2017 Reality TV Ranking

s/o to Mana for (mostly) inspiring this project.  2017 was quite the year for me personally with lots of ups and downs, and to me, it will always be That Year. However, more importantly, across these 17 seasons of competitive reality television, the genre of reality t.v. itself arguably experienced a boom of good content, powerful moments, influential characters and shocking moments starring 273 different competitors. I'm here to announce who did the best this year 👀
(On the very, very small off-chance that a reality TV contestant Googles their name and somehow finds this, I recognize that your TV portayal probably isn't entirely who you are and I'm not a terrible person thanks!)
Seasons featured:
Celebrity Big Brother UK 19
Hunted US
The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions
Survivor: Game Changers
Big Brother Canada 5
RuPaul's Drag Race 9
The Amazing Race 29
Survivor NZ: Nicaragua
The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros
Big Brother UK 18
Big Brother US 19
The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
The Amazing Race Canada 5
Australian Survivor 4
Celebrity Big Brother UK 20
Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers
The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
=="Worst TV" Tier==
===273. Camila Nakagawa (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge: Champs vs. ProsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
I’m over Camila. It was wild seeing her blow up on alpha males with little provoking in Bloodlines – the first true “Camilanator” meltdown I’d ever witnessed – but it’s stale now.
Those at MTV and inside the entire Challenge franchise have allowed Camila to have extreme and violent outbursts against her fellow contestants really any time she wants to, as it’s become part of her brand. She’s the Camilanator – great in competition, great in drinking and great in drama.
These meltdowns eventually started getting her expelled from multiple Challenges, and yet she kept showing up on consecutive Challenges. On a surface level, Camila is a genius, and she’d let you know it by touting her two Bachelor’s degrees in your face, but that’s not why: she, like Bananas, has gamed the system. She knows that a scandalous moment on one season means a call to appear on the next.
These meltdowns, however, reached the point in Dirty 30 in which she spouted racial slurs and other discriminatory comments against Leroy, who is black, in a drunken stupor/attempt to...rile him up? Get a reaction? It’s unknown, but what IS now known is that Camila is either a racist or doesn’t take the issue of racism very seriously. I don't remember exactly what she said, but one of the things she shouted was along the lines of "you black motherfuckers always play the victim." After this incident, her edit dipped into UTR2-3 territory. Iconically, then, Camila won Dirty 30 and wasn’t even present at the reunion to be celebrated for it. Homegirl literally found out she won that season by watching it from home. Oops!
Camila also appeared on the very next Challenge product, the Champs vs. Stars miniseason, in which when asked to get into her jersey to take promo pictures, she refused, assaulted a producer, stole and crashed a golf cart and threatened to kill herself in her hotel room. The final Camila footage we got this season was a fellow teammate saying that “she needs help and hopefully now she gets it.” Allegedly, she’s now blacklisted from the show, but rumors have circled that she got a call for season 32. Time will tell. I hope she’s gone forever.
===272. Paul Abrahamian (Big Brother US 19)===
I don’t want to write anything about Paul because I don’t want to relive any of his terror. But here we go.
Paul came into BB19 as someone heavily favored to win already – with a built-in twist in his favor that gave him 3 weeks of immunity, game-organized 1-on-1 conversations with all 16 other cast members and a method allowing him to reward his favorite cast members by giving them safety, I’m not sure if anyone in reality television history got as many advantages as Paul near the beginning. Think of the massive firemaking kits they give on Survivor nowadays; Paul basically got an alliance-making kit. He was literally able to ensure that all of his favorite people made it past the first night.
Paul eventually found the best way to groom his zombies; by enslaving over half of the cast, Paul created this cult-like setup where to each member of his alliance, he was the strategist that was gonna get their secret alliance through the game. He went so far as to keep up that facade in every goodbye message, acting like the current HoH was a rogue ally that did something unpredictable and now Paul would win for the both of them. It was grimy behavior and I didn’t enjoy watching it.
Outside of his strategy, Paul made some really tragic and sad moves when he literally ordered the house to attack Jessica and Cody. Yes, this is the truth: in one of many instances, he literally told members of his alliance to go outside and make loud noises (for the intentional purpose of triggering Cody’s PTSD) and taunt them extensively because...Jessica wouldn’t vote out her boyfriend and help Paul’s agenda. Mhm. Okay. He had his cult groomed to believe that anyone who showed any semblance of not being 100% loyal to Paul was a horrible person that didn’t deserve to stay in the game, and it got to the point where people like Josh and Alex were doing the bullying for him. Paul went from putting on blackface to intimidate Dominique in the early game to sending Josh to torment Mark in the midgame.
Kid was also a total DR screamer. Every single moment of the game that was related to him, Paul narrated in the DR and took it upon himself to yell in the exact same condescending cadence in every single instance, acting like he was some strategic mastermind doing big things that the audience wouldn’t understand. This annoyed me in BB18, but it got even worse in BB19. Look no further than when he ended every single confessional with this face.
It was all this, however, that made his second consecutive 5-4 loss in a 365 day period even sweeter – a loss to Josh, one of the most loyal Paul slaves, the one Paul had been grooming into the perfect Phillip Sheppard-esque goat for 99 days, the one who actively bullied most of the jury. See, it’s Paul’s shitty behavior that got him the second loss – all of the jurors, delusional or not, that voted for Josh either voted out of spite for Paul or out of spite for the fact that Paul betrayed them...and kept lying in his goodbye messages. Alex was LIVID when she found out she wasn’t actually running the game and that Paul played her. Marlena really did think they were close with Paul until they got exiled from the cult – with no real statement from Paul on the matter. He played one of the worst social games of all time, and I think he honestly could be the Russell Hantz of Big Brother.
I have no sympathy for Paul losing a second time. What a horrific human person and a season-ruining presence.
===271. Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge: Champs vs. ProsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
Before I get into Bananas, I want to say that even though he didn’t actively try to ruin Invasion or Dirty 30 as much as he literally has massacred the fun out of past seasons, his Champs vs. Stars experience literally drags him down to the bottom three for me. It was that bad.
Bananas also this has proven over fifteen seasons of this show that he can’t provide anything that even borders on great television. Unfortunately, he knows the MTV system: be controversial, be polarizing and be invited back. It’s easy for him.
Johnny Bananas, while a bad person, was not as present on Invasion or Dirty 30 as he probably wanted to be. I’m surprised he’s even being pushed in promotional material for Vendettas after two back-to-back unmemorable showings in mainstream Challenge seasons. He got beaten in the mid-game by old school veteran players in elimination twice. It’s the same concept. He really just popped up every now and then to make tryhard-y jokes, which only landed about 50% of the time. His biggest contribution to this season was the phrase “...house of thieves!” being replayed in the intro every episode. Really cannot remember any of his other contributions aside from being extremely confident he’d return in the third Redemption House challenge before not returning...even with two spots open for male returnees. He flopped.
To get into his Champs vs. _____ stints, Champs vs. Pros was a complete floundering on his part and Champs vs. Stars was an overdose of the Johnny Bananas persona that only further drove the point home that he sucks. The apex of the Bananas experience in 2017 was bringing a kid with Down syndrome to a challenge during Champs vs. Stars in hopes of manipulating the edit in his favor to look like a Good Person for supporting kids with disabilities; even when his team saw right through it and didn’t default into awarding him the title of MVP for that day like he expected (an event which would allow him to say “hey, we’re giving $5000 to YOUR charity” to his “friend” with Down syndrome), he acted like the victim of some vile scheme by Wes and Emily plotting against him to make him look bad. I’m getting fired up and nauseous just thinking about this – and he even went so far as to be petty and petulant at the next challenge by not letting his team deliberate for who the MVP would be because he felt like that’s what happened to him. He literally would not let his team discuss who it is that will a. receive $5000 for their charity and b. select who goes into elimination from the Champs team because he was too bitter about not getting MVP the round before. Really? Come on dude.
He’s a fucking man child who needs a real job that isn’t “be irritating on television.” The worst part? Even The Miz – the worst host of 2017 – was on his side; after Emily announced the team decided that the MVP would be Wes, we got literally the worst sentence uttered by any partisan host in years: “Really? I... thought it would be Bananas, but, okay.”
Overall, a disgusting human being and I’m not excited for his rumored CBBUS appearance.
===270. Austin Armacost (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
Austin’s claim to fame is appearing on a Real Housewives-esque reality show starring toxic gays and dating Marc Jacobs. He is, as the previous sentence implies, an Evil Gay.
I am under the impression that Austin’s original CBB season, which I have not seen, involved him being heavily irritating, constantly whining and victimizing himself and picking fights that weren’t necessary or fun to watch. This season, he basically did the same thing, by terrorizing Stacy for not worshipping the ground he walked on and criticizing Speidi in a weird water-related incident I vaguely remember. I think he tried to blow up on Spencer for stealing all his water or something? For what it's worth, yes, Speidi function as perpetual button-pushers, but when you wind up looking like an idiot in the wrong against literal human trolls, it's not good. When no one owned the concept of bottled water in the first place? Big bad. Stacy Francis also wasn't putting up with his BS either, leading to Austin melting down in the DR when he realized that he couldn't just walk all over people.
Another really bad Austin move would be when he would literally walk around in thongs/other revealing types on underwear for the sole purpose of a. showing off and b. making everyone uncomfortable, and yet thought he was the slickest dude ever for just straight up showing a bulge all the time. It was a really bad look.
Austin, however, also got Big Comeuppance when he was unceremoniously booted in a surprise double eviction being voted out by his own housemates. The other people in the house were actively too busy obsessing over the three new housemates to even really care that he just got fundamentally screwed; his exit was an awkward departure as no one acknowledged him. His horrific behavior came back to bite him. He got got. Castrated. Boom. Done.
===269. Josh Murray (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
Starting Champs vs. Stars off, when Josh told the camera in his first confessional that he was from The Bachelorette, I was actually pretty prepared to be a Josh Murray fan, considering the last time I witnessed a RTV persona with a “Bachelorette → Bachelor in Paradise → other RTV show” progression, they blew me away. Unfortunately, throughout his entire stay during Champs vs. Stars, Josh provided an actual 0 ounces of goodness throughout the season and only really showed up to be sanctimonious and condescending about keeping strong people in the game (read: people he liked) to have a stronger team. Yes, it’s somewhat warranted once you lose two or three challenges, but when you’re literally the new Ulong and never actually win a single challenge, acting high and mighty when someone dares to target your "strong people" alliance is not really that justified. Josh sucked.
===268. Lotan Carter (Big Brother UK 18)===
Lotan Carter appeared on BBUK18 sporting this facade of “cool younger dude.” I actually quite liked him for the first few days – he was a fun presence and initially seemed to be gravitating towards what would later become the “outsiders clique”; however, as the season progressed, it appeared that Lotan was instead not only joining the Groovy Gang, but becoming their leader and antagonizing any and all opponents. He led the Groovy Gang like a cult, with mindless zombies like Charlotte doing relatively nothing but stroking his ego. Tom, as someone who honestly might be a repressed homosexual, worshipped him. Kieran, as a vastly inferior person overall, worshipped him. Lotan worshipped himself as well; he had a chiseled body and was well-endowed sexually. Gemma Collins visited the house and worshipped him at his feet. At a certain point, Lotan Carter was on top of the world. Chanelle McCleary’s pranks didn’t phase him, and neither did the existence of opposing clique members Raph Korine and Hannah and Deborah Agboola. Lotan had Ellie thirsting for him 24/7, leading the poor girl on with no intention of ever giving her the satisfaction she wanted. Lotan literally walked out of the house via the fire exit and, for two minutes, had his entire clique in tears and hysterics before production convinced him not to walk out. Lotan had the clout to make personal attacks on anyone he wanted under the guise of it being “banter :P” – yet if someone else pulled a prank, it was Lotan’s job to take the High Moral Ground and condescendingly let the prankster know how inferior they are for daring to pull this kind of joke.
He ruled the house; Brandon Flowers wrote “The Man” about Lotan (if only).
This all came crashing down within 72 hours once Isabelle Warburton entered the house.
This is the moment when the Fire Nation attacked.
After Lotan would do nothing but mock Isabelle & Co. with a misogynistic attitude and jerk off the members of his gang, Isabelle verbally castrated Lotan with six words.
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What went on that night in the BBUK18 house cannot be accurately reflected with words alone. When Lotan kicked off and began threatening to actively hurt members of the opposing clique, production made the #move and removed Lotan from the house. After finally being nominated and exposed for being an awful person, Lotan’s eventual eviction was canceled in favor of a breathtaking ejection episode. Big Brother UK S18E21 is the best work of art in RTV this year, possibly.
Oh, and he disrespected earth angel Emma Willis… bye
===267. Zach Nichols (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
I’ve hated Zach and his grimy hair/beard combo ever since Exes II (thank God he shaved it all off before Champs vs. Stars), he’s an unfunny misogynist who somehow got feminist icon Jenna to start dating him in the most uninteresting example of an on-and-off relationship.
He only really had 2 episodes to spread his terribleness on Invasion, though, and thankfully he only had time to drop 1 misogynistic comment (if I remember correctly) before dipping out. He didn’t even have time to border on funny, and his Champs vs. Stars stint was generally unremarkable, so he winds up this low. My feelings are best encapsulated by the Reddit post seen below:
 
===266. Kayleigh Morris (Big Brother UK 18)===
Based on her appearance here, I’m both excited and terrified for what Kayleigh will do when she appears on The Challenge next season. I think she’s perfect to be an American!RTV personality, and she clearly already is an MTV personality in the UK. According to the literature I’ve read about her two Ex on the Beach stints, she has enough enemies to warrant a permanent position as a Challenge regular (i.e., as long as she has bad blood with other Hot Young People, MTV will continue casting her for dramatic purposes).
This kind of success, however, doesn’t really translate to a show like BBUK. When, because of the editing style, you can’t benefit from snarky cutaways and dramatic music/effects during your conflicts, you become sort of exposed as a fake persona, and Kayleigh’s persona was to call everyone a cunt if they tried to argue with her. Her arguments were mostly unfun, and I don’t think I ever once rooted for her low blows and screech accosting of many of my favorites. Even Arthur, who I didn’t even like most of the time, felt in the fight against Tropical Storm Kayleigh. The pinnacle of her perpetual stankness was probably when Sukhvinder took away her position as vice mayor of the BB Village during week 2's shopping task and she fumed, but even then, that was a Sukhvinder moment and not a Kayleigh moment.
Once week 2’s eviction came around, it felt inevitable that Kayleigh would roll over and die, but instead she stayed over the Javeeds which crushed me and crushed the hearts of millions (actually probably only 1 million given BBUK’s viewership!). Luckily, Chanelle had perpetually egged Kayleigh on for 13 days until she finally snapped and got ejected. God is good.
===265. Ben Driebergen (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
I’m not sure how popular it is to truly detest Ben as much as I do, but a lot of my issues with him stem from what he represented in Survivor rather than who he is. I did enjoy the content we got from him when he first began to explain his disposition to the game as a veteran and how he wanted to be a model for all of the veterans with PTSD, showing that being a vet with PTSD doesn’t stop you from achieving anything. I think that was a really cool segment.
Where Ben struck infinite wrong chords with me was how he reacted to many things in the post-merge. To start with how he handled Joe’s taunting, there’s really nothing I dislike more than people acting like they’re better than everyone else, and Ben did exactly that by saying that because he’s a former marine, he’s immediately exempt from being a bad person and that accusations of lying towards him are disrespectful because of the fact that he’s a former marine. Yes, Joe knew what he was doing getting Ben riled up, but Ben really just revealed himself to be a sanctimonious, condescending, self-righteous braggart who believes he walks above all the rest. Surprise, but you can be an iffy person and still be in the military; just look at Caleb Reynolds.
I can’t fault Ben specifically for winning, since the goal of playing Survivor is to win, nor can I fault him for the spontaneous production influence at final four, but Ben’s Survivor endgame is representative of a lot of bad things. Primarily, I just wasn’t a fan of his “haha! Joke’s on you!” attitude whenever he pulled out a hidden immunity idol at the final seven, six or five (o_o); it just felt, again, acting like he was ~above~ everyone else, and that these inferior human beings would have to put up with him for another day, and that the joke was on them for even daring to get him out of the game, because it’s egregious to try and get a marine out of the game. I’m sure that if he lost this season, he would have pulled some really irritating shit in exit press saying that it’s a shame his cast wasn’t laying their torches down so he could walk to the end and win for the marines.
Personality aside, Ben turning the Mamanuca Islands into an idol vending machine is literally the worst possible sign for the future of Survivor as a franchise. It’s a tragedy to see such a Good Show and great game be reduced to a daily scavenger hunt for a million dollars. It also doesn’t help that everyone Ben idoled out or beat in firemaking was a vastly superior character to him; I’m really just dissatisfied with how his win impacted the season if you couldn’t tell. Additionally, the firemaking challenge showing up right when Ben was able to be voted out for the first time in four tribal councils was really suspicious and really just neutered the Chrissy Hofbeck victory we all deserved (or the Devon Pinto victory I was hoping for once I realized the stakes of the firemaking challenge).
Congratulations to Mike Holloway, Fabio Birza and Bob Crowley for officially breaking out of being the bottom 3 winners of all time. Like the CBB19 finale, the Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers finale left me wanting more. It left me feeling like nobody won; the final three simply left the island and received appearance fees. I still don’t really consider Ben to be an entry in the pantheon of Survivor winners yet – it doesn’t feel real.
===264. Jamie O'Hara (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
Jamie is, at least on TV, one of the most offensively bland people to ever enter a Big Brother house. His content revolved around two things: a boring, generic bromance with Calum and a boring, generic showmance with Bianca. Interestingly, both of those people became 100% more engaging once Jamie was evicted. Coincidence? Definitely not.
Jamie is, in essence, the holier-than-thou straight version of Austin Armacost, just with way less self-victimization and outbursts. He did, however, try and come for Kim Woodburn physically and call her a disgrace to humanity; she clowned him by saying he was an adulterer who cheated on his wife which, true, that happened. I don’t have much else to say about him because he’s that boring.
===263. Kenneth & Ryan (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
Looking back, they weren’t incredibly annoying, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you I enjoyed any moment of their TARCAN5 journey. They arguably soured the entire experience by showing up every episode just to scream shit like “CMON GIVE’R” and just be, in general, toxic douchebros. Their brand of stoner idiot is horrific. I can’t even ironically like it one bit. Get a job. Do that challenge.
===262. Nate Davis (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
I’m not quite done with watching Survivor NZ (it's not exactly riveting television by any means), but I don’t foresee Nate doing any better than this. Throughout most of the season, he just kind of lounges around, waiting to be picked off until an opportunity arises in which he can vote out someone vastly superior to him instead. He’s not a fun curmudgeon in the slightest; he’s just an old grump who presents literally nothing of substance. He rags on the Fun Young People like Mike/Georgia with the most erroneously self-righteous voice and it kills me that he emerges victorious over them. I'm kind of mad that he sticks around for so long, because it's really going to make my finishing of this season less exciting just via his presence. The only good thing he did was support Barb, and even then, that can be viewed as a questionable decision depending on where you are in the season. Bleh.
===261. Aaron "A.K." Knight (Australian Survivor 4)===
For a while, it really seemed like AK was on track to destroy this season in more ways than one. He was inevitably going to suck all of the fun out of what turned out to be a wonderful season. After a shaky premiere where AK, by all means, tanked his game, he somehow managed to recover and gain an iron grip on the Samatau tribe. It was NOT exciting television when everyone started bowing to him needlessly!! Like...y'all KNEW he was trash on day one and backpedaled. Dude, I was angered. Not only was he predictably in control of Samatau at the start, he was cocky, arrogant, and the worst kind of superfan that shows up on Survivor. Luckily, he was out by episode ten but still, yikes! I'm sure he's a nice person in real life, but I was not a fan of his TV portrayal in the slightest. ack
===260. Bruno Ielo (Big Brother Canada 5)===
Normally, I stan WTF?/random returnee choices, especially in a pool of deserving options. In this case, however, this was not a good use of a returnee slot. Objectively, Bruno is rootable for being a decent-ish human being and a caring father, but like, come ON...he couldn't have inspired less feeling or emotion in me. On top of being fairly boring, his RTV existence has only ever really been supporting people that I don't support and voting out Good People, and while I get that you can't fault someone for Playing The Game, it just isn't a good look when the first 7 people evicted are severely more interesting than you, personality-wise and game-wise.
addendum: his constant declaration that Kevin was the best player of all time was sooooo false and I can't even begin to describe how much it frustrated me that Bruno's personal jury mission was just to discredit everyone who got him out
===259. Calum Best (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
Calum Best was at his peak in the early days of CBBUK19 when he was shaken to his core by his mom entering the house. I got mild enjoyment out of seeing him squirm because he was in the Big Brother house with his super vegan, polite, abrasive health nut of a mother, meaning he could not be his normal, bro-y obnoxious self. Once she left, though, he turned into a permanent supporting character with no real intrigue.
His only true plot was a UTR2 (thank God) bromance with Jamie, which was overshadowed by Jamie/Bianca in terms of redundant plotlines (masculine bros, troubled boring showmance). Calum truly only rose to relevance once Jamie left and Calum was very much Fed Up with Jedward and Kim (but mostly Jedward) and tried his hardest to have interesting beef with them. I guess something else he did was pop up once a week to have a faux-philosophical diary room soliloquy, addressing Big Brother as “Big Bro,” but those were neither interesting nor charming. A rarely compelling character who makes for a bizarre fan favorite, although I loved seeing him not make the final and presumably be shook about it.
===258. Jason Dent (Big Brother US 19)===
Never rootable, always irritating, unnecessarily incorrect, loud, condescending, useless. The most bizarre duo I've ever seen BBUS try to push was "Jalex," the supposedly unbreakable alliance between Jason and the perpetually infuriating Alex Ow. Where the duo went correct was voting for Josh to win, but in almost everything else they did, they went wrong. Like most BB19 houseguests, Jason was a Paul Puppet for the entire season, subscribing to his manipulation and joining in on the orchestrated bullying.
Now, at least, with most people in BB19, they had nuggets of moments in which I could point to that, laugh a bit, and say, "this season isn't so bad" (it was). Alex had a great first couple of weeks and was a fan of BB1. Raven lied all the time. Elena and Mark were hopelessly bad at the game. Matt freaked out (on Jason) after being backdoored. Kevin's old and weird. But Jason? No sir, no ma'am. In fact, he had supplementary bad content. I've never wanted to mute a TV more than when Jason got his X-Tremitard punishment and yelled "EXTREME" at the top of his lungs all the time. His blindside was soooo satisfying, but not 100% satisfying, because like all things in BB19 save for the outcome, it happened because Paul wanted it to. Sad!
===257. Sam Chaloner (Big Brother UK 18)===
According to my rankings for this season, I liked Sam by the time he left the house, but I do not find this to be true any longer. SamxEllie was not, by any means, the showmance that we needed in BBUK18. To set the scene, seasoned RTV female Ellie Young had been pining after Lotan for weeks, and all of a sudden, because Sam came in late after having admitted to crushing on Ellie in the dating show task, Ellie switches her eyes towards Sam. Suddenly, the two of them become, plot-wise, resigned to each other. Instead of letting Ellie capitalize on her trainwreck potential, Sam entered the house and occupied her with a showmance we could have gone without seeing. Just a very annoying/boring dudebro, and we already had the dudebro niche filled x3 for the first half of BBUK18.
===256. Cory Wharton (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
I don’t remember where I picked up this following hot take, but it encapsulates Cory perfectly. He’s perfected his brand after only a few seasons, and that’s “act confident → don’t act on your confidence.”
Cory is the epitome of a Gen Z-friendly character. He tries incredibly hard to be funny (forced pop culture references that never even border on ironically funny) and he makes half baked jokes at every turn...and I think he actually thinks it makes him some comedic genius. He’s not funny. He never will be.
Cory’s trend on every season he’s on is to hook up with at least one girl. His roster of women includes Camila, Kailah, Aneesa, and wonderful human being Cheyenne Floyd with whom he now has a child. I feel sorry for her, since this means Cory is now an extended presence in her life. Even during his short Champs vs. Stars stint, Cory was trying to hook up with Ariane (he probably did). (In general, it kind of pisses me off that he was even on Champs vs. Stars because he isn’t a champ, but like, neither was like ⅓ of that team in the first place.)
Throughout Invasion and Dirty 30, Cory’s big slogan was “out with the old and in with the new.” It still is: he likes to tout that his group of young, straight men – dubbed the “Young Bucks” – are going to come into every season, tear it up and take down the vets once and for all. Even on Champs vs. Stars, he declared that he was alright with going into the first elimination because he’s the “Young Buck” (in actuality, this was his fifth appearance on a Challenge product and was competing alongside Ashley M., arguably a younger buck) who “hasn’t done challenges with most of these guys” (read: there was exclusively 1 person who he had not done a Challenge with). It’s not a correct narrative.
It makes for great promo material, but in general, Cory does not ever deliver on these promises of tearing up the veterans and taking over the game. I don’t think he ever intends to. He most certainly did not deliver on Dirty 30, I’m ecstatic he didn’t last long on CvS and thank God that CT/Nelson existed to quell his attempt at winning Invasion. Showmancing Camila? Horrific look.
===255. Shane Raines (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
Shane, in general, was a really weird pick to appear on Dirty 30, since his time on Bloodlines was limited to getting physical with his brother Tony and shoving him against a wall. He never got the chance to do anything else because Tony was evacuated a few episodes later. Typically, I stan this kind of weird returnee casting, and this should have been one of those cases, but it really was not.
Shane did, however, prove that he does belong in the Dirty 30 and that he’s most certainly an Evil Gay when he physically assaulted Simone after making racially-tinged comments at her. All of his apologies surrounding the situation have been “I’m sorry if you were hurt, but”s. Big flop. Very much the lesser of the two gay Shanes on The Challenge.
===254. Simone Kelly (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
Simone Kelly sucks, unfortunately. Like Shane, she was also a weird pick for Dirty 30, considering her previous Challenge outings were limited to making unfunny OTT remarks about others and throwing drinks at beta males (mixed in with some weird vagina jokes I think?). Thankfully, early in the competition, she and Shane were sent home for getting violent with each other, thus ending her time on Dirty 30, and hopefully, the entire show. She ranks above Shane because I actually did laugh at her weird fortune teller act she put on moments before throwing hands on the roof of the Redemption House.
===253. Jeff Varner (Survivor: Game Changers)===
It’s really not possible to keep Jeff Varner in any longer; as entertaining as I found him before the events of the GLAAD Media Award-winning episode, “What Happened on Exile, Stays on Exile.” The amount of people I know that texted me, the Go-To-Survivor-Friend, about this after seeing headlines about the events of that ill-fated tribal...very wild. I felt socially necessary, but also, yikes, wow, what a bad circumstance to suddenly feel socially necessary.
There’s no human way to defend his action of outing Zeke as strategy, and yet, for so long, I really tried it. I had justified to myself that he was redeemable in the Survivorverse, and that we should move forward. While every action is, in concept, forgivable, it’s hard to forgive when there’s no evidence of a desire to change behavior.
When Varner plugged his book at the reunion – when he REALLY did not have to – he lost everything for me. He tried to turn his shame and his having been maimed on social media into a ploy for attention and empathy and to steal Zeke’s spotlight and moment, which, what? It’s a complete contradiction of the narrative he pushed in exit interviews. Get your story straight.
And then the pieces fell...right into place. He’s just not very nice, and very vindictive; usually this made for good television and entertaining confessionals. But in the post-Game Changers world we live in, it’s clear that Varner saying Tasha was single at 40 “for a reason” was not a one-off moment!
Psychologically, is Varner outing Zeke one of the most fascinating events in the show’s history? Yes! I could write for pages about that, but this is not the open forum I need for that.
===252. Matt Clines (Big Brother US 19)===
Yes, in Jason's writeup, I did briefly mention that Matt had a moment. In this moment, Matt exploded like a little kid who found out he can't go to a birthday party when Jason put him up as the replacement nominee. This came as a massive shock to Matt and Raven, and resulted in a petty argument between two grown men which gave me a lot of life (in general, anyone smacking Jason in the face verbally would give me a lot of life). I loved that. I just didn't love the rest of the Matt Clines Experience.
I was really rooting for Matt; as a resident of a town just a hop and skip from me, I was excited to cheer on the closest thing I have to a local RTV star. Tragically, Matt actually tried his best not to be a star, and was instead a blind Paul Puppet for weeks on end, doing nothing but having sex with Raven and eating cereal. Literally, he could not have been less intriguing; if not for his Moment, he'd have sunk wayyy lower in this ranking!
