Total Drama World Tour

[storytime7]

Uh, not really.

Okay, i'll just watch any episode then and give my opinion on it later.

[ExKizuna]

I just started watching this show again. Still as awesome as before.

[70s]

I just started watching this show again. Still as awesome as before.

I've only watched one ep. from the new season. I'm really hoping TDA comes out on DVD, then I'll catch up on World Tour on Youtube.

[ExKizuna]

I've only watched one ep. from the new season. I'm really hoping TDA comes out on DVD, then I'll catch up on World Tour on Youtube.

I hated the early TDA eps, so ill probably just skip over that dvd.

[Clappy]

ZOMG! Do not even get me started on Total Drama World Tour!!!!!

Can't wait for the new eppy tomorrow, but I am positive DJ is the next to go home (and no I do not know of any spoilers )

[4EverGreen]

"Total Drama World Tour" was a totally AWESOME season for the "Total Drama" series! I hope it comes out on DVD just like "Total Drama Island," with a bunch of cool extras in it for other people who might have missed out on it!

[Steel Sponge]

Post deleted.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Steel Sponge

[SG19]

Meh, I honestly preferred World Tour over Action. Sure, Sierra as well as Courtney (she was worse in Action, though) bugged me and the elimination order was controversial, but it brought back some of the drama and danger that made Island so interesting. For once, Heather had competition. I also liked the global challenges setting and didn't mind the musical numbers because most of the contestants were less than thrilled about being forced to make up their own songs, which is not necessarily easy. There were enough amusing moments to satisfy me, especially with Noah, who had more of a personality than he did in Season 1.

[Clappy]

I mean no offense or anything, but...yeah, I didn't watch World Tour in its entirety and really any enough episodes, but I'm apparently gripping about my opinion on this season being worse than Action.

-SURE Noah was hillarious, SURE Cody was in that season and made the Final 3, but...

-I kind of find the eliminations unfair. I mean, Team Victory won some challenges, but guess who flawlessly loses each contestant one by one. As for Team Amazon, we've waiting until the 16th episode till somebody had to go.

-I CANNOT STAND ALEJANDRO. He's good at being an antagonist, but to me, Alejandro is like...

A very likeable villain.

A near excuse for being a character for anybody to just stare at.

A near excuse for being a character for any of the contestants to just stare at. (Well, like Justin...)

Sure he has some flaws, but I still see him as a Marty Stu, the way he actually got Noah (a fan favorite) eliminated, manipulate any other contestant radiantly, as well as avoiding elimination, and actually winning in Canada.

The only karma he got? Trampled on.

-Sierra seems like a turn-off as well. While symbolizing a diehard Total Drama and Cody fan, I'm unsure it works out very well.

-Courtney after Episode 13. I mean, if I actually watched this whole "Duncan breaking up with her" arc, I'd have myself ready at gunpoint through her whole complaining.

-I actually watched Hawaiian Punch, and oh god....that was supposed to be a miraculous ending? Heather and Al making the Final 2, Ezekiel destroying the million bucks, the volcano erupting forcing the contestants to evacuate and Alejandro being remolded as the Drama Machine?

I need to watch this season more, but I'm expecting I won't like it. I like the songs, Noah was a clever addition to the season, the Team Chris roster interests me, but I've inserted my few cents.

You also want to know my big shocker? I'm fine with Duncan and Gwen, but I'm still interested with Duncan and Courtney. SURE the couple is now apart, SURE they've broken up several times, but I'm just more obliged with that.

How does all of this make World Tour worse than Action?

[Steel Sponge]

How does all of this make World Tour worse than Action?

 

Don't mind 2012 Steel over there, I'll be honest and say that I've haven't seen most of that season for those pieces of criticism to meet my standards of a complete review. When I'm done with the entire season, you'll see a review. (And that would also mean I would finally continue my animated reviewing thread...) So my opinion stemmed from spoiling myself. Cruel honesty right there. And for that, now I better finish that season ASAP and show off a better opinion.

