u/MsBitPlayer

Happy Sunday, don’t have future wage slaves guys.

In my opinion of course. If you feel differently let me know. I’d like to hear other thoughts.

• Run Time - Even though the general consensus is that longer seasons are “better”, I believe World Tour’s run time works against its favor. Because Alejandro & Heather are the most obvious final two in the shows history, it becomes uninteresting watching as the other contestants are eliminated one by one to prolong the inevitable. By late pre-merge, it’s obvious Heather is the protagonist and will reach the end. Had WT been a 13 episode season, it wouldn’t feel like a dragged-on slog to get through. Pahkitew Island by contrast has a final two that is less obvious and that makes for a more fun final showdown. The season also doesn’t go on and on and on …. It’s easier to jump in and rewatch Pahkitew from start to finish with its unpredictable F2 vs enduring the slow, predictable, showdown that is WT’s intended F2.

• The A Plot Overshadows The B/C Plots - One of my main gripes with WT is that the plot line of AleHeather overshadows all the other plots too much. Almost every other character in WT suffers either derailment or a lack of focus in tying their storylines together in a satisfying or earned way. Most of the B & C plots of World Tour don’t exist to add the overall experience, but rather are only there to act as placeholders for Heather or Alejandro to get further in the game. Pahkitew Island on the other hand juggles multiple B/C plots with no real A plot in sight, and although they don’t completely land the plane (pun intended), no storyline ever feels it got shafted in favor of the main storyline. The Amy/Samey plot may be a counterpoint, but that plot line had a conclusion that made sense, whether we liked it or not. It never felt like Samey was eliminated to push Sky or Shawn further, but rather that Samey’s problems caught up with her. She got Amy out through an underhanded tactic, and later suffered for it. By contrast, what in the world was going on in WT with Bridgette suddenly acting out of character to fall for Alejandro after being inseparable from Geoff in Action? Or DJ being tortured by animals out of no where, after being shown to be an animal lover in Island with his pet bunny? Why did the girls on team Victory fall for Alejandro, when they already competed previously with Justin who deployed similar tactics? Even the Love Triangle has Gwen, Duncan, & Courtney turning their toxic traits up to eleven to justify Heather sneaking by through merge. The writers wrote these plots for drama, but actual interesting drama has its seeds planted and unravels organically. WT has characters either become flanderized (Harold, Izzy), act entirely out of character (Bridgette/Gwen), suffer pointless cruelty (DJ, Cody), exist in a vacuum (Sierra, Noah), or retread previous dynamics (Leshanwa, Courtney) to orchestrate drama.

• World Tour is Genre Blind - Lastly, the biggest reason why PI is better than WT, is that PI doesn’t pretend to be anything more than what it is. PI is a heavily exaggerated, borderline parody satire of Total Drama itself. The season places its comedy at the forefront, from the very first episode. And so, it should come to no surprise that the characters act in ways that will prioritize humor over actual game moves or basic logic. Yes Scarlett goes turbo evil and throws her calm, collected logic out the window in Scarlet Fever, because the show never wanted you to take her seriously. If you were, you were missing the point. Yes Dave goes insane at the end and tries murdering Sky, because the writers wanted to turn his character label of the Normal Guy upside down and show that he was anything but normal. Yes, the contestants are blasted out of a cannonball, because it’s the 6th season and the show is poking fun at the increasingly ridiculous exit methods. Yes, Chris has a permanent smile and has his sadistic nature turned up to eleven, because he’s a caricature at this point after hosting this show for so long. Pahkitew Island never takes itself seriously, and neither should you. World Tour takes itself too seriously, while also relying on a decreased attention to detail from the viewers. It wants you to take Alejandro seriously as this mastermind villain, why simultaneously dumbing down characters’ IQs and ignoring previous character development from Island & Action. (The same reason Mal is hated in All-Stars, is conveniently ignored for Alejandro in World Tour). The season tries to make up for this with its comedy being its cruelty, but that doesn’t work. The writers try to wrap up loose ends with over the top cruelty or “dark humor” while also trying to write a storyline that requires the fragile stability of viewers ignoring how lackluster everything else outside of AleHeather is.

World Tour ends up feeling like: “AleHeather, featuring a derailed Gwen, Duncan, & Courtney and everybody else too I guess …” vs Pahkitew Island actually being a new, original, and fun season.

