Due to the heavy presence of graphics and video, "Who Are These Newbies?" is best experienced on desktops and fast-performing mobile devices. Some videos embedded contain adult language & situations, parental guidance is suggested.
Tonight, reality dating television's most uniquely different series makes its return to our screens when the U.S. version of
MTV's Ex On The Beach premieres its fifth season -- the first time that we've been to the infamous beach in exactly two years. The show first debuted back in 2018 and has seen familiar faces to fans to both MTV and the reality world at large get a dose of karma of having their exes invade their season of love. And after a quiet twenty-four months, the beach is alive once again with the drama we come to love from the MTV brand, combined with plenty of romance and lots of fireworks to come our way from the Canary Islands across the Atlantic.
With this blogger now settled back in his writing chair after taking a break to edit YouTube Vegas vlogs and to watch the Winter Olympics, something DCBLOG has in common with the networks that aired the Games is a tradition of ours of getting to know the people who may not be well-known to most viewers, but who are worthy of getting the proper recognition and respect they deserve before they become big. "Who Are These Newbies?" gives us the chance to introduce those who are joining the MTV Reality family for the first time -- whether it's a new Challenge season or in this case, Ex U.S. And it has been a staple of every season of our coverage of both shows and more since this site began in 2013, giving background, insight and visuals to nearly two-hundred personalities, with many more to be added to that list over the course of the coming months with new shows waiting in the wings.
While our take on MTV's global entry into the red-hot romantic reality genre has seen a veteran of at least one show on the channel be present in every season (The Challenge, Real World, Are You The One, even Teen Mom), a show like this is one that brings different fandoms from across the reality landscape together, just as it has been in recent seasons of the fifth major pro sport -- for which UK alums from this show coming onto Vendettas helped set the table for our version. From when it began, Ex U.S. has had alums from Big Brother, Bachelor Nation and other reality franchises converge on a villa for a moment they would rather forget: getting to see their ex invade their vacation to paradise. While it is not fun for those who are in the house, it has made for some compelling television... only part of the MTV franchise which has been customized for dozens of countries -- its most widely seen format.
This year's cast has three familiar faces to the MTV audience: Da'Vonne Rogers made a memorable mark on two Challenges after her first two visits to the Big Brother house, while Mike Mulderrig returns to the channel after being one of the many VIP's to Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club back in 2019... and Derynn Paige is getting a third chance at romance after being on the first two seasons of Jersey Shore's entry to the field, A Double Shot at Love. And if you count other MTV-produced offerings, last spring Kyra Green from Love Island was cast into a special Pepsi-sponsored series for its YouTube channel, Match Me If You Can, also featuring an all-star reality cast similar to this show.
Those four faces aside, the saying that "there's something for everyone" is again ringing true for EOTB USA, as we get to put some leis around the necks of a stellar group of reality alumni who are about to come to grips with a rather rude awakening once they head onto the beach -- from three guys who have been in the ringer of a romantic reality show before (and in one's case, having been well rested from being on another reality show on his original CBS network), to trendsetters in both the world of fashion and dancing. Plus in taking a cue from the first EOTB cast of four years ago, there's also people who have no reality experience being cast for Season 5 -- and one of them has the most intriguing backstory of anyone coming into the villa.
After the break, we begin our deep dive at the newbies of Season 5 of Ex On The Beach, as the "Beach of Doom" finally reopens as we profile the ones who come here single and ready to mingle -- and a couple of their exes.
