This Post is Dedicated in Memory of One of AYTO's Beloved Castmates, Alexis Eddy, Who Died Back in January of This Year.
BY DC CUEVA
The story of MTV Reality represents the history of the non-scripted genre as it is recognized by fans and the industry, encompassing almost three decades of some of TV's most unique programming. During these coming months in addition to weekly coverage of The Challenge: Double Agents, DCBLOG ExtraTime is proud to offer a special Flashback series as we look back at some of the most memorable moments, greatest shows and incredible personalities that has shaped this entire genre.
During a year we will finally put to rest in less than a week from now, a recent trend in the land of social media has been of users on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the like to compare themselves from when they started doing something and how it's evolved greatly to this moment in their lives. In the case of yours truly, my "How It Began, How It's Going" moment doesn't really apply to being posted on those apps, but on this page you're viewing right now.
In my first cycle of blogging on MTV matters on this DCBLOG site in the summer of 2013, that first summer consisted of less than twenty posts covering just the season-ending reunion of Season 28 of The Real World in Portland and the entirety of the ensuing Rivals II Challenge, with a few supplementary posts on the side which ultimately evolved these posts known as the ExtraTime series. What I didn't know going into the next wave of programming the following winter was that my beat would begin to gradually expand to the point where it's now a year-round activity that doesn't just cover the fifth major pro sport and the show that began reality TV.
I've been a lifelong MTV fan going back over two decades well before I decided to take my fandom into social media in joining Twitter in the summer of 2012 and then to the blogosphere a year later. As one who has a lot of memories of watching a wide range of shows reflecting the joy of being young, in what this very post is the 1300th on this site I not only covered those two aforementioned shows, but also everything from the fun and drama of two different sets of cliques who call Florida home, to tabloid-friendly series, one-hit wonders and the list goes on.
It's safe to say that I was hooked from the very beginning, and I can also be one of the small handful who can lay claim to being a Day-1'er. I have followed this ride from the start and from even before the buzz began to take shape: someone from that original group liking my pictures on Instagram helped break the ice. And it has continued through the Season 3 cast and the incredible resume they've chalked up since, the ultimate heartbreak that Season 5 had to go through in the Caribbean, the comeback of the decade Season 6 pulled off in New Orleans, and its most recent chapter in giving the LGBT community their chance to look for love.
And we at this site have gotten to follow the entire journey of these eight seasons: we've taken the 'Pulse of every episode, told the backstories of many of those who've gone for love on AYTO, and done our best to sort things out when it comes to cracking the code of the perfect matches like what NBC's Steve Kornacki has done in becoming an icon and making his khaki pants a hot Christmas gift in sorting out the Path to the White House through analytics during this year's election and now, the NFL playoffs.
It may not be MTV's first foray into this genre after its 90s hit Singled Out and its first collaboration with Jersey Shore executive producer Sally-Ann Salsano in A Shot at Love... but this is by far its most unique and successful when it comes to the many facets of what the game is about, and how it has brought that recipe for success into a genre that's now the hottest trend in the non-scripted space. But in a year that had no new season of it airing this year due to the pandemic, as we began cuffing season we got the next best thing that's just as good: so many flashbacks... thanks to it joining the biggest player in the battle for streaming supremacy.
Earlier this month, MTV's Are You The One? joined Netflix when the first two seasons of the show was made available on the platform, and by week's end it was in the top 10 list of most viewed shows there. And this gave reason for the series' first two casts to get together to do something they didn't get to do much when it aired back in 2014 but is something recent casts have gotten to enjoy: spilling the tea on social media and on YouTube. We're sure you're gonna have the feels and the flashbacks going back down memory lane as you check this out on this Christmas Day...
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| AYTO Season 1 cast with series original host Ryan Devlin after the final matchup ceremony (IG @RyanDevlinOutside) |
When Are You The One launched, the Season 1 cast had no idea of what this show would be about when they headed into that house, let alone what it would mean for each of them when they left. For the channel, this was during that time in the early 2010's when they experimented with scripted shows before those head honchos realized that it was its reality programming that brought in all of that buzz. And the genre of romantic reality television was still largely the domain of The Bachelor franchise, while Netflix was still largely a movie streaming service with no idea that it would change the whole game.