 

I can see Action being considered the worst season so far, and that's an understatement. In my eyes? It's okay. Fair, adequate, not half bad, as in my way of saying that it was "okay." An example of my positives include Duncan in the Final 2 and more screentime and details for Beth, Harold, and Justin, among others. My negatives include the lack of excitement and the time/episode fillers.

[Steel Sponge]

Now that I've finished watching World Tour since last month, now would be a good time to actually review it like I've been meaning to for a long time. Other than being a long analysis on the season, this review won't put it in a very positive light, just so that you guys have been warned:

Spoiler

Speaking of positives, let's talk about some good that I have found in this season first.

Positives:

Heather: If there's one character in the Final 4 that I was completely on-board with seeing as a finalist, it was definitely Heather. She's had one of the best character arcs throughout the season, as World Tour portrays her as someone who became disliked by almost every one of her castmates since getting eliminated in Island to becoming enough of a formidable foe to make it into the Final 2, due to her rivalry and secret admiration of a newcomer who has some things in common with her, but got along with most of the other contestants, before she ends up being the 'good guy' in the eyes of most other contestants during the finale. Her win in the U.S. and the long awaited payback she gives to Alejandro made for a satisfying...pre-conclusion, if I should call it that. More on my thoughts on "Hawaiian Punch" will come later...

The songs: When I see some people criticize World Tour, it's usually because they found most of the songs to be annoying. As for me, I thought they were one of the season's highlights. A good chunk of them do sound pretty inane, but at the same time, Total Drama's own brand of charm makes them stand out. 

Bringing back some underdeveloped contestants: After the slow burner that was Action, it was a matter of time before the franchise could bring back Noah, Tyler, and Cody to make me care more about them. While I don't feel like some of them were completely fleshed out during their runs, I do appreciate World Tour for developing them more by finally making Tyler and Lindsay an official couple, making Noah act more like a team player while still delivering amusing one-liners, and making Cody the underdog of the season. Ezekiel came back too, but I'll get to him later.

Negatives:

And then there are the problems that I've had with the season, and for me, they excel in more than just...:

The Courtney/Duncan/Gwen love triangle: This is a problem that I'm sure everyone else can agree with me on. I don't normally like love triangle plots, but this was a far more "interesting" case. This was a major plot for a portion of the second half of World Tour...and it sucked. 

The Duncan/Courtney breakup in order to set up the new Duncan/Gwen couple was executed very badly. Of course, the breakup itself was based on an executive decision for the franchise to express to us that teenage relationships don't really last. The writers could've established on Duncan's character more to make us completely understand that he's grown tired of Courtney, and maybe they could've done something to patch up all that drama. They didn't have to make Duncan get together with Gwen by way of him having an affair, on top of making him flat out unlikable towards Courtney in the long run, but they did.

Courtney, I wish I could bring myself to appreciate her character more since she is the victim of the breakup, but her complete, utter hostility towards Gwen wasn't very comfortable to sit through. The fact that Gwen spends most of the plot being isolated by her team except Cody as the "New Heather" only makes me feel bad for her, especially when it's a given that despite Gwen was also in the wrong for breaking up Courtney and Duncan, it's clear that Gwen wanted to put those troubles to rest over the course of the plot.

As for the plot itself, it makes up for some of the worst episodes I've ever seen from the Total Drama franchise, with "Picnic at Hanging Dork" being the worst offender, not just because of the way the show decided to put an end to it, but also because I felt the episode was very lost in its humor, and that the challenges were overshadowed by the writers apparently trying to turn their love triangle plot into a love heptagon plot for a good few minutes by letting Courtney become interested in Alejandro, before making Heather pretend to be in love with Duncan to get back at Alejandro, BEFORE Gwen would pretend to be into Cody for some reason that I don't recall but probably involved Sierra. When I can't help but appreciate Owen's character for not getting involved in any of this, you know something's up.

I haven't seen the episode after 3-4 years now, along with the previous two, and for clear reasons I skipped these episodes during my binge on World Tour. Now that this rant is over, it's time for one more, concerning yet another problem that I've had with World Tour...