===251. Tony Raines (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
On Invasion, Tony touted that he was no longer drinking, and actually was pretty tame, nice and mellow for his short stay. Had he stayed this way or just not done Dirty 30, he’d probably be higher. He's attractive on occasion, but he doesn't do a lot to follow through on his physicality in terms of personality.
Tony sucks and has always sucked for being generally misogynistic. He’s a serial cheater. He has cheated on not one, but TWO women with whom he has daughters while competing on seasons of The Challenge. The first time was a quick one-and-done hookup on Bloodlines, but he really did shake me on Dirty 30: here’s why.
Cue Dirty 30, where he drunkenly hooks up with Camila(!!) in the back of a bus. Soon after this happens, he gets the weekly phone call home that every contestant gets, and calls his girlfriend. She asks him if he has anything to tell her and if he’s hiding anything from her!!
That’s right … … … homegirl read spoilers online and found out Tony had hooked up with someone on the show. Iconic. Groundbreaking. It’s not just limited to the reunion, now, for Tony to face his fears and own up to his actions. Tony had to literally hear his gf ask him about him hooking up with Camila while he was being filmed for the show. And here’s the kicker...he lied and said it didn’t happen!!!!!!!! lmao
=="Bad TV" Tier==
===250. Jordan Davies (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
If you recall from my Jamie O'Hara/Calum Best writeups, I referred to bromances as a very tired and old trope that doesn't need repetition; enter Jordan Davies, who from the moment he appeared in his VT in CBBUK20's launch night, I feared he would win. He's a vaguely attractive, high-energy young male coming in with a reality TV background and thus, a reality TV-inclined fanbase. The stars had already aligned; Jordan Davies would win Celebrity Big Brother 20.
Luckily, this was not the case, but his bromance with Sam – a self-branding effort to push "Jam" forward as the power couple of the season – severely hindered the early days of the season, pushing Trisha Paytas to quit and Brandi Glanville to break the rules of the game to announce she would be nominating the two of them. Jordan's entire purpose in CBBUK20 was to torment and annoy, sprinkled in with vague flirting – all signs that point to "typical BBUK fuckboy" and I wasn't playing along. In a stroke of good luck, he and Sam were nominated together, meaning that the audience vote split between which one to save and Jordan took the fall. It was a moment I was stunned by, but grateful for nonetheless.
===249. Joe Quaranta (Big Brother UK 18)===
In the wonderful season of reality television that was BBUK18, there were many characters present who I consider highs of the worldwide Big Brother franchise; however, for there to be such highs, lows had to be present, and one low was Joe. A perpetual thorn in the foot of the Thorn Cottage Crew (i.e. good people), Joe subtly antagonized Good People for weeks until his eventual eviction, a moment which was a long time coming. Normally, bizarre old people make for great TV, but Joe did not, as constant repetition of the line "I don't give a fuck" and throwing fits whenever young people outdid him at anything were bad looks overall. Poor young innocent gay Raph was berated far too many times by this man.
===248. Zeke Smith (Survivor: Game Changers)===
Zeke two-peating on Survivor is absolutely bizarre to me, considering he played back to back and changed absolutely nothing about his gameplay. Yes, for two seasons in a row, we received the same faux-mastermind confessionals in which Zeke would discuss mundane strategy using military analogies. Young Zeke here, like in Millennials vs. Gen X, Gathered His Troops to Go Into Battle with opposing alliances and was once again taken out for overstrategy in the midgame. A testament to the Game Changers post-merge is that even though I'm really not a fan of Zeke at all, I really felt nothing by the time he was eventually blindsided. It was just like, an "oh" moment.
What Zeke did have going for him in 2017, though, was being the pivotal player in the GLAAD Media Award-winning episode, "What Happened on Exile, Stays on Exile." Zeke did come through with an LGBT-positive narrative in episode seven, and for that, I'm thankful. He seems like a decent person and continues to push positive narratives through his writing, so please, keep doing what you're doing, Zeke, just don't do it on Survivor anymore. Please stop contributing to Big Moves Culture and poisoning Final Tribal Councils with misinformed jury speeches...it's for the best.
===247. Jarrad Seng (Australian Survivor 4)===
For reasons unknown, I can't seem to remember literally anything about Jarrad aside from how dull and boring he was. A man of his stature with the photography background he possesses seems like a recipe for great TV, but instead, he received a bloated, straightforward strategic edit despite doing nothing of relevance except trying to trick Jericho. Every time I had to sit through a confessional of his, I gained nothing, unfortunately. He was nothing more but a vaguely smarmy wisp that went too far, took up too much of the edit and was voted out at the correct time.
===246. Sandi Bogle (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
Sandi came in looking like she'd be a highlight of the show, and during the first couple of days, she was. She was dynamic, she gelled well with most of the house and seemed like she'd be a witty audience insert...instead, she faded quickly into the background and just kind of condescendingly condemned anyone who dared cause fights or tension within the house. The peak of this behavior was Brandi Glanville's last ditch attempts to bring non-Sarah-related entertainment to the season, a hurricane of wine-fueled feuds, which Sandi continuously put down and clapped back at (despite insisting that she was Not Going To Get Into It with Brandi!). Not riveting, and I felt very justified when she was SHAKEN at her eventual eviction.
===245. Nicola "Ziggy" Zagame (Australian Survivor 4)===
A renowned female Olympian was really an archetype I wanted to get behind, but unfortunately, Ziggy made nothing but bad decisions on Australian Survivor! When she wasn't invisible, she was sheeping AK, targeting great people like Tara Pitt, finding and using Super Idols to get out Anneliese, and trying to take Michelle out. Additionally, it took her an impressively long time to vote for a male, so that's a bad sign. Fortuitously, her damage on the season was very limited, as all of her efforts to take Good People out were mostly led by AK/others, and if she led them, they rarely succeeded.
===244. Caleb Reynolds (Survivor: Game Changers)===
Caleb Reynolds of BB16 fame barely feels like a Survivor contestant, let alone a Survivor two-timer. While, yes, he has a full seven episodes in his Survivor portfolio, Caleb has done nothing much of importance or relevance across his two seasons of Survivor. Despite what the evidence says, I can't say for sure that he was ever on the same tribe as Sandra Diaz-Twine, or honestly, that he even left the BB house.
In terms of his limited Survivor content, his friendship with Tai was a cute recurring moment, but it's definitely not worthy of their (at this time, pretty much confirmed) TAR31 partnership. It's funny, because Probst really pushed it that Caleb would have dominated Kaoh Rong had he stayed in the game and not died in the sand, but sadly for Jeff P., we'll never find out, because Caleb was unceremoniously swapfucked and voted out by Tai in episode three of Game Changers. His being voted out is more of a Hali Ford moment than a Caleb moment. oops, bye
===243. Mark Wales (Australian Survivor 4)===
Mark W. is someone that really inspired nothing but irritation from me; I feared he would, as most ex-army alpha males do in Survivor, walk undaunted to the end of the game and receive many jury votes. Luckily, he screwed himself by getting into a deep relationship with Sam, which tanked his game and cast him out before he could do too much damage. He had some following online due to being attractive, but really, I don't see it. He does absolutely nothing for me, sorry.
===242. Troy & Chele (Hunted US)===
Hunted was a brief, short-lived adrenaline rush that I personally believe deserves a future, but CBS doesn't; the positive qualities, however, were earned with no help from Troy & Chele.
If Hunted were edited like a normal competition reality show, this marries couple would have gotten 6 full episodes of content describing their time on the show, but because they were so inconsequential and uninteresting, their would-be 4th place finish was given exactly one episode. All I know about them is that they’re married and might own a gun shop if I’m correct here. While their strategy of hiding in the forest for 18 days was a good theoretical concept to win the game, it really flopped in terms of entertainment.
Plus, with such a promising name like Chele, you’d think she could spin her dourness into something wonderful for the camera, but really, no.
===241. Dan & Riya (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
Like, I guess objectively, Dan & Riya did nothing wrong, but could they have? Yeah. A team of UTR0 YouTubers with little-to-no interesting content on their channel (I've checked) seems like a recipe for disaster, considering they'd probably use all of their TAR screentime to push their brand. Luckily, they didn't really have enough time for any of The YouTuber Sentiment to leak out; really unmemorable.
===240. Paul Danan (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
I'm very mixed on what Paul did for CBB20; on one hand, he brought very sloppy drama (not a great thing) and only went against the people I liked in the house. Jemma, Sarah, Brandi (I think?) were all terrorized by the Paul Danan Hurricane, which was a Bad Decision on his part, but hey, this brought intrigue to the season. His bizarre rivalry with Jemma Lucy was, weirdly enough, a season highlight. The CBB20 cast felt like an unfinished puzzle, but at least he tried to put some of it together. On the whole, though, I just can't get behind his brand of smarmy douche, even if it's a better brand than, say, Jordan or Lotan. He also sort of reminds me of someone IRL that I've never liked so there's that lol
===239. Romeo Miller (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
I remember liking Romeo a little bit at the beginning of his Champs vs. Stars stint and he really did have a couple of Good Moments, but on the whole he really did run out of steam quick. Lowkey, I frequently forget he was even a participant on this show. I do respect him, though, for actually fitting the “Stars” moniker instead of just being a rebranded Champs vs. Pros reject.
===238. Tony Deane (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
I've seen arguments that Tony was a fun curmudgeon (some might say a Fun Old Man) who was rootable and brought entertainment to the season, but I'm going to dispel that right now because it's fact that he and Nathan "Nate" Davis fit the same archetype: old, bland, grumpy retired cops who only target good people (Hannah Gough deserved a better Survivor experience!). He gets to rank quite a bit above Nate for two reasons: for one, Tony gets taken out by his tribe in like, episode two or three, whereas Nate doesn't, and two, he loses at Redemption Island to a young female who was ill at the time (notable because his strategy during the Night 1 vote was to vote out females for being weak).
===237. Adam Parkin (Australian Survivor 4)===
I can safely say that out of everyone in this cast, Adam brought a net zero to this season. In two parts, his arc is summed up as “another poker player who thinks they’re smart enough to dominate Survivor” and “bad strategist who gets blindsided immediately.” This sounds wonderful and very Garrett Adelstein-esque, but Adam didn’t really bring much substance and felt like a recycled afterthought. I don’t even remember what he looks like as I write this.
===236. Derek Acorah (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
Once this ranking is done, Derek Acorah is someone I probably won’t ever think about again. His claim to fame is being what I’d consider to be a pretty clear “speaks to ghosts” scammer, and one of the least thrilling segments of CBBUK20 was watching him summon spirits in the CBB house. Not really that convincing, and I felt like I needed to take a shower when he was finished because of how grimy it felt. Regardless of these personal feelings, Derek provided little to no zest and yet took up a spot in the final four that should have gone to Chad or Jemma, so, yeah, he’s out.
===235. Marissa Jade (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
I wish I could say that an overconfident American mob wife whose VT got booed by the audience provided great trainwreck entertaniment, but no BBUK first boot has ever been a more clear pick for me. I guess Marissa tried to do something by showmancing Jordan, which didn’t work, because Jordan would be caught dead before he brought actual intrigue to this season. I think she thought she was coming in with a complex, intimidating Mob Wives brand, which didn’t really work because there wasn’t much to her. In fact, she almost seemed nice, which was very off-brand; I think she'd have done a lot better in a regular BBUK season.
===234. Shaun Williamson (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
Touted as a big name actor who was going to bring endless humor to the CBB house, Shaun’s entry to the CBB house was given much pomp and circumstance. Tasked with the challenge of pretending to be nervous and completing weird tasks during the live launch to make the other housemates uncomfortable, Shaun not only demonstrated that he’s not reality-TV ready, but that his improv isn’t great, and he single-handedly made the CBB20 launch much less exciting. While he never outright did anything bad – I kind of enjoyed him from time to time, probably because it was only ever in small doses – was he really a suitable replacement in the endgame for someone like Brandi, Trisha, Paul, or even Helen? Probably not.
===233. Brandon Block (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
I wish Brandon Block were more interesting, because his place in the CBB house seems so off. He’s not outrageously entertaining, nor is he an icon to older Brits; he’s just a guy that had a really big fall from grace and has disappeared since, but this wasn’t meant to be his big comeback a la Paul Danan or Daniel O’Reilly. He just casually went into the Celebrity Big Brother house, found out it wasn't for him, and quit a few days in.
His quit was a relief that someone uninteresting was gone, but also a disappointment, because at that point in the season, he seemed Nice, and the season needed Nice People at the start to counterbalance Austin Armacost.
===232. Ryan Ulrich (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
Nerds on Survivor have always been rough surf for me; even a character like Skinny Ryan (of Pearl Islands fame), in the context of the Morgan tribe where I should be rooting for him, failed to really hook me, and Cochran is one of my least favorite Survivors of all time. Spencer is really the only exception to the rule, and even then, he lost me by the end of Cambodia.
Ryan wasn’t someone that the Survivor pantheon needed to see. In the same vein that Hannah Shapiro, Kellyn Bechtold and soon-to-be Gabby Pascuzzi are direct sequels to Aubry Bracco (you could even argue that Aubry is a sequel to Shirin), Ryan is one of many unnecessary sequels to Cochran, and presented nothing new to the table that his archetype hadn’t done before, except for maybe a weirder focus on virginity and not being popular. He wasn't really bad in hindsight, but he really wasn't good at all.
===231. Tom Paterson (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
There was always something about Tom’s characterization that would suggest he was a lovable, funny guy who everyone adored, but it didn’t come through in the edit (no surprise there given the State of Things in this season). Instead of the jokester I assume he was on the island, Tom came across as a bland, uninteresting hybrid alpha-beta male and I didn’t really care for it. He was one-note the entire time and had no arc to justify making it to second place. I’m not kidding: there was literally no development for the runner-up of Survivor NZ: Nicaragua.
===230. Brad Culpepper (Survivor: Game Changers)===
I watched all of Survivor: Game Changers - Mamanuca Islands in constant fear that Brad Culpepper was on track to become a Survivor winner. Whether it was constant exposition of his strategic exploits in the pre-merge with fun moments sprinkled in or the highlighting of how ~impressive~ his immunity run was, I sat weekly watching a show where all I really cared about was “is Sarah Lacina getting a good edit?” That was it. I just wanted to see if Sarah was getting a better edit than Brad or Troyzan. Outside of this trend, Brad kinda sucked once the merge hit, and you know your Survivor arc ends badly when you start as "actually a nice guy" and end with aggression and alleged bullying.
===229. Troy "Troyzan" Robertson (Survivor: Game Changers)===
Similar to Brad, I watched the first bits of Game Changers in perpetual angst when it came to Troyzan. Is his edit okay? How much strategy do we see Troyzan doing?
It’s a shame, I think, because I really liked Troyzan (as a casual) in One World. And he was, in general, inoffensive here, but he literally just didn’t do a single good thing, and did very few things in general across all 14 episodes. Very few images of Troyzan even competing in Fiji exist on this internet. I can’t say very much about this bizarre second incarnation; it’s weird that we live in a world where Troyzan Robertson placed better than Survivor icons like Sandra Diaz-Twine, Cirie Fields, and (too soon…?) Aubry Bracco.
===228. Savannah O'Reilly (Big Brother UK 18)===
Have I ever been more wrong about a reality TV contestant since Aaryn Gries? (the answer is actually probably “Alex Ow” but considering Alex is still in, we’ll stay with Aaryn.) When the three candidates for the blind date task were announced – Sam, Savannah and Isabelle – and it was revealed that two would be entering the house, it seemed clear that Savannah would be the star. She’s Irish, cute, bubbly, and seemingly far more psychologically advanced than Isabelle and Sam combined. I was ready to stan. I was so, so ready!
She sucked!
Her big ~mystique~ was that she’s allegedly close friends with the likes of Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, but like...if this is true, then why aren’t you a more relevant celebrity friend type? The Kardashians have a laundry list of adjacents and even Taylor Swift’s besties were doxxed in the past. Regardless, with those friendships as her social crutch in the house, it got really old really fast when she just hung around Lotan and the other antagonists and talked about Justin Bieber. That’s literally her only legacy here. Her only other minorly significant moment is her one-second cutaway shot to her doing absolutely nothing during Fight Night, which, come on, even Ellie provided during Fight Night. Step it up. It takes a lot for a pseudo-celebrity like her to literally get rigged out in the most obvious of ways.
===227. Karthik Nagesan (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
I wish Karthik were better, because WOW, from looks alone, he clearly has star power. The unibrow is game-changing, but unfortunately, Karthik was a complete fish out of water here. He failed to really bond with anyone and was mostly rebuffed for being socially awkward, which would normally be a good underdog arc and entertaining TV, but unfortunately, it just made a dry beginning to CBB20 even more dry. I do want to say that he may be bad TV on CBB, but I’m going to sit here and believe that he was probably great on The Apprentice UK. (There was another alum from his season on CBB this year and she was a lot better than he was at this format though! Oops!)
===226. Amelia Lily (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
Heading into CBB finale night, I was pretty convinced that Amelia would wind up fourth or fifth, because realistically, she brought nothing but a weak “will-they-won’t-they” showmance plot with someone much more interesting than her. She would up finishing second, which was really worrisome for me, because Sam was this season's version of a Golden Straight White Hot Male and I feared that I underestimated her popularity. Bizarrely, everyone came out of that house rooting for her to win, because apparently she was really sweet and nice, which I don’t doubt, but she really offered nothing for me.
===225. Kevin Martin (Big Brother Canada 5)===
Karen was woke before all of us were; she knew that That Kevin Robert Martin would do bad things and wreak havoc on what should have been a beautiful endgame. In short, Kevin’s not as good at Big Brother as he wants to be/thinks he is. Simply put. And I’m ashamed to say that I, for a small bit of time, really bought into the compelling aspects of his underdog arc/competition win streak. It seems magnetic at first: Kevin's allies get taken out and he swears revenge. It fizzles, though, when you realize that the tension between he and Demika does not come to the correct head, because Kevin literally has 0 tools to make this revenge a satisfying arc. It comes to a three episode sequence about how important it is for Kevin to...win competitions and stay in the game. It involves a multi-episode sequence where Kevin tries and fails countless times to make game moves, literally wasting HoHs on goats and pawns in failed efforts to eliminate Demetres and Ika. It’s bad gameplay and it was really rocky to watch him awkwardly but loudly argue to the jury that he played a good, well-rounded game (they bought it! ack!). Loses more points for queerbaiting/bisexuality as a strategy. William didn’t deserve that!
=="Okay TV" Tier==
===224. Nicole Zanatta (The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions)===
Blegh...unsure of where to begin with Nicole. My feelings on her are eternally mixed. She's so bad, but also probably a net good. I put off this writeup for a solid amount of time. Here we go.
Nicole is someone who, on the whole, should have no issues making a Final in any Challenge season given the female casting trends on this show. Nicole is a really fit lesbian cop with a thick New York accent: cross Carolyn Rivera and Kelly Remington ft. the physicality of Chrissy Hofbeck, then put that creature in its mid-20s.
You might ask why I put Kelly Remington there, and it’s more than just being a NY cop. Nicole’s main Challenge plotline was a love triangle between her, Cara Maria and Laurel, neither of which had never been portrayed on the show as LGBT in any fashion, to my knowledge, although Laurel, in conversation with someone this season, uttered the phrase “Cara likes girls” (in a romantic/sexual context) like it was somehow common knowledge, which shook me, and I couldn’t find any discussion online regarding that. So jury’s out on that one.
The mood here is that at the time of filming, Cara and Laurel were best friends, so when getting with Cara didn’t really work out, Nicole ping-ponged to Laurel, who was initially, rightfully, not open to being Nicole’s literal second choice, but later on actually opened up to it and essentially came out as bisexual. The two dated for ~nine months or so, and it was wild to see Laurel, my first ever Challenge favorite, have that kind of journey on national television. It’s one of the reasons I like Invasion so much, and I’m appreciative of Nicole for bringing the social politics of gay love triangles to my computer screen and for bringing Laurel more complexity and relevance.
On the other hand, Nicole is an incredibly dour and bitter person. By the end of the season, I had taken my glasses off and was no longer seeing Nicole in the rose-colored light of being a Laurel supporter. It should be known that Nicole, in the early phases of Invasion, heavily backed Bad Presence Tony when actual angel and icon Sylvia betrayed their alliance and sent him into elimination. She berated her for days, even when Tony didn’t seem to be super upset about it. I’m hoping Nicole gets #Sylviaownt in Vendettas, or to some extent, has to face the music for her negativity.
Nicole also really rubbed me the wrong way re: her behavior in the entire love triangle scenario. She was really aggressively pursuing both Cara and Laurel, to the point where it seemed like she thought she was entitled to at least one of their affections, despite Cara being adamant that she wasn’t into her. Sure, on the surface, it’s romantic/sweet to hear of a couple where one person was so into the other that they just wouldn’t stop until the other person agreed to a date or something, but watching Nicole socially suffocate two of my favorite contestants in this franchise for the sake of getting a new girlfriend was kind of weird.
===223. Ray J (Celebrity Big Brother UK 2017)===
For someone who reportedly was paid $1 million to enter the CBB house, Ray J might be the single biggest producer disappointment ever. Due to previous beef with former friend and fellow housemate Stacy Francis, I think producers expected Ray J to set her off immensely (the two had a falling out that coincided with the death of their mutual friend Whitney Houston). To an extent, yes, his presence did play a role in the deterioration of Stacy’s mental state, which was the main plot of early CBB19, but I think producers also really wanted him to leak something wild about the Kardashians (every now and then, I think they aim for this by casting a Kardashian adjacent – see Jonathan Cheban, Malika Haqq), which didn’t really come to fruition. After the first few days, Ray J wound up sleeping a lot and disappearing from the edit, and eventually he got essentially medevaced due to dental issues or something, and so unfortunately, despite a strong showing out of the gate, he faded into maximum obscurity as a Celebrity Big Brother housemate.
===222. Candice Wiggins (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
No one on the Pros team during Champs vs. Pros was inherently bad, and I enjoyed all ten of them, which is really good, considering MTV just pulled ten pro athletes of varying skill levels and tried to tout them as “the best athletes in the world.” Unfortunately, Candice had very little time to leave an impression, and while I do remember her being a really Nice Girl, that’s it. She was just Lolo Jones Victim #1 in the grand design.
===221. Lou McClintock (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
A seemingly nice and timid girl who earns points for being a bearable teenager competing on Survivor. That’s really it though; aside from her medevac which was vaguely sad/sped up the game, I can’t remember much of Lou doing anything. Big fan of her name though!!
===220. Arthur Fulford (Big Brother UK 18)===
Arthur was never someone I was particularly keen on, especially because his journey involved a fake persona (massive troll) so heavily put on that when it was universally panned by the house, it rattled him to his core, causing the real Arthur to emerge, claim he was being bullied and leave the house. It was a bizarre series of events, and in a weird way, it somehow became the focus of the series. The first week of this season was focused on Arthur and his antics, constantly winding up literally anyone he could (particularly Kayleigh – those arguments weren’t fun).
I love people that take it upon themselves to frustrate the entire house (see: Jedward), but I think where Arthur went wrong is believing he’d be able to do it effortlessly with no backlash whatsoever.
===219. Kim Glass (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
On the whole, I wish Kim Glass were a better TV persona than athlete, because with a name like Kim Glass and the fact that she is Good Looking, I expected a legend but got something much less exciting. Because she didn’t really have a personality, when I think of Kim Glass, I default to her gameplay presence, which was also unimpressive and bland. She’s someone who made mildly good quips from time to time, but she mostly just subscribed to the Josh Murray school of thought which was “Justina is a bad person for trying to vote out my friend.” It was really something that, in 2017, I was Not Here For.
===218. Andrew Cruickshanks (Big Brother UK 18)===
The Andrew experience isn’t one I’m keen to relive, but I’m mostly just in awe that it happened. He was most definitely hopped up on something on launch night when he failed to win the UK’s hearts and get voted in as the People’s Housemate, so when he entered on Day 25, I fully expected him to be a paranoid mess, immediately piss everyone off and be swiftly booted. This wasn’t exactly the case, but he did piss everyone off and be a paranoid mess.
His highlights include discussing the fluidity of sexuality with Raph, but his lowlights involve his weird, creepy and unwanted affection shown towards Raph after that conversation. Additionally, he mega evolved into a hellbeast at the eleventh hour and tried to drag good people through the mud for no exact reason, since he was already confirmed to be evicted first on finale night and thus had nothing to gain, but hey. He tried.
===217. Zed & Shabbir (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
The first real example of TARCan5’s weird MORverse, Zed & Shabbir should have, in theory, been a more likable, quirky and rootable example of a father/son team, where the son is Young and Hip and the dad is Older and Not Hip. It came through in moments, but on the whole, I’d have been probably upset had they stayed longer than they did. They were fun, but not really fun enough. The most entertainment I got from them was seeing them fumble every step of the way in Thailand, but that said more about the challenges than the team at hand.
===216. Katrina Radke (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
I really, really wish I could sit here and say there was more about Katrina on Survivor than what met the eye, but she was really a victim of editing, as well as the network forcing a weird one hour premiere. Katrina had a net total of 0 moments on Survivor that made the edit; there aren’t even many pictures out there of her Survivor experience. I can’t recall a single sentence or phrase that she uttered, which is really sad because apparently (I didn’t watch much pregame material) she was kooky and insane in her promo videos.
===215. Izzy Pearson (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
Izzy arguably had the first Good Moment for the season of any player; the marooning for this season involved running out to sea to grab useful items for your tribe to take back to camp, and I guess there wasn’t a rule about stealing from the other tribe, because Izzy took it upon herself to take a bunch of valuables from Hermosa to bring back to Mogotón. She even followed it up with a villainous confessional! Almost a perfect setup for a great run on the show.
She didn’t follow it up with a good run on the show, though, because she basically faded into obscurity literally immediately after this, got sick and didn’t succeed on Redemption Island. She did beat Tony on RI, but that wasn’t even really a wild moment.
===214. CM Punk (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
I don’t know anything about CM Punk’s wrestling/MMA career, but he was touted to be this big, maniacal and unstoppable force coming into the Pros team. He turned out to be a really tame and chill dude, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I remember liking him during my very short Champs vs. Pros viewing period, but looking back, outside of his one-episode storyline with Shawne, he didn’t offer a ton.
===213. Matt & Christina (Hunted US)===
Iconically captured (eliminated) within a day of the season starting, Matt & Christina will forever be known to me as the couple that wore weird wigs/disguises (shown above) and made dumb mistakes (ex. using their credit card at a train station ATM, revealing their location). Also, Christina looks bizarrely like the female version of someone I knew a couple years ago, which was jarring. IIRC the two of them were pretty faith-oriented, and I think had they lasted longer, we could have had a cool plotline where they get demoralized and rely on faith/God to give them the strength to continue, but we didn’t get that. Sad!
===212. Alex Ow (Big Brother US 19)===
Alex Ow is very good at fronting kindness and likability. In fact, I bet she goes about her day-to-day life just fine, being nice to most people and keeping this front up. Unfortunately, at least on Big Brother, this was unveiled not to be true, as she was showcased to be a very nasty person on the inside, and... I just don’t think I can keep this ranking going with Alex still in?
For someone with such a strong start to the show – revealing she watched and voted in BB1 and being a feisty/scrappy underdog – Alex finished the season as another Paul puppet and victim, which makes her completely not unique and gives her an identical arc to most of the BB19 jury. I guess aside from needlessly bullying Cody, Jessica, Kevin, Mark, Elena, Dominique (I’m reaching a little bit at the end of that list, but she’s not necessarily on wonderful terms with a lot of this cast), she wasn’t that bad...yeah, no. She really lost me when she told Cody he could finish her favorite box of cereal, then came downstairs and yelled at him for doing that, claiming she didn't give him permission to do that, brought his daughter into it and rounded up the rest of Paul's puppets to gang up on him for that. For someone who seemed so prone to an expulsion, Cody surprisingly maintained his cool during that verbal assault, and I respect him a lot for that.
On a personal level, I just couldn’t get behind her terrible, cringey attempts at branding herself and trying to become an iconic character by doing things like wearing a “Petty” hat all the time (conscientiously), drinking Coke all the time (conscientiously) and wearing a cat ears headband all the time (completely on purpose). She literally walked out of the house on her eviction night doing all three of these things and I bet she thought the audience ate it up.
