MTV Trifecta: Countdown to Are You The One? Season 3

BY DC CUEVA

> @DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

Hi, hello, what's up and welcome back to DCBLOG's continuing chronicle of All Things MTV. It's been a very long while, hasn't it? It sure has and it's been so long, but we hope you enjoyed your summer and we're glad you've came as we kick off a new season right here of what's better known to me as the MTV Trifecta, and as they say good things come in threes. So, here we go...
   Five months have past since our last post related to this world surrounding the channel I love and its people, but we're glad to be back covering the principal thing this blog devotes its focus to here. Of course, that would be of the three MTV reality TV shows that I gravitate the most attention to: Are You The One?, The Challenge and Real World. They're no doubt considered on here the main event in terms of interest, coverage depth and web traffic - not surprising for shows I love so much. We're obviously looking forward to covering these three shows wire-to-wire, every step of the way on here once again, taking you from when the buzz begins for the first one right now a month before their season premiere until the final act in several months from now. The same will apply for season 27 of The Challenge later on, and the 31st season of Real World down the road as well.

   In the last Trifecta cycle which began at this time last year, the AYTO Season 2 cast came to Puerto Rico looking to match the bar set high by the Originals, but after experiencing two no-light matchup blackouts they came roaring back down the stretch to take the cash in their 10th & last try. On season 30 of Real World, the seven strangers were welcomed to Chicago with the usual pomp & circumstance but found themselves with a rude awakening as people from their past visited them in the house, but as it turned out two of them became a perfect match. And on season 26 of The Challenge, fourteen sets of exes came together and saw a girl snake bitten by past failures win the final. But there was poignancy to all that as the deaths of Diem Brown and Ryan Knight in the span of two weeks last November put a damper on that season and were especially remembered when it aired.

We'll look back at that last cycle on a special edition of DC FORUM coming up here during our month-long countdown with yours truly. But as the summer comes to a close and while I've been focusing both here and on DCNOW on a memorable Summer of Sports, the attention turns to what has been anticipated for some time now in how a show I only gotten interested just weeks before its season 1 debut can top what it did there and then in season 2.

   Are You The One? will enter its junior campaign with lofty expectations as it welcomes its third set of girls & guys unlucky in love looking for love and money, and of course drama aplenty. From an tattooed Texas entrepreneur to hot girls from New York City, they've come to the Big Island of Hawaii, not far from where the Season 1 Originals made their mark, to try their luck at landing the person of their dreams and a share of $1 million. And considering both the Originals having the only perfect match that's stayed together and the late run Team 21 put on to win last year, anything is possible.

We are now into the month-long countdown to premiere night of Thursday, September 24th, which will be exactly 6 months to the day of when the last cycle ended, as well as almost exactly 18 months since the original AYTO cast won the cash in Kauai. And ahead here, we'll be looking ahead at Season 3 of AYTO with a full preview and introduction to all of the 20 girls & guys, plus a look at what we can expect this season. This includes another game-changing twist that could perhaps be even more shocking than what we had last year. Plus, as this is our first MTV post since March, we'll also update you on what some of your favorites from AYTO and the RW/Challenge franchise have been up to over the offseason, which includes plenty of talk of babies and relationships.

   So as the slogan of my DCNOW live twitter hub likes to say, "Join In" after the jump as DCBLOG kicks off our coverage of the new campaign of the MTV Trifecta and start into motion the build-up to Season 3 of Are You The One?.

Summer of Sports: NFL Films - Keepers of the Flame

BY DC CUEVA
> @DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

As the Summer of Sports enters August, about now something will grab hold of the attention of fans in the world's most coveted media, entertainment & sports market and never let go for at least part of the next seven months. Of course, it's the National Football League and the 32 teams are now in the early stages of training camp, with preseason games to begin shortly being scheduled around those two-a-days and of course kickoff in less than 50 days. And this weekend, the NFL begins its 2015 campaign with the Hall of Fame Game and the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Canton, OH.
   All summer long here on DCBLOG, we have covered summer's big sporting events during what has been a very momentous summer. And in proof of our Aussie Rules post last week, we're also putting a spotlight on sports that, in such a broad but somewhat picky country like the U.S., would otherwise not be given the kind of proper coverage and respect they deserve due to the dominance of the four major pro sports and a few other things. But now, we present this site's first post relating to this national passion sports fans have...but since everyone knows about the game of football, we'll focus in on a treasure of the sports media world.

Just a 16-mile, half-hour's drive from Philadelphia brings you east across the Delaware River to Mount Laurel, NJ, and there lies the home of its best-known employer. It's been 53 years since a company that started out as just a weekend hobby began to architect the way many of us experience America's most-popular sport. A slogan on a wall inside its 200,000 sq. ft. headquarters reads, "Keepers of the Flame," and in this rapidly-growing sports media landscape, one thing has stood the test of time over the course of the past five decades.

   Since its formation in the early '60s, NFL Films has become the gold standard in sports filmmaking, and one of sports media's most renowned storytellers. With a formula established by the Sabol family that has worked for them ever since even before there was even a Super Bowl, they have created an art form in mixing great cinematography of a fast-moving sport with perfect narration, a well-timed musical soundtrack, and a touch of ballet and opera. They have also been the backbone of the NFL's ancillary programming efforts outside of game telecasts and even of its own 24/7 network, and have done so much to help bring a new audience to a sport now America's most popular.