Sierra and Alejandro: It should be no secret that I couldn't stand these two characters during World Tour. What makes the two new additions to the cast one of the season's biggest flaws is that out of every other contestant besides Heather, they have the most focus. In addition, despite having so much focus, the writers barely established any FLAWS for them.

Alejandro, I am heavily aware that most members on here that are fans of Total Drama absolutely love Alejandro. So, why do I stand by the unpopular opinion of disliking his character on World Tour? Let me make one thing very clear, first: because I'm supposed to hate the villain doesn't mean that I have to really like Alejandro as a character. I thought he was an interesting and competent villain, but my biggest issue with him is the main gimmick where he's better than everyone else because his brother is better at him at anything, and depending on if his ending won, he manages to prove just that. In other words, I disliked him because he was WAY too competent.

I'm not going to hurl the "Marty Stu" or "Villain Stu" terms around because Stu/Sue terms have been used several times to the point where they lost their meaning. A Sue/Stu character is generally a boring character, and it doesn't define a protagonist or antagonist that I hate. However, Alejandro is not safe from having Stu-like traits: he's exceedingly attractive, he easily wins the hearts of the female contestants except Sierra, he easily gains the trust of most contestants, he has a cool first and last name, he's an honor-roll student, and he can do certain things no problem like using hypnotism. These are textbook examples of a Sue or a Stu type of character. Alejandro being too perfect of a character is hardly even acknowledged in-universe except if you count the few times he was referred to as just a male Heather. Let's face it though: At least Heather had flaws during Island. When it comes to Alejandro's weaknesses in World Tour, he gets upstaged by Heather one time in "Greece's Pieces," twice in "Hawaiian Punch," and he has a weak stomach, but that's it.

Now, because Alejandro inherits these traits doesn't make me think of him as a "Marty Stu." I just felt that Alejandro was clinically designed to be an invincible player until he's left with Heather to play off of and depending on if his ending won, it can easily be concluded that Alejandro curb-stomps all the contestants. It didn't make him a boring character to me, but it did make him an annoying character to me. He uses the same strategy to ensure that he survives long enough into the game: gain trust from one or more opposing player(s), play nice with them until you can learn about their weaknesses before exploiting them, betray them when the opportunity strikes to get them booted off, lather, rinse, repeat. The only time Alejandro gets put in the corner of facing elimination was in "Awwwwww, Drumheller" whereas he gets saved from elimination due to a fatal mistake that Sierra ends up making. What especially doesn't help is that a huge chunk of eliminations are caused by him.

Sierra...I'll be very fair and say that Alejandro's character was at least miles better than Sierra's in this season, because dear god, she was the worst. Her obsessive stalker behavior towards Cody, while meant to be played for laughs, instead was just unfunny and uncomfortable to sit through. Despite that Sierra's character is also built around being a huge fan of Total Drama, because she spends most of the season obsessing over Cody, I felt that her character was one-note at most times.

Also, as I should mention, she manages to go through a lot of the season's challenges very smoothly and the few times that she was close to be eliminated, her obsession over Cody costs her the immunity reward in "Niagara Brawls" and the one time that she could possibly be voted off, she gets saved because it was a fake ceremony. She displays little to no weaknesses despite the fact that her obsession with Cody could somehow be her Achilles Heel, but she gets eliminated by accidentally blowing up the Jumbo Jet.

Worst of all, based on how I've judged her character, and when you consider the fact that she's one of the protagonists of the season, I just found Sierra to be unlikable. 'Annoying' is an understatement, and even if her annoying traits are actually intentional, I still can't stand her. Rant over, next problem I have with World Tour...

The characterizations: As some of you could already tell, I didn't like how some of the characters were handled over the course of the season. I am not going to bother writing up another wall of text, thankfully. Whatever problems I've had with the characters, I will acknowledge them in the list of eliminations but I'll at least sum it up like this: I've found certain characters to be either reduced to give us more reasons to see Alejandro as a threat, exaggerated, or unbearable.

