User blog comment:Total Drama Wiki! Wars/Week of March 8, 2015/@comment-1037137-20150308212033/@comment-4742462-20150308231548

@Fire, There are several reasons as to why this season failed aside from the problems shown on-screen:

Half of the crew who worked on Island reported jumped ship to work on the first season of Stoked which was in production at the same time resulting in new people being brought in to replace them. And it's also likely that said new people pulled an Ed (not bothering to familiarize themselves with the series beforehand which at this point was only one season)

Executive Meddling which I won't bother going into as we all know what it caused and how it would later blow up in their faces.

They made the same mistake that doomed Pahkitew Island which was no rewrites of any sort. This also blew up in their faces when they realized that Justin was a failure as a villain and picked an intentionally derailed Courtney to be his replacement to avoid having to rewrite the entire thing.

It took too long to air... But this is actually more to be blamed on the channels that aired the season than the season itself. Thanks to the season starting in Canada in January and taking a three month hiatus in June so CN could air it, the season felt more padded and dragged out than it really was by the time both countries finished it in December.

The first Aftermath really was the ideal place to give up considering how bad the one both before it and afterwards would be.