DC FORUM: Capping Off A Light 2023...

A Word from The Editor

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Back at this time last year, I was about to embark on the tenth anniversary year of this site with some ambitious plans for 2023. However on this last weekend of the year, some different plans were waiting for me... most especially in the house that I've called home almost as long as I've been alive.

It has been eighteen months since the seminal and earth-shattering moment that changed all of us in the Cueva household and in our close-knit inner circle, and me taking on the permanent role of man of the house has caused me to take a detour from this site... a much different 2023 than I had expected. We continue to feel the absence of my late dad every day since that summer's Saturday of a year ago when he passed away, and it has affected me more than I thought even though I'm one who always stays even-keeled in this imperfect world of ours.

Going into 2023, I had big plans for this site to mark a full decade since I started up this DCBLOG site this year, but the new family reality we are having caused me to take a step back when it comes to covering and following my favorite blog beat. For that reason, for the first time in a while I've been watching The Challenge as just a fan and interested viewer... and while this season of Battle for a New Champion is quite a bit different than the others that came before it in this generation of the show, it is always a nice and refreshed change of sorts.

This is the 31st and final blog post of 2023... but this is definitely in no way the last one ever on here. I still have some big plans for covering this MTV world on this site: changes in the platform formerly known as Twitter and my new situation has forced me to take on a new format for weekly episode coverage, and we hope to put that into play on a regular basis in the new year. Other than that, things won't change that much with those obligatory and must-do posts like previewing seasons, introducing rookies and storytelling... and it's the ladder that I plan to put greater focus in for our next generation.

DCBLOG has always been about covering my biggest passions, and going Inside MTV Reality has always been one component of that vision. With the coming Olympic year, I plan to put more focus into shining light onto the sports world... and that Summer of Sports series will be returning with plenty of content related to the Paris Games and other facets of that wide world. I also have a slew of other posts covering my two other big passions of music and Vegas... and I have even become fascinated of late with another TV show that's been around the lifetimes of all of us and there may be a post on it too.

The past several years have seen me evolve quite a bit as a well-round content creator... and outside of this Blogger page has been where I have put my best foot forward in that evolution, one that has now seen me devote my full-time energies to being as such. And there is no better example of that growth than with my YouTube channel... and to me, there is no better place to put all of that work together than in Las Vegas. Of late, creating the #DCVegas XII vlog series has been my primary focus... and the same amount of time and effort I gave to this site has been devoted to creating videos that have garnered me more traffic than my past efforts, and I am certainly proud of all that.

This year of 2023 was one where all of us can finally and safely say that things are back to normal... even if this one still has to have his mask on whenever he goes out for errands. For me, this year has been one where I am now taking on greater responsibilities of being both a creator and being the family man, all while still being that one who loves to live his best life -- most especially after turning the Big 4-O. What does 2024 have in store? We'll see... and Happy New Year to you.

- I AM DC

@DC408DXTR

DC VEGAS XII: Just Another One of Those Epic Sin City Weekends...

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Usually, the way things work at DCBLOG is that it takes a good deal of time, effort, thought and detail to put together the many posts and the outstanding content that this site has been able to offer on here the past ten years. But for someone who has put this passion project on pause for much of this year for tend to a new family reality but who has just got back from a city he loves so very much, this blogger decided that he did not want to wait to let it all out after letting it marinate a bit before it's published on here. Hence, this post began its draft just eighteen hours after he departed his favorite city on this planet and returned home back to reality, and now it sees light on my biggest weekend.

All Photos Courtesy of... ME!

On this long Veteran's Day weekend, I'm celebrating my birthday smack dab in the middle of the busiest time of year when it comes to celebrating the holidays: today, November 13, falls right in between Halloween and Thanksgiving with the ensuring Christmas season riding on its coattail. Off of this site, I've been marking it with the ones who I love the most, and who are my greatest supporters: my family and a few of my relatives who flew in from New Jersey. But in many ways more than you can count, the #DCBDay celebrations began two weeks early just two weeks ago -- as it normally is the case in this guy's calendar. And when it comes to getting the party started, there's no better place to get to celebrate an early birthday than in the ultimate of happy places that there is on this earth.

So much has changed in my life since the last time I went to Las Vegas: mid-November of 2021 came at almost a last-minute kind of trip being booked a month beforehand instead of two, and I got to go on my first big vacation since this world changed like night and day a few months after that tenth trip. But as I got to stay in the luxurious Wynn tower, did an all-nighter at the town's newest hotel across the street at Resorts World and paid my first visit to downtown, there was no hint that the perfect world of this blogger and his family would turn upside down. This was the last vacation my dad would ever go on in his 71-year-old life, and four months before the heartbreaking news that he had been diagnosed with an incurable form of brain cancer that would claim him the following summer.

Mariano loved going to Vegas as much as I did and go to the casinos as much as my mom... and as we continued to mourn his absence a year after his death, the feeling has always been there to recapture that Vegas feeling. Just that jealousy I had for those in my inner circle who flew there on weekend trips and gave me no advanced warning over the summer, and being a loyal viewer of the daily flood of Vegas YouTube videos only fueled the anticipation I had of going back once again. But fear not, earlier this summer my mom booked that flight for the pre-Halloween weekend... so started the 127-day leadup that culminated in that twelfth #DCVegas trip just like the anticipation sports fans like me have for an NFL season or most especially the Olympics: everything all leading up to a few weeks ago.

