DC ExtraTime: The Challenge Goes Onto The Bachelor?

 REPOST   From October 2022

from during filming of the new Bachelor 

season, which debuts this Monday

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Instagram @ambaaa_

There is a possible thing to look forward to for those in the know in the world of reality TV and links to Challenge Nation -- something we'll be delving into next on here before we cover the Ride or Dies premiere. But here at the end of this appetizer: a little look ahead.

Bachelor Nation is now into its traditional year-ender when it comes to the trilogy of series that airs in that love franchise, as Bachelor in Paradise continues with its eighth season down in Mexico. At the same time, filming is in full swing for the 2023 edition of The Bachelor which will begin airing in the new year on ABC, and with Zach Shallcross from the duel Bachelorette season of Gabby & Rachel given the honors to be the leading man for Season 27.

Now when we watched Double Agents two years ago, there were actually two women named Amber: Amber B. who won it all, and Amber Martinez who made her MTV debut on the most-recent season of Are You The One? -- the sexually-fluid Season 8 -- back in 2019. As we hinted in our Who Are These Newbies? intro to her that year, she was a co-host of a YouTube recap show entitled SPILL3 -- and if everything on the wire is right, there may be new episodes of that coming in 2023.

The favorite authority on all things Bachelor Nation to those on Twitter, Reality Steve, served up this latest serving of tea late last month when he reported that Amber's Spill3 co-host and cousin, Kimberly Gutierrez, is among the nearly thirty or so suitors who have been chosen to try and vie for Zach's heart on this winter's edition of The Bachelor. Safe to say, there will be plenty to spill from the Casa come January... but for now, below one of the Spill3 episodes with Kimmie and Amber -- we wonder what kind of advice the MTV'er got to tell her friend before going on her own journey to find love on TV.

  UPDATE   1/21/23

Amidst the craze of reality love taking over with the return of Amber M.'s original show AYTO returning (which we covered the Season 9 premiere on here earlier tonight) as well as her fellow Season 8 single Kariselle Snow getting yet another chance at love in her being part of the cast of Netflix's take on this whole thing Perfect Match debuting next month (she was on the cast of the widely reviled but equally hilarious Sexy Beasts as a panda), Kimberly's quest for love begins on Monday on The Bachelor. And below, her being part of the cast introductions.

Will @Zach_Shallcross meet his perfect match? 🌹 Find out when his journey as #TheBachelor begins Monday at 8/7c on ABC & Stream on Hulu! pic.twitter.com/at46lMornT

— The Bachelor (@BachelorABC) January 20, 2023

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DC ExtraTime: Asaf + Boy George - Rainbow in the Dark

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

As we count down the final days of this trying year, something that has kept our spirits up in times like this has been the power of music, whether it's the big chart-topping hits that will make up the 2020 soundtrack, or the holiday songs that's playing everywhere right now as inch towards Christmas come next week. It's in that spirit that this weekend, DCBLOG proudly presents this ExtraTime Music Doubleheader featuring two rookies from the two seasons of MTV's The Challenge that have aired this year to give us something to think about for an hour & half other than the panic in this crazy world.

Ask anyone who has done the fifth major pro sport over the years and perhaps there is no feeling that is humbling than being the one who is chosen to go into the season's first elimination -- or in a few cases of late, the opening purge -- and falling short in that first one knowing you really didn't get a chance to prove yourself. It's most especially true when this happens to those who are competing for the first time on the show, knowing that the vets often have the upper hand and want to take care of the newbies first before they after each other when the business gets serious and the number of players thin out.

Season 35 of Total Madness earlier this spring provided us with the latest example of this hard reality: Asaf Goren added The Challenge to a solid reality TV resume that included Are You The One? Season 4 and its Second Chances spinoff, So You Think You Can Dance and Worst Cooks in America here in the U.S., and local versions of Big Brother and Ninja Warrior in his native Israel. But as is always the case, he was put into that first battle to face former Survivor castaway and Ex On The Beach alum Jay Starrett in the first elimination, and so began Mr. Loco's phenomenal rookie season.

Still, Asaf is a true jack of all trades who, as we wrote on here a few years ago, is more than just a global reality star: he's not only a son who loves his family so much, but also a dancer, a model and a musician. It's in the ladder that brings us to another chapter in his broadening CV: as MTV prepares to mark 40 years since "Video Killed The Radio Star" signed on the channel in the new year, earlier this month Asaf got to collaborate with one of pop's biggest icons in the MTV era... and it dates back to before he was even born.

DC ExtraTime: The Music of Maybach Diamonds (aka AYTO's JJ)

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

Without elaborating on it for the sake of the section of our readership who hasn't caught up on it yet, last night saw The Challenge Total Madness crown its champions in a field where all but two of the finalists did not have their roots begin in the show that started this entire MTV Reality story of The Real World. The prospect of having shows from outside the true OG of this entire genre competing for the top prize may not have possible at the start of the last decade, but the expansion of the potential draft pool of the fifth major pro sport began in earnest five years ago.

It was, appropriately enough, on Battle of the Exes 2 that those not cast on RW, Road Rules or who gained admission through the back door as Fresh Meat began to take shape. We here at DCBLOG were there at the start of the journey of MTV's first entry into the current reality dating craze when Are You The One? premiered in 2014, and being one of the many shows that have launched out of the channel's most buzzed about shows. It turned a small place with lasers into where hopes for love can live or die by a "perfect match" message... same goes for a series of beams that can tell a house's fortune of running the table and winning money. And it has given us a number of memorable alumni, from ultimate perfect match Amber & Ethan to many of The Challenge's top names.

Four of the original season 1 cast graduated onto The Challenge and Exes 2 a year after their triumph in the Hawaiian islands: Adam, Brittany, Simone and a comedian from Tampa named John Jacobs. If you happened to have caught season 1, you may remember him as that quirky guy who threw around dollar bills during an argument with a couple girls, and who held the last key to the house taking down the $1 million when they unplugged the love triangle involving him, Puerto Rican Jacy and Brooklynite Scali.

Despite being on that lone Challenge, J.J. has been a staple of this site ever since, from meeting Alex Rodriguez shortly after his retirement announcement from baseball, to him being a reporter catching a gun theft at a Florida fairground right as it was happening, and being a man on the street when the nation was in town for a political convention. It is only part of what those on YouTube get to experience when they subscribe to his very own YT channel, which includes the many stories he's filed for the Tampa News Force, and all of those stand-up routines from Tampa Bay area comedy clubs... including that time where a fight broke out in the audience while he was on stage.

A hidden talent that J.J. seems to have is music, and below are some of the good stuff he's been working on during this lockdown and where the virus madness has been happening outside his door in Florida. Included are his own visual album along the lines of Beyonce's Lemonade, and him auditioning for Hamilton 2 after the release of the Broadway hit's new film on Disney+ earlier this month. And one interested viewer was Brandon of AYTO Season 2 who tweeted yesterday, "Fvck that. This is fvcking good music."

- I AM DC
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