*** CAUTION: The following article contains spoilers for some readers. As the featured subjects are subjective to some, this post's comment section is disabled. ***
FOLLOW-UP to The Challenge
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BY DC CUEVA
ESTIMATED READING TIME: 20 Mins.
While it is an internal policy of DCBLOG's to not make mention of anything on here at all in regards to what's known to those in the business of covering television & the media world as the game of numbers, it's safe to say that there's fewer people watching the current season of MTV's The Challenge than past seasons, and there's various reasons for it too complicated for us to elaborate on here. But one of those is that the timeslot that it is in -- 8 o'clock on a Wednesday night, 7PM in the central states and 9PM in the Rocky Mountains -- is jam-packed: some of the biggest buzz hits in a genre MTV has pioneered airs at the same time as Spies, Lies & Allies. So has a rival wrestling promotion that now has two former Challengers under their wing.... and the former includes a show that is the focus of this next story.
When the reality TV genre truly came of age in America back in the summer of 2000, it marked the game-changer for entertainment in this country for which non-scripted series are now firmly part of the schedules of every network & streaming service. It also helped chart a path for the next two decades of a network that was mired in last place in the ratings. but which had just reenergized by a recent change of ownership and the optimism that comes with new people taking over the steering wheel. That year, CBS placed its bets on U.S. versions of a pair of European reality phenomena that would become as big a juggernaut as the other reality franchises it and its ViacomCBS stablemates would nurture in their two times being under the same corporate umbrella, and for it has become a company cornerstone.
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| (L-R) Hannah, Azah, Xavier, Derek F., Tiffany and Kyland, with host Julie Chen-Moonves (center) on Big Brother 23 finale night (IG/@juliechenmoonves) |
Despite its immense success over its two decades, our iteration of Big Brother has also gone through its fair share of controversy and criticism during the past twenty-two regular seasons and the occasional spinoff. Of most troubling of these unwelcome pleasantries in recent years has been of discrimination and racism that has put the show and its houseguests under the kind of large microscope that only comes when there are over 100 cameras and just as many microphones to capture every move and word, and fans intently watching those on both television and the live feeds. And what happened the past two seasons with Season 21 getting put into the ringer for such behavior, and last year's All-Stars debuting while the Black Lives Matter protests pressed on just outside their door served as a reality check.
In the end, the events that put Big Brother U.S. in the headlines for the wrong reasons proved to be a blessing in disguise that the series most desperately needed. And it helped to set the table for the biggest story to come out of the first summer of reality normalcy in two years, and this latest edition of Someone You Should Know: the Big Brother alliance known simply as "The Cookout."
