User blog comment:BlooKaboom/What makes a season good or bad?/@comment-25297892-20150622161216

Personally I'm fond on a season when it has:


 * A wide original cast where almost any character gets the same fair amount of attention even if it has to be an early boot, the interactions are funny, interesting and various (like conflicts, friendships, love dramas, siblings, exc..). Most of all, the season has not to focus only on the usual characters to the point to make them too used and anymore able to offer anything really new, a common error done soon after TDI, with TDA and TDWT featuring too similar mergers that disappointed the fans of those minor characters that they hoped to see in spotlight: example, Duncan merged three seasons in a row, Courtney merged both in TDA and TDWT, same did Gwen, Heather and Owen, with the result the plots were very similar to the previous already seen. Not to mention TDAS...


 * Good protagonists and antagonists. TDI was perfect under this point of view, the next seasons failed a little, on my personal point of view TDA focused too much on Beth and Justin, two characters I think can't offer that much to stand for a full season while TDAS focused more on the couples than in the single characters and Pahkitew brought Shugar too far for my nerves. A protagonist to be good has to be well developed and orchestrated, original and not generical, able to stand by itself as to interact with the Others, get many different plots in the same season arc and in the following ones, funny and deep without being excessively serious, bland, normal or on the contrary stereotypical and random. TDI Gwen/Owen and TDWT Heather are the protagonists I consider perfect. Some characters are naturally born to be protagonist, Others simply can't get this role cause of their limits: to me Beth, Cody, Zoey and Sky aren't true deserving protagonists, they're either boring or little characerized to get this, and they didn't even develop that much. An antagonist to be good has to feature the same qualities but being introduced as the negative or the anti-hero of the season, still without exceed or get ridicolously unrealistic for his/her strategies (like Scott, the "team killer") OR for his actions and character (like Justin, who was more of a deadlock for his team than Owen and Trent OR those two failures of Mal and Scarlett) BUT MOST IMPORTANT a good antagonist has not to be too much annoying, of course, we're supposed to hate him/her, but let's make a distinguish: Heather and Alejandro were obnoxious but Worth strategists, TDA Courtney and Shugar were just annoying and just the fact they lasted so much in the game increased my annoyance for them.


 * Good location, possibly realistic: Toxic Wawanakwa and Robo-Pahkitew, just no. Location also means there's a theme behind, and TDA was a flop for this.


 * Challenges: challenges are the true core of a reality show, meanwhile interactions and alliances are the surface, it's difficult to classify which challenges are good and which bad, just say they have not to be rushed or rehashed from previous one, and possibly they have to respect the theme and the location and offer possibility for plots and fun. Total Drama Action theme was movie and set, but most of the challenges didn't stick that much to cinema and also they were rehashes of previous TDI ones, like the horror one while challenges like war, space, kung fu and jail were as rushed as really unoriginal. They could have done more.


 * Plots and Continuity