Due to the heavy presence of graphics and video, "Who Are These Newbies?" is best experienced on desktops and fast-performing mobile devices.
DCBLOG has a longstanding tradition of introducing those unfamiliar faces you're getting to see for the first time with what we call, "Who Are These Newbies?" -- our primer on first-time entrants to MTV Reality shows. We have focused on around 200 personalities since this site began in 2013... and in the past week we've introduced to newcomers from the Shore franchise and other reality shows to the just-premiered All-Star Shore on Paramount+. Now, we begin our most extensive series of rookie posts yet, covering our most widely covered show on here as it begins yet another brand new era.
It's hard to fathom what network television would've been like had CBS decided to pass on trying to regain lost viewers by gambling on a genre that, until the year 2000, was the domain of the competition and networks that had a younger median age than someone half the age of Bob Barker. But that summer proved to be the start of CBS' renaissance in no small part due to adding two reality shows that would eventually become the cornerstone of not only their network, but also of an entire company when it and MTV went under the same corporate umbrella not just once, but now twice.
The additions of Big Brother and Survivor -- coupled with regaining NFL rights and the change of ownership of Viacom -- helped to turn around the fortunes of the Eye network. And the year after the debut of those shows -- the ladder becoming America's #1 show and the former being retooled after a disasterous first season, CBS strived to build upon those successes with adding a third reality show to its schedule. They asked CSI boss Jerry Bruckheimer and producers Elise Doganieri and Bertram van Munster to conceive a show that was different in many ways from those two shows above.
The concept was simply this: a dozen teams go on a race around the world to big cities and small nations to decode clues, navigate unfamiliar foreign areas and do all sorts of tasks all while taking any form of transportation they could find to get from one leg to another. The concept became The Amazing Race, which debuted in September 2001, and whose host is one who's used to notching all those frequent flier miles as Phil Keoghan was a "road warrior" on a morning show of an FX channel many years away from American Horror Story, Sons of Anarchy and Nip/Tuck.
It may not have the kind of big number of viewers that once tuned into a Survivor episode in its early years, or the enormous social media buzz that will soon accompany Season 24 of Big Brother when it debuts this week. But even with it being juggled around the CBS schedule all these years, The Amazing Race does have something prestigious: the love of the members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The voting members of the organization that hands out the Primetime Emmy Awards every fall have, ten times, given TAR its Outstanding Reality Competition Series statuette.
For us Challenge fans, we all remember what happened to its first contestant to cross over to our world with Jenn Lee on Total Madness... a mention of UFO's will have to do there. But this time around, three alumni who've also been in that experience of going traveling around the world will try to do much better than her as they take on the big task of playing with America's best. And after the break, "Who Are These Newbies?" introduces the trio coming to The Challenge: USA from The Amazing Race.
LEO TEMORY
● Seasons 23, 24 & 31
Leo Temory was a 26-year-old Afghan living in Los Angeles when he first came onto TAR for Season 23 back in 2013 when he took a break from owning & operating his own restaurant and bar/lounge for this worldwide rendezvous. He described himself as "smart, funny and friendly" in his bio, and who also came to the show with fellow entrepreneur cousin Jamal (owner of an car dealership & house flipping firm) hoping to give the U.S. audience a better appreciation of Afghan people like them.
Leo & Jamal gave themselves the appropriate nickname of the "Afghanimals" when they first set off on their global journey on TAR 23 as they formed a game and romantic alliance with with LA Kings cheerleaders Ally & Ashley during that fall. But our duo also adopted a trait Challenge fans will love when they got to be loud and be deceptive to the other teams as they became a duo not to trust in the race -- and they eventually got eliminated just prior to the final stop.
The Afghanimals did earn enough love for another chance the following year for an All-Star Amazing Race, and they changed it up in being more subtle to try and avoid the show's twist of having to do two detour tasks known as a "U-Turn." They formed an alliance with two other teams where they fared better in their social game than it was the first time out, and Leo & Jamal made it again to the next to last leg... and as it was last time, navigational issues denied them a trip to the final.