She escapes the bottom 50, essentially, for voting for Josh at the end. The culmination of her arc is actually somewhat impressive; for someone so fixated on Paul’s loyalty and being Paul’s close friend, she was so hurt and deluded by this that she unleashed the very anger and pettiness that Paul was weaponizing and puppeteering throughout the game… on Paul, for betraying her. She verbally castrated Paul many times at the finale and I was so there for it! She was a pivotal vote in crushing him for the second time. That being said, it’s not enough to make up for the rest of her season of terror.
===211. Christmas Abbott (Big Brother US 19)===
This sounds mean and that’s because it is, but can you imagine sucking as much as Christmas? Like Alex, such a strong start to the season. A woman bodybuilder with a name like Christmas comes into the season with a strong personality. She’s poised to dominate; she says it herself at the start of the season that Competition Christmas is Out and That Bitch is Unstoppable.
She was stopped around Day 12 or 13 when she broke somewhere between 2-10 bones in her foot and couldn’t compete in almost any competitions for the rest of the season.
Following this, Christmas went from a strong personality to a strong goat for Paul and turned her cheeriness into bitterness and dourness; while she wasn’t as forward with her bullying as Alex and Paul were, Christmas made sure that anyone she didn’t like was the recipient of a verbal beating. Kevin asked her how her day was and Christmas lashed out. Jessica sat too close to her and she lashed out. This would have been mega-entertaining; and sometimes, it was, but other times, it was all in the name of supporting Paul’s agenda and being mean to Good People.
Oh, and she didn’t really care about the game. There was that, too. She agreed to take third place so Paul could have a shot at winning. Like, really? And after touting all season that Josh was her ride-or-die, she gave Paul her vote to win. A bad showing. I think she’s mostly moved on from the show, which is good, but like, it was probably her only option considering she did nothing but bad things on Big Brother.
Something that I’m surprised didn’t blow up during BB19 is that an article exists on the internet mentioning Christmas coming forward at an LGBT+ summit at VCU in 2002, speaking on her experiences being bullied for being gay, a concept that seems to have passed on since. She came into BB19 presenting very straight; it's not impossible that she’s bisexual or something, maybe repressed, but like, I was shocked that the rabid BB fandom didn’t tear into that article and spread it everywhere. Given the nature of the fandom, though, I guess it's better that it wasn't. She'd still be getting tweets about it today.
===210. Shawne Merriman (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
Shawne “Lights Out” Merriman didn’t really come in offering a lot, but I do remember two moments of his – the first being how he was playing for his Lights On Foundation, which was kinda funny, since he cracked a few jokes about it before his elimination against CM Punk, which brings us to his second Moment. Shawne and CM apparently had shared some bizarre Twitter beef a long time ago, and they had a really human moment in which they discussed and settled it in person, then fought it out in a crapshoot elimination where CM Punk won. On the whole, not a stunning showing, but Shawne managed to carry some complexity.
===209. Kamerion Wimbley (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
Kam is someone I forgot was even playing the season during most of his time on Champs vs. Pros. He wasn’t a mind-blowing TV presence, but did offer some humor by virtue of simply just being a large man among smaller people. He unfortunately gets docked points for sticking around and letting more entertaining people get eliminated before him, although I guess it kind of had a net positive since his performance during the final challenge was mostly laughable – you’d expect for such a big dude to not completely gas out after a small bit of running, but guess what, Mimi? He did. It was kinda funny to watch Lindsey completely carry their team despite being probably one third of Kam’s size.
===208. Anthony Bartolotte (The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions)===
Anthony was mostly irrelevant on Invasion, and a bizarre inclusion in general. The time had long passed for his season of Are You The One? to make an effective splash and cause an effect on this show, and yet he showed up as a rookie at the same time that the following AYTO? season was first beginning to make its mark. He’s not wonderfully interesting, but he certainly exists.
===207. Jaymes Mansfield (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
I wish I had more to say about Jaymes, but she came in with her Inner Saboteur™ already plaguing her drag. She’s a hilarious queen, but unfortunately was just really meek in the RPDR9 cast and was a predictable first boot from the moment she entered the workroom. Sorry girl. I do think she won the Love Shack lip sync, but against Kimora, that isn’t saying much. She's good at drag for sure, just not wonderful at Drag Race.
===206. Ramses Soto (Big Brother US 19)===
I think I'm more upset with the idea and concept of Ramses than Ramses himself. It's cool that a young, gay, non-white superfan nerd got cast in the modern BB landscape, but like...why? What did he do other than sit around and wait to be picked off? Like I just...I don't think he did anything. His eviction was a complete non-event; he was taken out on Jessica's HoH completely by mistake over a literal OTTNN mess because he was that expendable. Everyone in BB19, following the first week, had some sort of affiliation and association to someone else or a group within their game. Ramses had nothing.
The flipside here is that Ramses somehow succeeded, as far as I'm concerned, at not being an awful person. He came through with what I'm choosing to label a Dre Gwenaelle nod throughout the season; if production slapped Christmas (the holiday!) onto Corey Brooks as his gimmick, the word "lit" was the Ramses gimmick, which is much, much tamer and lighter than FRIENDSHIP or PISSED or MEATBALL so yeah. Ramses himself is not that bad.
===205. Coleen Nolan (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
I don’t think Coleen Nolan meant to win CBB19. It was a fluke; she herself has said she didn’t deserve to win. If we put this situation in the grand scheme of how much uproar there was over Michele’s Kaoh Rong win back in 2016, Coleen’s win would have surely sent shockwaves throughout the world with a Survivor-esque fanbase. Despite being a horrendously uninteresting housemate who did nothing but smoke and complain, Coleen somehow inexplicably received 32.65% of the final vote and won Celebrity Big Brother 19. This sounds like it would be an amazingly funny moment, but it wasn’t because she beat out 4 genuinely better and more interesting housemates in the final five to do it.
Even the producers could not fathom her win, as instead of leaving to the big display screens saying “WINNER” as is traditionally done for a winner’s exit, they simply just continued to say “EVICTED!”
Thanks to Coleen, it really does not feel like CBB19 had a winner. It feels like finale night was non-canon; everyone simply disappeared from the house after 32 days. Nobody won. The final six housemates were never seen again.
===204. Ariane Andrew (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
Looking back, I have rose-colored goggles on for Ariane, because overall she really did her best to fight on the side of Good TV. She was a loyal Justina minion and her cockroaching to the endgame despite being, all the time, the Stars’ worst competitor was funny to watch, especially when the Josh/Kim/Shawn alliance got #pressed that she stayed over them. It also allowed for a mildly interesting TV moment in which Matt decided that he really wanted a strong Stars team to run the final so he pulled a CI Penner and officially Betrayed Everyone In The Game by trying to vote out Ariane.
On the whole, though, she didn’t provide a lot of moments by herself; they all had to do with the reactions of others. So there’s really only so far for her to go.
===203. Shawn Johnson (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
Shawn and Ariane are pretty much tied, but I put Shawn above Ariane because I think Shawn gave more actual #moments on her own than Ariane did. Shawn was slightly more entertaining pound-for-pound than most of the Stars (she had good commentary during challenges) and in all honesty, was the least bad member of the Josh/Kim/Shawn trifecta that got murked mid-season. She provided a Tori Deal Moment in which she, an Olympian, lost to new Challenge icon Tori in a weird low-budget elimination that was basically “fit a hula hoop around your opponent.” IDK, I don’t have much else to say about her. She’s cute?
===202. Dario Medrano (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
For someone who was so loud and so vocal about taking down Johnny Bananas & Co. in his earlier seasons, Dario really did bungle his future appearances by fading into the background and sliding by until the mid-game. On Invasion, he did provide a plotline by getting into a cute relationship with Ashley K., and I’m happy for them, but overall, between his two showings this year, he didn’t do much aside from give a few funny comments here and there. I’ll take it over the unbearable Dario from Bloodlines, though.
===201. Eureka (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
Eureka will be appearing on RPDR10 as a returnee and I’m not happy about it. Her incarnation here consisted of a full five episodes of repeated loud-mouthed statements (literally talking whenever she could) and badly timed jokes (both badly timed as in, she didn’t get comedic timing and just jokes that were hurtful due to circumstance). Charlie Hides clocked her best when asking her to “just shut up for a second” during Untucked. That’s about all you need to grasp Eureka. That being said, I hated her a lot more during airing than I do now in March 2018. Maybe it’s the knowledge that she’s coming back to my screen in 3 weeks and so I’m subconsciously forcing optimism?
===200. Bianca Gascoigne (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
Bianca Gascoigne was a Nice Girl in the grand scheme of CBB19 as she never really did anything wrong and was usually pleasant to have around, but that’s kind of it for her. Her VT on launch night described her as confrontational, bossy, feisty, etc. but she never really did anything to live up to any of those descriptors until the 11th hour, when she sort of started to raise her voice at Kim, who had been relentlessly taunting her and Nicola for twenty days.
I find a bit of amusement in her late-game antics, though, as once her showmance with Jamie was in full-boring-force, production actively exposed a conversation in which she admitted to already having a boyfriend outside of the house to the entire remaining cast. This provided one of two moments in which I actually enjoyed Bianca; her panic after this info leaked was interesting, but unfortunately, Sarah Harding would play this exact role much better months later.
===199. Derrick Henry (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
I’ve heard Derrick H. is supposed to be awful on Are You The One?, but I have yet to watch that show, so to me, he’s just the MOR dude that Tori Deal was dating going into Dirty 30. They were a fun concept to me, because it was two relatively unstable-seeming rookies coming in already dating each other instead of just hooking up and becoming a shallow twosome in the early phases of the game. Of course, as it is with most MTVerse relationships, they're mostly for TV time and that relationship has now turned into a rivals pairing for season 32. Hearing Tori yell “you got this bae!” while Derrick was in an elimination round was truly a 2017 moment that will not soon be repeated; I've never heard a more simultaneous vibe of "please succeed" but also "I need to convince everyone we're in love" before.
===198. Ashley Kelsey (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge: Champs vs. Pros
Ashley Kelsey has some truly rabid stans online, but unfortunately, I didn’t see her original Challenge season in which she was apparently really good. So, I was left with her Invasion showing where she was sacrificed to allow Cara Maria and her love triangle to progress, and her Champs vs. Pros showing which was arguably even less memorable. Her relationship with Dario was and is cute (she is also very cute), though, and I hope they live happily ever after. She gets some bonus points for being good looking, but not enough to really thrust her any higher.
===197. Ellie Young (Big Brother UK 18)===
Ellie "Elleh" Young is someone who's hard to rank because she brought two very different flavors of Young Girl to the BBUK scene. In her VT and first few days in the house, she presented naivety, no filter, a zest for fun and happiness and a bubbly persona. She brought "girl next door." She brought actual humor, she brought good moments of happiness and positivity in the first few days. 
Her VT was really promising; she went in as a favorite of mine. She really seemed to be the naive, energetic girl next door; this, however, soon began to twist itself into "needy girl next door" once she decided her purpose and storyline of the season was to pine after Lotan. Lotan, a manipulative and abusive person, didn't reciprocate, leaving Ellie groveling for sexual action at every turn.
The peak of Ellie's Lotanitis came in the days leading up to Lotan's timely expulsion, when he tried to leave the house via the fire escape and Ellie tried to drag him back through the door and into the house. Because she's a career reality TV star that doesn't really need to be physically fit to get a job, Ellie's unable to pull actual block of muscle Lotan back into the house and thus she literally just bawls on the ground in a fit of anger and rage. Keep in mind, this is after twenty days of Lotan not reciprocating her intense attraction, so why she would continue her unrequited, parasitic attachment to him is something I don't know.
This bizarre shift in personality was further exacerbated when the Date Night task came around, previewing Isabelle, Savannah and Sam for the other housemates; Sam admitted during the task that he was into Ellie as a viewer, so predictably, when Sam entered the house and Lotan was already gone, Ellie pounced. The need for attention and affection jumped out and all of a sudden, SamxEllie became the only content either of them would receive. It was never interesting, but it was always better than constantly enabling a bad person.
=="Fine TV" Tier==
===196. Jillian Parker (Big Brother US 19)===
If Ellie was the fake Girl Next Door, Jillian was something a lot closer to the real Girl Next Door. Very kind, sweet, pure (from what we saw in the edit), but there didn't seem to be much going on for her game-wise? She was just constantly Not Doing Well and it showed when she was on the block for five consecutive episodes (all episodes in which she was featured as an eligible contestant to win Big Brother 19). Her shtick, like Ramses' shtick being "lit" and Corey's being Christmas, was the fact that she'd gotten liposuction in Tijuana, because that's literally all she mentioned on the show, and I'm assuming most of her DR-fed joke lines were in that vein as well.
She's a nice person though! She's really sweet on social media from what I've seen. She really got lucky, because she got to skip out on the darkest BB season in years.
===195. Ozzy Lusth (Survivor: Game Changers)===
Did Ozzy actually do anything in Game Changers that he hadn’t done before? Ozzy’s Survivor fourpeat was just kind of a recycled assortment of his greatest hits: “I’m going to stay in the game by catching fish,” “I’m athletic,” “this tribe can’t vote me off if I’m good at challenges.” Ironically, his pre-game press was filled with statements about doing exactly not this, but I guess he just reverted to what he knew best until being voted out for a third consecutive season at the second merge tribal.
His blindside is probably the peak of his GC creativity, because it produced one of my favorite sequences of reaction shots in Survivor history:
Culminating in the perfect closing line for Ozzy, “Good luck eating,” as some sort of petty jab against his tribe...mood. to think this was Debbie Wanner’s creation and people still call her GC incarnation bad...ugh her mind
===194. Angela & Michele (Hunted US)===
Angela & Michele being early outs was really heartbreaking to me, as if I remember correctly, they might have been living in some sort of poverty? Unsure? But they weren’t super well off, and when they got captured after only two episodes of being featured, I was gutted. Had they lasted for more episodes, I think they could have reached a much higher placement in the game and become 2017 RTV standouts.
===193. Avi Duckor-Jones (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
I came in with a positive impression of this guy due to his sister posting on CTS asking for links to watch the show; that positive impression slowly, slowly diminished. I want to like Avi for being a generally nice person and inoffensive winner, but on the whole, he’s unimpressive. His game was weak until like...mid-merge, when he just kinda latched onto Better People until an opportunity came to vote them out. I guess overall, he’s better than Tom and Nate, and a lot of people in the post-merge Casar tribe would have been worse winners. It just kinda sucks to see someone go from likable to slightly erroneously self-righteous over the course of 40 days.
===192. Bruno Bettencourt (The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions)===
Bruno’s early departure was both sad and well-timed. His backstory was generally tragic, as he was pretty open about being in some form of poverty if I remember correctly, but he sort of wasted that good will away by being a sore loser when he lost the first challenge. After being eliminated early, his legacy lived on by being referred to as “the vegan” and the rumors that were spread that he got sexual with Jenna on the plane over to Thailand ("I heard finger BANGED" – Amanda Garcia, 2017), which was funny because by that time I’d completely forgotten who he was. I guess he’s the epitome of having a posthumous hit.
===191. Alexis Michelle (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
Alexis is fun as a meme purveyor, but she presented this facade of being incredibly talented (disclaimer: she probably is, she just wasn’t the most talented) and deserving of the crown throughout the entire competition, when she really failed to deliver a lot of the time. A delusional icon for sure, but like Eureka, she annoyed me a lot during the show’s initial airing. I think a lot about her just annoyed me; from her uninspiring (yet somehow, winning) Snatch Game performance, to not giving Nina the role of Blac Chyna, to her very obvious odd-one-out status in the top 5, nothing clicked for me about her last spring. Also, her “#SubwayFish” brand is really not that inspiring to me and reeks of that “forced/manufactured branding” vibe that RPDR9 gave off most of the time.
===190. Michelle Waterson (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
Michelle “Karate Hottie” Waterson is kind of a Brenda Lowe figure if you take both of Brenda’s incarnations into account: she mostly really showed up to be Sweet and Kind, except for when she beasted tf out of competitions and sent Challenge icons packing. She, like Ariane, was a loyal Justina minion and I supported her endeavors, especially because Michelle herself was the reason that Justina made it to the final. She brought some fun and cutesy moments throughout her time on Champs vs. Stars, but I can’t say she’s a favorite. Like Tia Blanco in Champs vs. Pros, I like Michelle for being an atypical pro athlete (aka not from a Big Five sport), since I feel like she’s a breath of fresh air from the major sports players.
===189. Anika Rashaun (The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions)===
Anika is someone that showed a lot of promise, but unfortunately was cut when she went up against elimination heavy-hitter Jenna in the second round. I know that MTV has asked her back at least a few times, and I’d love to see her again, because she was genuinely smart and witty.
===188. Mark Chrysler (Big Brother Canada 5)===
The Mark Saga was essentially all confined to gossip and lore told exclusively on feeds long after his eviction; the 7-6 eviction vote was supposedly a result of a scramble involving Mark picking a lot of last-minute fights that couldn’t get aired due to time constraints. Otherwise, his BBCAN legacy is limited to being a Karen Singbeil victim and the only male BBCAN first boot. If you’ve noticed, these are purely statistical, because we learned absolutely nothing about Mark.
However, the Mark Mystique has me captivated, mostly because he’s really attractive, but like... Who is he? What has he done? What will he do in the future?
===187. Aimee Stanton (Australian Survivor 4)===
I wish I could remember Aimee doing...anything, really, except for being an aloof fifth boot that got sacrificed so that A.K. could stay longer. I’m not gonna go back and skim her episodes for content because I’m not that passionate about doing her justice, but like, there was definitely something important to her time on the show. Ten never really advertises many people for Australian Survivor in pre-show press; around 6 or so contestants get profiled/advertisements made after them to drum up hype, and Aimee was one of them. I guess her stance as a young girl plumber was unique enough to market, but I feel like it should have translated to success on the show. IDK. A mystery. Maybe I'm missing something here.
===186. LaToya Jackson (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
LaToya was one of my first Challenge favorites when she left everyone shook in Free Agents by winning multiple eliminations out of the gate. Coming back for both Invasion and Dirty 30, I wasn’t as impressed, and though there was still residual adoration from her Free Agents stint, she resigned herself to a showmance with Nelson and got beaten by Sylvia in one of my favorite eliminations ever in Invasion, then got sent home early into Dirty 30. Don’t get me wrong – LaToya is still able to constantly bring laughs and she’s a natural entertainer, but she just wasn’t relevant at all across in either of her seasons this year.
===185. Samantha Gash (Australian Survivor 4)===
Sam is someone I’d love to support for being a successful female athlete and probably a smart Survivor player, but in general, we got a bundle of nerves who crashed fast. Her bizarre brand of paranoia and constant scheming should have been amazing, but it got swallowed up quickly when her story became that of her and Mark W. She just feels very unfinished to me.
===184. Locky Gilbert (Australian Survivor 4)===
Points for stanning and supporting legend Tara Pitt, points for being strongly anti-A.K.; negative points for eventually defaulting to the Wrong Alliance post-merge, voting against Anneliese, trying to vote out Michelle. His immunity run coming to an end was BIG, but I just wish it happened before, like, top five. He just wasn’t really compelling enough to carry 20+ episodes of content, but he’s not a bad person.
===183. Briana LaCuesta (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
I remember virtually nothing bad about Briana, which is probably okay. She showed up late to replace Ashley M. a couple days into Dirty 30 (bringing the cast to a Dirty 31) and got out fairly quickly at the hands of Britni, starting Britni’s rise to being a textbook randomfave of mine. Despite getting minimal content and me actively not being able to picture what she even looks like, I like the concept of Briana because she was really adamant about putting to rest the culture of “rookies go into elimination early” and “if you come in late, you get thrown in elimination right away” and proving herself. I was a big fan of that dissent, even if it meant she didn’t really get it to come anywhere close to fruition.
===182. Megan Lowder (Big Brother US 19)===
It’s hard to know where to begin with the Megan lore. Pre-show, Grodner was saying she was the best player in the house. Her hair colored changed in between promo pics being taken and appearing on the show (from silver to blue). She literally has an artsy tattoo that says “I hate myself” and “I love myself” depending on from which direction you see it. She’s ex-military but now is a dog walker. Some people had her as a clear first out, and some had her as a clear winner. No one knew what to expect from the Megan Lowder experience.
No one anticipated that when feeds turned on, Megan’s picture on the Memory Wall would be greyed out and she’d have quit the game.
I think I love the concept of Megan much more than the execution; if she’d stayed in the game and fought Josh at every corner as a warrior of righteousness, she’d probably be top 50 of this ranking. Tragically, she got wrapped up in a racism scandal where Josh ended up triggering her PTSD (not on purpose) from her sexual assault and… it’s really a lot? Like, none of those things seem like they’re going to be comfortable TV, but it’s an interesting story. She made a choice for herself and the positivity of her future to leave the game, which was probably best. Props to her for getting out of the BB19 mess as soon as she could.
===181. Tia Blanco (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
I liked Tia’s inclusion on the Pros team because while everyone else was like...a BigMassif football star, basketball star, Olympic medalist, X-Games champion, but Tia was just touted as a chill surfer, and she was really petite, which is why I felt really bad for her when she had to go up against Lolo in elimination. She never stood a chance and gassed out immediately once her life in the game was on the line, but on the whole, she seemed really sweet and was a better UTRP presence than her Champs counterpart, Ashley K.
(postscript: I just did some brief research and apparently she’s a world champion surfer! Good for her, and also props to MTV for getting someone of that caliber)
===180. Kieran Lee (Big Brother UK 18)===
Kieran "Kiki" Lee was generally inoffensive, aside from being a part of Lotan's crew, but everything he did was advancing other people’s plotlines. He didn’t really have moments of his own. A fellow Ex on the Beach alum, talking about Kayleigh’s wild nature with other houseguests on launch night spoke more of Kayleigh than or Kieran. His bromance with Tom spoke more of Tom’s need to latch onto a more dominant personality than Kieran’s probable kindness. His flirtmance with Deborah was more about Deborah coming out of her shell than Kieran actually being attracted to anyone. His pre-existing relationship with Isabelle was more about her being petty and absolutely over Kieran; the reveal that Kieran gave Isabelle an STD was more about Isabelle literally not caring at all what the other housemates thought of her. His pre-existing relationship with Rebecca was more about the deterioration of her mental state and repressed attraction to him. Did he have bad moments of his own? No. But did he have moments of his own at all? Maybe, but they were few and far between.
===179. Kate Temby (Australian Survivor 4)===
Kate is another case of “should have been amazing, but wasn’t”; a seemingly strong, probably smart older woman always has a place in my heart, but she was fairly irrelevant until her boot episode, in which I didn’t really have enough to cling to for me to want her to stay over more likable underdogs Tessa/Tarzan (aka Mark H.). She probably would have been great had she had more time on the show, which is sad, because in the A.K.-dominated Samatau tribe, a lot of precious Survivor lives were lost for his benefit.
===178. Tai Trang (Survivor: Game Changers)===
Tai, Pt. II was not really mind blowing and probably not needed for a while. Tai’s initial story arc ended very well and his Kaoh Rong stint provided a great, one-season-long story arc, and I guess the producers were hoping they could get more of the same moral dilemma characteristics out of him?
What we got instead probably could have been a clip show compiled by a Tai AI. He found idols again, befriended Caleb again, won immunity again, cried again, was picked on again, made top four again. Did anything new happen? Granted, Tai Recycled is still better than some contestants trying something new, but like, it's not thrilling. He gets points for not actually doing anything bad and helping bring Brad Culpepper down to true villain status at the very end, but like, I’m still befuddled. Tai Trang played twice and has played Survivor for 77 total days. That’s not real.
===177. Sierra Dawn Thomas (Survivor: Game Changers)===
The moment that Sandra said the exact name of "SIERRA DAWN THOMAS" in episode 4 of Game Changers, Sierra became a permanent meme. Mere days after Sierra was hilariously ridiculed for being called a fan favorite on The Price is Right, spurring the nickname "FFSDT," Sierra shocked the world by being in the final cast for Game Changers, becoming the new poster child for "Why?" returnees everywhere. I don't think she would have even been remotely interesting in GC had she not lucked into the Legacy Advantage on Day 1.
The evolution of SDT becomes a bizarre amalgamation of vague microaggressions and power tripping, resulting in President Sarah killing her in cold blood. Does this sound interesting and enthralling? Yes! But it's like interesting things happened to her, but she wasn't interesting. She didn't bring a positive vessel of entertainment, but she brought right-place-right-time dynamics that brought something. Also, she brought this incredibly well done shot:
===176. Terrell Owens (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
Champs vs. Stars was cursed from the start when I realized the budget was low as fuck and the casting was half-baked, so for TO to show up, literally not care at all about anything, fight CT and quit 12 hours later? That’s a testament to the way the entire season would go. Terrell Owens being talked down by a producer in a hotel hallway is the essence of Champs vs. Stars. He had 2-3 episodes in which everyone trashed him in their confessionals and then he quit. An icon. Props to him for being a bizarre vessel for Champs vs. Stars promos to be shown in the middle of ESPN sports newscasts.
===175. Shea Couleé (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
Shea does not click with me. Nothing about her felt innovative to me; from the moment she entered the workroom, I immediately had a bad feeling that she was going to easily win the competition without delivering anything remotely new to the RPDR franchise. Her looks were good, sure, but we’ve seen better looks. She could deliver comedy, but there have been funnier contestants before. Her confessionals were incredibly smug and bothered me (I can’t stand unwarranted condescension); we’ve had better “experienced queen reads inexperienced queen” segments in the past. It feels bizarre that she even landed in the bottom, because all I remember about her is her uninspiring success rate. With all this being said, she delivered a lot of unfiltered drama in the reunion and finally lived up to her bitchy confessional persona.
In retrospect, she’s a lot better as a finale loser, but I was really scared she’d be the winner for a very long time.
===174. Charlotte Keys (Big Brother UK 18)===
The odds are high that Charlotte will be the last BBUK18 cut for a while. Realistically, Charlotte’s biggest fallacy was more like a lack thereof; there isn’t one thing you can pinpoint of Charlotte’s time on television as a bad moment. She stuck around until just before the final, allowing better contestants to exit the house while she loitered around, but the meat of the Charlotte Keys experience lies more in the fact that she was literally told by her own mother in the middle of the season that she had been boring and that she’d need to start being interesting. Her own mother literally told her that she was being boring, and not in an advice type of way...her mom literally was like “this isn’t you? I'm not enjoying this?”
And so Charlotte peaked by having a bizarre, somewhat forced but still entertaining altercation with Chanelle, a bizarre choice considering Chanelle beats literally anyone in a verbal fight, but like, it happened. Charlotte went on to befriend Andrew in the weirdest pairing of the season, something I completely forgot about until I rewatched her Best Bits. She had probably 1-2 snarky moments per week, but overall, was there really a Charlotte #moment that didn’t involve motherly legend Mandy?
...actually, yeah, this iconic screengrab from her surprise eviction:
===173. Marie Roda (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
I had the highest hopes for Marie when she showed up on the boat in episode 1 of Invasion. I’d read so many great things about her on Vevmo and r/mtvchallenge: that she was this wild, callout-friendly strategic icon that tore it up every time she spoke and was a contender for best, most iconic Challenge competitor of all time.
Catch my surprise when she showed up on Invasion and was nothing more than a MORN early boot who didn’t really have a lasting impact on the season. Yeah, it turns out I’d just stumbled upon a forum that worshipped her, the same way other fan sites (or people) might worship other generally unimpressive female RTV contestants. (Don’t try and tell me Roark Luskin wasn’t #winning HHH)
Her Dirty 30 showing, however, wasn’t the worst thing in the world: she lasted long enough to produce some snarky jabs, actually showed strategic chops when it came to splitting up alliances early on, and delivered a #moment when she basically quit the game because she didn’t want to eat a rat. So she actually does show promise, and with her Vendettas premiere being pretty strong in terms of relevant content, she may or may not rise if I do a ranking next year.
===172. Nelson Thomas (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
Nelson, Cory and Hunter are the three main cruxes of the “Young Bucks” alliance who want to take down all the vets and ascend to a Challenge victory. Nelson is like a slight upgrade from Cory: he actually delivers on his promises and wins eliminations. He actually almost won Invasion as well, a physically demanding final in which Cory floundered.
