Episode 17: A Look at: The Reality TV Seasons of 2017

I am back. So a lot of things happened since my last episode and there were stuff that were not well and it stopped me from doing episodes on this blog. Because of that, there was many seasons of  reality shows that I wanted to discuss but I never got around to it. So, I decided to review all the ones I saw this year before going into the year end lists for songs. That being my Top 10 Worst Hit Songs, Top 10 Best Hit Songs, and Top 20 Best Non-Hit Songs of 2017.

I do warn you that there will be spoilers in this episode, if you haven't seen these shows then I suggest you go see them before continuing on.
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With that said, lets get into the reality shows I saw in 2017. But before I do that, there is one show I promised to discuss from last year and even did a mid-season review on it, but I never got to it. So lets get into it now.

Survivor: Millennials vs Gen-X (Season 33)

For those who don't know, Survivor is a show of taking a group of strangers and putting them into an environment with nothing, splitting them into a number of tribes, and have them survive and vote people out during the usual 39 days in order to win one million dollars. Now if there is one word that I can describe this season, then it would be "Likable". This season had one of the most likable casts in the history of the show. It gave them enough time for us to know most of them and it came hard to not want to root for many of them. Minus one that being Taylor as he filled the role of The Stereotypical Dumb Jock Douche. It had really fun moments like the blindside of Michaela, The Rock Tribal Council, The Fake Idol play, the list goes on. Players like David, Jay, Adam, and Zeke showed that they were there to play and it is fun to have a season with only a few goats. It had a slow start but it made up for it in the end.

Ranking: 8/10

Best of the Season: Jay
Honorable Mention: David
Worst of the Season: Taylor


The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions (Season 29)

MTV's The Challenge, a show that takes people from other MTV shows like "The Real World", "Road Rules" and "Are you the One?" and have compete in challenges for money through different formats like "Rivals", "Exes", and even one time with their family. This time, we have "Invasion" where we have people that have yet to win a season compete to finally become a champion of "The Challenge". The thing is: They have to compete against 8 champs who enter around the middle trying to reclaim their title. It's in interesting format, shame that they never face each other till the finale. Then again if that happened, the champs would have crushed the non-winners or "Underdogs" as they were called. There were some standout "underdogs" like newbie Nicole from "The Real World: Skeletons", Amanda from "AYTO3", Hunter from "AYTO3" and Nelson from "AYTO3". With Ashley from "The Real World: Ex-plosion" being my favourite for having the most heart and fun moments and it was nice to see her win. Especially against champion Camila who gets worse every season. But more on her later. There were some bad apples. I didn't like Kailah from *The Real World: Go big or go Home" as she was too cocky and entitled despite it being her first season. But the biggest disappointment was Theo who was my favourite from "The Real World: Bad Blood". Had the potential and end up quitting by not jumping off a cliff. How sad. But overall, it had its fun moments and it was better then "Rivals 3" but that's not saying much.

Ranking: 7/10

Best of the Season: Ashley Mitchell
Honorable Mention: CT *favourite of the 8 champs*
Worst of the Season: Theo *What disappointment*

Big Brother Canada 5

Big Brother Canada, a show about a number of houseguest entering a house for 3 months, competing in competitions and socializing themselves into the end to win $100, 000. This season had 8 newbies and 8 returning players. It was a mix season to say the least. It didn't help when some of the interesting players *Including my favourite contestant of the series, Cassandra* left early, it left people like Needlessly petty Neda, Over-the-top mean Ika, snores like Dillion, and lazy goats like Karen make it halfway if not near the end. The two saving graces were Demetres and Kevin who thankfully made the top 3. They made the season for being likable, winning the most competitions, and being smart in the game. It felt right when Kevin won the game. They made the season go to a above average mark. That and a satisfying exit from Neda.

Ranking: 7/10

Best of the Season: Kevin
Honorable Mention: Demetres
Worst of the Season: Karen
Dis-Honorable Mention: Neda.



Survivor: Game Changers (Season 34)

Another Survivor Season and this is a all-returning cast. This is supposedly a cast of players that tried to make a move to turn the game in their favor in their seasons and that's why they are here. I am calling bullshit on that as some of them like Caleb, Hali, Sierra, and even Culpepper I wouldn't call Game Changers before this season. I previously made a ranking on the cast. And man, was I wrong in that ranking. With 2-time winner Sandra making it farther then I thought, people like Tony and Malcolm making sad early exits and I didn't really hate Ozzy this season for once. The biggest shock was Brad Culpepper who was at the bottom of my ranking and end up becoming the front-runner to win even though he only got 2nd.