What unfolded when Season 1 went to air was something we'd never seen before: twenty amazing singles from across the country getting to live together in the pursuit of love, being placed into a house with their matches and matched up with their compatible perfect matches by matchmakers through a long and tedious process, and through getaway dates given to those who win challenges. At the same time, they were also being challenged as a whole to accomplish a seemingly impossible task: get together with your perfect match to the number ten when you sit at the nighttime tension convention that is the Matchup Ceremony, and you win $1 million. Winning that much money was relatively unheard of in MTV Reality circles back then, as The Challenge only gave away as much as $350,000 in those days... so winning seven figures was that big of a deal before the show we follow the most on here followed in their footsteps later on.
So when it all began, we had no idea of the impact it would have on MTV and its alumni making appearances on not only The Challenge and EOTB, but many other TV shows and even music videos. And it all began when original series host, Veronica Mars star and host of an Entertainment Tonight weekend show for MTV in the mid 2000's, Ryan Devlin, welcomed that first cast to paradise.
After that house lights came up on that unforgettable first season, we had the series' only true perfect match turn their love affair into something much more: Amber Lee and Ethan Diamond got engaged on the reunion and it was afterwards that they found out that they were gonna be parents. They gathered their entire cast one more time for a baby shower where they found out that they were gonna have a baby girl... and it was a couple years later that they would announce that they were expecting once again - and to this day the Diamonds remain the ultimate example of couples goals in the AYTO universe.
Them aside, there were plenty of romances that had fans talking: the first couple to find out who cruel what this game was all about in Shanley and Chris T., whose eventual match with Canadian Paige not only broke them up but was also the first time that the one place where perfect matches are confirmed, the Truth Booth, proved how valuable that room of lasers are to this game of high stakes. There were also the love triangles of Jacy, JJ & Scali and Ryan, Kayla & Wes; the on-again, off-again romance of Adam & Brittany, firecracker Simone and the one whose status of being single was questioned in Dre, and a cast that, as a whole, clicked with everyone by the time they closed the deal at week nine - no cast has ever since gotten to the magic number, the money and the confetti quicker than the originals.
When they gathered for the second time in less than half a year for Amber & Ethan's baby shower - which was made into a preseason special as a prelude to Season 2, Ryan wrote the following poem in honor of them and his entire cast, which came from.. where else? His famous journal.
"We are gathered here today, because we didn't say no to looking for love on an MTV show. Twenty strangers, one house... 10 girls and 10 guys... Quickly find out that green lasers don't lie.
"With mind, heart and soul, we searched for our mates through match-ups, challenges, dozens of first dates. Blindfolds, spinning bottles, fish juice and coconuts, zip-lines and water falls, the boom boom room, naked butts.
"All of us have our swag and own styles, high walls and standards, broken hearts and denials. A perfect match is someone who's easy to love, to have and to hold, and who fits like a glove.
"Like Chris T. and Shanley, made me believe that there is such a thing as love at first tat. Kayla likes Wes because Wes is so manly, but if taking bets on a fight I'd put a million on Shanley.
"When Shanley flipped out no one thought it was funny until Simone started shouting 'Bitch, I want my money!' Simone and Jacy like to clap when they fight, Joey's so black we can't find him at night.
"Coleysia and Dillan are cute when they celibate, While Brittany and Adam just smash for the hell of it. We learned more and more with each passing week, Like John is a gangster and Ashleigh's a geek.
"It'd be hard to find a girl sweeter than Jess, John slays a few dragons to get to the princess. Paige put her love back on the shelf, 'Welcome to Scali's Kitchen, go f___ yourself.
"Dre hates journals but loves The Notebook, and Amber caught Ethan like a fish on the hook. And the craziest thing if you ask me is how Are You The One? turned 1 diamond into 3.