Nelson is Cory if Cory walked the walk: he came within minutes of winning Invasion and is a generally competent competitor if competing on his own. He’s also a good bit funnier and more lighthearted than Cory, someone who loves to give off that vibe as well. In Dirty 30, however, Nelson snapped around the midpoint of the season and got expelled for punching Derrick K. which is something I was unspoiled on and my wig flew because on the whole, he still is a bit too bro-y for me and I wasn’t unhappy to see him go. He really wasn’t an important cog in the amazingly well-constructed Dirty 30 machine for me.
I wouldn’t mind if he won a Challenge in the future, because I’ve accepted that he’s one of the few rookie players who truly can right now (see: Kailah, Ashley M., that might be it) and it’s always cool to see newer players do well. However, though, this is more because I’ve grouped him into a cluster of Challenge men that are Not That Bad, and in an endgame where it could be something like Tony vs. Nelson vs. Bananas, you know who my money’s on.
===171. David & Emiley (Hunted US)===
I really did think Max Dawson Clone & his unassuming girlfriend were winning Hunted after the first couple of episodes. They were featured so heavily, it was insane, although I realize now it might be because David was a walking plot point. He’d been on the run before and written books on it, so if he struggles, then the show must be difficult and interesting, right? To a certain extent, yes, but at the same time, seeing their compelling journey come to an end once they didn’t win was bittersweet. Yes, I’d rather have someone else win (scene after scene of David talking about how good he was at going on the run was tiring), but my heart really did break for Emiley. She proved towards the end that she, too, was good at this game, and wasn’t just being carried by David.
===170. Leroy Garrett (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
When I first watched this show, I began with Free Agents, a season in which Leroy’s showing wasn’t mind blowing, and I thought to myself, “here’s someone who definitely won’t be returning past Free Agents.” You can imagine my surprise when it was revealed that Leroy had, at the time of my watching Free Agents, partaken in eight (8) seasons of The Challenge.
Leroy is someone who doesn’t ever really stir up a lot of drama, and never really breaks past being UTRP/MOR(P), which can actually be really good in a season like Exes II or Dirty 30 where everyone’s pretty insane. Leroy, however, was forced into the spotlight when Camila went on her racist tirade against him, an event which was reportedly much worse than what was shown on television.
I really do have to hand it to Leroy for handling that event with class and grace. His speech at the reunion about it was well-articulated. So, overall, even after Leroy got #ownt by Veronica this year, I appreciate what he brought to Dirty 30 and what he brings to the franchise as a whole.
===169. Mark Jansen (Big Brother US 19)===
I guess in the grand scheme, Mark was Good. It’s not to say he didn’t have his bad moments – the Josh pool fight, basically saying that other people missing their families was invalid because his parents are dead, sheeping Paul until the eleventh hour – but he and Elena played a pivotal role in Paul’s fall from grace within the Jury house. And, plus, when Josh was Bad, Mark was Good to counteract it. I think had Mark been on a better season with a better cast, or even on a Paul-free BB19, he could have been a really fun character, but he really got circumstantially inhibited. His entertainment value was neutered.
===168. Joan Caballero (Australian Survivor 4)===
Joan was set up to be a huge favorite of mine from the start of the Australian Survivor 4 adventure: minority woman, occupation of “Escape Room Owner” with a name like Joan Caballero was a LOCK for on-show success, and in her unfortunately short one episode stint, she...sort of delivered success? I got the shades of content I wanted from her (overconfidence in challenge skills, being annoying around camp, bad strategy), but none of it seemed to truly peak the way that last year’s Australian Survivor did with Des.
===167. Lee & Hilmar (Hunted US)===
Similar to David, Lee & Hilmar were confident that they could win Hunted from the get-go, but unlike David, they took it further than just gloating in confessional segments. They instead actively taunted the hunters, and I’m drawing blanks as to what they did, but it was funny. It almost got them caught quite a few times, so it was entertaining seeing this cocky young team with zero reason to be as confident as they were constantly escape capture. They weren’t the most interesting, but on the whole, their relationship was unique (I think one saved the other’s life?) and a nice spin on a friend pair. Overall, I was rooting for them to win by the end.
===166. Andrea & Ebonie (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
This was not a bad team! They were fun occasionally. It’s just that I feel like there was more here than we got to see on TV. F/F team of business partners takes on Amazing Race and bottomfeeds the entire season...sounds legendary, but somehow isn’t? They just weren’t as fun as I’d have liked. I liked them a good bit while the season was airing, but I don’t really have emotion towards them anymore.
===165. Kimora Blac (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
Preshow, I was pretty set that Kimora would be a contender in the competition. Her promo look was stunning and she served confidence and experience. However, pretty quickly into the actual season it dawned on me that Kimora was never meant to make it far into the competition. While she was there, though, she delivered a few fun moments in which she served a more refined edition of Alexis Michelle delusion and gave some laughs. Princess Banana Lady was a vaguely horrific experience, but I loved the mess.
===164. Joe Mena (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
After weeks of people comparing Joe Mann to Tony, it was unveiled once the merge hit that Joe was an entity of his own, a petty human being capable of irritating literally everyone as strategy. Gone were the days of finding idols and being manic; the merge episode ushered in an era of berating literally everyone and bonding with Dr. Mike. Sadly, the peak of Joe Mann came during what was once thought to be the deepest valley of HHH, the episodes during which 3 Healers got slaughtered; his upgrade was too little, too late.
===163. Sala Tiatia (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
SNZ’s answer to Rupert never truly offended anyone with his gameplay, but I really think he was a victim of this season’s mishandled editing. All we really got was Nice Dude, so much to the point that it bordered on too much; there’s only so much you can take of the same vibe for like, 14 episodes about how someone is a good person. There was nothing to counteract this, which made what should have been the game’s biggest blindside – his own – less exciting than it should have been. Like... his blindside happened, and that was it – Sala became another stepping stone on Shannon’s unintentionally villainous path. One of the biggest presences of the season was gone.
===162. Louie Vito (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
The thing with Louie is that he’s not a big dude and didn’t seem super accomplished in terms of sporting accomplishment at first (he’s apparently an Olympian so go him, I guess). I wasn’t really sure what he’d bring to Champs vs. Pros at first, but in his run, he managed to genuinely be a really solid and positive person and brought light and happiness to the Pros team (aka what would otherwise be The Saga of Lolo Jones). The guy also seems like a massive stoner, which, mood.
===161. James Jordan (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
James Jordan is someone who just kind of marinated in mediocrity until it came time to join in verbally castrating Austin Armacost. James J was not here for any of his horrific antics and was very much #TeamSpeidi in the water bottle-gate scandal if I recall correctly (and I might not lmao). I don’t have very much else to say except I’m shocked he isn’t gay because he really does exude gay vibes. His placement is a result of being an enemy of my enemy.
===160. Emily Hawkin (Big Brother Canada 5)===
I have no ill will towards Emily since she didn’t actually have the power to do anything bad in this season, but her time on the show for me will forever be associated with the dark, despair-filled two-week period in which Neda Kalantar’s influence almost stripped the season of its clout, and the event to mark the definitive end of that period was Emily being evicted. She’s a cool girl, and gave a pretty good last episode underdog performance before her swift eviction, but I think had she made the jury I’d have mixed feelings about her. She’s nice, I guess. She's pretty much the Canadian Baylor Wilson, just without all the things that made Baylor iconic.
===159. Dallas Cormier (Big Brother Canada 5)===
Dallas 2.0 was not something expected or necessary, but it happened regardless and it’s time to accept it. He wasn’t bad! Dallas has never really had time in his BBCan career to really do anything bad. So even if he really is some bizarre real life mix between TDI Owen and CT from The Challenge, I am of the opinion that his trainwreck value should be celebrated. In the span of two weeks, Dallas managed to go from “probably safe” to “immediate target” by deciding to pick like 3 different fights and force feuds for the sake of buffing up his ego, which brought great TV and spared good people for weeks to come. King!
===158. Charlie Hides (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
Let me take you on a brief journey: leading up to the 9th season of acclaimed reality competition “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” RuPaul had stated that after season 9, there would be 112 individual queens who had competed before. The rumored cast, then, became a collection of 12 new queens, a group of everyone but Charlie (and Cynthia, but she was already counted as a queen prior to her return). Later in the pre-show speculation stage, Charlie became rumored, but due to Ru’s 112 queens comment, she was dismissed as faking inactivity on social media for attention...catch the gag on r/rupaulsdragrace when Charlie was ruvealed as one of THIRTEEN new queens.
I appreciate Charlie a lot for that moment, and also for being an older queen bringing comedy and a British flair to the competition. If you look at her actual performance, though, she absolutely floundered and was not going to do that well in the competition. Homegirl made 6 excuses for why she gave up on the lip sync that sent her home, and that was funny, but she disappointed me…...iwasrootingforyou.gif
===157. Lindsey Jacobellis (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
I think Lindsey truly tried her best to be entertaining and relevant, and I commend her for it. Champs vs. Pros was a season almost entirely about half of the Pros team and Ashley Mitchell, which on the whole, is not a horrific thing. While a lot of Lindsey’s content was more Lolo Jones content than anything, Lindsey did try her best to bring drama by not getting along with Lolo and proved that, even though she was less interesting than the rest of the pros that made the endgame, she did deserve to make the final when she dragged Kamerion across the finish line with her. Overall, a weird MORN3 presence, but she did leave somewhat of an impression on me. Good casting choice.
===156. Peter Conte (Australian Survivor 4)===
A nice kid who immediately appeared in my good graces by referring to himself as “totes homo” when asked if gay, but then disappeared for most of the season. I think he was stricken with a bad edit more than anything; I just didn’t get much out of him for most of the season, and had to really look closely to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating when it was unveiled that he’d reached the final three. Like. Whomst’d’ve? He gets good points for having an emotional storyline with regards to coming out to his dad, and really seems like a good person at heart.
===155. Desi Williams (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
Has there ever been a more tragically handled contestant edit-wise than Desi? The answer is yes, but she’s up there for sure. For someone to be portrayed as a smart, potentially key player in the pre-season promos, to then receive a (vaguely) real/raw if not UTR edit pre-merge (saying that Joe was an exhausting ally comes to mind), to then very much be an inconsequential victim of the Heroes-Hustlers regime... It’s disappointing. She seems like she deserved better.
===154. JP Hilsabeck (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
Works well and dynamically as a purveyor of memes – his inability to form a single sentence is mind blowing – but didn’t really bring much overall. I think his legacy would be a lot more illustrious had he been taken out in Ali’s place as a dumb jock that gets taken out pre-merge for being threatening. That being said, his blindside is probably my favorite thing about him; the sequence was edited very well with music and shot timing (one of HHH’s biggest strengths is its post-production A/V handling) and it provided a nice break from the Healers getting slaughtered.
Points for apparently changing Chrissy’s life though? She says in her TED Talk that a conversation with JP actively changed her life for the better and how if not for JP, she would be a different person. Iconic?
===153. Sarah Tilleke (Australian Survivor 4)===
I’m a sucker for when women are in power on Survivor, but in general, when Sarah was in power, it didn’t feel complete, because I felt like I didn’t know much about her. That being said, I rooted for her; she was smart, she was cunning, and I wouldn’t have minded her in the finale. I fully anticipated her win based on her Michele-esque edit, but that’s not what happened (and that’s probably good). Her downfall was extremely amusing; everyone was so fed up with her dubious gameplay that she got unanimously voted out 7-1 following the tribal that had a 3-2-2-2 vote. She tried.
===152. Ali Elliott (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
CP toneless women who take power in US Survivor have some sort of hold over how I perceive them; despite being objectively boring, I find myself stanning, if only because when a female controls the vote in Survivor, Jeff Probst quakes inside. Ali played directly into this; she wasn’t that interesting on the show – the deepest, most interesting thing about her is being Patrick’s neighbor before the show and voting him out in cold blood – but it’s always, always good and novel when a minority female runs her tribe. It’s a shame Ryan had to get her out so soon, because she really could have won the game with her mind. I hope she somehow returns, is more dynamic and brings GloZell into the Survivor spectrum!
===151. Sam Thompson (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
I liked Sam quite a bit as the season aired, and at one point, had accepted him as an okay winner and representative for the series. Once Jordan was evicted, Sam went from potential hellbeast to Nice Guy and general fun-loving presence; all this being said, it’s difficult to forgive the long, drawn-out “will they or won’t they” plot he had with Amelia. Logistically, like, from an objective standpoint Sam was leagues ahead of Amelia in entertainment value, and could carry scenes on his own (conversations with Jemma, Brandi, Sarah were good b-roll footage positioned against main plot points such as Trisha’s Meltdown, Brandi’s Downfall and The Sarah and Chad Show), but it’s really hard to look past his legacy as leading Amelia on for 3 weeks.
===150. Matt Rife (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
I want to like Matt more than I actually do; we seem to have similar senses of social humor (judging by what I saw on the show) and he’s only a couple years older than me, so I guess had I been CasualWatching this show (which is now an impossibility), Matt would have been the far and away favorite of mine. Objectively, though, Matt wasn’t super present throughout the season, but I will say that I respect him for Understanding the Game. Not only was he a loyal member of the initial #JustinaUprising to take down the tyrannical Josh/Kim/Shawn trio, he Betrayed Everybody In The Game when he flipped again to try and axe Ariane from the Stars team in hopes of trimming the fat before the final. Big reputation. He literally didn’t care at all that he made the move, either, and openly stated that not taking him to the final was a horrible move for Josh and Michelle. There’s something about that bluntness I kind of enjoy and respect. I think the height of the Matt Rife experience was his final confessional blasting Josh and Michelle for taking Justina to the final, then following it up with a tongue-in-cheek “but I’m not bitter. :)” In general, Matt probably fought the hardest this season (behind fellow MTV White Rapper Justina Valentine) for Good TV, and I appreciate it, because Champs vs. Stars really needed more warriors like him.
ps. he generally gives me big gay vibes but I haven’t found confirmation of this yet
===149. Ciera Eastin (Survivor: Game Changers)===
My residual stanning of Ciera calls me to drag her as far as I can in this ranking, but her meme value of voting out her mom and making big moves can’t save her anymore. I probably stole this sentiment from elsewhere, but Ciera Eastin was basically GC’s titular character. They probably framed the season around someone like her: a young girl willing to do whatever it takes to get to the end of the game. It’s like Probst’s wet dream: we knew she’d be a poster child for modern Survivor gameplay when he hailed her at the BvW reunion for going to rocks. And even though SEG produced this season as a group of people willing to make big moves, it’s very ironic that the first boot was determined by who bombed the puzzle in the first challenge and who was the first person to want to make a move at all.
It’s weird to see her as the first boot of Game Changers, a season that probably could have catapulted her to “Survivor legend” status. I have no doubts that we’ll be seeing her for a fourth time, but in the meantime, it’s amusing to me that we truly do have footage of Ciera saying “I don’t want to be the first one voted out of the game changing season.”
===148. Cynthia Lee Fontaine (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
Why exactly did Cynthia return to Drag Race? It’s not really known and was never explained well, but I’m glad she did, because I loved her on season 8 and was ready for her to make it deep with her more polished drag. She comedically wound up with the exact same placement and didn’t really impress, but I still love her brand of insanity and positivity. Compared to the introspective, serious vibe of RPDR9, it was nice to hear phrases such as “my cucu is burning” between queens exchanging sad stories before going on the runway every week.
===147. Lee Den Haan (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
I feel like if I don’t cut Lee here, even though it feels vaguely unwarranted, I’m going to drag him too far. While, yes, Lee was a UTR Boring Guy for about 90% of his SNZ stint, his last two-to-three episodes focused on him suddenly being selfish, lazy, irritating...and that exponentially increased his entertainment value for me. Like, yeah, I guess he isn’t game-changingly entertaining by any means, and certainly isn’t a professionally-trained RTV douche™, but like, he ascended to a higher power eventually and didn’t deliver any devastating blows to the season.
===146. Helen Lederer (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
Helen Lederer is a concept, a series of moments that don’t add up to a full narrative. Touted as a comedy legend, I was excited for her to serve neat lady importance with humor, but what I got from her was a series of intellectual moments in which she served as the sole sane woman watching the world around her catch fire every single day and tried to figure out how to dissect it. In all honesty, Helen should have been out a while ago, but psychological studies in human behavior are a peak of RTV for me, and she presented one without really forcing it.
PS: she gets weird bonus points for having Feel It Still play in her VT on Launch Night!
===145. Adam & Andrea (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
A nice, kind, inoffensive and even fun at times sibling team should be stanned vehemently by me, but like most teams in TARCan5, there wasn’t really a peak moment for them in which I was ready to declare them an overall favorite. I really do enjoy them a lot, but they’re not a “rewatch the season for them” team. There’s really only a couple of those in this cast anyways. Props to Andrea for being a great voice of reason for the team!
===144. Kevin Schlehuber (Big Brother US 19)===
The superior Kevin On Big Brother in 2017 falls, and there’s a multitude of reasons. While I loved his space in the edited show as the Confused Old Guy who was just there for the ride, let’s be realistic: a series of moments from the edited show in a North American Big Brother season does not entirely redeem a continuum of bad game decisions. When he wasn’t a social fish out of water or Fun Old Man, he was a Paul sheep that did everything a Paul sheep does: mock better people, vote out better people, give Paul a jury vote at the end, enable bullying by being a bystander, doesn’t try to win.
I was fully ready to drop any and all good will towards Kevin once he spread the info about Cody having a daughter around the house for no good reason. I don’t think these things came entirely from a place of his own malice – everyone around him was indoctrinating hatred into him without him really knowing – but it’s hard to look past for me. I’m happy he gave us fun little moments here and there, and it feels bizarre to say he made it to fourth place, but this is the end of the road for him.
===143. Josh Martinez (Big Brother US 19)===
There’s a lot to thank Josh for – beating Paul 5-4 at the final two even after taking him to the end was a moment that will not soon be recreated, it’s a moment that catapulted him over 100 spots higher than expected, and I sit here typing this months later, not entirely sure that BB19 had a winner – but when Josh wasn’t presenting as the only hope to conquer evil at the end of the game, Josh was insufferable. Josh was a manchild, Josh was bullying over half of the house and fans actively called for his expulsion from the game. Josh was provoking others to hit him and be expelled, Josh was encouraging everyone to torment Jess & Cody, Josh was gaslighting Elena, Josh was accidentally triggering Megan’s PTSD by shouting at her and causing her to quit.
I guess you could say he was a good casting choice, and definitely subverted lots of expectations – he freaking WON, which is a trippy thought, because I remember watching his interview with Jeff Schroeder before the game and saying he was an obvious first boot – but, man, I was watching some BB19 clips back recently and it just killed me inside to see everyone back Josh during conflicts.
===142. Korey & Ivana (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
The sum of Korey & Ivana is not equal to their parts; for a team that basically bottomfed for weeks and argued at every turn, I’m struggling to come up with one specific moment that involved the two of them being as amazing as they sound on paper. Points for bringing fun interteam conflict, but it’s not a fantastic look when I can’t remember the conflict itself. Points for being good at branding though? I’ll always remember them as #TeamPanda above anything else.
=="Good TV" Tier==
===141. Sindy Nguyen (Big Brother Canada 5)===
I think Sindy With An S, while able to bring dynamite television (see: BBCan3), will have her twopeat legacy encapsulated by being the one who backdoored Neda. This isn’t to say that Sindy didn’t deliver anything else; it’s just that this is her most significant contribution. Her role in the grand design here was to be the Neda ally that got fed up with her behavior after weeks and decided it was time to make a big move (with help from Ika). I firmly believe in her ability to be a Good Person and would probably stan if she appeared on reality television again; this just wasn’t her time to shine as brightly as she can.
she did bring this important moment though:
"i'm a dabber, not a fighter."
===140. Aja (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
Has any other queen aged better with time for me than Aja? I really disliked her at the time of the cast release, and she didn’t really blow me away for a majority of her RPDR9 episodes, but by the time it was spoiled that she’d be appearing on AS3, I was ready for it.
What gets me about Aja is her entire arc, on-and-off-screen. She came in as a frontrunner; gays everywhere were hyping up her lip syncs, her makeup skills, her innovative looks. I’d read fake spoilers that said she’d won and I believed them at the time. Even in the first couple of episodes, it was literally stated that Aja was the hottest, most relevant drag act in Brooklyn at the time.
In terms of Aja herself, she was incredibly confident that she’d excel (“I sew 95% of what I wear so I have this challenge in the bag”)… except she didn’t, shocking pretty much everyone. And when she realized she wasn’t excelling, she wound up in the bottom after the second challenge (which gave me whiplash). Luckily, this meant that she did justice to one of my favorite songs of all time by killing Kimora to the tune of Holding Out for a Hero, which is always a plus. In her frustration, she even snapped on the formerly unclockable Valentina and created a wonderful meme!!!! What more can you ask for from a formerly deluded queen?
center|335 px
I like her brand of humor a lot now. She’s come out of her original season much more self aware and light-hearted, which was welcome in a season of queens without many well-demonstrated (at least, in the edit) senses of humor.
===139. Theo King-Bradley (The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions)===
I was ecstatic when Theo showed up to Invasion, because he actually was a genuinely funny guy that actively expressed interest in filling Cory’s role as “young, funny alpha male rookie.” He even declared he was ready to take Cory down in his first elimination round without an issue.
Iconically, once he realized it was a heights challenge, something similar to this exchange took place.
TJ: Theo, are you ready?
Theo: … … … … nah. I’m out.
TJ: So are you quitting?
Theo: … I’m not doing this… 
Theo will most definitely not be returning to any future seasons of this show, but he provided a better quitting #moment than Marie did, and I liked what he brought overall. Really good for an early boot on this show.
===138. Jasmine Waltz (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
Jasmine Waltz was a bizarre addition to this cast. It is to my understanding that her main focus in her original CBB season was being the loser in a love triangle and thirsting after men, so naturally, she showed up here and thirsted after Calum Best at the same time as Stacy Francis, which didn’t work for either of them. It was funny to me because she was just generally trying really hard and not succeeding; it again and again was entertaining, but that’s kind of all it was. I think she just desperately wanted to be a lovable mess, but instead was just sort of disliked to the point where she tried to fry her microphone in oil out of depression at finding out the audience wasn’t feeling her. She’s someone in this ranking from CBB19 that I can safely say contributed a net positive to the series though, so good for her.
===137. Aarif & Immad (Hunted US)===
At the beginning of the Hunted finale, it became clear that one of the final three teams would be captured in the first half of the episode because the edit was syncing up a lot of tense moments to each other. Aarif & Immad’s conclusion came in this wild, adrenaline-pumping farm chase scene that seemed straight out of one of my dreams.
The reason they’re so high, though, is because of the societal implications of their progress on the show. Being two non-white men in the south, it’s very easy to realize that they’d probably get some attention from implicitly racist people around them, and I would have assumed they’d be captured quickly. It was fascinating to see them shave their heads and beards as a technique to avoid capture and appear more like a “normal” American rather than an easily other-able minority group. I’m happy they were able to get far.
===136. Barb Raos (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
This writeup is one I wasn’t really sure how to tackle because of what Barb represents. She’s a stay-at-home mother who had essentially given up on winning the game midway through – the crux of her arc is “does Barb even want to go to the final three?” – and yet you sit there and root for her, because she winds up ascending to this mafia boss position in which she sits peacefully journaling in her hammock as people come to her all day to strategize, and she always gets her targets out. Survivor NZ’s post-merge was determined by what mood Barb was in the day of Tribal Council; this sounds wonderful, but it’s a little bit twisted when you realize she resigned herself to playing for Avi and Tom to win. Maybe it’s because she knew she couldn’t win due to Neat Lady Syndrome, maybe it’s because she just felt uninspired by the season’s low budget. But what remains true is that Barb is a good Survivor player who didn’t want to win the game, which is a sad combination of facts for a kind 53-year-old woman.
===135. Dee Harper (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
Diane “Dee” Harper has about 3-4 last names available online that I actually struggled over which to pick; Cambiaso, Cambioso and Harper are all listed across multiple wikis, websites and news articles surrounding Survivor NZ’s inaugural season. This is a large bit of her mystique, but I think on the whole, Dee is both a tragic loss and bullet dodged as far as first boots go.
I don’t know how she didn’t think labeling herself as a villain literally at the marooning wasn’t going to come back to haunt her, but it really did, because it made her an easy target for the Night 1 Tribal Council. Granted, having a Night 1 Tribal Council at all is kind of a bad idea, but it made the premiere somewhat exciting; but I digress. It’s almost sad that someone who was such a fan of Survivor and clearly such an interesting person had to be sacrificed first from the entire Survivor NZ franchise, especially considering how shaky the season would later become, but I also feel very strongly that had she stayed, we would have seen a female Zeke Smith dominate the game only to be taken out by the very same Big Moves culture she would likely have promoted. It’s a double edged sword to have her out early, and we’ll never know if it would have been a net good or net bad.
===134. Kent Nelson (Australian Survivor 4)===
Kent is someone I was coming around to just as he got voted out, and he functions as a huge anomaly in Survivor history. An older man manages to escape elimination multiple times, doesn’t really become a challenge standout or strategic threat, makes it to episode eight – or nine… when does this ever happen? When is there ever a Survivor male that functions exclusively for non-ironic entertainment who lasts longer than he should? His legacy remains being one of Michelle’s first at-Tribal murders, which is a good spot for him in the AUS4 continuum, but his existence is still so confusing!!
===133. Chloe Ferry (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
Chloe didn’t really have enough time on the season to truly blow me away, but she did what she could with her one week stint on CBB19. Being taken from the throes of Geordie Shore – the British version of Jersey Shore which is even trashier – and thrust into CBB alongside Kim Woodburn, Chloe was destined to be abrasive to everyone, including the viewers. She incited an argument night 1 with actual terrifying figure Kim Woodburn and went on to annoy Jessica and Stacy too, if I remember correctly. Her Big Thing was pining after Calum, but unlike Jessica, this was all Chloe would ever amount to. She was fun; she was lighthearted, immature and I think actually somewhat genuine. She does belong on Geordie Shore: she’s unapologetically loud, but I don’t think she does it for the cameras. It’s just her.
===132. James Cosmo (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
It vaguely crushes me to take James Cosmo out of this ranking, because he is, by all accounts, a very good person and nice man. In a house full of actual crazy people, James Cosmo managed to stay (mostly) out of conflict and yet, was respected by all members of the house. Whereas Coleen’s look was “smoke and complain,” James C.’s approach was “smoke and stay bewildered,” and it was endearing. I think had he not been around, the endgame would have felt different. I wasn’t rooting for him to win by any means, but he was really fun to have around. He was UTRfun, and in the best UTRP way.
This is, except, for when he was tasked with giving an eternal nomination and instead of logically giving it to Jedward or Kim, the housemates actively terrorizing the rest of the cast, he panicked and gave it to Heidi & Spencer, earning himself about a week’s worth of torment from the United States’ premier reality television power couple. It was truly wild to watch such an innocent and harmless man be so vilified, but at the end of the day it was all a part of the perfect storm of CBB19.
===131. Sarah Lacina (Survivor: Game Changers)===
We live in a world where Sarah Lacina can lie to Sierra’s face and vote her out for the sole purpose of successfully manipulating Sierra into giving her an advantage in the game, and expect to receive her jury vote. We live in a world where Sarah can vote Zeke out of the game while wearing his jacket and expect to receive his vote. Modern Survivor is a world where Sarah Lacina can (off-screen) terrorize Brad and Troyzan into giving her their wedding rings to make sure they’re taking her to the final three.
In the grand scheme of Game Changers, that’s okay, because it allows for a cunning female player to silence everyone that was calling her an idiot after Cagayan, and prevents us from a Brad Culpepper victory.
I feel like with any content Sarah received, knowing that the final three would be her/Troy/Brad, I was intently glued to my screen, hoping to see content that would catapult her in the direction of being the 34th Survivor winner. Luckily, President Sarah Who Looks For Expired License Plates Or Something managed to Play Like a Criminal and win the game, saving us from having to admit that Brad Culpepper and Troyzan Robertson are good players – a very positive contribution to the Survivor universe.
What feels bizarre and unnatural about Sarah 2.0 is that she happened? I feel like I skip over her constantly when I think about Survivor winners. Is she even a real person? To this day, it confuses me on how she even got the GC invite – yes, she was a good player that warranted a return at some point, but like, it’s just that she fits a weird role in this cast – and it feels weird that a season with Ciera, Malcolm, Cirie, Sandra, Ozzy, Aubry and Tony was won by Sarah Lacina. She gave us this gif tho!
