User blog:VeryUnknownFan/The Seasonal Rot of Total Drama Action (Part 2)

Hello everyone. It is me, and I am writing Part 2 of the Seasonal Rot (not necessarily my opinion, but the public’s opinion, therefore a seasonal rot) of TDA. In Part 1, I covered the issue of the missed opportunities, but in this segment, I will be discussing the issue of rehashes, the winning/losing streak, and issues with filler.

Rehashes
Well, one of the biggest complaints about this season is that it is legit just a rehash of TDI, and there is like nothing new that was added to the season to make it interesting, and I only somewhat agree with that, but there is still a lot of rehashes, and here are the examples.

Duncan and Courtney relationship



Duncan and Courtney is definitely the biggest example of this (I will make a blog sooner or later comparing them to Zoke), as their relationship is pretty much rehashed in the state that it was in TDI. It is clear that at the end of TDI, they are together, correct? Then WHY are they arguing and fighting like they hate one another, and that they are not together? From the moment Courtney debuts to the moment she is eliminated, their entire plot is whether they will get together or not………..JUST LIKE TDI. Literally nothing new was added to this relationship.

Lindsay and Beth being manipulated pawns

This isn’t an exact rehash, but a rehash nonetheless. Beth and Lindsay again find themselves in a position where they are manipulated by a more powerful, meaner, more manipulative person, and have absolutely no idea. What does this sound familiar to…………..Heather manipulating Lindsay and Beth in TDI. Unlike in the previous season, Justin is voted out before the other 2. Not a big rehash, but still a rehash.

Harold and Duncan conflict



I know that this conflict was very interesting to watch, and it is a good conflict, but it came to the point where it is just dragged out, as the same things starts to happen. Harold says something, Duncan is bored or annoyed by Harold, and does something to him, and Harold retaliates. We had this for half of TDI and almost ALL of TDA.

Owen

Owen overall is a rehash. He is still a writers pet and a screenhog without doing anything remotely interesting, all he did was fart, eat food, and make a bunch of food and flatulence jokes, and flirted with Izzy. No sense of development, and he is just a big ball of flatulence comic relief. They tried to add the spy thing at the last quarter of the season, but I covered in the last post how that amounted to absolutely nothing. And it is bad because he is in 17 episodes as a competitor.



Satellite Trent

I know that Gwent went through their issues, and they were not like how they were as a couple in TDI, but as an individual, Trent was all about Gwen, AGAIN. He was all about Gwen in TDI, and all about Gwen in TDA. It just made those claims of him having no character stronger and stronger because he never did anything that didn’t have any involvement of Gwen. Satellite character for both seasons he was in.

Izzy

<p class="MsoNormal">Izzy has and will never change. I can use the claims for Owen that I used for her. She was nothing but the cheap comic relief she was in TDI that she was in this season. Nothing new was learned about her, she was not given any depth or new storylines. She was annoying as f**k in this season, and it is a smart decision to rid of her early. When someone does the exact same thing over and over again, it gets old, and it is nothing but a rehash.

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Winning/Losing streak
This could be seen as the biggest issue with the first half of the season. I have been very against the constant winning/losing streaks that have been on seasons like this, TDWT, TDROTI, and TDPI, and I still stand firm by it. I understand that you need to get some people out pre-merge, and sometimes, having a team lose 2-3 times in a row can be funny, but this season takes it way too far.

In this teams stage of the season, there are 11 episodes/challenges (Episodes 3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,13,14, and 15), and out of all of them.......the Killer Grips win 3/11 and the Screaming Gaffers lost 3/11, also meaning that the Killer Grips lost 8/11 and the Screaming Gaffers won 8/11. This can only mean that the Gaffer winning streak/Grip losing streak takes place in many consecutive episodes. It  just gets old, because after 3:10 to Crazytown, you expect to have the Killer Grips lose every single challenge, and for the mos, it happens. Where is the suspense? Where is the surprise? Where is the drama? It is NOWHERE. It just makes things overly predictable.

And it also does not help when the Killer Grips keep on having people return/debut, to be placed on their teams, with Izzy returning and Courtney debuting on their team. All of this put together just made the first half boring, predictable, and lackluster with the teams aspect.

Filler
This kind of fits into the rehashes and maybe even the missed opportunities, but this is still something different that needs to be talked about. There are some things that are literally just there to take space in the show, and I have to say that the biggest example of this are the reward challenges.

I get it that they need the reward challenges to fit the 26 episode slot like the previous season, and I don't even mind the reward challenges, but it would have been interesting if the reward challenges gave the players an advantage or a disadvantage for the next challenge, ex, the people who did the worst on the losing team cannot vote the next time they are in elimination, or the best player on the winning team is immune in their next ceremony. Something to stir things up, but they did not do that with the reward chalenges. It is a shame really.

I felt like there are some characters who were there for far too long, and there to only take up space, and there are 2 characcters that come to mind instantly in my head; Owen and Heather. I think I kind of discussed Owen above, and why he was there to take up space, but never really got into Heather. I get it that she needed to deal with being hated by everyone, but was there really a need for her to make it midway through the season? She could have been out in Episode 10 or 7, and nothing would have changed or mattered. I am not saying that she only made it that far because she is a producer pet, but I think she should have left a lot sooner. I somewhat also think Izzy and Harold are filler. Izzy had no real reason to come back to her tham to make sure that the Grips are not wiped out, but I did cover her above as well. I might even put Harold in here minorly as well, because he really did nothing special after Leshawna left.