"And if you ask them what they might say the same because we all won the money, but they won the game. Because it takes more than money to have true wealth, like love and adventure, and family and good health.
"It's these treasures I wish you when it's all said and done so cheers to Ethan and Amber and their new little 'one.' With love from Ryan."
- RYAN's poem on the Special Delivery special
Just after that first season of AYTO made its Netflix debut (and before four of them went onto Battle of the Exes 2 and launching the eventual invasion of other shows into The Challenge), Ryan and some of those from that first season cast got together on Instagram Live to dish out the goodies...
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
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| AYTO Season 2 cast meeting on Zoom |
As a result of all of this, there was no doubt that Christina was the biggest figure in the entire house, and for most of the season she was paired up with Las Vegas' own Brandon... and just as it was with #Cranley this pair wouldn't separate even after a failed trip to the Truth Booth - among many other big couples whose shot at the suites was shot down by the lasers. The house was in shambles so much, not even a first perfect match would prevent them from not one, but two of AYTO's very first blackouts -- not recording a single light in a matchup ceremony. But somehow, they got themselves back up again, set the series record for most truth booth matches with five including three in the last four weeks, en route to $1 million. But it would've been as sweet had current gameplay been in tact - they now deduct money from the prize fund for every blackout.
It wasn't just #Bristina that was on everyone's minds in Puerto Rico: there was the relationships among the other members of the Goon Squad: Briana with Curtis, Ellie with Anthony (who made out with NINE girls that season) and Jessica with Layton... and Christina was also in a triangle with Brandon and Nathan, who was also in a triangle with Shelby and Dario. And there was Pratt & Paris who was that first match... and the couple who, in fact, became each other's perfect match after the season ended in Curtis and Jenni, who just this winter got engaged.
And last week, it was Season 2's turn to do something that a few other past MTV casts from Laguna Beach and Teen Wolf to the Road Rules Campus Crawl and Real World Boston casts have gotten to do this year in this new reality: get together for a night of looking back in their own Zoom reunion/call. A full recap is located here; the video below caught only the first part of the reunion and will be updated with the other half when it's made available.
It's true: 2014 was a game-changer in the MTV world, as a twisted season of Real World introduced us to a future MTV king in Cory Wharton, and there was the launch of AYTO. The impact the ladder has had in the nearly seven years since can be felt from the fifth major pro sport and the channel's other reality dating franchise Ex On The Beach, to having Cheyenne of Season 3 join the Teen Mom family and returning the favor to that show for giving it the platform to launch out of it... just as she is about to welcome baby #2 and the fourth in her universe joining him & fellow AYTO alum Taylor of Season 5.
We've had so many memorable moments, big romances, epic hookups and even a few couples make it work after leaving AYTO. And those like Double Agents Challengers Devin, Nelson, Tori and Kam, plus music video vixen Nurys, Maria of Season 7 and A Double Shot at Love, World Series flasher Julia Rose, last year's sexually-fluid cast including Double Agents rookie Amber M., and the late Alexis Eddy have followed in the footsteps of the originals who paved the way for them, and who have brought MTV's familiar reality formula into reality dating television, a genre that has come into its own in the past couple years with some of the hottest reality concepts taking shape. And AYTO joins a Netflix lineup that not only includes two Challenge and Teen Mom seasons, but also two of this year's most buzzed-about reality shows in Love is Blind and Too Hot to Handle.
Who knows what MTV Reality in the years since January of 2014 would be like had it not been for MTV's first trip into getting a bunch of twentysomethings into a house with their perfect match living inside and them being dared into finding not just their soulmate but money, too. We can thank these these first two casts for introducing us to this bold concept that's changed the game of love. And from this super-fan of AYTO who's been here from Day 1... thanks for making us all believe in love.
- I AM DC
#DCBLOG
UPDATE: 12/27/2020 - added Ryan's full poem from the Special Delivery baby shower special and other details
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