Total Drama: Pahkitew Island

[Jjs Goodman]

Since we have a topic for every Total Drama series, might as well make this. This has been airing on CN since July 7th, and will be airing weekdays until July 18th. So yeah, discuss and stuff.

 

Spoiler

I've already seen all 13 episodes online in Italian, and I already know who wins the season (granted it could be different for the English version). I won't spoil anything, but if you really really want to know and don't mind being spoiled, PM me (or if you want some other spoiler-y info).

[terminoob]

Lovin' it so far. As of episode 3, I only hate Sugar - which is a plus, since I usually hate a lot more characters. Shawn's my pick to win.

[So Sejima]

Lovin' it so far. As of episode 3, I only hate Sugar - which is a plus, since I usually hate a lot more characters. Shawn's my pick to win.

THANK YOU SUGAR IS ANNOYING AS HECK!

Why did

Spoiler

Beardo

have to go first though? He was the best contestant ever.

[terminoob]

THANK YOU SUGAR IS ANNOYING AS HECK!

Why did

Spoiler

Beardo

have to go first though? He was the best contestant ever.

 

Spoiler

 

I was more pissed because of how they wrote him. I would've been fine with him going first if they made him an actual character and not just some non-entity that was just fodder. It makes them seem really lazy.

[SpongeOddFan]

thoughts on this season? and final 2 eps?

[terminoob]

I loved it. My top season, for sure.

My only gripe was Scarlett. I thought she was terrible. I want them to go back to villains like Heather and Alejandro. I'm tired of the villains being legitimately evil.

[Clappy]

I still need to see the episode where Sugar gets eliminated, but it's not like it really matters in the end.  Sugar was the obnoxious antagonist, but more on that later.  I expected a Sky-Shawn finale after seeing Jasmine get eliminated.  Even then, a Sky-Shawn finale was inevitable.  I called it nearly six or seven episodes in.  They were going to have two of the power couples in the finals no matter what to me.

 

That being said, this was far more of an improvement over the mediocre "All-Star" season.  This made up for what the 13 episode Revenge characters lacked.  Development.  While I do wish that Beardo and Leonard got developed instead of being the "annoying easy target eliminations", I felt like nearly everyone else got their proper time....somewhat.

 

Amy/Samey - I'm pairing these two together obviously, but I liked how Amy's arrogance actually got the better of her while we watched Samey become more complex by illegally being a contestant.  I even approved of the storyline ending the way it did with both of them meeting their timely elimination.  I hope to see both of them back as a team in the Ridiculous Race tbh.

 

Rodney - I laughed at his one-sided romances.  Didn't see him going far and glad he didn't.  Wished that the other two easy targets of Leonard and Beardo became more than just annoyances like Rodney here.

 

Ella - I love her.  I want more Ella.  She obviously stood no chance but she always put a smile on my face with her songs and just her over the top cuteness.  I've been a sucker for her character since I first read up on it.  She only went up in my books with her fantastic elimination.

 

 

More Ella please.

 

Topher - Now here is someone who I think went past his expiration date two or three episodes too late.  I started out loving his suck up ass-kissing gimmick to Chris, but I felt like his evolution into wanting to replace Chris was too forced.  Should have eliminated him before Ella tbh since they could have done much more with the Dave-Sky-Ella triangle tbh.

 

Dave - Now here is someone who has potential to be an antagonist on a future season.  I groaned when I heard they were going to make him "the normal guy" and immediately thought that they were going to hook him up with a slightly less cartoonish character of the bunch like Sky.  Turned out I was right.  What I didn't expect was him losing his sanity.  Being a germophobe I liked.  What I liked even more was his evolution into being just flat out crazy.  I absolutely did not expect the reason for him and Sky not ending up together the way it happened and that's what I want to see out of these main pairings.  Complexity.  That's what made Dave-Sky better than Mike-Zoey.  More on that later when I talk about Sky.

 

Scarlett - I'm with terminoob.  I'm tired of these villains being legitimately evil.  At least make them evil for the sake of wanting to win a million bucks "socially".  Don't want to see her back.  At all.

 

Max - At least he was humorously evil.  Didn't mind him as much as I did Scarlett; yet again, his character only lasted as long because of the eventual Scarlett pay off.  Wouldn't mind seeing Max back, but only as a one-off character.  He shouldn't have lasted that long.

 

Jasmine - I liked her, but more because Shawn-Jasmine was easily my favorite couple of this season and the past couple seasons (outside of Heather-Alejandro).  Jasmine herself was fine though.  The natural born leader survivalist character (plus her tall Amazon body) really made her stand out from the start and the accent grew on me easily since I love Australian accents.  Kinda wish she became more accepting of Shawn's zombie survival traits tbh since Shawn was able to change for her, but we'll see that probably the next season since they'll obviously be back.