===130. Nicole Ramos (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
Nicole is really funny, but she’s never gonna win a Challenge for the life of her (side note: I hope more than anything that she proves me wrong on this), and probably won’t ever ascend to being iconic for me. Her humor is mostly limited to confessionals, as I can’t remember a single moment in Dirty 30 where she spoke out loud to another human being and not to the camera. In general, I don’t remember her being involved in any big tension or drama in the entire season, which is impressive, considering she made it far. She’s really witty, though, something it took me a couple of her seasons to appreciate, and I think she does have potential to get even better over time if she keeps coming back.
===129. Derrick Kosinski (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
I am under the impression that in years past, Derrick K. was a legendary Challenge contestant that fans were ecstatic to see return; I am also under the impression that for said fans, Derrick’s eventual comeback was underwhelming to them.
I’m not sure what Derrick was like in the past, but I really enjoyed him on Dirty 30; a seemingly nicer, softer and less arrogant alpha male than the others, Derrick was able to talk the talk and walk the walk and also took out Bananas, which was very appreciated by me. What most endeared me to him, though, is his desire to Win For His Son™. A vaguely-to-overtly douchey male wanting to do well on a RTV competition show for the sake of his child is a trope seen everywhere across all subsections of this genre (Tony Raines, Lotan Carter come to mind from the past year), but for Derrick, I get the sense that “I’m doing this for my [child]” is less of a buzzword for him and more of something legitimate. So I like him a lot more than you’d expect me to like a straight white male in his mid-30s.
===128. Peppermint (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
Pep was the first to bring prolonged discussion of transgender drag queens to the forefront of Drag Race (there have been trans queens before, but none who have made it more than a one-moment conversation), and I appreciated her input greatly, but other than that, she didn’t do much but serve some UTRfun moments and kill it in 4 lip syncs. I really do wish she’d won over Sasha, because I think she absolutely killed it in the finale (and I mean that – I lived for both of her finale lip syncs wholeheartedly), but I think the RPDRverse would have crumbled in on itself if a queen won Drag Race after only winning one challenge.
===127. Hannah Gough (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
I’ve dragged Hannah pretty far in this ranking, mostly because I just feel for the girl. Imagine going on Survivor for the purpose of proving you’re more than just a Bigger Girl (think she was a plus-sized model IIRC?) and that you have actual physical worth, only to not even get a chance to show it before your tribe axes you cold-heartedly. Fuck off Mogotón!! She was a genuinely sweet girl and she actually got to show her physicality when she murked Dee at the first RI duel. I wish she could have stuck around longer and turned into a Redemption Island Titan in the vein of Laura Morett or Christine Shields Markoski, forcing the people who voted her out to continue voting out strong people in hopes of defeating her out of fear of her return. That’s the arc Hannah was born for, but unfortunately, the many missteps of this season’s planning and production claimed sis too soon.
===126. Aaron & Deb (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
I love love love the concept behind Aaron & Deb as well as what they delivered in their single leg! Mother/son funeral directors? Who the hell came up with this one? I was shaking at the cast reveal because of these two specifically!
Tragically, they fell in favor of lots of Less Good Teams, and I can’t exactly say that their one episode performance was mega remarkable because I think they’re in the top half of this ranking just by principle of who they are. TARCan5 needed a bunch of different tweaks here and there; one of those was definitely a Leg 1 NEL to save these two.
===125. Odette Blacklock (Australian Survivor 4)===
The Odette Experience is better than The Odette Concept in this case. Very little is known about this actual 13th placer; many who fell before her received better, more wealthy content than she did. But the Odette experience was incredible! How many episodes could she truly go without a confessional? How INV/UTR will she be this episode? Will she somehow have relevance this week? It was fun for me to see her get constantly claimed by an INV edit, especially as the merge drew closer, because it was just such a bizarre event, especially in the era where AUS4 was being compared to a Total Drama season in terms of editing. However, the most compelling question that was asked of Odette was: will she actually win?
Yes, that was a legitimate question – while no one really caught it during the season, AUS3 winner Kristie was leagues ahead of everyone else in the online betting odds that season, meaning the winner had somehow leaked and gotten to bookies online. Similarly in AUS4, Odette’s odds were exponentially higher than the rest of her castmates, leading to a lot of crazy fan theories that she was INV pre-merge so she could come from behind and become a stealth assassin. The reality we ended up getting was that she was voted out for being athletically threatening and a messy gameplayer, but not before learning that she was a sensitive, kind-hearted mother who genuinely wanted to be there and to win. I love everything about her.
===124. Sasha Velour (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
It’s been 9 months at the time of writing since Sasha was unorthodoxly declared America’s Next Drag Superstar and it really only hit me the other day that she is, in fact, in the RPDR winners’ circle. I’d been expecting a Shea win for months last spring, so by the time Sasha was crowned, I’d already registered Shea as the RPDR9 victor, viewing her in the same light as Bob the Drag Queen, Raja, Sharon Needles and the like. Alas, that’s not what happened in reality, as Sasha Velour unexpectedly murked Shea with rose petals at the eleventh hour and went on to win in the unprecedented lip sync tournament finale. In a way, Sasha winning because of a format change in the endgame is similar to Ben’s HHH win; it’s hard to really register either as a winner because their path to the end was very much a production-generated outcome.
I believe the finale twist in RPDR9 (lip sync tournament instead of just a winner declaration) was a decision made after the entire season was edited – Sasha was pretty much UTR2 for the entire season, and I really did feel like she was an easy 3rd or 4th placer, so I don’t think I can really sit here and write that I loved Sasha outside of the So Emotional lip sync and some runway segments.
===123. Alan Ball (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
I’ll come forward and say I didn’t absolutely adore Alan Ball, but he brought a level of chaos to the season that was appreciated and enjoyed by me. Requiring that JP strip down to reveal he didn’t have an idol? Iconic. But I can’t really remember another Alan Ball Moment other than being an idol victim, which I kind of wish didn’t happen. I think I view anyone who does Good Things on American Survivor gets viewed in an exponentially better light than most people who do Good Things on reality television, which may explain why Alan is this high if I can only name one moment of his, but I think this is somehow correct for him.
===122. Roark Luskin (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
I’ve carried Roark pretty far here, but I’ll own up to some strong bias here. Pre-show, Roark was one of my absolute favorites; with a name like Roark, an acerbic wit and being a Cute Young Blonde, Roark was checking off every box she could for All Time Favorite Status. This got squandered fast when she wasn’t extremely relevant during the show and was reduced to being a MORN threat to Chrissy Hofbeck’s emotional weaponry, but I feel like I’d explode if she showed up on a Second Chance 2 ballot. (Additionally, props to her for somehow getting a confessional during all of her episodes? I thought she was winning for a little bit just based on how irrelevant she was vs. how much content she was getting.)
She managed to serve brief delusion and I think her blindside is an underrated contender for funniest boot episode plot.
===121. Henry Nicholson (Australian Survivor 4)===
Fundamentally, Henry really sucks, but for a while, he was one of the only characters I could really attach myself to or root for in the Australian Survivor 4 premerge. A hyperstrategist coming onto the show lying about his seemingly mundane job because it might make him a threat sounds terrible and sounds very “I want to be iconic,” and it’s funny because he wasn’t iconic, but at the time, it was the best plot Asaga had. In addition, his bizarre power coupling with important older woman Jacqui was riveting to watch and I wish it had ended somewhat differently.
I don’t really think he deserves to be as hated as he is in certain circles of the Survivor fanbase; his overplaying got the best of him (as it should get the best of every overplayer) not only when he was blindsided early into the merge by players he’d counted out as goats, but especially when he thought he had ultimate control over Asaga, chose to go to the other tribe in a tribe swap because he believed he could gain ultimate control on Samatau, wound up on the bottom of Samatau and immediately lost his closest ally at Asaga. A mood. He does not possess the vernacular that he thinks he does.
===120. Seth & Olive (The Amazing Race 29)===
It breaks my heart, but I knew eventually the moment would come in which I couldn’t save the TAR29 cast any longer from being cut from this ranking. Seth & Olive are fundamentally good and nice people who brought a few key concepts to the TAR29 spectacle.
For one, Seth introduced a moment in which he was revealed as an Unsuspecting Gay (my preferred Unsuspecting Gay to the likes of Bret LaBelle). During the premiere in which the individual contestants are all trying to size the others up, Seth & Olive are separately asked if there’s any chance that they’ll start dating and Olive is immediately like “lol no I have a boyfriend” and Seth is like “I’m gay,” which is kind of funny since they seem like the perfect people to become a Boring Whitebread Couple.
Their peak though is more the concept which they represent. Instead of casting 11 vaguely passive pairs who just want to travel around and compete (TARCan5), TAR29 cast 22 individuals that were desperate and hungry for money, meaning they weren’t afraid to play dirty and lash out at others for the sake of winning the game. Despite being genuinely nice people with great athleticism, Seth & Olive literally only lasted 3 legs after getting U-Turned in 9th place, something that definitely wouldn’t happen on a normal TAR season – because usually everyone’s too afraid of making waves – and it was refreshing to see a stronger team go out early.
===119. Devin Walker (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
Devin is absolutely one of my favorite Challengers overall, but he really should not be. Conceptually, Devin should be the antithesis of everything I dislike in a reality television participant: a guy that borders on overtly cocky with regards to intelligence and came into his first Challenge with a reputation for being sexist should be an immediate “no” for me, but I’ve seen nothing but good behavior and good opinions from Devin. He hates Bananas with a fiery passion – a likable (hint hint: paging Cory Wharton to become likable sometime soon so I can root for him) alpha male who dislikes Bananas is exactly what The Challenge needs – and he’s now anti-Cory since Cory took him out really early in Dirty 30. He does occasionally border on smarmy, but as of now, Devin is a nice, funny force of good in the MTVerse and I want him to ascend even higher. If he’d lasted longer on this season, I guarantee he’d land top 50 here.
===118. Jessica Cunningham (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
Jessica Cunningham was a fleeting moment, a vision, a brief series of interactions that can be summed up as one of the more energetic presences on CBB19. Coming from The Apprentice, her persona was labeled mostly to be an assertive businesswoman who felt she was robbed of winning the show, and on the whole, she most definitely was the best TAUK album to enter CBB in 2017.
Jessica came into the house late alongside Chloe and Kim, and coming in late to the CBB19 house would be a big hurdle for anyone. Even Jedward, who entered on day four, seemed to never truly integrate into the house, so when Normal Perky Girl Jessica Cunningham entered on day 11 or so, it was immediately hard for her to recover socially from her late entry. Her shtick for a bit was dating Calum and getting into a few arguments, but once Chloe and Stacy left, she ran out of opponents, and was relegated to intermittent scenes in which her perky, positive, always-on personality shone aggressively through her thick Northern England accent.
I’m not sure if Jessica belonged in the CBB19 house or not; I read on some forum (either r/bbuk, Sucks or CTS) that Jessica would have done a lot better and potentially won in a civilian BBUK house, but she wasn’t in a civilian house. She didn’t entirely fit into the world of histrionic crazies that was the CBB19 house, but she wasn’t a boring wallpaper fixture, and I can’t tell if she truly belonged in that thunderdome, but I really liked what she offered.
===117. Darrell Taylor (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge: Champs vs. ProsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
Darrell’s arrival in Invasion was purportedly really groundbreaking: the original “wins lots of Challenges” figure of the show before Bananas came along, it was a big deal that “the king” of Challenges was back. This overall was a good thing: another capable alpha male who has the ability to back up any smack talk.
Darrell, also like Derrick K., is now out to win Challenges For His Kids™, and like Derrick K., it seems genuine and legitimate. Additionally, like Derrick K., Darrell took out Bananas (but this time in Invasion) and I really liked seeing that happen, especially on the heels of watching the Bananas-addled disaster that was Rivals III.
Moving forward to Champs vs. Pros, Darrell was never really at the forefront of the season but did manage to deliver justice when he and Cara Maria ended the season off right by ensuring Camila did not walk away with two victories in 2017. He was sort of shafted in the grand scheme of Dirty 30, though, and by losing the first Redemption House challenge, Darrell allowed Tony to come back and almost homewreck his life for the second time, so...it’s really a double edged sword when it comes to Dirty 30. Since Cory took him out during The Purge, I hope Darrell comes back as a Cory Wharton Enemy in a future Challenge. I’d enjoy that.
===116. Megan & Courtney (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
Two nerdy cousins have the highest highs and lowest lows you can experience on TAR in the span of 3 episodes; arguments, moments of love and joy, winning a leg, almost placing last, receiving an express pass, a footrace, being eliminated with an express pass. This arc sounds incredible, but in reality it falls VAGUELY flat because of how TARCan5 was edited. Granted, though, I loved them while they were on my screen, so Megan & Courtney deserve recognition at the very least. Bring them back for TARCan All-Stars!!
===115. Jericho Malabonga (Australian Survivor 4)===
I somehow Mandela Effected myself into thinking Jericho was gay, so for the entirety of AUS4 I saw him as the peak of an Evil Gay. A theoretically harmless small boy decides to be conniving while shielding it from everyone around, and actually being effective and entertaining with it. It’s iconic that we have a Survivor winner who built his entire gameplay beginning with secretly sharing cookies with his potential allies. I hope he’s genuinely doing well and did something good with his winnings; I trust that he did good things.
PS: He’s actually charismatic, so he wound up being only person that could truly make “building my army” confessionals on RTV bearable @Zeke Smith.
===114. Malcolm Freberg (Survivor: Game Changers)===
I like Malcolm a lot and I’m always going to find him interesting and entertaining probably no matter what he does; he gets this far really based on personal merit of just being naturally intriguing to me. There’s been criticism of his weird bloated edit in his 4 episode run on GC, but like, would you rather that screentime have gone to Caleb instead? Troyzan? Brad?
I definitely carried him a little too far in this ranking, but part of it feels warranted. Part of me feels like Malcolm staying and not getting fucked by a twist would have been great for the season’s longevity. Some of me feels like Malcolm getting twisted out was karma for the producers trying so hard to fuck up Survivor as we know it, and that's funny to me in the grand design. I can’t say whether or not I think Malcolm 4.0 would be a worthwhile investment, but I can say that I wish Malcolm 3.0 had more to him.
===113. Dillon Carman (Big Brother Canada 5)===
I find Dillon to be a fundamentally good presence in BBCan5. Sue me! He’s UTRfun and the one time he gets power, he makes a fairly inconsequential move that anyone would have done in his place. You can’t ask for more in a masculine male personality on reality television than to enable older woman and not ruin the season. I truly believe he’s a nice, pure soul somewhere deep down; I was very afraid he’d be terrible when they revealed the cast and he was a cocky pro athlete, but it turned out he was just a passive teddy bear. Did he outlast some stars? Yeah, absolutely, but worse things have happened.
===112. Kevin & Jenn (The Amazing Race 29)===
Team #LongHairDontCare was definitely a series of moments, as any TAR first boot can ever truly be, ranging from well-put-together Asian jokes that were in good taste and serving good quotes like “my Spanish is better when I’m drunk.” I don’t think that either of them were ever gonna be long for the race regardless, but to be honest, any first boot in TAR29 would have been heartbreaking. Pre-season, knowing the team with the two Asians on it was first out felt like a possible blow to the quality of the race moving forward, but there was nothing to worry about.
===111. Jak Thomas (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
Jak was a funny and pleasant person that always wound up doing bad things in the context of the game. Seemingly always coming after people who mattered to the integrity of the season like Shay or Captain Mike Sparrow was tragic enough, but beating Shannon and Shay on RI – then letting NATE of all people come back into the game – is just a bad look.
You might ask why he’s this high after all of That, and the answer is that in the SNZ1 post-merge, literally any humor and entertainment was magnified 1000x, so when Jak was blindsided in a loincloth at tribal, it felt like comedy peaked worldwide. I appreciate him so much for his personality; he brightened up a dark reality.
===110. Sue Evans (Big Brother UK 18)===
Hurricane Sue was one of the most bizarre RTV viewing experiences of all time for me. A self aware, branding-savvy outspoken woman debuts into a season she’s seen every episode of so far, declaring she’s going to spread some home truths about the other housemates and shake things up. What we got was some sort of a bizarre audience insert who knew exactly how to stay relevant when she needed to, and knew exactly how she could push everyone’s buttons, but never truly integrated into the social fabrics of BBUK18.
In the right environment, I believe Sue becomes a top 5 RTV contestant of 2017; she found herself in the right place, wrong time. What I’m gonna remember her most for is risking the house’s shopping budget for the week so she could see her dog after announcing she would not be accepting her family visit. Iconic!
===109. Rebecca Jane (Big Brother UK 18)===
Is it possible to be more mixed on a person in history? Rebecca is an absolutely awful person and annoying human being, but I’m so drawn to her story and her truth. Sis truly believes she can take down Chanelle McCleary in an argument. She rebelled against her own clique for attention and got ridiculed. She faked breaking her arm for attention. She slept with Kieran, her perpetual out-of-house friend with benefits who she’d been pining after for a while, mere hours before entering the house together and somehow believed she wouldn’t remain emotionally attached to him. The delusion is palpable! And it brought something refreshing to the house. Props to her, but I hope I never see her again.
===108. Aubry Bracco (Survivor: Game Changers)===
I love Aubry and everything she did this season became interesting to me because of my rose-colored goggles for her. After a season where she politically masterminded most eliminations with a mob of women by her side, Aubry constantly flopping strategically and losing all of her allies week after week was a completely different story for her. It’s weird to think that she wins hands down if she makes the final three in this case, because her game wasn’t that good; she ironically would have been another Michele-type winner.
PS: she was the look queen of GC. From her scarf to her shirt to her hairstyle, she brought everything.
===107. Jenna Compono (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
Jenna’s existence across five consecutive seasons of The Challenge will never not perplex me. Her MTVerse presence seems like a string of accidents: she was only brought into her Real World season to leave her ex, Jay, shaken, and then was presumably only carried onto Exes II because casting really wanted to have Jay in the mix. Once Jay flopped, Jenna got brought back as an alternate for Bloodlines, where she found her way into the cast, allowing her to form a rivalry with a Bananas ally, justifying her inclusion in Rivals III. At this point, she had bumbled her way deep into three seasons and became a fan favorite, accidentally crafting her into a crucial veteran player for this MTV franchise, but even then, she was an alternate for Dirty 30, another season in which she managed to be influential.
In all reality, Jenna is not a mind blowing presence. She periodically shows up to have a funny quip, roast someone (or herself) or have a (potentially staged) “dumb blonde” moment. She’s rarely a main character on The Challenge, but she works well for a MORP2-3 background presence. She is, however, dating Zach on and off, which is Bad and comprised of most of her main relevance this year. If this year involved ranking the cast of Battle of the Bloodlines, Jenna would be near the top overall when it comes to Challenge participants, but this isn’t ranking Bloodlines.
===106. Shane Landrum (The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions)===
Shane has all the makings to be a truly bad Evil Gay, but he used his powers for good in Invasion and actually led to one of the more shocking moments of the season later on. Shane is a strategist, which is something The Challenge desperately needs in a Bananas-dominated world, and I thank him for providing drama and tension as well as enabling people Good People like Amanda and Ashley to do well. I think I also like him a lot for being an old-school vet who returned after like, 14 seasons, because that’s cool that that stuff happens on this show, and I respect him in general for being a Functioning Gay on television unlike the other gay Shane (Raines).
===105. Devon Pinto (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
“Kind Surfer Bro ices his #1 ally and fails to make fire at the eleventh hour” is the easiest way to describe the Devon Pinto journey. I think I have him this high just based on the fact that he was an alternative to Ben winning? In addition to occasional moments in which he and Ashley have interesting banter. “That is not an advantage” is basically the moment that sums him up: deadpan, smart, aware, and yet because he was just kinda stating a fact, he was just not novel enough to truly be a mold breaker.
===104. Cassandra Shahinfar (Big Brother Canada 5)===
Similar to Malcolm, I will admit that Cassandra places just outside of the top 100 on principle of just delivering GOOD CONTENT every time she’s on screen. With Cass, it’s multiplied 100x. Cass breathes? It’s iconic. Cass delivers a scripted confessional? It’s game changing. Cass blinks during a conversation? Shady queen.
BBCAN5 Cassandra was an amalgamation of her greatest hits from her prior season, coupled with igniting huge flames in cracking the psyche of Neda Kalantar. She’s the kind of contestant where her early exit seemed like a death knell for the season. It was Not, but like, just to give you an idea. I love her so much and we’re lucky that the season still turned out excellent without her.
===103. Cameron Heard (Big Brother US 19)===
Pour one out for the fallen?
One of my unequivocal worst winner picks ever, ambiguously attractive microbiologist Cameron really got lucky in BB19; by being evicted night 1, he missed out on a torturous season that wound up being a bizarre black hole of negativity (and not the good kind at all!). The journey of believing Cameron was a Socially Capable Nerd and then quickly finding out that he didn’t have the social capital he seemed to possess in pre-season interviews was funny, sure, but slightly heartbreaking. He seems like a genuinely good person, and if I were the BB producers, I would throw him and Jodi back in the house in an instant. I mean, really, y’all didn’t have to do ANOTHER night 1 elimination.
===102. Andrea Boehlke (Survivor: Game Changers)===
There’s only so much that an eleventh hour resurgence of personality can do for you. Andrea’s reappearance towards the end of her GC run was something that Survivor fans didn’t know they needed; a once-UTR girl destined to be idoled out with her purple edit suddenly begins to lambast Jeff Probst’s favorite new alpha male and explicitly say he sucks at Survivor – while being his IRL friend. Iconic? But it was too little, too late, and her arc came to a bizarre halt due to the format of the (bad idea) pre-finale double elimination episode. Many GC contestants have come forward and said that was one of the craziest rounds of gameplay, and while that’s not always exciting TV, it would have made Andrea 3.0 feel more complete rather than just a fleeting series of moments.
She’s perky, nice and genuinely funny most times out of the show, but this girl cannot get a break while she’s actually competing on Survivor. She tried though. She really tried to impress this time. I wish we'd gotten to see her close friendship with Aubry unfold on camera instead of being left on the cutting room floor, because that would have been stellar b-roll to complement Cirie's reign of terror.
===101. Brandi Glanville (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
The person missing out on the top 100 by one spot is the ever-dynamic Brandi Glanville. Realistically, sis can carry any scene in her RTV career just fine, and she does – always with a wine glass in hand – but she suffers greatly in a house like CBB20’s in which no one is really going to enable her messy drama (unless it centers around infidelity @Chad). It’s sort of demoralizing; it almost felt like a BBUS16 scenario in which drama was just not gonna be tolerated for the sake of having a Happy And Good Season. Yikes.
I enjoy her a lot, though, and her constant quarreling with Brits both delusional, cracked and sanctimonious carried portions of the season where Sarah Harding seemed to finally be well-adjusted socially. She really should be on every reality show on this planet at least once.
===100. Britni Thornton (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
Britni is fascinating to me. She’s clearly not someone that belonged in the Dirty 30 cast; for a season touted as having the thirty dirtiest, most villainous competitors ever, Britni was feeling the pressure to perform from day one, but wasn’t quite sure how to do it. She won eliminations, sure, and managed to get her way deep in the game, but like how Nicole Ramos only showed up in confessionals to roast people this season, Britni typically only spoke in confessionals about how innovative she was for being a rookie making it far and winning a couple eliminations. But that was it. She didn’t really make any friends and we didn’t see her bond with anyone...but she’ll have you believing she’s the dirtiest member of the Dirty 30 ever just by nature of how she speaks of herself.
Britni is That Girl.
The crowning achievement of Britni’s Dirty 30 career should have been a defining, villainous takedown of Leroy, a threatening player just by nature of him being able to float to any endgame he wants, but instead, it was a complete accident that someone else profited off of. She didn’t want to vote out anyone that her winning team had discussed, so instead, she threw a vote at Leroy, and made it out to be a *big thing* that she was doing. In order for no one to hate her, she made it seem like her “burn vote” was a calculated risk she was taking so as not to vote out her friend, Hunter, and send him into elimination.
Once Veronica realized she could fuck shit up and vote for Leroy as well, Britni was suddenly the It Girl for an episode, thrust into the spotlight, an accidental game-changer who began a revolt against her own team, and it’s probably everything she could have dreamed of. But I don’t think she meant to do that.
===99. Jordan Wiseley (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Champs vs. ProsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
Jordan is someone who I should by all means hate, and yet, I don’t. He’s a cocky, young, straight conservative male that usually supports Johnny Bananas, but since he never truly exercises any of these negative traits in a negative way on-screen, I can’t bring myself to dislike him for it. He has funny confessional quips and he, in general, is a smart dude. He’s got a good attitude about a lot of things, and I don’t remember any moment in which he was ever a sore loser. He learns from his mistakes. Most Challenge men should aspire to be like him and not like Bananas!!
While I do admit I liked him better on Free Agents/Exes II where he actively opposed Bananas and other Bad People, he came to CvP/Dirty 30 simply to support talent and not be a bad person (like one might expect from this archetype). Additionally, mad respect bc he has a limb deformity on his left hand (he essentially doesn’t have a left hand) and doesn’t shove it down the viewer’s throat when he does well despite it unless it’s a well-timed joke. Take notes, Redmond Ramos.
===98. Mike Sparrow (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
One of the more enjoyable Young Athletic Men in his archetype and one of the lights that tried to shine in the NZ1 fog. A UTRfavorite arc of mine; cocky, attractive (before his facial hair got wild on RI) alpha male loses his showmance, is emasculated at merge and just becomes incredibly jaded and optimistically bitter (somehow) towards everyone. I think he’d be TV gold if he were on any Big Brother series. He and Georgia provided peak comedic value pre-merge, especially given the circumstance of Mike leading a cult of young people on Hermosa, because he’s clearly not a very self aware person. His Captain Mike Sparrow confessional is honestly one of the season's best moments (and it's literally like episode 4. Yikes?). I think he deserved better than to have been cast on this season.
===97. Patrick Bolton (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
Patrick Bolton is not a sane man, and that’s okay. For an out-of-control alpha male on Survivor, seeing him go third shocked me, and in the grand scheme, that was a great thing because it gave us a Lauren Rimmer Moment and extended her Survivor lifespan, but it’s a shame that it came at Patrick’s expense. Never has someone provided so much frenetic energy, mind-blowing unintentional comedy and true emotion after being voted out all in three episodes; I’d say pound-for-pound, Patrick gave the most entertainment of any HHH cast member aside from Lauren. There just weren’t many pounds in this case.
===96. J.T. Thomas (Survivor: Game Changers)===
I don’t know when or if I’ll get around to performing this exact series of events, but coming off of watching Tocantins and then diving headfirst into Game Changers must be one of the most jarring sensory experiences of all time. Following Tocantins, and even HvV, J.T. remained revered as one of Survivor’s best. He’s someone that, sure, felt a little random to drag back after 13 seasons as a returnee, but no one was gonna contest his label as a Game Changer.
Going from two seasons in which he enamored everyone and played a perfect game and a season where his strategic perception probably could have led him to another win, J.T. managed to literally screw up everything on Game Changers. He did not do one thing correctly. He ostracized an entire tribe of six and made himself seem shady to a tribe of five in one fell swoop in episode four, got a close friend sent home by accident, pissed off not only Michaela Bradshaw but also Sandra Diaz-Twine and went home with an idol. The player once labeled a heroic golden boy left his tribe stranded in the ocean while he looked for an idol. What an arc? He literally failed multiple times to accomplish his goals in the game (which is good, because those were usually bad ideas). It’s one of the most unbelievable turns of character in Survivor history and something that I hope becomes a positive aspect of GC’s legacy in the future.
===95. Mike Zahalsky (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
A small statured, socially awkward 40something sex doctor bumbling his way through a game clearly not designed for his success is one of the better parts of Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, and I think that’s not discussed enough. The end of Mike’s journey is very much characterized by being idoled out by Ben and fucking over Lauren Rimmer, two tragic things that happened for different reasons, and I think his legacy is hurt by the fact that former was overshadowed not by a storm cloud of “oh no, Dr. Mike is out” but a cloud of “oh, God, Ben has a 1 in 4 shot of winning now.”
His inexplicable survival of The Healer Purge was ultimately for the good of the season, but it just puzzles me so much that out of all the Healers that made the merge, this is the man who outlasted them all. Truly a bizarre piece of the HHH enigma.
