User blog comment:Bigez620/Bigez's Total Drama All-Stars Analysis/@comment-1756703-20131213121800

Sadly, I agree with a lot of what you said. TDAS was, overall, a pretty weak season, especially when you consider the fact that it was supposed to be an eventful season that brought together the first-generation vets and the second-generation newbies.

I blame a lot of its faults on two things. First, the inconsistency. Like you said, a lot of the characters were inconsistent, and it really seemed like their depiction varied greatly depending on who was writing the episode. Courtney and (especially) Gwen were the biggest proofs of this. But even worse, character interactions were also quite inconsistent and poorly-written. Scourtney was way too rushed and ultimately tried too hard to be a second-rate Duncney clone, and the whole Gwentney storyline ended on such an ambiguous and unsatisfying note that it frustrated me more than anything else this season.

Believe it or not, I actually preferred Laurie Elliott's writing over all the others in TDAS; the episodes that Laurie wrote for TDAS were undoubtedly the best episodes of the season, followed closely by Saving Private Leechball. Her writing really improved this season, and I wouldn't have minded if she wrote the entire season.

The other thing that I blame TDAS's faults on is the shortened length of the season. While the writing itself wasn't that great, I understand that much of that is due to the constraints of having to deal with a lot of storylines in only 13 episodes. Believe me, I get it, and I sympathize with the writers for being tasked to do so much in so little time. I get the feeling that TDAS would have been better if expanded into a full 26-episode season like the first three seasons were; why this season and ROTI were only 13 episodes in length is something I still don't fully understand. Are the producers of this show being pushed by Cartoon Network or Teletoon into shortening the length of the season for some strange reason? Or is it something willingly done to avoid "filler" episodes? Either way, if the writing is going to be this rushed and inconsistent, they should really consider going back to the original 26-episode format.

But the shortened length of the season still doesn't excuse what is probably the biggest problem of TDAS: the blatant promotion of Zoey and Mike. Aside from their bland and uninteresting relationship (which comes across as a poor man's Gwent), the fact that Zoey was often handed victory without really earning it really got on my nerves. And when it seems like she did earn the victory, it was usually because of some inexplicable bit of godplaying that she did earlier. I mean, when you have strong characters like Courtney and Gwen being dumbed down and commenting on how good and unbeatable Zoey is, that's when you know you've got a problem on your hands. And Mike? His Mal persona came across as all bark and no bite. His style of antagonist -- the Jekyll-and-Hydeish secret alternate persona nobody expected to be the bad guy-- hasn't been seen before in Total Drama, and he had a lot of potential to be a memorable antagonist. However, much of his existence came about as a result of the dumbing down of other characters who would normally be much stronger than how they were portrayed in TDAS. Scott, Courtney, and Alejandro would have run circles around Mal in terms of both success and antagonism, but all three conveniently made uncharacteristic mistakes that Mal barely used to his advantage. Oh, and the way he was "defeated"? Ugh, don't even get me started on THAT.

But yeah. I'm really hoping that the producers of the show take note of the widespread fan discontent over TDAS and use it as a guide on how not to produce seasons in the future.