User blog comment:KrispyBaconator/What if... Duncan never returned in World Tour?/@comment-4726418-20170715181311/@comment-4726418-20170716113949

@Stolen What was going wrong for me was that the season was almost completely devoid of drama or tension that the previous two seasons had in spades. It was almost completely comedy-focused, including the storylines, or lack thereof. Even Alejandro wasn't nearly as threatening as he was in the second half because of all the comedy surrounding and overshadowing him. The only three storylines I can think of in the first half was DJ's animal curse, Sierra and Cody's up-and-down thing going on, Lyler, and to a lesser extent Alejandro vs Heather. And all three of those were used for the purpose of comedy. People can say what they want about TDA being 'boring', but at least the first half of that season had things like Gwent's gradual break-up, DJ's alliance with Chef, and Justin's up-and-down antagonism. And even still that season fleshed out its characters much more in the first half than WT's first half. Comedy is perfectly fine but it's important to actually give some substance to a season and I'm just thrilled Duncan came back and finally provided a talking point for TD fans.

What could potentially have went wrong was Alejandro continuing to be overshadowed by comedy, the comical aspect getting old fast (it was already going a little stale for me with Noah and Tyler), and a general lack of storyline. Without Duncan, Heather would've been eliminated much sooner, Courtney and Gwen would have no stable plots or memorability (they were very unimportant in the first half fyi), and many other possibly problematic things.

I don't mind the first half but it's just so utterly forgettable for me and most of the episodes could easily be summed up as the following:

Team Victory feel upset about losing for the umpteenth time --> Lindsay motivates Team Victory to keep trying --> Comedy relating to the other team in economy class --> the winning team celebrating in first class --> the winning team having comedy relating to first class in some way --> reach location --> DJ accidentally beats the crap out of an animal --> Cody is creeped out by Sierra --> Challenge --> Alejandro manipulates someone --> Comedy --> Lyler moment for laughs --> Team Victory fail miserably due to a third-party; ALWAYS either Alejandro or DJ being the cause of it --> Team Victory's numbers get cut again.

Unless you're the first episode or an aftermath, it's very easy to sum up the first twelve episodes like this and it just got so repetitive.