===94. Karen & Bert (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
These two are very elevated by context; compared to the TAR29 cast, these two are leagues beneath, but they brought a flavor of “we don’t know what the hell we’re doing” and “actual personality” to the TARCan5 scope that was valued very much by me. Yes, Korey & Ivana served “we can’t navigate or communicate,” but Karen & Bert served “what can we even do?” and I was hoping they’d somehow sneak into the final three just so we could get a finish line speech from Karen about racing with her neurotic husband. It wasn’t meant to be, but I hope the two of them experience eternal happiness, because given what they were able to do for their season in terms of entertainment value, they deserve it!
===93. Ben Morgan (Australian Survivor 4)===
In Odette’s write-up, I mention this sort of alternative thrill where it was amusing to me to see how far she could go without receiving substantial content in the edit. While he came into relevance before Odette could, Purple Ben experienced the same phenomenon, but unlike Odette, he morphed into a source of likability and entertainment just in time for me to feel sad about his boot. A rootable, naive, funny young kid waking up multiple episodes into his season only to get wrecked by Michelle Dougan is certainly An Arc, and I honestly wouldn’t mind living in a universe in which Ben comes back for another go-around.
===92. Simone Reed (Big Brother UK 18)===
Like Patrick Bolton, Simone Reed is very clearly Not Sane. Her two-week run on BBUK18 was prefaced by news articles surfacing of Simone being shamed for some trend of xenophobic ranting, but also for publicly stripping in department stores, and tea that she’d been arrested before. These three concepts are varying levels of good and bad, which easily made her one to watch when the Second Chance housemates entered on Day 25.
What was received from Simone’s stint was an immediate ostracism from house dynamics, her being positively gaslit by Sue, pranking housemates and not owning up to it until after the point in which it’s still funny, borderline violent outbursts, one followed by a weirdly innovative segment of reality television in which she is talked down from a state of mania, complete with references to the fact that she went to jail for gang fighting and that she doesn’t want to be “the person she used to be” – a euphemism she used multiple times throughout her stay. The cherry on top of this is that she was kicked out of the finale for spitting at Andrew as he was on his way out of the house. What an arc!
===91. Kailah Casillas (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
I know I said that fellow 2017 Challenge Rookie Britni Thornton was That Girl, but Kailah is REALLY That Girl. She has the look of a horribly edgy hipster chick (even her name – Kailah – could have been spelled like Kayla, and I wouldn’t be shocked if she changed her own name for the mood) coupled with the voice of fellow That Girl Baylor Wilson – an iconic combination.
She constantly opposes Good People (aside from opposing Cory, a Good Choice) and has never really not been stank. She hates Cara Maria with a passion and pretends like this hatred makes her a groundbreaking contestant when Laurel perfected Cara Maria disdain years ago. She and Jenna have a tight alliance, which normally would be a Good Thing, but it (almost) circles back around to annoying because of how Kailah pushes their brand as being the iconic female power duo “Jailah.” (The scary thing is, there was a period of Dirty 30 in which Jailah actually ran the game unopposed!) In addition to all of this, Kailah told Veronica Portillo, who has won three Challenges and has appeared on this show sporadically since the third season, that she needed to go into an elimination and “prove herself’ to the veteran players like her...big mood.
By all means, I should HATE Kailah. She’s whiny, egotistical and acts like she was The Challenge’s “It” Girl of 2017 with no physical performance to back it up. But guess what, Mimi? I don’t hate her. She’s hilarious to me: how does she even exist? Who keeps letting her on the show? Homegirl wet the bed in Invasion and straight up peed on Cory. She’s like Jasmine Waltz-levels of romantic failure on steroids...for now.
The scary thing is, Kailah is actively making fitness videos on YouTube constantly and expanding her brand as a fitness icon, and I expect her to continually appear on Challenges until she wins, which is a very real possibility. I’m not sure if I’d mind it or not if she won a season of this show, but for now we’ll say I’d laugh at the fact that Kailah won something.
Also, this girl showed up to Vendettas straight up looking like Gwen of TDI fame. What a choice <3
===90. CT Tamburello (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge: Champs vs. ProsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
CT made his “big return” (read: he waited 2 seasons) to The Challenge this year and did it by partaking in 4 consecutive Challenge products...and he was actually pretty relevant in all four. Coming back with a reformed image as a motivated father, CT’s image was no longer one of a rowdy, drunken idiot who fought people on the daily and now that of a snarky guy in his late 30s with a dad bod, and it’s a better look for him. He brought lightheartedness and fun into almost every episode of The Challenge that aired in 2017, and additionally, prevented Bad People from succeeding at most every turn. Congrats.
===89. Jessie & Francesca (The Amazing Race 29)===
For a second boot team, Jessie & Francesca came loaded with trainwreck potential. Two hot-headed, confident women on the same team is in theory – and execution – a good idea, but I don’t think these two would have had such a docile exit had they not been out in leg two. This is evidenced by the fact that their first meeting is literally an argument before teams are formed!! Whew. They weren’t the most competent racers either – getting lost repeatedly in Sao Paulo comes to mind – and although didn’t really have many Big Moments, I liked them, and in a perfect world, TAR29 had a Leg 1 NEL to give them a bit longer to shine and evolve.
===88. Jackie McCurrach (Big Brother Canada 5)===
By all means, Jackie should be someone I strongly dislike. She’s one of Those Girls of BBCan in the vein that Kailah/Britni are Those Girls of The Challenge right now. Jackie holds That Belief that girls are catty and that it’s better to get along with guys because they’re supposedly drama-free. Jackie’s entire character throughout BBCan5 was to play the victim. So why do I find her so compelling?
I think it’s a similar thing like with Britni; Jackie gives that vibe where she wants to make sure that no one tramples over her and that people remember her as a fiery personality, so she fronts a very feisty figure to establish her brand. She’d make a snarky comment about being nominated – as if she’s too badass to care what anyone else thinks – when it’s clear that she was looking for a reaction in saying that. She’d go on rants against Ika when it wasn’t called for (in the moment) and snap at anyone who slighted her...and it worked.
This strategy is actually a lot more believable with Jackie than with Britni or Kailah because I actually think that deep down, Jackie sees herself as the victim when she fights back – both Ika and Karen terrorized her at certain points, so Jackie fought back with her weak brand of scrappy argumentation, and I liked watching it every time.
===87. Mandy Longworth (Big Brother UK 18)===
The mother of Charlotte Keys was the obvious star out of the two from day one, and that didn’t really change, even though Mandy had a total of five days in the house at all. Wonderful Mandy Moments include making Charlotte constantly uncomfortable (bringing in mothers of younger housemates will never not be a great BBUK casting twist – see Angie Best later in this ranking), discussing the making of her own sex tape, and if I recall correctly, being generally patronizing towards Tom specifically, which bit her back when Tom had the sole power to evict her or Imran (a TERRIBLE Sophie’s Choice situation either way). Cherry on top of #BBMandy was telling Charlotte she was being boring when Mandy was able to return briefly for the family visit/letters task.
===86. Miles & Will (Hunted US)===
Two douchey frat bros team up and get an entire episode mostly dedicated to how they used their charm and looks to blend in with east coast party culture, specifically by flirting their way into girls’ houses and staying with them to avoid the public eye. Coming in during episode three, I was looking for some kind of rejuvenation to the show’s concept which was quickly becoming “people get stressed about hiding,” and seeing them show up and use a unique-yet-doomed-to-fail strategy was amusing.
The magnum opus of their plotline, though, was the way in which they were captured. Reality TV NPCs like TAR6’s Lady Shopping in a Field, Caramoan’s Tata the Bushman or the TAR17 Accra Greeter have always been pleasant surprises, but if I’m honest, most don’t hold a candle to Mary Scott Valentine, the sister of one of Miles & Will’s new female friends, who called a tip line set up by the show so she could expose their location for monetary gain, leading to their capture the same day. Reportedly, she faced backlash on social media for her #bigmove, which is funny because this show was really not relevant at all. A modern Ciera? Maybe. She voted out her sister’s crush(es).
===85. Georgia Bergerson (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
Georgia was wonderful while she was still in the game. A cute, fun, plucky young female essentially has a muscular dude whipped and has a CPN/MORN grip on the politics of her dysfunctional alpha tribe all while being a complex ditz...WHEW? But after she was swapfucked and promptly sacrificed so Shay could live at RI, she became an afterthought and a relic of when NZ1 had enough promise to warrant any optimism. Love this sis though.
===84. Matt & Redmond (The Amazing Race 29)===
One of the better all-male teams to run The Amazing Race and certainly a model for future members of their archetype! Fun, interesting, they cause drama, I was fairly attracted to Matt at the time of airing and their downfall was nice and well-timed. More M/M teams should take notes and not make the final three.
This being said, there are many issues I can’t entirely look past? Saying that the lack of women on their team would make them #TeamNoDrama was a slightly sexist look (then again, worse things have happened) and they really didn’t have to morph into petty demons just for the sake of breaking down Ashton Theiss’ psyche, but they did. Also, Redmond does not know how to time a disability joke well.
===83. Tony Vlachos (Survivor: Game Changers)===
Tony had 2 episodes to impress (and I’m glad it wasn’t more than that) in GC and he used them well! Being the first true victim of Sandra Diaz-Twine in the modern era is a wild arc for the repeat appearance of someone painted as a Survivor legend. Like most Game Changers incarnations, Tony 2.0 wound up being a repeat of Tony 1.0’s greatest hits, but where Tony excels is he Does More with them. He’s more a haphazard player, less controlled in his actions and less dominant politically; he has a legitimate opponent this time, and it’s not a story of “will Tony have a downfall” but “will Tony even assume a high position?” when it comes to this version of #TeamTV.
tl;dr: it’s the correct amount of Tony insanity that made the Cagayan post-merge so magnetic despite its flaws without the Tony insanity that made you cringe because this should not be how anyone logically plays Survivor.
===82. Amanda Garcia (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
Amanda is really polarizing, and I really didn’t like her during Rivals III, but on Invasion, she became much less of a try-hard and more of a tame, humane firecracker. This girl is generally a scrappy underdog who can’t perform well in most daily challenges, so when she does things like spread rumors that Jenna got fingered on the plane to Thailand, it really does shake you because this girl really has no bite to back up the bark she provides. But she does it anyway.
Amanda wants to win a Challenge For Her Dad™, a unique twist on winning for your kid, and so it provides this weird insight into whenever Amanda verbally eviscerates Camila ad hominem: she’s doing this because it furthers her chances to Win For Her Dad. She wants to give her dad good health care and give back to her family, and her way to do this within The Challenge is via being confrontational and explosive. It’s weird, but it's psychologically gripping.
===81. Mark Herlaar (Australian Survivor 4)===
The new (& superior) Survivor "Tarzan" falls, and it’s surprising even to me that I carried him this far. But honestly… there’s just something really wholesome and GREAT about a kind paternal figure sacrificing himself and his own idol to save his plucky daughter-esque alliancemate?
This kind, powerful gentle giant knows that once Tessa’s gone, he’s gone. So he takes the idol he’s found and plays it on Tessa, a smart young female with lots of brain power and social potential, allowing himself to consciously be eliminated to give her a better shot. If there hasn’t been a better use of an idol in Survivor history, I’d be surprised.
===80. Emily Schromm (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
Emily is a Challenge champion whose seasons I had not seen going in, so she, in essence, pretty much functioned as a Star for me since I was unfamiliar with how she operated prior to the year 2017. Righteous moments of hers include hating Josh Murray and not buying into Bananas’ horrible, horrible scheme in which he used a kid with Down syndrome to Look Like A Good Guy. She doesn’t put up with Shitty Alpha Men which automatically puts her in the top half of Challenge women. It appears to me that she’s just a Really Good Physical Competitor and I always respect that; women on The Challenge that show insecure men up regularly are usually amazing and she was Pretty good!
===79. Tessa O'Halloran (Australian Survivor 4)===
At a time when it seemed like AK was out to ruin Australian Survivor as we knew it, and the editing was reaching Total Drama-levels of unbalanced (but still entertaining, don’t get it twisted – AUS4 is one of the best Survivor seasons of all time along with its predecessor for more reasons than just its post-merge), Tessa emerged as an anti-AK force who was young, intelligent, snippy, cutthroat and ready to make a BIG move to change the game. If Jennah-Louise was the Australian Ciera Eastin of her season, Tessa was the Australian Ciera Eastin of this season. And how could you not stan a cute intelligent girl with a Hogwarts hat?
Towards the merge she became less and less important and thus less and less iconic, but I owe so much to this girl for having me going “there’s a Tessa in this game?” to having Tessa as my season favorite in the span of one episode. Also, someone had to take the fall of that 3-2-2-2 vote, and although I wish it had been Locky, better Tessa than Sarah or Tara in the grand scheme.
===78. Tara & Joey (The Amazing Race 29)===
Again, as I’ve said, the beauty of TAR29 was casting 22 money hungry strangers; this prevented the Token Old Team from falling into complacent mediocrity and instead becoming personally cutthroat and almost dominant? They actively wanted to U-Turn and edge out better teams strategically and showed real frustration at poor performance instead of MORP complacency like most Older Teams on TAR might. (I guess part of that is also that they’re not even that old but I digress?) Their strength in this ranking relies on the fact that they completely broke molds left and right, even if they didn’t Bring The Popcorn.
While they didn’t offer a whole ton of amazing moments, the definite highlight is the confirmation that we were meant to view them as TAR29’s ultimate villains; Tara Lashes Out At Pro Street Fighter Players is an iconic RTV **moment** of 2017 and you can’t tell me otherwise.
=="Great TV" Tier==
===77. Trisha Paytas (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
To a certain point, you have to admit post-CBBUK20 that Trisha was only iconic for maybe 30 minutes total across 12 episodes. She peaked when she took a full pizza in exchange for potentially being evicted and then again when she fought Jordan and Sam before self evicting. That’s kind of it.
The meta – and highlight – of it all, is her arc as a concept: literally all eyes from the American internet were on Trisha Paytas as she entered Celebrity Big Brother UK, a show she’d stanned for a while and was somehow lucky enough to get cast on over more relevant people. This girl is so prone to meltdowns and is clearly unstable. What would happen when you put her into one of the most torturous and volatile RTV environments?
The answer was not very much, and some of that is brought on by her own desire to leave the game by the end of week one, outwardly declaring she’d intentionally be boring in order to warrant a swift eviction. Trisha, who was so overwhelmingly excited to be participating in what she’d called a dream of hers, after eleven days, deems that it’s the worst experience of her life and leaves in a teary rage.
It’s all very surreal. For twelve days, Trisha Paytas turned BBUK into an American internet cultural phenomenon and literally ended it herself. Sis took a lot of energy with her when she left.
===76. Demetres Giannitsos (Big Brother Canada 5)===
Demetres is pictured here with Ika intentionally because in terms of entertainment value, without Ika, Demetres is nothing.
If Demetres gets evicted first in Mark’s place, BBCan5 becomes radically different. This is because via Demetres’ record-setting number of HoH wins and mold-breaking amount of woman enabling, Ika Wong was able to control about 50-75% of what happened in the Big Brother Canada house in 2017. And we’re really lucky he wasn’t boring, either! All BB men should aspire to be like Demetres! Funny? Charismatic? Competent, but still meltdown-prone? Check, check, double check – and I fully expect to stan him and Ika on TARCan7 or 8. The sun has not yet set for Canada’s Greek god.
===75. Stacy Francis (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
Stacy Francis was the star of early CBB19. It’s true. The unhinged scientologist X-Factor USA alum slowly losing her bearings was the main driving force of the season until Kim entered, and I’m sort of content with that. She lost steam towards the end of her run, though, and didn’t complete her arc by making the endgame, but generally I was completely here for her fights with Ray J, Jedward, Kim, Jessica, Chloe, Speidi, and especially literal satanic being Austin Armacost and his rampant misogyny. It really buttered my fuckin toast when Stacy was Not Here for Austin’s terrorizing and eviscerated him for hating women. Big reputation.
The deterioration of Stacy’s psyche was, at one point, the best focus for any given CBB19 episode, and towards the end of her run, I think the moment that showed her breaking point was breaking down into tears at Chloe’s eviction. Not because she was sad to see Chloe go, but because she was the reason Chloe was nominated and felt bad about seeing her go. This was the last Stacy Francis *moment* that I remember happening, and once Nicola activated, she managed to take the baton from Stacy in the realm of emotional deterioration.
===74. Trinity Taylor (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
Trinity’s rise to Drag Race stardom starts out when her cast photo is released and immediately panned for featuring the most questionable look of the season at that point in time. I mean…
So I’d pegged her at this point as an unimpressive, probable second boot, but she came ready to surprise everyone by actually winning the second challenge and providing witty commentary along the way, so by episode 3 or 4 I was a Trinity fan. Her arc continued when she immediately failed right after winning and landed in the bottom 2 against Charlie Hides, giving a passionate performance to perennial bop “I Wanna Go” by Britney Spears – so that’s when I started to love her. Future RPDR queens should take note that in order to place high on this clearly very important ranking, you just have to turn it out in a lip sync to a song I know and enjoy.
As the season progressed, Trinity continued to impress and became not only a fun narrator, but also become what was believed at the time to be the only one who could stop Shea’s predictable win. Little did we know, both Shea and Trinity would be unexpectedly stopped at the eleventh hour. Huh. She’s still enjoyable though, and I do hope she turns up on All-Stars 4 (post-script: she will!).
===73. Elena Davies (Big Brother US 19)===
Elena’s a weird presence in the BB19 cast. She and Mark sheeped Paul pretty strongly for a while, which is undoubtedly terrible – the silver lining is how they were literally ostracized/bullied/cut off by Paul’s cult once she and Mark associated too heavily with Jess and Cody. We definitely stan people with actual hearts and emotional intelligence that try to bond with people that need it in the house.
When it comes to Elena, she falls in that category of “outspoken women who are just starting to hit their prime when they get clipped by superior people in a double eviction” – Jackie Ibarra, Bridgette Dunning, and maybe even Whitney Hogg are in this club. (Loveita Adams would be a member of this club, but her prime began on Day 1 of BBCan4.) Especially in a situation in which she and Mark were beginning to rebel against the Cult of Paul, Elena’s vocal dissent was really necessary, and her outward and unashamed bitterness against Paul (literally saying “I’m a bitter juror” in the jury roundtable) helped tremendously in producing the outcome where Josh wins.
I love all of this about Elena, but she’s pretty much a controversial fave at this point. She’s petty and bitter nonstop about things that don’t matter on Twitter, isn’t fun about it, is probably racist to a degree and might have tried to ruin Kaitlyn Herman’s life? Sis……… it’s a good thing she was a net good on BB19 or else I’d REALLY dislike her.
===72. Simone Nguyen (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
Simone “Controversimone” Nguyen was set to be a HHH standout from the get-go. Splitting the online fanbase over her bitterness towards Michele for beating Aubry but also outspoken minority female position, everyone was waiting in anticipation for her pre-show material, to find out how this girl actually functions and performs.
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So when this video dropped and it came out that sis was probably a complete sociopath/cutthroat ice queen, my level of stanning peaked and I was READY for her power. When the one hour premiere dropped and she was INV, my heart sank. Complete devastation? It honestly might have been. So while I wasn’t surprised she was the second boot (and got the aquadump edit), it was heartbreaking to see my pre-show fave flounder like this.
Focusing on the tangible positives though: what a one-episode arc for her? Coming to terms with maybe not being able to rough it on Survivor to actually roughing it on Survivor to putting on her best strategic face to being blindsided...whew. Episode 2 was The Simone Experience when it came to the Hustlers tribe. I have no doubt that based on her pre-show material & Her Episode alone that this woman would have been an excellent character in the long run.
You know, you smile when they hurt you, you smile when they betray you, uh, you keep smiling and you smile when you kill them. Because the moment you stop smiling is the moment that they notice.
===71. Cara Maria Sorbello (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge: Champs vs. ProsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
I’ve come to terms with New Cara Maria fairly easily; following her first ever victory on Battle of the Bloodlines, 2017 saw the transition of Cara from “flimsy, plucky, bullied-ish underdog” to “overconfident, ballsy overdog with a persecution complex” – both have their pros and cons, and I’m sure that Cara was very eager to become a Cocky Vet after seasons upon seasons of being picked on and disregarded. That’s her right; the culture of The Challenge makes this completely reasonable.
And what with literally anyone and everyone trying to invalidate her Bloodlines win, it’s not surprising she acts this way, walking around with a chip on her shoulder. This behavior has lost her a lot of fans and strengthened some of her old ones. The other day, she retweeted someone who named their newborn after her, which is kind of iconic considering she’s not exactly a “name your kid after me” type anymore (update/correction; they named their daughter Jailah after Jenna & Kailah which is a worse choice but we’re fine. I was thinking of a tweet where a parent said they couldn’t wait to tell their future child about how inspiring Cara was).
To get it off my chest – I do still love Cara Maria Sorbello! She’s very much become the type of person she used to hate, but it’s a fun turn and makes her not so stale. While she didn’t really have any specific arc across her three seasons – she was only ever really an accessory to a greater scheme (Laurel/Nicole/Cara love triangle, accompanying Darrell to the winner’s circle in CvP, fleshing out Gus Kenworthy, spicing up The Rise and Fall of Jailah) – I appreciated most of what she brought to the table this year. It’s a new Cara Maria experience I’m along for the ride. She’s still witty, vaguely acerbic, edgy, and rootable...it’s just in a new context now.
===70. Raven Walton (Big Brother US 19)===
Raven sucked. She sucked really badly. She sheeped Paul, bullied any outsiders ("YOU THINK WE'RE PAUL'S DOGS? WOOF WOOF MOTHERFUCKER!!"), fronted a positive personality despite being spiteful, literally didn’t even question that anything was wrong when Matt got betrayed by Paul, continued to press the concept that she was the puppetmaster of the season in the jury house (okay, that’s kind of hilarious), voted for Paul to win.
but her pacemaker.
How do I even begin to speak on the merits of this literal psycho?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BigBrother/comments/6xrf6b/complete_list_of_ravens_ailments_lies_and_claims/
My first instinct is to link that Reddit post, because holy wow, she popped off when it came to lying for sympathy. We’ve seen lies on every single reality television series; they’re not out of place. We’ve seen Jonny Fairplay lying about his dead grandmother; an iconic move, but not out of the question. But Raven? Sis literally snapped. Her entire personality is false and it’s mind blowing.
Some personal favorites/the necessities (copied directly from/courtesy of said Reddit post):
1) She is dying of two terminal diseases. She has been sick since she was 8 (or 15). One is Raven’s Disease, which is so rare only she and a family in Sweden have it.
18) An iphone will turn off her pacemaker if placed on her stomach.
20) She was being scouted for the Olympics, but unfortunately around that time she shattered her growth plates.
21) She can’t eat steak or she will die. Well, she won’t die but she will scream for hours. But hamburger is okay. She can’t eat chicken. (Yet she does.) She doesn’t like milk. (Yet she drinks it all the time and eats ice cream like there is a famine.) She can’t eat hot dogs.
22) She has an inverted spine.
46) When she was 8 a serial killer knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer it. The previous night a neighbor claimed to have seen a masked man peeping through her bedroom window, but neglected to call the police (probably thought it was one of her brothers), and didn’t tell them about it for several days.
53) She has Rough Kneecap Syndrome. She has to get them surgically shaved down.
54) Christmas mentioned her problem going up and down the stairs and suddenly one-upper gets anxiety when she is on the stairs.
58) Raven's mom set the college record in the entire state of Arkansas for the mile at 5:50.
64) Raven and her mom are in Mensa. When Paul asked what her GPA was she said “dance”.
76) If she won $25,000 she said she would pay off her car. Matt had to remind her that replacing her pacemaker is more important.
78) Whenever she cleans her ear with a q-tip, she coughs. There is a name for it and it is very rare.
82) She has seizures. One recently was brought on by Matt’s tickles.
88) She had family on the Titanic
89) She was born vomiting right out of the womb (which was a sign of gastroparesis)
101) Since there's no cancer cure, a cure for gastroparesis is very slim. Her doctors always say they need an "ALS moment" because, according to Raven, "They found a cure for ALS".
Granted, almost all of these were live feeds moments, but I’ve seen most of them and they did a little segment about it during the show. Her GPA being dance is something my casual BB friends still remember a year later.
===69. Hali Ford (Survivor: Game Changers)===
I’ve alluded to this before, but when I say I love WTF? Casting choices in RTV all-star seasons, Hali is the exact brand that I support. This legend jumped up to my top 20 Survivor castaways of all time after Worlds Apart, but realistically, was not relevant to return.
Or so we thought?
Jeff adores this girl and it’s not hard to see why. She’s witty, knowledgeable, cute, rootable… she really did have a collection of #moments in her unexpected GC run. “I didn’t consent,” literally demolishing Caleb at Tribal Council (“are you sure?”), comparing herself to a King Cobra, calling Debbie a ghoul, offering to strip down to prove she didn’t have an idol (the precursor to Alan Ball)...this girl is a gold mine of content. Even when she’s not the center of the Survivor scene, she provides. It’s probably not likely, but I wouldn’t mind Hali 3.0 at all, on literally any reality show possible. <3
===68. Heidi & Spencer (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
Heidi & Spencer Pratt, also known as “Speidi,” are sort of the pinnacle of American reality television. These two appear pretty much everywhere on any trashy reality show, so it’s only natural they came on to appear twice on Celebrity Big Brother in the UK. I wholly expect one of them to appear on CBBUS (in the event that this actually happens, I’m dating this writeup at 11:51 PM EST on January 18, 2018).
I think what Speidi didn’t expect to happen in this season was to actually like their housemates. I haven’t seen their first season, but I am to understand that they were immediately outcasted by the entire house and never really made any friends. They were perpetual villains, and I think they came in with that mindset this time as well only to find that people actually liked them. Nonetheless, they had some Good Fights and served drama on a hot platter so here’s a brief rundown and why they were Good overall.
They played a vital role in breaking down Nicola’s psyche, a movement that one could argue was the essence of CBB19. Nicola is a fragile-minded woman and for whatever reason, Heidi & Spencer took it upon themselves at one point to begin labeling her as a mean woman. Nicola “Mean McLean” McLean did not take kindly to this and took every opportunity to remind the entire house that her name was pronounced McLANE (chris) and not McLEEN, but that didn’t stop Speidi from eviscerating her.
Their infamous feuds with Kim Woodburn, and especially James Cosmo over being eternally nominated by him mid-game, were wild and unexpected (James Cosmo feuding with anyone was unexpected) but there was something satisfying about seeing Spencer needlessly terrorize a kind old Scottish man for panicking and making a harmless decision.
Speidi played a vital role in getting Austin “Asstin” Armacost out of the CBB19 house, which I was aggressively grateful for. They were one of the votes that sent him out of the house, which, honestly, deserves an entire EGOT just for sparing all viewers of an entire season of his misogynistic terror. Spencer successfully gaslit him and wound him up over water bottles and made him look like an absolute fool in front of the entire house. I support this so much.
===67. Sylvia Elsrode (The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions)===
Sylvia was undoubtedly one of the more iconic Challenge rookies of 2017, do not make a single mistake about this. Similar to fellow Invasion Underdog Anthony, I’m not exactly sure why they had Sylvia make her Challenge debut 2 seasons after her fellow Real World: Skeletons cast members started appearing on the show, but holy wow, I’m glad.
First thing’s first, this legend backstabbed Tony and Nicole Z, close friends, in order to curry favor with vets, which was hilarious, because WOW. Sis really did try and get Tony sent home first! Truly working for God’s plan.
She proceeded to defeat elimination powerhouse LaToya in an elimination (very impressive!) and stayed feisty/surpassing expectations. And now she seems to be a Challenge regular? She did #that. Love this girl.
===66. Gus Kenworthy (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
Gus is the only Pro I came into Champs vs. Pros with prior knowledge of, based on my prior research on out gay athletes. I’d also seen a video where he awkwardly suffered through a 10 minute interview with Tyler Oakley about being gay including questions like “who’s your favorite gay porn star” which, lol, RIP. So I was pretty much on his side throughout the entirety of Champs vs. Pros, and aside from a quick spat with Lolo at the start of the season, Gus proved to be a Good Thing about Champs vs. Pros. He always supported good people (Cara Maria, Lolo, Louise, Louie, Wes) and in general, helped talent succeed. I’m all for good LGBT representation in the athletic world and on The Challenge in general, two places in which it’s pretty lacking, so I’m happy to say I was Team Gus throughout this miniseason.