The duo completed the trifecta three years ago when they got one more shot on Season 31, and they came out of the gate swinging winning the first two legs with that same playbook of deceit and drama. Leo & Jamal then struggled for much of the rest of the season, before their combined experience and them flying under the radar in contrast to their first two tries finally brought them to the final... but Leo getting lost on the last Roadblock cost them a chance at the $1 million.
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JAMES WALLINGTON
● Season 32 - 2020 WINNER
Season 32 of The Amazing Race was actually taped in the late autumn of 2018, but lots of uncertainty would soon follow. It was originally slotted to debut in May 2020 after Survivor: Winners at War... but when production on Season 41 was postponed by a year due to the pandemic, this Race would take over its Wednesday night slot that fall. Eleven countries and seventeen cities were visited that year over 31,000 miles, which began at the Hollywood Bowl and wrapped up in the Louisiana Superdome before the story finally came to an end with our next contestant.
James Wallington was a 31-year-old from Grand Rapids, MI who moved out a decade earlier to L.A. and became an event & wedding coordinator and social media manager. He saw himself as "passionate, ambitious and outgoing" who, when not being out & about, was hosting something at his house: either a game night with friends or getting to watch reality competition shows including TAR. He had ambitions of being on his dream show ever since it first debuted, and on the ninth try he not only got to achieve that life-long goal, but also got to do it with the love of his life... who happens to also have done a reality competition show himself before they stepped foot in that famous amphitheater.
Back in 2014, dance teacher and public health specialist Will Jardell from southeast Texas took part in the second of the twenty-four cycles of America's Next Top Model to feature male contestants. He and the contestants got to strut their stuff in front of Tyra Banks & co. while also meeting surprise Coachella 2022 performers 2NE1 during finals weeks in South Korea... and Will was in the running for the top prize. In the end he finished as runner-up, but little did he know that his perfect match was behind the camera serving as a producer on the show, who also competed on CW show Capture the same year.
Several years later, James & Will were competing on the show they'd been imagining themselves to be on all along, and thanks to the experience they've gathered watching every Amazing Race season to find themselves in control of the game, including forming a "Mine Five" alliance. If you've happened to see last week's Challenge All-Stars episode, then the lovers took a page out of that playbook in sharing answers with others en route to eliminating every team right up until the final five. It offset the team's driving skills and a budding rivalry with another pair of daters, Leo & Alana, to help them get to the trip's final leg... and an early lead in the finale gave them the $1 million.
We've seen it happen with Jordan & Tori on War of the Worlds II, Callum & Georgia on Ex On The Beach... and of course Pedro Zamora & Sean on that San Francisco Real World. Of course, it's getting engaged on a reality show -- and right after they crossed the finish line inside the Superdome, James & Will got to add more to that winning moment... the first time TAR has seen an engagement take place. And last December, the couple tied the knot and became Mr. & Mr.
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CAYLA PLATT
● Season 33 - 2022
One other person who took part in that most unusual TAR season was Cayla Platt, a 31-year-old from Gulf Breeze, FL just outside of Pensacola who was a flight attendant when the season began, and who was laid off by her company once the season restarted after the enforced global travel shutdown. Also with her was friend and fellow flight attendant Rachel Moore from Chicago... and before the game was halted they made it clear that they would be a duo not to be underestimated.
They were indeed during those first few legs in England and Scotland, but once the season resumed in Switzerland more than a year later their dual unemployment scenarios gave Cayla & Raquel them reason to go for the money. After just breezing along in the game, it wasn't until they arrived for the penultimate leg in Greece as part of the final four that the ladies took that and the last regular season stop in Portugal to claim their finals berth... and Cayla & Rachel were on their way towards becoming TAR's fourth all-female champions until struggles at the memory checkpoint cost them the $1 million, finishing 2nd.
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Our wall-to-wall coverage of The Challenge: USA and this busy week in Challenge Nation is just getting warmed up. Tomorrow, Part 2 of "Who Are These Newbies?" will next focus on the houseguests turned rookies as we profile the eight representatives from Big Brother: Angela, David, Alyssa, Derek, and The Cookout. And we leave the last word to our subjects... good luck Cayla, James and Leo.
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Photo Courtesies: CBS, MTV & Paramount
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