 

Sugar - Annoying antagonist.  Hated her.  I think we were all suppose to end up hating her since we all hate Honey Boo-Boo...or so we are suppose to think.  Wouldn't mind seeing an interaction with Owen since I think it's inevitably coming since they both are overweight, flatuant, and go for gross out humor.  But I hated that she ended up making it as far as she did.  Or I think we were suppose to hate that element so it made more sense to make her go that far.  Her longevity was surprising.

 

Sky - You know why Sky is better than Zoey?  Because Sky was at least given a personality.  Zoey was boring.  She was "the all-americancanadian girl".  Which lets face it.  They give that personality to any character on any television show ever if they have nothing about them that really stands out.  Sky is an athletic, competitive, over-cautious girl.  Maybe if they applied one of these traits to Zoey, she would have been more memorable to me.  I actually liked Sky because they didn't have her out to be normal female with a heavy amount of screen time.  She became more complex.  I want to see where this shipping with Dave goes.  Whether it ends the way it did or not.  I am curious, unlike any emotion that I felt for Mike-Zoey...sorry that I keep bringing them up so much, but least interesting shipping TD has ever done....even more so than Gwent.

 

Shawn - Absolutely surprised me that he ended up winning the whole thing when I first found out.  I would have never thought that someone with an obsession over the zombie apocalypse would win the whole thing, but I'm glad he did.  His character grew on me easily and he became the best character of the season (sorry Ella).  His shipping with Jasmine made sense as soon as their characters interacted.  The way his character developed was perfect.  Shawn was the best character and I can't wait to see more of him on this show since I feel like I'm not the only one who became as big a fan of Shawn on this show.

 

Oh and on one more character summary note, Chris wore out on me this season.  Especially the last five episodes.  Primarily Scarlett Fever.  I get that he thinks "contestants in pain = $$$$$", but there were times where that really wore thin like the island being in danger of self-destructing or robots killing contestants to name a few.  At least in previous seasons, there were instances were Chris at least had common sense to know "lawsuits", "the fate of the show", etc.  You know, I think Scarlett Fever in general just made me sick of Chris.  Hopefully his character grows back on me again since it was some of the highpoints of the previous two for me.  Oh and writers, give Chef more lines.  The man needs more than just one or two lines per episode...or in plenty of cases this season, none.

 

So yeah, I would probably rank Pahkitew Island as my third favorite season of the show (or half season...you get the point).  I'll go into more detail another post/day as to why it's ahead of Action, Revenge, All-Stars, but it's a good season when I like most of the characters involved and they get fair-perfect development.  More please. 

[terminoob]

I'll piggy-back off of the development thing that Clappy brought up.

I really think this team of writers would've been better suited with parodying a show like The Real World instead of Survivor. I thoroughly enjoy them going to extremely cartoonish lengths, and I also thoroughly enjoy Chris and Chef, but this season was not Survivor. This was an ABC Family original drama.

Total Drama Island was what the show should be. It wasn't the most perfect season, but I thought it did most everything right. It was teen Survivor, no doubt. They had the over-stuffed cast with non-entity characters, they had a very decent merge, and they had an antagonist who was actually trying to play the game. They should've stuck with this formula. It worked the best. They intertwined characters really well, they built up the relationships pretty believably, and everyone at the merge seemed like a real group of contestants. And the best part? They didn't sacrifice anything for plot. It felt like an unscripted show. It was surprising like Survivor. 

World Tour was where things got dicey, because they did something that they did again in Pahkitew Island and it was a bad move. They built a character up to be eliminated and then didn't eliminate them. In World Tour, Team Amazon hated Heather. And then they lost a challenge. And they voted her out. And then she didn't leave. That's bad writing. The writers gained nothing by doing that. We knew everyone hated Heather, we knew everyone would've voted her out if they got the chance, so we didn't need to see it happen. It was poor writing, because she got saved at the last second because it was actually a reward challenge, which was also poor writing: if it's a reward challenge, then you specify it's a reward challenge. There's no reason why they need to save that until the end, because it seems like lazy writing.

Pahkitew Island did it again. They had Max's trap end up being used on his own team. And then he got voted out. And then the writers couldn't think of a good way to save him, so they had Chris eliminate Ella instead and then the next episode was a team swap because no one won the challenge because there was no way Max's team would lose and not vote him out, and then the following episode was the merge. It was so bad. You don't do that. You come up with a way to eliminate Ella on her own without having Max be hated, and then it doesn't seem like bad writing when the teams switch. And then there was the thing with Chris deciding a lot of the eliminations. Ella, Amy/Samey, Max/Scarlett, and interfering with Topher so he got voted out (and Sugar, I guess, if you want to count that). 6 (or 7) of the 13 eliminations were because of Chris. You just don't do that.