PS: this is kind of one of my favorite scenes in Challenge history:
thumb|center|335 px
===65. Neda Kalantar (Big Brother Canada 5)===
Neda was terrible on BBCan5, but you can’t deny the power of this arc.
Ms. Neda Kalantar, clothing entrepreneur, had been revered universally by every BB fanbase for being one of the best players of all time. Her placing 3rd on BBCan2 rocked the world and sent shockwaves throughout the BB universe; this modern, female Dr. Will has been backstabbed and evicted. People had been begging for her return for years – and we finally got it.
Neda immediately aligned with the absolute worst people, condescendingly antagonized Good People in the house, manipulated and bullied kind people before her own alliance cannibalized her exactly when her audience–given immunity was over. Incredible. She exits the house cursing out former ally Sindy, in tears, while Arisa has to fill space with declaring that Neda Is A Legend.
She’s disgraced, essentially. Once the queen of Big Brother Canada, she becomes, in the eyes of the fanbase (who cheered consistently at any notion of her elimination during the DE in which she is disposed of), mean-spirited, an overconfident player, and the villain. Neda could have died a hero had she not returned to the game; Neda’s BBCan5 stint was, in effect, living long enough to become the villain.
===64. Karen Singbeil (Big Brother Canada 5)===
Karen is a wonderful concept that worked in execution. Defying expectations and winning the first HoH, Karen literally made it her priority to get an alpha male evicted, a BBCan first, and worked hard moving forward to exclusively support talent (in the form of rookies and Ika Wong). This woman fought day in and day out to quell the beast that was That Kevin Robert Martin, and she failed miserably, but hey, she can say she made the final two. Neda can’t say that.
===63. Tom Barber (Big Brother UK 18)===
I think I’m the most surprised that I love Tom?
What a journey he had?
Starting out as the clear antagonist, literally working to evict Good People and enabling Lotan/Kieran in a terrible bromantic trio...what a nightmare of a situation?
Yet once Lotan left, Tom and Kieran, as betas, did not know what else to do. So instead, Tom began to develop feelings for Kieran (joking, but like… come ON look at that footage. You cannot tell me that Tom isn’t LGBT and that’s not even wishful thinking), became mostly a passive beta male who served the exclusive purpose of generating Fun/Entertaining Banter with people like Hannah, Sue, Simone, Deborah, Isabelle, etc. Somehow Tom began the series as the boring main antagonist and ended as the likeable supporting character, and even someone who, going into the final, I would have accepted as a good winner. Iconic? Just a general Fun and Good presence, especially in the endgame. The content of him and Hannah alone together in The Attic for multiple days was some of the best stuff I’ve ever witnessed in a Big Brother season.
===62. Jacqui Patterson (Australian Survivor 4)===
Hear me out: although she morphed into an unfun gamebot in her last couple of episodes, Jacqui is what most Survivor women should aspire to be if they plan on winning the game in this day and age. Strategically allow everyone to underestimate you. Align closely with a young male not on motherly terms – explicitly make it clear that you are a power couple and not a mother/son surrogate. Find an idol together and make it clear that this is for the both of you. Be funny and witty in your confessionals. Use your intelligence wisely.
The issue with this game plan is Jacqui, despite being AMAZING for a good while, did not plan on Henry trying to jump ship out of pure hubris, take their idol with him and leave her out to dry. But in and of itself, that's funny as heck, because by that point, Henry was more entertaining than Jacqui. But literally no sane, logical person can deny that Jacqui was incredible at her peak. Like Kass, but with self restraint (not a bad or good thing!).
===61. Shamir & Sara (The Amazing Race 29)===
These two are the biggest example of the stranger twist just not working at all – in a good way! Two completely different, not even remotely similar personalities that do not mesh at all that were doomed from the start, bicker constantly and go out in a blaze of glory? How much else can I ask for?
Their team dynamic was essentially their power and talent being slowed down by Shamir’s weak complaining and Sara being absolutely fed up. In Sao Paulo during Leg 2, when Shamir derailed their race and jeopardized their chances due to feeling as though he needed medical attention for his purportedly crushed balls (he just didn’t know how to use a harness), the two came to blows and literally couldn’t get over it at the pit stop.
Phil Keoghan literally asked this team if they were okay and with body language that says “we’re locked in perpetual hatred,” the two say that they’re fine. How much more angsty can you get? It’s iconic.
They continued to fight and bicker before flaming out in a tense ladle-making Roadblock in which Phil eliminates them on location, which is something I always value when it happens because I know it means production had to break their script. It’s absolutely legendary. TAR29 took two perfectly capable strangers and paired them together in a doomsday–bound thrill ride...again, how much more can ANYONE ask for?
===60. Imran Javeed (Big Brother UK 18)===
Never fundamentally a bad housemate, Imran’s role in BBUK18 was to hype up Sukhvinder, who I will speak highly of endlessly in her eventual writeup. Talking her down from every single meltdown, comparing the married couple to Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. (???) and genuinely being a supportive husband. I don’t think anyone else on earth possesses the life coaching skills that Imran does; he somehow managed to constantly calm down a volatile and unstable human being and keep her grounded while not losing his own wits. Give me this talent!!
Other than that, Imran was wise, witty, fun, likable and added a good bit of fun to the early stages of BBUK18. He deserved to stay in for a much, much longer period of time.
===59. Ashley Nolan (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
There’s nothing particularly novel about Ashley – her archetype has been done many times before and depending on how BB20 plays out from here, Angela Rummans might do it better – but she’s fun! And she Worked for me, especially in the context of HHH’s post-merge. In a world in which Alan Ball has rattled each and every member of a Levu Tribe incarnation and Ben Driebergen is getting his way every week, a comic relief character is always needed, and that was Ashley. Her relatable brand of snark meant that whoever she was annoyed with in the game, I, too, was immediately annoyed with. Her panic and paranoia whenever things weren’t going her way in the game felt real. And I loved her in her boot episode – getting pissy when Devon didn’t take her on reward and then icing him when he votes her out are elements of a vastly underrated episode.
(in addition: there’s also a lot of mystique involved when I’ve literally met and discussed the show with people that know her? this is something I constantly overlook)
===58. Angie Best (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
I wasn’t a fan of American bore Calum Best from the get-go, but when abrasive British health nut Angie Best made her appearance on the show specifically to shake Calum to his core, I was satisfied. Calum had no clue his mom was gonna show up in the house, but she knew she was going in to surprise him – making it all the more iconic that this mischievous woman was perfectly okay with rattling her son.
In the same vein of Isabelle being given a secret task with the incentive of more fake tan supplies, Angie was given a secret task with the incentive of some fresh organic ingredients. Big Brother knew she was a health icon and knew how to exacerbate it. She would later go on to become an Obvious Early Boot by constantly criticizing housemates about their life habits, a vein of behavior that the Great British Public does not take kindly to. Angie told Coleen she was too fat because she ate so much chocolate, told James C. (and possibly Coleen as well) that they were going to die soon because they smoked so much. She insisted on giving everyone in the house health tips because she was Cher’s personal trainer. She’s iconic. 
She gave me a longer life just by witnessing her, she emasculated Calum constantly and I’d kill for more content of her. Where were you when she lectured reality stars on keeping their lymph nodes healthy? I was there. We were all there.
===57. English & Stephen (Hunted US)===
First off, it needs to be recognized that this woman’s name is English and that her husband is named Stephen King. 
Now, these two were deemed iconic in the pre-show material when English unveiled that she’s a serial planner who keeps multiple agendas of her life and plans everything that her family does down to a T. Seems like a trainwreck, and unsurprisingly, it was.
English is the alpha in this married couple. So, when they get on the run and it starts raining and there’s nowhere to go, it’s wild to watch her immediately and absolutely break down inside a shed. They seemed like such obvious early outs with the driving force in the relationship being a little bit unstable, but I was wrong in thinking that. I wish I remembered more about their ~journey~, but it was truly wonderful to watch this righteous, strong pair get to win the show.
===56. Sentra & Thu (Hunted US)===
These girls probably had the best capture of any team on this show? At first, they struggled to get off the grid and remain unseen, but after successfully getting into hiding and following days of hiding in the wilderness Troy & Chele-style, they decided that as a result of reaching day 15, past the halfway point, they were gonna risk getting captured to go and get Taco Bell.
This is the truth.
Pretty quickly their location was exposed (I think they were caught via license plates being read – iirc, a friend had rented a car for them, and although that rental got tied back to them, the hunters couldn’t find them once they were camping in the wilderness) and they were cornered in the parking lot outside of Taco Bell. iconic
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5b3bsu
===55. Nina Bo'nina Brown (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
RPDR9 was a gay history crash course at its most dry and a psychological thriller at its peak; Nina Bo’Nina Banana Fofana Osama bin Laden* Brown was the one controlling the narrative of the latter. 
Nina was a stressful queen to watch, and I don’t think she ever really got over her anxiety on the show. She was clearly an artist and a pioneer of out-of-the-box drag, but on the whole, never really gained the confidence she needed to take it to the end. By the time she lip synced against Shea, with whom she’d recently cut ties, she was done. She’d lip synced three times at that point and just kinda stood there, which was sort of sad since her first two lip syncs were full of spunk and spice.
Nina had a long road, and I appreciated each step of the journey, but the peak may have been when Alexis did not give her the role of Blac Chyna in the Kardashian musical and Nina probably almost quit. It’s hard to describe what I love about Nina Bo’Nina Brown, but she brought something interesting and unique to season 9.
*yes, that’s her legitimate drag name and yes, the FBI is probably tracking this page now
===54. Cole Medders (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
I got a lot of legitimate joy from watching Cole on HHH. Someone so pure and innocent but also naive and stupid bumbling their way through the premerge was amazing and one of the reasons I believe HHH was on track to be a top ten season until Ben happened. Making himself and Jessica obvious targets with a cute flirtmance? Fun. Being a great accessory to The Jessica Johnston Story? A fantastic idea. Eating too much of the tribe’s food and passing out? Laughable in concept. Being a terrible liar and getting exposed constantly? Trainwreck potential at its finest. If only HHH’s post-merge were better so that he could have truly had a good end to his arc instead of just “this alliance is falling apart, but we need to stick together and vote out the Healer.” He’s also really hot! haha
===53. Louise Hazel (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
Although Vendettas would later bring five (5) British contestants over into the MTVerse and begin a trend of MTV UK feeding their hot young personalities into The Challenge, Louise showed up and touted Champs vs. Pros as her intro to the United States from the UK months before Kayleigh Morris could have her luggage thrown off a balcony. She brought fresh insight into a lot of the game, doing something I highly appreciate in the form of actually strategizing and bringing intelligence into The Challenge. 
In the first episode, when she had to pick someone to send into elimination as the Pros team captain, she chose to write everyone’s names on limes and pick them out of a hat; although there’s no explicit confirmation that she did this, Louise insinuated that she ignored whoever’s name was on the chosen lime and picked unstable human giant Lolo Jones anyways because she wanted to send a strong player into elimination. One episode in, and it was abundantly clear that this woman Understood The Game.
===52. Shay Tapusoa (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
Virtually everyone on NZ1 was a victim of bad editing and mediocre storytelling, even if the cast was objectively pretty dynamic. Had an editing team like that of SJDS or KR’s been in charge of this season, Shay would probably be a contender for #1. All this being said, Shay was one of the best Survivor contestants all around across the three international editions that mattered in the past year. She came through with strategy coming from a place of ingenuity, intelligence, social awareness and necessity rather than “I want to make big moves only!” (sideye towards literally every post-Kaoh Rong Survivor season, particularly Ghost Island and MvGX!) She came through with commentary on her place within the real world as a missionary and a woman, applied it to how the game was affecting her, gave an actual good underdog arc… it’s really a shame she couldn’t come back from RI twice. She was hands down one of the best players of the season, and I really wish she hadn’t trusted Avi, but we can’t always get what we want!
===51. Justina Valentine (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
Like fellow Champs vs. ____ luminary Louise Hazel, Justina very clearly Understood The Game. She made the executive decision to take action against Josh, Kim and Shawn’s weird alliance clique and took action, recruiting All of the Good Stars in order to protect talent and herself, and this outreach and bonding tactic got her into the final. Justina in general was the embodiment of the Stars team: no pro athlete was going to show up to Champs vs. Stars with ridiculous red hair, a thick Jersey accent and an obnoxiously OTT wardrobe. So for someone with such a name as Justina Valentine, flowing red hair and having her career be “rap occasionally on television” to come in and immediately grasp how to succeed on The Challenge was great. 
She also had a lot of fun moments as well, such as her reaction to getting picked by Josh and Michelle to run the final being going O_O “I gagged!” and generally supporting Good People on the competition field. Not to mention, she was good at pretty much every competition and emasculated Bananas’ soccer skills by blocking all of his shots in the human foosball challenge. We love an icon who prevents Bananas from succeeding.
===50. Dominique Cooper (Big Brother US 19)===
It’s always very predictable what happens when a black woman is revealed to be competing on reality television. If it’s Survivor, she is suddenly placed by fans into the category of being The Next Cirie. On Big Brother, she is suddenly assumed by to be the next Danielle Reyes, or the next Da’Vonne Rogers; this predictably happened to Dominique when preseason, everyone was picking her to win the whole thing and even in the first week and a half or so, people were playing her up as a silent assassin.
She’s clearly very intelligent – she works in DC as a government engineer so she has to be – but sis CRACKED on BB19, and it was the funniest thing ever. After two weeks of successfully playing an under the radar game and gathering hordes of information, she snapped, and not in a good way for her. She heard from God that there was a snake in the house, and correctly identified given what she knew that Paul was a malicious person. But instead of trying to carefully sow seeds and take Paul down tactfully, this legend held a few house meetings and spoke cryptically about Paul to his closest allies instead, eventually leading to Paul wearing blackface (!!!) and a snake dress to taunt Dominique as Alex Ow backdoored her. Even on the way out of the house, sis was speaking in cryptic riddles to all who remained in the game. And I haven’t even mentioned how she used her public “talk show” within the house to up-front ask people about their closest allies and game plans. Stunning!
===49. Raph Korine (Big Brother UK 18)===
It’s not really easy to sum up the 54 episodes of Raph Korine, but what it boils down to is an anxious gay American BB fan befriending the better people in the house and continuing to support them, enable them and openly defend them up until the very end of the game out of sheer desperate need for a clique in the house. Psychologically fascinating and works well for the house dynamic! Within the house, Raph was generally always pleasant (which I enjoyed), formed the most bizarre but amazing close friendship with Chanelle McCleary (which was so great and still holds up!) and used his time wisely to strategically take down people I didn’t like (also enjoyable), culminating in a second place finish, which seems correct for him. Raph’s the ultimate BB hero, and this isn’t even touching on his talks about sexuality, which were pretty novel for something shown on TV (more on novel sexuality talk in a few writeups). Good man. Considers So Kim one of his favorite RTV contestants of all time and I’m not sure if it’s even ironic.
===48. Jemma Lucy (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
Honestly, I should have cut Jemma a while ago, but her contributions to CBB20 probably can’t be overstated too much. She brought drama and conflict to a house that either wasn’t generating it or trying to shame and stop it, including terrorizing people like Paul Danan and forming frenemy alliances with people like Brandi; additionally, sis opened discussions about bisexuality and ALSO contributed to the absolute mental breakdown of Sarah Harding. A win. She deserved better than 6th.
===47. Farrah Moan (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
I typically gravitate towards younger queens regardless of the scenario when I watch Drag Race, so for Farrah to come in and present the epitome of “inexperienced, confused young drag child” was content I was ready for when RPDR9 rolled around. For example of the main reasons I disliked Shea Coulee so passionately during the show was because of her know-it-all attitude, so for Farrah to come in and be transparent and vulnerable about not knowing how to sew (or really not knowing what she was doing) was content I appreciated. 
The Farrah experience can probably be summed up in three stages, the first of which is when she was saved in favor of Aja in the fairytale princess challenge. By all means, Farrah 100% should have been in the bottom here, so when she wasn’t it completely shook me up and I was happy for it. She proceeded to inexplicably turn it out to a Meghan Trainor song and then a Dolly Parton song later on (I fully believe she should have stayed over Alexis), and honestly, for someone so underestimated and seemingly inexperienced to show up and do well was vaguely relatable. She was endearing and rootable. The Farrah Moan whine noise is eternal.
===46. Anneliese Wilson (Australian Survivor 4)===
Anneliese was the purveyor of an absolutely iconic underdog arc! From being on top-ish to on the bottom to a failed attempt to play both sides to an inspiring return to the game to getting vengeance to gaining power and an idol to being thwarted by a Survivor first, The Anneliese Experience was one of the highlights of the AUS4 midgame and made her a brief all-time favorite Survivor for me. She’d be a lot higher had I not completely forgotten about her by the end of AUS4 as a whole – like, objectively her arc is amazing, and she’s very much a vibrant standout, but I feel like the editors just featured her heavily because she was TV gold and not because she was relevant to the end story. Good luck to her brother on AUS5!
===45. Shannon Quinn (Survivor NZ: Nicaragua)===
Like with Shay, Shannon’s unique brand of moxie, oddball aura, moral dilemma meltdown and strategic prowess could have ascended her to incredible heights had the editing and storytelling not been bungled so heavily this season. This actual zookeeper was having fun, playing well, and giving insightful commentary to tribe dynamics. I loved her! The Kiwi Kim Spradlin was on track to be AMAZINGLY great pre-merge while her strategy went unchallenged, but because of the overall air of the season shifting to “how will Avi get to the end?” instead of “what’s actually going on in the Casar” tribe post-merge, her perky demeanor (which endeared her to me in the first place) was shifted to a B-Plot of everyone melting the hell down at her cutthroat strategy. 
You might be confused as to why I set that up as a bad thing, and it’s not. It’s great, but it’s really just less than amazing because that was all we got from her for multiple episodes at a time – repetitively – as in, we were getting the same content over and over about how it was terrible that she’d voted out Mike/Sala. How wild that she became the villain of the season after being set up to be the lovable hero?
===44. William Laprise Desbiens (Big Brother Canada 5)===
When will your faves make a legitimate, real gay showmance integral to the plot of the season? William was a very interesting casting choice for BBCan5 that I fully support; young, awkward, shy but sweet Quebecois gay, an archetype that really had not happened before this season. This is a guy who paired up with the right people at the right times and kind of lucked into relevance, but it’s all for good. A dynamic player and character is all I can really ask for out of someone on BB, and William served a lot of good stuff that I didn’t know I needed. Please cast more French Canadians. Please cast more interesting gays that aren’t reduced to just being gay. William was great (if not for enabling Kevin to win the game).
===43. Debbie Wanner (Survivor: Game Changers)===
Legitimate criticisms of Debbie 2.0 exist, ranging from “too OTT” to “uncomfortable” to “racist” (that one’s a stretch; I’m not sure I even saw anyone saying this) but if anything, her Survivor portfolio was only enriched by Game Changers to me!!
Let’s talk focal points. The Brad Culpepper Meltdown is truly an iconic moment for me and really gilds the lily that is “Dirty Deed,” an incredible fifth episode to the season, and if anything, it’s a deep dive into Debbie’s mind. It’s petty. It’s defensive. It’s uncontrollable. It’s erratic, it’s very self-serving; publicly doing pushups in order to show your tribe that you’re stronger than Brad Culpepper believes you are, but doing it under the guise of “calming down,” after waiting for your entire tribe to arrive and calm you down from your meltdown...what even? Cherry on top is the next challenge, where Debbie begins announcing openly to Culpepper every time she does something good for the tribe. Someone probably could have died at Mana that day.
Meeting Cochran – making the worst of a bad idea on the producer’s behalf (former winners coming back to give one-on-one advice to current players? what is this, BBUK?) – and somehow going OTTNN → OTTP in one fell swoop? Wild?
Using her extra vote to ensure that she, Debbie Wanner, woman equivalent to Coach Wade, an Older Woman by Survivor standards, is able to take down Survivor titan Ozzy Lusth, and being incredibly smug about it afterwards, is really something out of a fanfiction and something that is often overlooked when Game Changers is discussed. We have Debbie Wanner to thank for Ozzy’s irrelevance in GC and his minimal impact on the season.
Repeating her exact KR mistakes – successfully blindsiding an alpha male, power tripping and then getting voted out by the same people that just helped her – is kind of a hilarious arc and one that I feel lucky to have experienced. It always seems that just when Debbie becomes Too Much for me, she gets swiftly taken out and I can still safely stan. Long story short – she gets far too much hate and it’s probably just because people like to lump her in with negative things about GC, a fine season – sorry not sorry
===42. Riff Raff (The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2)===
Riff Raff brought talent to Champs vs. Stars; remember how I mentioned that Terrell Owens didn’t care about being there? Riff Raff really did not care about partaking on a MTV reality show. For like three episodes in a row, he constantly asked to get voted into elimination to “get some action” and when he didn’t get sent in, would actively get mad, and one time straight up ditched the elimination and didn’t show, texting teammates that he was going to a pool party instead. A legendary moment already, but it was followed up by claiming to have amnesia run in his family (which may be true?) so he didn’t even remember ghosting his entire team that night...an icon. Whenever asked about the charity he was playing for (a Nevada branch of the ASPCA) and why it was important to him, Riff dodged the really irritating bs act that The Miz put on every single time and answered with a bizarre answer like “for the shrimp pad thai” or “I just love puppies man.” 
When he finally did get sent into elimination, Riff Raff had an iconic opportunity to rid the season of Bananas, which he failed to do because he literally couldn’t play mini golf for the life of him, but even that itself was a Moment. His expression of disappointment at losing for his charity was that now he “will have to go home and adopt all their puppies, and maybe put them in the backyard” to make up for losing. Other great Riff Raff moments include lying on the table in front of which everyone filmed their confessionals, crawling backwards out of the confessional room when eliminated, wearing ridiculous colorful sunglasses constantly and dying his hair purple before a challenge because “if we win and my hair is purple we’ll know it’s a lucky color.”
===41. Tara Pitt (Australian Survivor 4)===
Tara Pitt is a lovely, intelligent, plucky, vindictive and petty human being whose storyline during 2017’s installment of hit show “Australian Survivor” gripped me and kept me moving through the season in some of its darker moments. Whereas Luke livened up the pre-merge and Michelle livened up the midseason, Tara was a character who was always followable. A likable, kind hearted mother who was never, ever afraid to backstab the straight men she used to get far in the game? Not to mention she’s a barrel racer? Amazing. How this woman managed to beat the odds numerous times and receive votes to win the game will remain a mystery to me; however, that outcome is the preferred timeline.
===40. Wes Bergmann (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros
The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
My perception of Wes in modern Challenge seasons is that he’s someone that brings intellect and strategy to this show while still backing good people. Not only did he take out Bananas early in Champs vs. Pros, he led the initiative (along with Emily) to not fall for Bananas’ horrifically manipulative scheme where he brought a kid with Down syndrome to a challenge in an attempt to be a Good Guy and automatically win money for his charity because of it. Wes is talent in that regard. 
Where Wes really excelled and helped out both of the 2017 miniseasons is that he was probably the only one on either edition of the Champs team to actively try and forge cross-team relationships; not necessarily alliances, but just trying to get to know the Pros and Stars. Whether it’s getting lunch with Lolo and discussing how they both go into elimination all the time or coaching Justina on how to effectively take out an opposing alliance, Wes was always giving us content from Good People who deserved to be shown more on screen. A righteous warrior and a true people’s hero.
=="Incredible TV" Tier==
===39. Liz & Michael (The Amazing Race 29)===
They don’t get the award for most dysfunctional team, but they do get the TAR29 award for most mismatched duo and least capable team. It was known instantly when the TAR29 cast came out that Liz was kind of insane, so learning that Michael was her partner was also a moment in which I learned that these two would clash.
And they did! Frequently!
Their brand of melting down & proceeding to succeed at the race (for moments at a time) post-meltdown was never tiring for me. Good moments include bombing Leg 1, then somehow coming together in Leg 2 (“LIZ, YOU ARE A ROCK STAR”) as well as almost quitting the race altogether in Norway. Good team. Bless them for somehow reaching the endgame.
===38. Chrissy Hofbeck (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
Poor Ben picked the wrong time to pick a fight with me, because he did not get to see his sweet Kelly. And now, I’m gonna make sure that he regrets that he ever crossed me.
HHH’s plot essentially consisted of petty and vindictive people doing petty and vindictive things, and Chrissy led the charge. Hero turned villain? Absolutely. She flipped the “nice mom” trait on its head and played unapologetically. Despite making some Bad Game Decisions, watching this woman play the game was entertaining and she eventually turned into one of the the only rootable contestants in the endgame. 
(Here's some personal life impact: I will forever associate Taylor Swift’s song “Getaway Car” with her just due to a post on CTS in which someone theorized that, at the final five, Chrissy would bamboozle Ben with a fake idol, saying that she “struck a match and blew Ben’s mind” and sent him home – if only)
===37. Nicola McLean (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
The destruction of Nicola McLean’s psyche was the main plot of Celebrity Big Brother UK 19. There’s no way around that: she went into the house fragile and left broken. 
To begin at the exact moment in which her fate was sealed, when Kim began needlessly arguing with Jessica on their first night in the house, Nicola pulled Kim aside and let her know that arguing and negativity like that wasn’t allowed in the house; a move made in innocence to protect her own well-being, Nicola did not know that she had just sealed her fate for the next three weeks.
From this point on, Nicola was being referred to by Kim as “Nicole,” the leader of the “mafia mob” who was “ganghanding” Kim at every turn. Nicole, to some extent, was like the majority leader of the CBB19 house, but only because Kim turned her into a figurehead; once the entire house communally exiled Kim and Jedward from their society, Nicola took the brunt of the beatings from both Kim and Jedward. It was mind-blowing and Nicola reacted exactly the way in which she needed to to make good TV.
Melting down and trying to quit the game multiple times is the epitome of the Nicola McLean experience: rather than take the high road and condescendingly put down the individual efforts of Kim and Jedward to disrupt 100% of the peace in the CBB19 house, Nicola “Mean McLean” “Nicole” McLean instead snapped at the slightest provocation and was always eager to get a petty jab in. Even when she would make up with Jedward after yet another argument, she’d say she loved them, but in cadence, admit that she only liked Edward, as she couldn’t stand John. I covered her beef with Speidi in their writeup so it’s not really necessary here.
I do feel bad that Nicola was so relentlessly tortured, but in a macabre way it’s what made CBB19 so interesting. To watch a Normal Girl with so much self confidence become a walking meltdown was, without a doubt, the driving force behind most of the season and I loved it. She later went on to make a brief guest appearance in BBUK18 for ~4 days, but unfortunately, her storyline of supposedly bonding with Earth Angel Raph Korine was shafted for Gemma Collins lusting for Lotan and Marnie Simpson hating fellow MTV UK alum Kayleigh Morris.
===36. Aneesa Ferreira (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
Aneesa has been active in the MTVerse for over a decade, and it’s easy to see why she keeps getting brought back for more Challenges. Her personality is magnetic; her attitude is very counterculture, confident, intelligent, wise; she’s never here for pointless drama. She’s never here for bad people. She’s only there to collect her check, screw everyone else – she’s going to do what she wants.
Unfortunately, because of this, I have a hard time pinpointing a single big Aneesa *moment* from her two 2017 Challenge appearances (aside from her kinda-not-but-still-pretty-much outing Veronica as bi), but I can’t ever deny her star power. I love her and would love to see her win a Challenge eventually.
===35. Jemmye Carroll (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
Like Aneesa, it’s hard to pinpoint a Jemmye moment (aside from talking to Cory about her ex-boyfriend Knight’s death as First Aid Kit’s “Stay Gold” plays in the background). I loved her in Dirty 30 and that’s not really gonna change; however, like Aneesa, it’s more because of the Jemmye Attitude and not via a Jemmye Experience. She’s not phenomenal at the actual physical aspects of The Challenge and only get strokes of strategic brilliance once in a blue moon. The main thing that ever draws me to Jemmye is her confessionals – her ability to singlehandedly eviscerate anyone (particularly people I don’t like) in a private setting is mind blowing. It sustains me. I got my life every time she was on screen, and after watching the season all the way through, Jemmye was my favorite out of the cast of 31. I’d never be upset about seeing her on a Challenge, I don’t think.
