User blog:Gumball2/TDPI Episode Ten Reaction

So I just saw Episode Ten. How did it turn out? Will the upward curve continue?

Well we are immediately engulfed into the conflict; the island is in chaos! Furthermore, we get Sky’s emotional turmoil resulting from Dave’s elimination in a confessional…and that’s about it. It’s looking like Jasmine’s brainwashing might be getting to her, but we got more important things to deal with at the moment.

We find out that the entire island is operated entirely by a computer…

Um…why?

Given the size of this island, why would you throw so much money into its construction? You would need the budget of at least a couple blockbusters to do that. Is this set like ten years in the future? Is that why Chris is at the ancient age of thirty…question mark. How old was Chris in the previous seasons? He couldn’t have been straight out of high school because he was famous before Island. Were you building it during the production of other seasons? Why would you do that? Was the destruction of Wawanakwa planned? Were you planning to use this new island at some point? Now while it’s perfectly okay to have this concept of an artificial island, these questions should at least be addressed. Otherwise, it makes Chris look like a god who has all the money and resources in the world to build a computer the size of a town in the time four months gives. Not to say it only took four months to build, but I think we as an audience should get some closure regarding the history of this construction project.

So anyway, this island apparently has a self-destruct setting and it’s been set off or something. Something tells me it would make sense for that to be there, but as I’m writing this, questions are starting to form. I might as well go over them:

Was Chris planning to destroy the island at the end of the season? Why exactly would he put so much money in something he’s only going to use for a pre-determined period of time? Is he going to destroy it if the EPA or some other federal organization comes to investigate? If so, then it’s completely pointless because you’re already showing the island on international television and everything it can do. But then I should ask why he showed Wawanakwa as a wasteland for a whole season.

Assuming that this thing’s existence is allowed, I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that this was intentionally put there as a challenge? But the only reason the computer failed was because Max barfed on the hardware and that only happened because some bark on a tree fell off; exposing it. For a project that so much money went into, you would think that the hardware would be better protected (e.g. the “bark” would be strong enough to withstand a human running into it) and more secure (e.g. it would be vomit-proof). Also, did Chris plan to have Scarlett and Max expose that hardware? We know he planned to vomiting portion, but what about exposing the hardware part? The only logical explanation would be that Chris set up a program ahead of time that would cause this monstrosity, but the previous episode heavily implies that it was Max’s barfing that set all this off. Now that I think about it, wouldn’t it have caused such a fragile hardware to shut down rather than go out of control? How would the barf have caused that?

If I were like building Legos on a computer program and I decided to open up the hardware and vomit in it, would it start randomly putting Lego pieces there? Would it build the Eiffel Tower all by itself? That, my friends, is what this “malfunction” is like.

So we got an hour to deactivate this self-destruct thing or else everyone dies and hold on!

It went to 59 minutes when Chris was explaining the challenge, 58 when he got on his escape helicopter, then a confessional happened, and now it’s 55? What was everyone doing for 3 minutes? Are your lives not that important to you? Are you not panicking in the slightest? Were you really just standing there for three minutes doing nothing? Did someone really find it important to run to the confessional to express their fear of death instead of trying to find a way underground?

Oh yeah, speaking of that, a big problem with this episode is the confessionals. Now I’m normally fine with confessionals during the challenge. I can suspend my disbelief when contestants run to the confessional during a challenge and talk about what they’re feeling while it’s happening. But in this “challenge”, they have a strict time limit and a lot at stake. It would take too much time for them to run from the underground, into the toilet, complain about how their gonna die, and then race back; all without taking into consideration the fact that they only have an hour to do this and the fact that they have to remain focused.

“But Gumball, don’t you know they do it afterward?”

I know that real reality shows do have the confessionals afterward, but I can tell Total Drama is not a real reality show for two reasons. One, actual reality show confessionals summarize what’s going on as it’s happening. And two, cry like a blubbering baby when something emotional happens. As for the latter reason, people that are touched by emotional events will probably cry even after thinking about it. Some people are just like that.

But on Total Drama, the confessionals definitely do the first thing. And their second thing is doing some sort of gag that I guess is supposed to be funny. And trust me, there’s plenty of evidence that suggests that confessionals happen on the spot as opposed to them occurring in post-production.