Now I can't talk about this season without talking about the tribal council where Jeff Varner outs Zeke as transgender on TV. It caused the fans to hate Varner. Tons of negative tweets and it even got him fired from a job and he got depressed as hell. What do I think about this? Well, I can understand what he was trying to do, try to take the target off of him and make people think Zeke is a big enough threat to vote him out and he used Zeke not taking about being transgender as a way to show him as sneaky. But he chose the wrong thing to say did not think about the consequences of his actions. I don't think Varner was trying to attack Zeke as he was clearly sorry about it, it was just a terrible mistake that he will make not to do ever again.

With that said, this season was fun to watch after a rough start with a overconfident Sandra that really got on my nerves. The winner was fine, but I will say that if anyone tells me to respect their gameplay, then they would lose my vote instantly as I don't take that kind of arrogance. Just saying.

Ranking: 6/10

Best of the Season: Cirie *It was a sad way for her to leave*
Honorable Mention: Andrea
Worst of the Season: Tai *It was luck that he made it as far as he did, as he was not a good player*.



Big Brother 19

It's Big Brother in the United States where this time the prize money is $500, 000 but same format as the Canadian version. Let me say that I have watched "Big Brother" for a long while. I watched multiple seasons and caught up with other seasons by YouTube and I got to see what the game is like. I wish to make it into "Big Brother Canada" one day as I am Canadian. So, when I say that this season is the worst "Big Brother" season I have ever seen, I mean it with every ounce of my being. It takes a big talent to have a cast of 17 players and only have one hand of people that I can tolerate. The cast was either "Horribly Bland", "Horribly Stupid". or just plain "Horrible". Thankfully it's not just me, a lot of people hate this season. I might have to do a follow up to explain in detail why I hate this season, so right now I will just say that I never want to watch this season again.

Ranking: 1/10

Least Hateable: Kevin
Worst: Matt
Dishonrable Mention: Alex/Christmas/Paul/Raven/I could go on


The Challenge: XXX: Dirty 30 *Season 30*

Ok, I know that this was the special 30th season of the show, but did it have to be so long? With that out of the way, let's talk how this season was. Well, it was interesting to say the least. It had mix of the new people and the old people that I was happy to see on my TV for the first time. The first season I saw was "Battle of the Seasons" in 2012, So I didn't see people like Derrick and Veronica until this season. And they didn't disappoint. It was weird to have a "Redemption House" 3 times throughout the season where people can just come back after being eliminated, but I wasn't against it. There were standouts with veterans like Jemmye from *The Real World: Back to New Orleans", Veronica, Leroy from "The Real World: Back to Las Vegas", and Winner of the season Jordan from "The Real World: Portland" *Yes, I don't hate Jordan, deal with it*. There was one rookie that rose to the occasion and that was Tori from "AYTO4" and she was fun to watch. Hope to see more of her in future seasons. Though there were people I did not like as well, Kailah was intolerable as before and people I used to enjoy like Cara-Maria became too entitled as well. It was sad to see her sell out as a champion. Johnny Bananas is still a annoying hypocritical kid who thankfully lost and not getting his seventh win.

Now let's talk about Camila as there is a lot to say. I said before that she got worse each season and she finally peaked with this season and spin off "Champs vs Stars" that is going on right now. Overly confident, more entitled then Cara and Kailah, and now we can add racist to the resume. After 10 years, we can't use alcohol as an excuse anymore. Especially when she never admits when she's wrong, she will blame everyone else for her actions and it is really frustrating. At this point, when she "Cries" and "Apologises" of course no one buys it for a second. It didn't stop her from going to "Champs vs Stars" where she punches a guy, steals a golf cart, and threatens to kill herself when she is told that she is going home. She has serious issues and should not be on the show. It has been said that she is banned from the show after all of this and we will not see her again as this is a bad environment for her. And with all of this, she got the biggest prize. 1st place in XXX with the prize of $450, 000. The biggest prize ever won on "The Challenge". Sometimes evil does win.

Despite Camila, and the overly long episode log, this season was decent enough. Hope "Vendattas" turns out better.

Ranking: 6/10

Best of the Season: Tori
Honorable Mention: Jordan *Sorry Cara-Maria fans*
Worst: CAMILA.

Well that was a long episode. It's not easy being a Reality TV Junkie but it happens.

Thank you all for listening. And stayed tune as The Billboard Year End list of 2017 was released today. Meaning that next is "THE TOP 10 WORST HIT SONGS OF 2017"

And I will see you then.

JM has spoken.