- Pahkitew Island freaking clears -

• Team Victory Elimination Congo - Such obvious fodder for the writers and they couldn’t even mask it. Once Bridgette is out, you know it’s a matter of time before the rest of them follow one by one. And the sad part is that this team consisted of contestants who really needed more storylines to flesh out their characters more.

• Overly Cruel - The increased mean spiritedness is off-putting. Almost even elimination has a touch of unnecessary hostility (Al moving Leshanwa’s hand, Lindsay hitting her head and legs, DJ still being attacked by animals even after he’s out, Gwen dropping while suffering from an allergy reaction, Sierra blowing up when trying to do a kind gesture, Owen being kicked out, Courtney & Blaineley being shoved out of the plane). And then there’s Alejandro being burned to a crisp, Blaineley being put in a full body cast, and so on. One of the only times the cruelty is kinda justified is Cody’s elimination since it’s a cruel character using cruel methods to eliminate the competition.

• Ezekiel’s Unfair Transformation - Speaking of cruelty, Ezekiel is the butt monkey of this season by far. With him becoming more & more monstrous as the season goes on. And I guess the show’s justification for this is … he deserves it because he’s annoying? Such unnecessary punishment for a contestant who’s not even malicious. At least Dakota came to terms pretty quickly with her transformation, but Ezekiel’s pain is played completely for laughs, and the joke isn’t funny.

• Sierra isn’t a fully developed character - Outside of her Cody obsession, Sierra is barely a character. Her actions in the story don’t live up to her character label, and she’s just an extension of Cody or more accurately a shield for him to get further in the game. This is a massive disappointment considering Sierra’s potential as a character. While she doesn’t have to be written antagonistically, much could have been done with her “uber-fan” status. She could have been a great strategic force to throw Alejandro & Heather off their game with her knowledge. Yet, they don’t nothing with that aspect of her, and only have her stalk Cody. That’s pretty sloppy for a 4th place contestant. Sierra should have had more overall impact on the overarching story, not just Cody. Especially since there’s no real payoff to their dynamic, with Cody neither completely accepting her or rejecting her.

• Sierra doesn’t face consequences - Furthermore, Sierra herself doesn’t face any real punishment for stalking and harassing Cody. Yeah, some of the characters are weirded out by her and call her out for this. But there’s no consistent disapproval of her creepiness toward Cody. Her actions are played for laughs, when if things were reversed, it wouldn’t even be aired. The writers try to give Sierra her punishment when she accidentally blows herself up, but this doesn’t really work. Total Drama has a habit of letting their villains & unkind characters evade responsibility just to have an epic fail at the end. This can work in theory, like with Alejandro. Since he’s the big villain of WT, and we want to see his epic fall. But Sierra isn’t the main antagonist, and doesn’t need a grand defeat in the form of the plane blowing up. She just needs to be called out for her depravity, repeatedly, by the other characters in the story.

• Blaineley Joins For Nothing - Blaineley debuting is just all around pointless. She doesn’t do much that amounts to anything significant. It’s almost as bad as Owen’s Action return. And while Owen’s return came at the expense of Harold & Lindsay’s progression, at least there was a storyline involved in it. Blaineley joining is just a distraction, and the screen time should have either went to developing Sierra Individually, or just Blaineley continuing more of her drama on Aftermath.

• Duncan’s Return - Much has already been said about the Love Triangle (which actually isn’t an inherently bad plot), but Duncan returning does hinder some of the more interesting aspects of WT. Tyler & Noah specifically are the unfortunate victims of the writers needing to insert Duncan back into the main storyline, after already being a main character for 2 seasons in a row. And worse of all, he makes it to the final four yet again this season. This isn’t to say there wasn’t any good things that came out of his rejoin, but at the expense of Tyler & Noah is pretty disappointing.

A lot of the songs are also hit and miss, but that’s more subjective than an objective criticism. But WT had a lot of flaws that fans overlook because AleHeather is good. If everything else surrounding your main storyline is mid at best, is the season really good? Or is the season good because the main storyline works and that’s all that matters?

So do y’all like or dislike her? I mostly see hate for her tbh, but I think she’s iconic and filled her role perfectly. She didn’t need to debut as a contestant though.

Y’all thoughts on Dave?

I know a lot of people hate him, his arc with Sky, and what he becomes by the end of the season. But, I like how the writers wrote him to at first be the straight man to the crazy of Pahkitew Island, only to be the craziest by the end of the season. Dave is a bad person, good character. And a good example of an unlikable character done right (unlike Amy or Mal).

She knew what she was doing and got out early and that was the best decision anyone not named (Mike or Zoey) could’ve made.