in buidling character and making drama more intense, expecially as it is never secified which challenges are reward challenges, making elimination cerimonies more intense than ever. As for the Aftermath Show, they're still pretty funny and enjoyable to watch. To keep the show interesting, however, the writers introduced a third character to host the show: Blainley, a fame hungry celebrity who tries to become the only host and get rid of Geoff and Bridgette. While some fans might find her unlikeable, but I think Blainley can be entertaining at times, expecially when she got herself accidentally voted to join the main competition. But I think the writers could of used Blainley better in her brief time as a contestant, as outside of her debut episode in the main competition, she didn't do really do anything and just ended up becoming the pain magnet of the final Aftermath show.

As for the writing of World Tour, it's definatley a notch up from Action, with much more memorable episodes and better character interactions. There aren't too many bad episodes, and even the ones that are just usually end up being boring. There is one issue writing wise, and that's the love triangle between Duncan, Courtney, and Gwen.

In case you forgot (Or haven't finished watching World Tour yet), around halfway through the season Duncan and Gwen start dating, and personally I think they make a cute couple. But then Courtney finds out Duncan (Who she was dating at the time) is cheating on her with Gwen (Who mind you, became Courtney's best friend this season), and then everything goes downhill from there. I get that Duncan cheating on Courtney is wrong, but Courtney takes the whole cheating situation extremely seriously, to the point where she becomes obnoxious and starts throwing her own team's challenges. I think the writers were trying to make us sympathize with Courtney, but the way she handles the situation personally makes me more sympathetic to Duncan and Gwen, the "villains" of the situation. Not only that, but this whole love triangle situation leads to some pretty badly written episodes that feel more like something out of TD's weaker seasons.

Now it's time to go over the characters. Most of Action's cast is back, which I don't mind. Okay, yeah, Courtney's back (And if you know me, I'm not a huge Courtney fan), but outside of love triangle, she is actually bearable this season. As for the rest of the cast, most of it is contestants from Island who got elimated early on. It's nice to see them return, as they get more screen time to develop as characters. There is one exepction, but we'll cover him later. The final two contestants, they are completely new characters: Sierra and Alejandro.

Sierra is an obsessive fangirl who has a mega crush on Cody. While she can be funny at times, most of the time she comes off as creepy and obsessive, and watching her terrorise Cody isn't too entertaining. It doesn't help that she never gets a commupance of any kind, even in episodes where she deserves it like Niagra Brawls, where I was really hoping she'd get the boot.

As for Alejandro, he's miles better than Sierra. As World Tour's antagonist, he does a mighty fine job. He's essentially Justin 2.0, but unlike Justin, Al is smart, knows what he's doing, and can actually get stuff done. He's a puppet master, toying with the other contestants' emotions, only to strike and cause their downfall. And the contestant wouldn't know until Alejandro had screwed them over or when they took the drop of shame and put 2 and 2 together. Even most of the contestants who do catch on something is up with Al, he usually turns their teammates against them and gets them voted off.

But one my favorite aspects of Alejandro is his relationship with Heather. Heather is the only person who doesn't fall for Al's BS and spends the whole season trying to bring him down. Naturally, Alejandro catches on to this and tries to convince Heather he isn't a bad guy, just so he can strike and catch her off guard. It leads to a very interesting character interaction that is essentially a complex game of cat and mouse, and I enjoy every minute of it.

But, much like Action, there are a some character derailments. There aren't many, but there are a couple major ones, and they are listed below:

-The first major derailment is Leshawna completely disregarding part of her arc in Action. At the end of her run in Action, she and Heather end up becoming friends. Yet in World Tour, Leshawna is back to being all Anti-Heather. It's never explained why, so as such she ends up feeling out of character,

-The other major character derailment is Ezekial's. So during the progression of World Tour, Zeke becomes less and less human, and more and more feral. The reason: After his elimination, Zeke wanted the prize money so badly he'd do anything to get it, and during his quest his mind was turned more and more feral. While yes, Zeke's fate is a bit extreme, it isn't unjust, as some fans will have you believe. Zeke was greedy and couldn't except defeat, so he deserved some kind of karma.

Final Verdict:

Total Drama World Tour is a great season. It has great writing, pretty good character interaction, and a lot of fun episodes. Sure, there were a couple of character derailments and that love triangle was horribly written, but for the most part the season is pretty great. I give it a 5/5 stars.

Favorite Characters of the Season: Alejandro and Heather. You can't mention one without the other. Their whole storyline is one of the best in Total Drama history, and is a blast to watch, expecially for the subtltys in their relationship.

Least Favorite Character of the Season: I was gonna say Courtney, but she was only really bad in the love triangle episodes. So I'll go with Sierra. She's creepy, obsessive, and never gets karma for her actions, unless you count her elimination.

Favorite Song (What, this season had a lot of songs, so naturally I have to pick a favorite): Oh My Izzy was fairly cute and a pretty sweet song.

Least Favorite Song: A Chinese Lesson. It's repetetive, dull, and overstays its welcome. Considering it plays 7 times during the episode.

Favorite Episode of the Season: Aftermath: Revenge of the Telethon: A unique episode with a pretty funny ending.