Pahkitew Island had a very disjointed cast to boot. They paired off and did their own thing and never interacted with anyone outside of their own small group. There was a lot of chemistry between certain groups of characters, but put together in the merge there was nothing. Sugar was the unifying factor, and she wasn't strong enough to bridge the characters. Like I said, the characters were written really well. They seemed like real characters and were really morally gray and neutral instead of clearly being good or evil like the majority of the original cast (all the "neutral" characters seemed to be voted out early, and then from Harold until the end it was like everyone was either one or the other).

They really understood character this season, and I commend them for finally doing that and having a good chunk of the cast feel like real people, but the elimination is the point of the show. They overlook that part all too often, and while the characters get great development, they still need an elimination because that's the format of the show. It's gotten to the point where I don't care who goes home, I just want to watch the characters. The writers did an amazing job with 6Teen because that was just about people and there was nothing that needed to happen by the end of each episode, and I want them to go back to that type of show because I started caring more about the characters themselves instead of who's taking home the million dollars.

[SpongeyKid]

This season was great! And I also loved the fact that they aired an episode a day. My favorite character would have to be Jasmine. I was so disappointed when she got eliminated! It was stupid Sugar's fault! 

 

Nonetheless, I do hope she wins the next season she's in. Anyways, I wasn't surprised that Sky made it to the finale, but I was surprised that Shawn made it to the finale. I actually thought he'd be an early boot but he actually won O_O I don't have any problems with him but kind of like Beth, I still would've preferred someone else to take his spot or something.

 

As for the rest of the characters, most of them were awesome but then there were some characters like Beardo and Leonard that were wasted potential and could've been executed better. (I do admit, I think Leonard is hilarious. Force Field! ) I also didn't like how Max was actually pure evil instead of being something like Heather or Al. Really, pure evil? Max is funny but damn. And as for Scarlett. Why'd they have to ruin her by making her evil like Max? If she does come to another season, she better stay how she was before her transformation or not come at all

 

Then there's the actual island. I do admit, having the island be mechanical or fake was a descent twist but I'd prefer the island to you know........ stay normal?

 

So it makes me wonder what the next season will be. Will it take place on Pahkitew Island? A different island?

 

I myself am sure hoping that for next season, they decide to do something similar to Action and World Tour where they DON'T go on an island. Do something special, IDK, Total Drama City, or on the beach or something Be creative people!

 

Yeah, that was my opinions on the season. I thought it was really good, despite some flaws.

[terminoob]

This season was great! And I also loved the fact that they aired an episode a day. My favorite character would have to be Jasmine. I was so disappointed when she got eliminated! It was stupid Sugar's fault! 

 

Nonetheless, I do hope she wins the next season she's in. Anyways, I wasn't surprised that Sky made it to the finale, but I was surprised that Shawn made it to the finale. I actually thought he'd be an early boot but he actually won O_O I don't have any problems with him but kind of like Beth, I still would've preferred someone else to take his spot or something.

 

As for the rest of the characters, most of them were awesome but then there were some characters like Beardo and Leonard that were wasted potential and could've been executed better. (I do admit, I think Leonard is hilarious. Force Field! ) I also didn't like how Max was actually pure evil instead of being something like Heather or Al. Really, pure evil? Max is funny but damn. And as for Scarlett. Why'd they have to ruin her by making her evil like Max? If she does come to another season, she better stay how she was before her transformation or not come at all

 

Then there's the actual island. I do admit, having the island be mechanical or fake was a descent twist but I'd prefer the island to you know........ stay normal?

 

So it makes me wonder what the next season will be. Will it take place on Pahkitew Island? A different island?

 

I myself am sure hoping that for next season, they decide to do something similar to Action and World Tour where they DON'T go on an island. Do something special, IDK, Total Drama City, or on the beach or something Be creative people!

 

Yeah, that was my opinions on the season. I thought it was really good, despite some flaws.

 

There's The Ridonculous Race, which is a "spin-off" of Total Drama and parodies The Amazing Race. No clue when it's coming out, though.

[SpongeyKid]

There's The Ridonculous Race, which is a "spin-off" of Total Drama and parodies The Amazing Race. No clue when it's coming out, though.

Yeah, I've heard of that. I hope we get some info on it soon.

[SG19]

There's The Ridonculous Race, which is a "spin-off" of Total Drama and parodies The Amazing Race. No clue when it's coming out, though.

Probably sometime next year. The Wiki says 2015, but not everybody trusts Wikipedia.

[terminoob]

Yeah, I've heard of that. I hope we get some info on it soon.

 

Allegedly it'll be the biggest cast yet, featuring mostly newbies but also a few returning characters. I don't remember who they said would host it, but I know it's not Chris or Topher.

[SpongeyKid]

Allegedly it'll be the biggest cast yet, featuring mostly newbies but also a few returning characters. I don't remember who they said would host it, but I know it's not Chris or Topher.

Cool! I think I also heard somewhere that they're going back to the 26 episode format ? Not sure if that's correct but if it features the biggest cast yet then it should be 26 episodes or so.