===34. Hunter Barfield (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
We really do love and stan this pure, lovelorn, naive, good-hearted, attractive (sometimes) and rootable country boy. The moment that sticks out to me the most from his Challenge career is the exact moment in which he gets broken up with by his girlfriend over the phone and immediately spirals for the rest of Dirty 30. How rare is it that I actually start liking and rooting someone of this personality type – muscular, bro, straight, southern – and get excited to see them return for future seasons? 
===33. Laurel Stucky (The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions)===
Laurel is my favorite Challenge contestant of all time. She didn't really have a banner year in 2017, but any time she does something on this show, it's important.
Any time someone on television in general has a plot that involves coming to terms coming to terms with one’s sexuality and entering a gay relationship, I immediately stan, which is probably why my BBUK19 opinions are going to be bad whenever I get around to watching that. Laurel went into Invasion as a favorite of mine already – she’s my original Challenge favorite. Free Agents was a blast watching her play the game, and she was the first person I really gravitated to that I didn’t already know of outside of the show (@Cara). 
While it’s true that she’s shown making out with women on multiple occasions in the first 15 minutes of her challenge career during Fresh Meat II, that’s kind of portrayed in the light of a drunken hookup just for fun – Invasion is the first time where I think even Laurel really admitted to anyone that she had actual feelings for girls, and that she wasn’t afraid anymore to let herself feel those romantic feelings. 
I’m so proud of her!! Even if she wound up dating probably one of the worst possible queer women on the show, wow. I really thought she couldn’t get better after Free Agents, but she DID. All while still keeping the badass, powerful Laurel facade that has every single female to ever participate in The Challenge trembling. I really hope she comes back as a contestant to this show soon – her brief stint as a mercenary on Vendettas wasn’t enough. And to think she was a single elimination away from making her fifth consecutive final and blocking Camila from victory….wow. Wow!
===32. Cirie Fields (Survivor: Game Changers)===
Additional Cirie Fields content is never a bad thing, and in Game Changers, that held true. While she did go INV for about four to five episodes, Cirie’s resurgence as the undisputed narrator at the merge of Game Changers was incredible. When all hope was lost and we were losing good people left and right, Cirie shone through as a light in the darkness and proved, once again, she will always be the best Survivor player to never win. 
She brought something new to Game Changers, which I appreciated – she brought in racial commentary, dialogue on her relationship with Michaela as sort of a mother-daughter, big sis-little sis relationship. She did this not only through gameplay (protecting Michaela) but, again, just through dialogue – but more on that when we get to Michaela’s entry.
Cirie getting auto-eliminated due to idols was a major travesty and easily a shark jump moment for the show. It should have been at that moment for Jeff Probst, a realization that Survivor’s twists have gone too far; I think, unfortunately, he believed that was a landmark television event. It wasn’t. But at least we got a full-on Cirie tribute out of it, and it really just ended with Jeff nutting about how much he loves Cirie, so we’ll probably see her again.
===31. Dre Gwenaelle (Big Brother Canada 5)===
(DRE)
aside from spawning an incredible emote, Dre brought so much to the BBCan table. She’s gone viral multiple times; I’d say she’s BBCan’s most prolific GIF spawner. Multiple feeds-only moments can be found all over Local Twitter with Dre’s face on them. She’s notable.
Dre’s impact on the season is undeniable – her star power, always seeking the turn up, her twerking prowess, her ability to melt down at any second – but the biggest contribution she’s made to the genre of RTV is her French Connection alliance with William. My heart has never been fuller than it was watching the two of them grow closer, connect, speak French, bond over things, bring queer dialogue into the BBCan realm (granted, mostly through feeds only moments) and even get evicted together. I loved them! Justice for the French Connection.
===30. Tori Deal (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
Tori has this energetic, magnetic, larger-than-life personality that I believe would catapult her to RTV stardom if she were on a show like TAR or Survivor. Easily D30’s most impressive rookie, I was drawn to her from the start. Her spunk, her attitude, her “it”-factor all make clear reasons why she should be a Challenge mainstay for a long time. A likable female challenge beast? Please sign me up! Whew.
===29. Veronica Portillo (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Champs vs. ProsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
Veronica is a much better concept than she is in execution, but Dirty 30 was, in my eyes, a great showing for her. Following an 8-year hiatus from reality TV in general, making a surprise return for the 30th season with a reputation as the first ever true female power player in Challenge history made her someone I was immediately drawn to, and someone to pay much attention to in general. 
It was very interesting to me how the older, more seasoned Challenge vets still gave her that automatic respect that the culture of The Challenge had bred, the “keep veteran players around for longer, they deserve it, etc.” attitude that sends good rookies out early, and yet, some of them hadn’t even done seasons with her. On the flipside, some of the rookies and newer players – Kailah specifically – basically just treated her like a fellow rookie, and some even tried to exercise seniority and superiority over her. Iconically, this didn’t fly; when Kailah got Veronica sent into elimination, Veronica beat Aneesa and came back to the house, proving that she still has what it takes to succeed at the game. I’m impressed!!
The Queen V peak was most definitely crushing the patriarchy of her team during one of the challenges, expertly capitalizing on bad gameplay by Britni to flip the game upside down and send Leroy into elimination. I’m still reeling from that one! Even at age 40, her mind is still #thatPOWERful. she did it
===28. Valentina (RuPaul's Drag Race 9)===
It’s hard to encompass the Villaintina journey with a writeup unless you were ~there.~ Valentina was a frontrunner that I’m not sure anyone predicted; no one was writing her off, but at the same time, she wasn’t a stunner by any means before the show. Once she showed up and performed incredibly well in RPDR9’s first third, that along with her wit and charm in confessionals turned her into an immediate fan favorite. She was constantly succeeding competitively, showing up with good looks, making funny jokes (her Snatch Game was phenomenal) and building a rabid fanbase.
What didn’t click, though, is that she had said she’d only been doing drag for ten months, which seems unfathomable considering second boot Kimora Blac was a mess and she’d been doing drag for a decade. This sent most queens into a slow descent of envy, and although Valentina was losing no sleep over what the other contestants thought of her (and losing no fans either), it slowly seemed like Valentina wasn’t this golden child she’d seemed to be at first. This disparity became clearer and clearer around the time that it was spoiled she’d have the most humiliating exit in Drag Race history. It was denied, it was anticipated, and viewers watched the ninth episode with bated breath, waiting to see what would happen with the mask.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEqtHiw7Zoo
Fast forward a few weeks to the season nine reunion, and Valentina is suddenly the antagonist. She doesn’t talk to anyone from the show. She’s accused of being fake for the cameras. She’s completely unbothered, and even manages to send Farrah, the most passive contestant ever, into a rant about her fake friendship. It was riveting. She got dragged to no end and smiled through it. The cast was furious when she won the Miss Congeniality/Fan Favorite award. I loved it. It was like… MTV/Bravo-level drama, after one of the least dramatic seasons of Drag Race ever. It was worth the wait.
===27. London & Logan (The Amazing Race 29)===
attractive, UTRfun, minor villains, added humor to an already fun endgame <3 london yarn g.oddess <3
===26. Michaela Bradshaw (Survivor: Game Changers)===
a satisfying and worthwhile extension of michaela's cut-too-short mvgx run; provided great entertainment and social commentary, fun to watch, made it weirdly far! 
===25. Luke Toki (Australian Survivor 4)===
chaotic fun entertaining dad, non-toxic masculine male, went out around the right time, enabled the correct people, carried some of the early episodes where the edit was total drama island-esque. (i will admit he has depreciated over time and i wouldn't call him an all time favorite but there have been many, many worse characters of his archetype)
===24. Ammo Hall (The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30)===
first nonbinary person on the challenge whose "dirty" reputation involved leaking spoilers about one of their real world castmates being racist while the season filmed. was overall entertaining and provided great queer discussion on the show, also beat tony in an elimination lmfao
===23. Jedward (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
chaotic twins only existed to support kim woodburn and troll anyone who even remotely disliked their jaded celebrity brand. i feel in retrospect like i liked them more while i watched the season than i do now but all anyone really needs to know is that they annoyed the right people and almost won!
===22. Vanck & Ashton (The Amazing Race 29)===
two people who i'd probably dislike under other circumstances come together in the most mismatched team of the amazing race 29; only provided conflict and entertainment before being taken out by an untimely Badly Planned Leg. cutthroat human beings caused u-turn controversy and enraged several other teams and ultimately deserved better...oh well
===21. Michelle Dougan (Australian Survivor 4)===
aus4 very much was well received due to its stellar ensemble cast, so while there was no clear AMAZING LEGENDARY HUMAN BEING, michelle was the closest thing the season had to it. scrappy smarmy intelligent underdog dismantled men with her words alone and probably could have won the game. a nanny who lives the lifestyle of the rich and famous and never camped once in her life controlled most of the post merge...think about that tonight when you go to the sleep
===20. Lolo Jones (The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros)===
Mixing Kim Woodburn and Vanessa Rousso and putting that person into an Olympian’s body brought Lolo Jones to the forefront of Champs vs. Pros, a season that one could argue was her personal saga. She checked off all the boxes to be an Great Unhinged Reality TV Contestant: alienated herself from everyone via dramatic outbursts, kept herself in the game by winning competition after competition, and wielded her own brand of a Kim Woodburn Victim Complex by referring to the other members of the Pros team as a “wolfpack” that was against her. Kind of iconic. 
Lolo brought tension to the Pros team and game itself by feuding with Gus, Lindsey, Louise, Bananas, Jordan... whoever she could fight, she did, and it was wonderful both mid-beef and post-beef when they seemingly made up without a problem. Lolo was very much born to be on reality television. 
She, like her frenemy Louise, also very much Understood The Game, which was cool, because seeing a female non-OG Challenger become a dominant force physically and strategically was a sight to behold. There was pretty much no Champs strategy or personal content in this season aside from The Breakdown of Ashley Mitchell, Part 2, and so to see the screentime go towards a strong woman instead of a Bananas-like figure was magnificent. I really want to somehow see her cross over into normal Challenges and start owning everyone in those as well; she brings the drama and brings the talent.
look out for her on CBBUS2...she's there and she's gonna win
===19. Jessica Graf (Big Brother US 19)===
would-be strong femme fatale anti-showmance player turns out to be socially unstable, meltdown-prone dissenter against an awful cult and makes a series of bad game moves to help her and her boyfriend before giving multiple weeks' worth of middle fingers to power players and leaving pre-jury, later goes on to win the amazing race 30
===18. Cody Nickson (Big Brother US 19)===
would-be Toxic Alpha Male instead turns out to be the only dissenter against a cult of awful people and immediately stops caring about the game, becomes sociopathic robot, trolls bad people, falls on his sword for socially challenged girlfriend and goes on to win the amazing race season 30...a journey
===17. Gary Levy (Big Brother Canada 5)===
soak it in that bbcanada's equivalent to a will kirby figure is a psychologically unstable qpoc who goes by the nickname "gary glitter"
===16. Jessica Johnston (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
i will always stand by the stance that one of survivor's best post-cambodia entities is this fun young naive bubbly nurse practitioner who was unfairly slain at the merge solely for being a healer... people are really ugly sometimes. she's one of the show's best young female narrators maybe ever
===15. Hannah Agboola (Big Brother UK 18)===
cutting anyone from thorn cottage at this point feels WRONG but i have to do it. hannah was the more annoying, increasingly unstable, beautiful mess of a human being that almost caused a thorn cottage implosion multiple times but we still stan. her contributions to the season are innumerable, i don't think anyone post-lotan ejection inspired more ire in the eyes of the groovy gang
===14. Becca & Floyd (The Amazing Race 29)===
two seemingly positive, fun loving, pure, kind individuals find opportune times to melt down but also have #fun together on the race and capture the hearts of america. both very clearly unstable to a degree. i'm ready for round 2 come May 22 on TAR31
===13. Kim Woodburn (Celebrity Big Brother UK 19)===
i apologize to kim for ganghanding her by ranking her outside of the top 10 but on the whole her best moments are within her first 5-6 days in the house. are those moments easily season highs for everyone involved? oh, absolutely. she's iconic; meltdown prone, has an eternal victim complex, doesn't know when to stop being annoying, big personality. should appear on a us-based reality tv show soon so i can watch her mind unfold again
===12. Deborah Agboola (Big Brother UK 18)===
one of the best, smartest, brightest, most intuitive, kindest and most genuine hearted individuals to ever step foot in any big brother house. righteous. constantly correct. watches over her sister, crying at hannah's fake eviction as lorde's "green light" plays in the background. a constant legend. was moments away from hitting ellie young in the face. culturally relevant, always working towards a greater good
===11. Chad Johnson (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
to all rtv watchers: you can put to rest the concept of ironically stanning toxically masculine macho men, because the ultimate chad is literally named chad and has been on at least 4 reality shows by now. eats raw meat, raw eggs for meals. talks openly about wanting to fuck girls specifically for their body types. social awareness is at an absolute zero. entered into the most toxic and unhealthy relationship with unstable british woman sarah harding and coined wild phrases in arguments with brandi glanville and other cbb20 luminaries, phrases like "when you get out of here, are you gonna create a charity called 'don't get cheated on' or something?" and "that's a typical american reality tv move" and "if you eat 18 pickles that's different than eating one pickle" and "if you were a spice girl you'd...you'd...you'd be shitty spice"...i cannot sing this man's praises enough. total drama island fanfiction wiki would nut themselves over how hard they could ironically stan this man if he were on one of the big 3. the ultimate douchegod
===10. Sam & Paul (The Amazing Race Canada 5)===
heroic, kind, attractive, good-hearted, rootable, heartwarming gay couple triumphs over a slew of bad/mediocre teams to win the amazing race canada season five. one of the few times that my favorite rtv entity wins their season
===9. Ika Wong (Big Brother Canada 5)===
huge disclaimer: i kind of prefer ika in concept to ika in execution. that being said, ika in execution is pretty damn amazing. meltdown prone pre-jury boot from bbcan2 comes back and inexplicably assumes a mastermind role and very well is 1-2 challenges away from winning big brother canada 5. a woman who was once regarded as a messy queen who shredded letters is now regarded as one of the best to ever play big brother, period. soak that in. bbcan5 ika provided a compelling storyline in which she rebelled against bad people, sided with good people, elevated a would-be douchegod to excellent male status and took down hordes of villains... fucking massive dick energy
===8. Sandra Diaz-Twine (Survivor: Game Changers)===
admitting that sandra diaz-twine has lost anything is weird. not limited to acknowledging that she was the sixth boot of game changers, it's weird to acknowledge that she's lost this ranking, it feels wrong putting her this low but on the whole it's what i'm doing. one of survivor's best with a history of being entertaining with an already pretty illustrious and diverse portfolio of moments came back to the show and managed to once again develop and innovate her character? massive. she literally gripped two individual tribes by the balls and managed to control their dynamics despite the target on her back. not many can say that. she's probably my favorite survivor ever after this season, but there was exactly 1 more survivor contestant that entertained me more in 2017
===7. Lauren Rimmer (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)===
a mysterious looking woman with a criminal record who casting tried to paint as a flop came onto the show and managed to carve out a new character archetype 35 seasons in!!! she feels ripped out of the old school seasons. her character captured the hearts of america and had millions of people crushed when b*n idoled her out. she didn't deserve that. she deserved to win, and she could have, because she was also a masterful game player. literally the best of every world when it comes to a survivor contestant...please bring her back cbs
===6. Sarah Harding (Celebrity Big Brother UK 20)===
a disgraced former pop star pisses off exactly 13 other human beings in the same house as she and becomes simultaneously the uk's least favorite woman and also their favorite woman...how many can say that a live audience unanimously booed when their win was declared?
she came into cbb wanting to show the uk that she was a kind, normal girl after the press fiasco that happened when girls aloud broke up, wanting to show the uk that she was good, kind and regular, but proceeded to draw the ire of literally the most normal and bland of people...and it's entirely because of her spoiled, stuck up histrionics
she had hordes of meltdowns and caused an equal amount on behalf of contestants, viewers and everyone in between...i fucking love this woman. too bad she and chad broke up
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===5. Sukhvinder Javeed (Big Brother UK 18)===
feels wrong doing what i'm doing by cutting sukhvinder but it's got to happen. the queen of power. the queen of being outspoken, the queen of delusions...i can't even describe her power accurately...just stream the first 12 episodes of big brother uk 2017 to understand
===4. Chanelle McCleary (Big Brother UK 18)===
prank legend snapped constantly and kept conflict afloat even when she didn't have to. stream bbuk18's first 7 weeks to understand
===3. Ashley Mitchell (The Challenge – Various)===
The Challenge: Invasion of the ChampionsThe Challenge: Champs vs. ProsThe Challenge XXX: Dirty 30The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
Is there anyone in reality TV history who’s had a year-long arc like Ashley Mitchell? I’m not sure. Coming off of the disaster known as Rivals III as the standout rookie of that season, Ashley seemed to have a pretty good trajectory going into Invasion. She’d impressed before and she was sure to impress again.
What was once the story of a messy party girl fumbling her way through a physical competition (Rivals III) began, on Invasion, to morph before my eyes into the ultimate underdog story – girl who’s faced hardship her entire life including rocky family situations and I think drug abuse is now battling against some of the strongest competitors in Challenge history both physically and mentally. 
She was a social outsider, but she was still collaborating with her former enemies to take down stronger players than her in hard-fought elimination rounds. I don’t think I’ve ever rooted harder for anyone in Challenge history than when I watched intently hoping that Ashley would survive the pivotal Ashley vs. Amanda vs. Nicole elimination. Her entire arc was having the heart it takes to win and stick around - which she had in spade loads.
After her miraculous win over the two vastly inferior female finalists in the 3-day final, I couldn’t believe I was seeing the hot mess from Rivals III being crowned a Challenge champion over actual tv gremlin Camila Nakagawa. The final moment of The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions is Ashley crying tears of joy to her mom over the phone. Is this a fantastic denouement for anyone’s story? Yes, but that’s not where it ends.
Going into Champs vs. Pros, I’m pretty sure Ashley had just won Invasion only a couple of weeks prior to her showing up on a team of Challenge winners, so obviously, like anyone rational, her ego was inflated and she felt unstoppable. So naturally, she took a lot of leadership positions and wound up in eliminations every time she possibly could – eventually breaking down into tears at the thought of someone sending her into an elimination, which, of course, happened continuously. After many eliminations, Ashley finally lost and stormed off the set in tears, which is also totally rational after her literal whirlwind of MTV-related stress and physical strain until this point. She also sustained a long-term injury from this season, which contributes to her Dirty 30 stint.
Although Dirty 30, too, culminated in tears when her luggage didn’t make to Colombia on time for the first challenge, eventually leading to her quit on the first or second night. Sort of iconic? She changed the “Dirty 30” to the Dirty 31 in one fell swoop. She doesn’t even have a cast photo for this season. She was there and then she wasn’t.
I’d have assumed Ashley was done with The Challenge at that point, but homegirl proved me wrong and showed up on Champs vs. Stars. I think anyone showing up on that wreck of a show was a mistake, but especially for Ashley, who wound up quitting due to family complications and further adding to the list of people quitting or being disqualified from one of the least exciting TV experiences out there. can you tell I don’t like Champs vs. Stars?
The moral of the story is that Ashley provided a simultaneously entertaining, relatable and inspiring year-long story arc, and that’s something not many people can accomplish. She’s TV dynamite and a pretty good person, too. I really hope she shows back up in a future MTV product soon.
===2. Brooke & Scott (The Amazing Race 29)===
i almost gave these two the win just because WOW...what the actual fuck happened...somehow the most dysfunctional, argumentative team of the amazing race 29 pulled their shit together at the last minute to beat out a full slew of competent competitors...the modern flo & zach. casual fans could not stomach their win but i could take a second helping
pain is temporary. elimination is forever
===1. Isabelle Warburton (Big Brother UK 18)===
0 people should be surprised...never forget when the most normal girl ever somehow became one of the most hated girls not only in the bb house, but in the uk...then after some quick rigs to save her from eviction, ascended to a reality tv victory celebrated worldwide?
i'll remember forever
==Contestants==
Note: An asterisk implies that this contestant appeared on more than one season. Also, another quick shoutout to Mana because I'm stealing the formatting of this section (and some of these lists) entirely from his ranking
Celebrity Big Brother UK 19
Jedward
Kim Woodburn
37. Nicola McLean
58. Angie Best
68. Heidi & Spencer
75. Stacy Francis
118. Jessica Cunningham
132. James Cosmo
133. Chloe Ferry
138. Jasmine Waltz
161. James Jordan
200. Bianca Gascoigne
205. Coleen Nolan
223. Ray J
233. Brandon Block
259. Calum Best
264. Jamie O’Hara
270. Austin Armacost
Hunted US
56. Sentra & Thu
57. English & Stephen
86. Miles & Will
137. Aarif & Immad
167. Lee & Hilmar
171. David & Emiley
194. Angela & Michele
213. Matt & Christina
242. Troy & Chele
The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions
Ashley Mitchell*
33. Laurel Stucky
34. Hunter Barfield*
67. Sylvia Elsrode
71. Cara Maria Sorbello*
82. Amanda Garcia*
90. CT Tamburello*
91. Kailah Casillas*
106. Shane Landrum
107. Jenna Compono*
117. Darrell Taylor*
139. Theo King-Bradley
172. Nelson Thomas*
173. Marie Roda*
186. LaToya Jackson*
189. Anika Rashaun
192. Bruno Bettencourt
198. Ashley Kelsey*
202. Dario Medrano*
208. Anthony Bartolotte
224. Nicole Zanatta
251. Tony Raines*
256. Cory Wharton*
267. Zach Nichols*
271. Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio*
273. Camila Nakagawa*
Survivor: Game Changers
Michaela Bradshaw
Sandra Diaz-Twine
32. Cirie Fields
43. Debbie Wanner
69. Hali Ford
102. Andrea Boehlke
83. Tony Vlachos
96. J.T. Thomas
108. Aubry Bracco
114. Malcolm Freberg
131. Sarah Lacina
149. Ciera Eastin
177. Sierra Dawn Thomas
178. Tai Trang
195. Ozzy Lusth
229. Troyzan Robertson
230. Brad Culpepper
244. Caleb Reynolds
248. Zeke Smith
253. Jeff Varner
Big Brother Canada 5
Gary Levy
Ika Wong
31. Dre Gwenaelle
44. William Laprise Desbiens
64. Karen Singbeil
65. Neda Kalantar
76. Demetres Giannitsos
88. Jackie McCurrach
104. Cassandra Shahinfar
113. Dillon Carman
141. Sindy Nguyen
159. Dallas Cormier
160. Emily Hawkin
188. Mark Chrysler
225. Kevin Martin
260. Bruno Ielo
RuPaul's Drag Race 9
28. Valentina
47. Farrah Moan
55. Nina Bo'nina Brown
74. Trinity Taylor
124. Sasha Velour
128. Peppermint
140. Aja
148. Cynthia Lee Fontaine
158. Charlie Hides
165. Kimora Blac
175. Shea Couleé
191. Alexis Michelle
201. Eureka
207. Jaymes Mansfield
The Amazing Race 29
Becca & Floyd
Brooke & Scott
London & Logan
Vanck & Ashton
39. Liz & Michael
61. Shamir & Sara
79. Tara & Joey
84. Matt & Redmond
89. Jessie & Francesca
112. Kevin & Jenn
120. Seth & Olive
Survivor NZ: Nicaragua
45. Shannon Quinn
52. Shay Tapusoa
85. Georgia Bergerson
98. Mike Sparrow
111. Jak Thomas
127. Hannah Gough
135. Dee Harper
136. Barb Raos
147. Lee Den Haan
163. Sala Tiatia
193. Avi Duckor-Jones
215. Izzy Pearson
221. Lou McClintock
231. Tom Paterson
238. Tony Deane
262. Nate Davis
The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros
Ashley Mitchell*
Lolo Jones
29. Veronica Portillo*
40. Wes Bergmann*
53. Louise Hazel
66. Gus Kenworthy
71. Cara Maria Sorbello*
90. CT Tamburello*
99. Jordan Wiseley*
117. Darrell Taylor*
157. Lindsey Jacobellis
162. Louie Vito
181. Tia Blanco
198. Ashley Kelsey*
209. Kamerion Wimbley
210. Shawne Merriman
214. CM Punk
222. Candice Wiggins
271. Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio*
273. Camila Nakagawa*
Big Brother UK 18
Chanelle McCleary
Deborah Agboola
Hannah Agboola
Isabelle Warburton
Sukhvinder Javeed
49. Raph Korine
60. Imran Javeed
63. Tom Barber
87. Mandy Longworth
92. Simone Reed
109. Rebecca Jane
110. Sue Evans
174. Charlotte Keys
180. Kieran Lee
197. Ellie Young
218. Andrew Cruickshanks
220. Arthur Fulford
228. Savannah O’Reilly
249. Joe Quaranta
257. Sam Chaloner
266. Kayleigh Morris
268. Lotan Carter
Big Brother US 19
Cody Nickson
Jessica Graf
50. Dominique Cooper
70. Raven Walton
73. Elena Davies
103. Cameron Heard
143. Josh Martinez
144. Kevin Schlehuber
169. Mark Jansen
182. Megan Lowder
196. Jillian Parker
206. Ramses Soto
211. Christmas Abbott
212. Alex Ow
252. Matt Clines
258. Jason Dent
272. Paul Abrahamian
The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30
Ashley Mitchell*
Ammo Hall
29. Veronica Portillo*
30. Tori Deal*
34. Hunter Barfield*
35. Jemmye Carroll
36. Aneesa Ferreira*
71. Cara Maria Sorbello*
82. Amanda Garcia*
90. CT Tamburello*
91. Kailah Casillas*
99. Jordan Wiseley*
100. Britni Thornton
107. Jenna Compono*
117. Darrell Taylor*
119. Devin Walker
129. Derrick Kosinski
130. Nicole Ramos
170. Leroy Garrett
172. Nelson Thomas*
173. Marie Roda*
183. Briana LaCuesta
186. LaToya Jackson*
199. Derrick Henry
202. Dario Medrano*
251. Tony Raines*
254. Simone Kelly
255. Shane Raines
256. Cory Wharton*
271. Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio*
273. Camila Nakagawa*
The Amazing Race Canada 5
Sam & Paul
94. Karen & Bert
116. Megan & Courtney
126. Aaron & Deb
142. Korey & Ivana
145. Adam & Andrea
166. Andrea & Ebonie
217. Zed & Shabbir
241. Dan & Riya
263. Kenneth & Ryan
Australian Survivor 4
Luke Toki
Michelle Dougan
46. Anneliese Wilson
41. Tara Pitt
62. Jacqui Patterson
79. Tessa O'Halloran
81. Mark Herlaar
94. Ben Morgan
115. Jericho Malabonga
121. Henry Nicholson
125. Odette Blacklock
134. Kent Nelson
153. Sarah Tilleke
156. Peter Conte
168. Joan Caballero
179. Kate Temby
184. Locky Gilbert
185. Samantha Gash
187. Aimee Stanton
237. Adam Parkin
243. Mark Wales
245. Ziggy Zagame
247. Jarrad Seng
261. Aaron "A.K." Knight
Celebrity Big Brother UK 20
Chad Johnson
Sarah Harding
48. Jemma Lucy
77. Trisha Paytas
101. Brandi Glanville
146. Helen Lederer
151. Sam Thompson
226. Amelia Lily
227. Karthik Nagesan
234. Shaun Williamson
235. Marissa Jade
236. Derek Acorah
240. Paul Danan
246. Sandi Bogle
250. Jordan Davies
Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers
Jessica Johnston
Lauren Rimmer
38. Chrissy Hofbeck
54. Cole Medders
59. Ashley Nolan
72. Simone Nguyen
95. Mike Zahalsky
97. Patrick Bolton
104. Devon Pinto
122. Roark Luskin
123. Alan Ball
152. Ali Elliott
154. JP Hilsabeck
155. Desi Williams
164. Joe Mena
216. Katrina Radke
232. Ryan Ulrich
265. Ben Driebergen
The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars 2
Ashley Mitchell*
30. Tori Deal*
36. Aneesa Ferreira*
40. Wes Bergmann*
42. Riff Raff
51. Justina Valentine
80. Emily Schromm
90. CT Tamburello*
107. Jenna Compono*
150. Matt Rife
176. Terrell Owens
190. Michelle Waterson
203. Shawn Johnson
204. Ariane Andrew
219. Kim Glass
239. Romeo Miller
256. Cory Wharton*
267. Zach Nichols*
269. Josh Murray
271. Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio*
273. Camila Nakagawa*