Instances of redundant humor: Before anyone gets at me and tells me that the only thing redundant about the humor on World Tour is the fart jokes from Owen, here's where I express my point: most of this season's humor also had Sierra's creepy obsession with Cody, Courtney making jabs at Gwen and Duncan (made worse in "Aftermath IV" when she continues to do this when you'd think she'd be silent towards them after "Chinese Fake-Out") and Heather to a lesser extent, DJ accidentally injuring animals, and Alejandro pretending to be polite to Heather, and the more that I had to endure these jokes, the more I wanted for them to be phased out.

The team performances: It's a little bit more of a nitpick, but I also didn't appreciate how the teams were balanced out. I can see reasons as to why World Tour would have one team lose all of its players, but it's hard to get behind the fact that it took 8 episodes for Victory to win a challenge while it took Amazons 16 episodes to lose a player. It just made me feel like the teams were skewed.

Now let's talk about the eliminations and the characters involved in them...

(Duncan quits but is eventually brought back)

Ezekiel: I should've seen it coming that he would once again be the first person out of the game. I like the additional story material given for his character, but I could do without him turning feral.

Harold: At the very least, he resigns so he could restore honor after temporarily being hostile towards his Victory teammates after Alejandro convinces him to take the fall because...who else would convince him?

Bridgette: Yet another elimination caused by Alejandro, but on the plus side, Chris, being the narcissistic host that he is, also causes her downfall after refusing to pour hot water on the pole that Alejandro got Bridgette's tongue stuck onto. I was hoping that the writers could do something with Bridgette going through challenges without Geoff, so I thought she was eliminated way too early.

Leshawna: Alejandro's charm causes her to cost Victory the challenge after she decides to slap the heck out of Heather. Remember when she and Heather decided to calm down their feud halfway into Action? Because of this episode, neither do I now.

(Heather gets saved.)

Lindsay: Still one of the best characters of the show, and like with the other contestants on Team Victory, I can see why Lindsay would have to go this early since they've all had a very good amount of screen-time prior. The fact that this elimination was due to a tiebreaker challenge is something I can definitely get behind.

Izzy: While I never agreed on Owen and Izzy's breakup, this was handled much better than the season's other breakup. The fact that Owen decides to take Noah's word for it that he can't continue to compete with Izzy since she is...of course, a psycho hose beast, is something that has weirded me out. Of course, Izzy breaks up with Owen due to a concussion that temporarily makes her into 'Brainzilla,' but the fact that she and Owen have had little to no interactions after her eviction from the game kinda leaves a void that needs to be filled.

DJ: I liked how the story for his character experienced a turnaround by having him feel more adjusted to being the only member left on Team Victory and by making him believe that his curse is gone but- of course Alejandro betrays him by sabotaging the final part of the challenge that ends up with him automatically eliminated.

Noah: Poor Noah. The one episode that gives him the most focus for the season is the same episode where he ends up getting voted off. It feels kinda petty that Alejandro would convince some of the other members of Team Chris that he is threat because he said some unpleasant things though Alejandro spent most of the challenge being captured by Ezekiel dressed as Jack the Ripper. With two other members to side with him on the vote, I can understand why Noah would get the boot, but it's still a weak elimination. Also, considering that "I See London..." is the one episode with the least amount of both Alejandro and Sierra, it would've been one of my favorites if it weren't for the ending that kickstarted the Courtney/Duncan/Gwen drama.

(Duncan gets saved.)

Tyler: I also would've wished that Tyler could last a little longer into the game. While I feel that his character was more of the same from Island (because, of course, he gets eliminated due to his teammates not finding him useful anymore), it was pleasant enough that he was given more screen-time.

Gwen: Because I know she was partly to blame for the breakup of Courtney and Duncan, I feel like her elimination was deserved. Because I felt bad for her being referred to as the "New Heather" and the struggle she goes through during the drama, I would've preferred for Courtney to be eliminated. Getting eliminated while experiencing her eucalyptus allergy on top of us seeing Courtney with…this reaction…they just add insult to injury.

(And of course, Courtney gets saved. Seriously, stop it with the fake elimination ceremonies.)