But I digress. The point is I cannot tolerate this confessional business in this episode because time means everything in this situation.

<p class="MsoNormal">But let’s suppose I’m wrong. Maybe they do add everything on after the season is finished filming. Well in that case, the confessionals were still a problem because I felt like in this episode they also served to interrupt the tension. No matter when they were filmed, they still felt out of place and they personally took me out of the episode.

<p class="MsoNormal">Where has the time gone?

<p class="MsoNormal">So anyway, Max and Scarlett get to this door that leads to the control room. It can only be unlocked by electronically filling in a combination. If you’re wrong, then you get shocked. So what’s Scarlett’s plan? Short out the circuit by electrocuting Max?

<p class="MsoNormal">What?

<p class="MsoNormal">I suppose it could be justified by the apparently hindered state of the hardware, but you’re telling me that will short out the circuit? Say Chris, when you built this island, didn’t you install powerful generators to keep the island running? If you wanted to constantly monitor and control the nature of this amusement park, then shouldn’t you have a strong current of electricity? Not only that, but you’re telling me that it takes far less than an hour of shocking to do that? What if Chris was trying to do something and some contestant found his way down here? It would take five minutes of shocking to break in and hijack the place! What kind of security is that?! Given how you bother to include robot animals and laser fields, you can’t even keep a door running for more than five minutes? And don’t tell me the shocks take a big blow to the circuit either! Cartoon or not, Max would be killed with the amount of electricity coursing through him! And also, what if someone trying to break in was really determined to get the right combination?

<p class="MsoNormal">So this plan actually works and the two break in. Scarlett then reveals to Max that she really is a monster…and then she magically releases her hair bun to expose some evil-looking style. Um…are evil words not enough. Was this really necessary? You know, the best kind of evil is the one that you don’t know about…which is what you did when you tricked Max into doing stupid stuff. Just keep the bun on, alright!

<p class="MsoNormal">Tangled into this mess is Jasmine and Shawn, and I’m thinking that she has dissociative identity disorder, A.KA. Stuff Mike Does That Is Supposed To Be Funny. It’s like she has no recollection of anything regarding Shawn. And now I can tell you the Three Personas of Jasmine:

<p class="MsoNormal">There’s the Jasmine that blindly hates someone for no reason, the Jasmine that blindly loves someone for no reason, and the Jasmine that the writers wants you to believe is a good person when she really is a bad person with a get-things-done agenda and really loves humping people with her beliefs. Our heroine everyone.

<p class="MsoNormal">Everyone else is lured by Scarlett into a room full of robot Chris…es? Nobody knows what to do until Jasmine compares them to zombies. And for that reason alone, Shawn assumes the role of macho man and destroys all the robots.

<p class="MsoNormal">And Chris is like ‘A million dollars is a lot of money’ and ‘You are less than humans because you signed a piece of paper and I can do whatever I want to you. Doesn’t matter what country or time period this is’.

<p class="MsoNormal">So Scarlett is finally lured out of the control room because Max used one of the fake Chrises to make it seem like she’s getting the ransom she demanded. But how could you be so stupid Scarlett? How can you not tell by the red eyes and awkward speech that is one of the robots? Weren’t you the one that lured everyone else to the robot room? Given how smart you are, how can you not tell the robots apart from the real Chris? Okay, I guess it’s so that Chris can win…again.

<p class="MsoNormal">You know…at this point…I really want Chris to just die. Sky said it best when Shawn was obliterating the robots.

<p class="MsoNormal">So Scarlett goes home and Max talks about evil and he goes home too. Funny how he wasn’t disqualified for barfing on the hardware.

<p class="MsoNormal">Some of you might be thinking that I’m judging this episode too harshly as I went into great detail about some things, but I assure you that this is not the worst episode of the season. Does it have problems? Definitely, but there was plenty to enjoy as well. Even though the confessionals did break from the action, this episode (I admit) was enjoyable to watch. Similar to Celebrity Manhunt, this did feel like a journey. I also have to say that some of the stuff was rather creative. For example, the robot Chrises and how they turned out to only be used for promotion. I really liked that. And I also like the idea of Pahkitew Island being controlled by computers. I do have to say that it does bring some promise, even if there are a couple of episodes left.

<p class="MsoNormal">Overall, this is…good?