User blog:CheeseBurgerGuy/Total Drama Season Ideas

As some of you know, I had planned to do a My Universe series, which would've included brand new season themes. One day I might go back to it in full, but today, I thought I'd share some of these ideas with you. Originally I was going to do episode by episode, challenge by challenge, but I realize that doesn't really work. It's too much time and at that rate I might as well be doing the full seasons. I'm only going to be giving concepts here and certain things that I believe to be important. With that out of the way, let's get started.

Total Drama Lockdown
Total Drama tarted off as a parody of Survivor. With World Tour and Ridonculous Race, the franchise dipped it's toe into the Amazing Race. But what about other big reality TV competitions? The one that most obviously comes to mind is Big Brother.

Trying to fit a full-season of Big Brother into a 30 minute,  26 episode season might seem like a lot of work, but I think it has potential. There is a lot of things you can do with this concept, and I have divided those challenges into two categories.

The first category is direct parodies of challenges from Big Brother. This one is pretty simple and the riffs are obvious. You staple challenges like OTEV, Zing-Bot, Hide and Go Veto, and BB Comics. There also room for parody for smaller but notable challenges such as the Pressure Cooker, Bowlerina, BB Flix and Chill, Majority Rules, and so on. Big Brother of challenges and I'm sure you could make a season with this category alone.

However, the second category has just as many prospects: original challenges based on the Mansion/Complex theme. Of course there are movie games and movies that are ripe to have parodies too (specifically looking at Resident Evil/House of the Dead, CLUE, and Home Alone). This could also be based on the types of rooms or jobs you would find in a mansion. Rooms included are the Ballroom, Conservatory, Dinning Room, Theatre, etc. If you wanted to you could also have a few outside games associated with the upper class such as Golf.

For example, one I came up with was an endurance comp, where the contestants would have to serve Chris and Chef until they dropped. Those that did would join in the fun of being waited on. It's a direct parody of the maid and butler concept.

Add in the Big Brother game format and you have a season that would for sure stand out from the others.

Total Drama Academy
Alright. I know basically every single Total Drama fan has recommended this season, but it cannot be understated the potential this season has.

Firstly, you've got a really easy theming of using Survivor's Brains vs Brawn vs Beauty. This is high school after-all and those are the main cliques. It would also be great to see another three team season.

As for challenges, you can base them off the various academic subjects and general school related activities. When it comes to subjects, I would also probably look towards the fields of study in college to give a broader range of potential topics. For example, instead of just science you have Astronomy and Geography (yes, it's a science), Chemistry, Biology, and so on. Another example is how history could address different time periods or areas of the world. When it comes to activities you talent shows and sports and school festivals. There's also riffing on other types of schools such as military schools or religious private schools or even home schooling.

I know this isn't as long as the last idea, but I feel this one speaks mostly for itself. In fact it seems so obvious I'm surprised they didn't ever go through with it unless they wanted to do some sort of slice of life (regular high school) thing.

Total Drama For Hire
This leads right off of the last one and would be great to a sequel. Going back to the original reality show concept of what's left to parody, I kept thinking of the Celebrity Apprentice. While I know if a direct parody is the most tasteful thing right now, the idea of having challenges based on real jobs makes a lot of sense. There are plenty of different jobs to parody, ranging from things like medical or police/fire (I mean, look at all the TV shows about them already) to simple construction or babysitting or retail.

Furthermore, Total Drama can again take a parody from Survivor and do one big potential theme when it comes to teams they haven't yet: Guys vs Girls. Survivor has done it twice, and using the background of "blue collar" vs "pink collar" to divide teams would be a great (and really the only) excuse for Total Drama to do it. This kind of builds off World's Apart that had the division by collar job as well (though that season avoided gender).

i also lead in from Academy would be perfect, making for a great duology (especially if this was a new cast that got two seasons to shine on their own before going for another All-Stars). Heck, this is one of the few seasons you could do two full-seasons of and probably not have too much trouble coming up with challenges.

Lastly, this would be a great way to give final cameos to the original contestants if they decided to age them out. I mean, we could get to see what they do for a living and see a glimpse into how their lives are going...well until that All-Stars season I mentioned and one other idea.

Total Drama Studios
I've got no good name for this one since Land sound too much like Island, but this is supposed to be a Theme Park Parody. I thought about having a movie parody season on it's own (as a sequel to Action), but realized a lot of the rides in these parks already are. I picked the name studio to riff off Universal, saying that Chris built the theme park as an attachment to the Action Backlot.

Of course you can have challenge based off famous rides such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Tower of Terror, Splash Mountain, Small World...I just realized I listed all Disney stuff but I'm sure there are other things to riff as well. For example, as I mentioned the backlot, maybe have the contestants give guests a Studio Tour of the places from Action (I mean perfect nostalgia right there).

I've got also got a great gimmick for this season so here me out. This Park would be a real place McLean opened for business and the season is a self-promotion. The show would start on opening day, with people being chosen at "random" as the gates of the park. While not to the extent of Sierra, these would all be fans of Total Drama...I think you know where I'm going with this. Welcome to Total Drama's Fans vs Favorites Parody. Yes, thank you for your praise, I'll be here until who knows when.

In all seriousness, the potential here is still fairly strong even without the Fans vs Favorites concept, and that's why it's here.

Total Drama Virtual Reality
This is the last topic I will be covering for today. It's here for a few reasons. Firstly, of course, is that video games are ripe for parody potential. Without even going into specific games you already have the different genres. I would argue this would actually be the easiest to come up with strong challenges for. I mean, each genre is kind of straightforward. The platforming game parody challenge would be a race to the end with a lives system (or which team can get the most members to the end before running out of lives and time). That alone would be enough to say this season is great, but there's one other.

Speaking of lives, it would allow for outrageous challenge and dark comedy with having the contestants die because it's just a video game...and no, we aren't pulling the whole "if you die in the game you die in real life joke" unless it's for the finale to really raise the stakes.

In Virtual Reality, you can modify your bodies however you want. A late 20 year old can easily look like their teenage self. Those who wouldn't get cameos in For Hire could compete here. I mean, yeah, they'll act like the adults they really are, but this would be the most realistic way to bring them back while not pretending time doesn't affect our favorite characters. I don't know if this would be the last season of the show, but I would call this a true generation crossover. I mean, you have the console generations, so dividing teams by the generation in which they appeared on the show would be common sense right?

Most of these ideas feel really good to me, but I think I feel the strongest about VR.

Final Thoughts...For Now
I had a few more season ideas for Total Drama in the back of my mind, but I haven't really fleshed them out yet and most are far removed from the semi-grounded universe that Fresh has based the franchise in, but I might come back to this in a few days. I mean, I kind of already written up concepts for five original seasons (more than the actual show had), so I think I'm entitled to a break.

Before I go I also want to apologize in advance if there's anyone out there who feels like I took their idea. i didn't mean to take anything from anyone but I know that with series such as Academy I'm not the first one to think of it. I tired to put my own unique spin on things but you never know.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about which seasons you liked in the comments, though I'm leaving a poll to see which one you liked the most. It's been a while since I ended one of these like this so thank you reading if you made it this far. I appreciate this community and that there is someone out there who might be interested.

Which of These Seasons Do You Like The Most? Lockdown Academy For Hire Studios Virtual Reality