Owen, Courtney, and Duncan: I'm putting all three of their eliminations together because boy did they overstay their welcome. Having to pick which of these I would've tolerated more is like picking my poison. Owen, who of course gets eliminated due to being seen as a threat by Alejandro, I can't argue with him being eliminated during the first merge challenge but I would've preferred for him to be eliminated earlier. Then again, I felt that his character was handled better on World Tour than in Action.

Courtney legitimately annoyed me the more that she stayed because her hostility towards Duncan/Gwen didn't end until her elimination AND the fourth aftermath episode. She gets eliminated due to Alejandro taking advantage of her interest towards him (but most usually because she does decide to help him cheat during the second challenge). That’s not the only problem I’ve had with her character, however. Halfway into the season, she goes from someone who cares so much about winning and/or losing to someone who would put her enemies first, as she spent a couple of episodes throwing off challenges so that she could get Gwen eliminated.

Duncan, once again, he manages to secure a spot in the Final 5 and I can't imagine a better time to eliminate him than at that point. As I should say, I would've preferred to see him get voted off earlier.

Blaineley: Oh yeah, she was also a contestant for a couple of episodes. It's sad to think that I found her to be a better addition to the cast than Sierra and Alejandro, but I can't really say that her presence as a contestant was really necessary if she was going to be let go so early, and to be added during the merge to boot.

(Sierra gets saved, because OF COURSE.)

Sierra, Cody, Alejandro, and Heather: Also putting these four together since there was always something that bothered me a bit about this setup. I couldn't imagine a better Final 4 than them, but given how much focus Alejandro, Sierra, and Heather were given in World Tour, the outcome of the final 4 was still very predictable to me. Heather, I can agree with. Clearly, I didn't like Alejandro and Sierra, although I can understand why they got so far. I’ve already expressed my thoughts on the two characters in-depth, but I’ll at least give the season credit for making me feel like I could warm up to Sierra’s character after her elimination.

Then there's Cody, who I'm surprised got as far as into the Final 3 despite contributing very little during most of the challenges. I do like Cody, but I can't bring myself to like him more than I should due to his mainstay being accomplished by mostly Sierra. Oh, and he barely even partakes in the "required singing" parts of the challenges. He never won immunity for himself, and the one time he won a challenge for his team was in "Greece's Pieces" which involves him punching Duncan hard in the face. There's more than just that, but still, I felt that he's done very little and I wish his character was developed for more than just Sierra forcing him to be with her.

In retrospect, because of his lack of participation, I can’t really say that I’m upset that he got blocked off from the Final 2 after losing the tiebreaker to Alejandro. The finale itself, “Hawaiian Punch,” I used to hate it for one-half of the Final 2 and Alejandro’s ending, but nowadays, my feelings are just mixed on it. What hasn’t changed are my feelings on the ending with the pineapple sacrifices apparently causing the volcano to erupt came out of nowhere, and the way that it ends with all the contestants (except Alejandro, who is spared from the accident only for his body to be repurposed for the Drama Machine post-credits.) swimming away for their lives from the volcanic eruption just left me with another one of the series’ loose ends.

In the end, World Tour was a frustrating season for me to sit through. I genuinely wanted to like this season more than I thought I wouldn’t and I wanted for it to prove most of my past thoughts of it wrong, since I’ve inherited them after making the crucial mistake of spoiling the season for myself without watching it in full first. Some of my past thoughts have softened up, but I still can’t give this season the best possible rating. I’m feeling a very light 5/10 on this one. I wouldn’t outright call this an awful season, but I can surely say that it had me feeling divided (as you guys can tell by how I was saying positive things about whatever nitpicks I've had of the season). I also thought I’d consider this as the series’ worst…but then All-Stars happened. But first, I have to talk about RotI.

 

Best episodes: Awwwwww, Drumheller, Super Crazy Happy Fun Time Japan, Planes, Trains and Hot Air Mobiles, The Am-AH-Zon Race

Worst episodes: Picnic at Hanging Dork, The Ex-Files, Niagara Brawls, Greece’s Pieces, TDWT Aftermath IV: Hawaiian Style, Anything Yukon Do I Can Do Better, Sweden Sour

 

Edited September 10, 2018 by Steel Sponge