Inside MTV Reality: Welcome to The Challenge - Battle for a New Champion

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Hello to all of you out there, and we welcome you back Inside MTV Reality on DCBLOG... and if you'll understand, a blogger in chief who's put his heart & soul into this site the last decade has put this hobby on the backburner for most of this tenth anniversary year, and not just for a much-needed break from the grind. If you don't know, my family continues to go about life without the most important man in our house some fifteen months after my dad's passing -- and I've spent most of this year tending to being man of the house. But his absence will be most prevalent when the one event I look forward to the most out of everything else takes place in a few days from now... more on that in just a brief moment.

Poster Courtesy: MTV

On the MTV front, this summer & early fall has seen the unlikely return of Sammi Sweetheart to Jersey Shore, while the Teen Mom franchise continues to offer those many twists and turns. This year the iconic Love & Hip Hop franchise came to the channel for the first time, while the party vibe of All-Star Shore is into its second season. But it isn't all just about just what happens on that cable channel that's kept all of us who follow TV's most-talked about reality programming talking: fans just like you have spent the last few months analyzing every move in the Big Brother house and now with the new season of Survivor. This has even stretched to a rival streamer as news has been abound of late of the addition of familiar faces to Peacock's U.S. adaptation of The Traitors and the just-launched House of Villains on E!.

And that brings us to the one thing we have covered the most on this site: MTV's The Challenge, which is marking a quarter-century this year as the first of its kind reality competition-based series. This past week, we crowned the second set of winners on the show's first spinoff to network television as The Challenge: USA on CBS played host to not only alumni of those two aforementioned Eye network shows above as well as their relatively lonely global comrades of The Amazing Race. The ones who garnered the most buzz of the entire cast were five previous Challenge champions who've won on MTV and a sixth who won the most on the All-Stars spinoff on Paramount+.

One of those who competed on that just-concluded second CBS season also doubles as one-half of the defending champions of the mainline MTV series, but that one will not have the chance to put on the line that first title she worked hard to win last spring on Ride or Dies. But Tori is, though, among the many veterans who will be taking part in the thirty-seventh MTV season of this show, but in a totally different capacity than usual: she will be out to take out those who have a chance to join her and those in the winners' circle -- and this fall's competitors will be composed entirely of those who have never ascended to the top step of the podium... and who are motivated to follow in her footsteps to becoming champion. All they have to do is to get over both them and their fellow competitors to get there.

In a moment, DCBLOG will bring you our first look at The Challenge: Battle for a New Champion... and premiere night this time around will take on added spice of sorts as, less than 24 hours after it kicks off -- and in some 60 hours from now as this post goes up on this late Monday night October 23rd -- this blogger will not be in front of this screen getting to do a new traditional recap of the premiere in the all-new Challenge WRAP, but will instead be doing something else. That would be of roaming the streets of that happy place that doubles as the hometown of the show's host... and if this one runs into TJ Lavin in Las Vegas, NV this pre-Halloween weekend, then this blogger & #DCVegas vlogger will have fulfilled an item on that sacred bucket list. Anyway, we're glad you're with us once again to get this all started.

DCBLOG Challenge WRAP: The Challenge USA Season 2 - Week One

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Whether it's that hurricane that soaked L.A. and Vegas or living through all of that heat, then congratulations to you... you've survived those dog days of summer. But with that taste of fall in the air stretching from Not So Scary Nights with Mickey & co. in Florida to football about to kick off in Kansas City, it's also back to school season for those who follow the fifth major pro sport... as The MTV Challenge has just kicked off a new cycle. And we at DCBLOG are back to covering our primary beat.

When we last covered The Challenge back in March earlier this year, Ride or Dies saw a classic confrontation in the $1 million final that pitted four teams with two multiple champions, a worthy rookie team and a pair of all-out veterans who duked it out for 100 hours in the European wilderness. In the end, it was Tori & Devin that took their first title rings... and as for one of those six runners-up who fell to them in that marathon, her ex Jordan came back on the World Championship that followed on Paramount+ and added that honor to his three titles.

And after that long offseason of sorts, we begin anew again with Season 2 of the CBS version of this longstanding MTV staple... and we all know what happened last time out with that controversial final, but other than that, it was an eventful season. This time around, another all-star cast of alumni from Big Brother, Survivor and The Amazing Race have heard the call from TJ Lavin to suit up... but just as they think that this is just a season for themselves to prove themselves, an invasion of jet skis will tell otherwise. And that more than breaks the ice for an opening act that will set to the tone for this summer and fall, including a titanic battle off the bat in the elimination chamber.

After the break, DCBLOG kicks off not only a new cycle of covering The Challenge in Season 2 of The Challenge USA and its double-hour opening act... but also a brand new tradition of sorts on here as we relaunch our weekly MTV episode posts with the all-new Challenge WRAP. We hope you like it.

DC VEGAS: Countdown To The Dirty Dozen

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

This brief post here that's short but sweet on this Labor Day Sunday... and it has just been revealed on all of my social networks just a half-hour ago including a new YouTube teaser as seen below.

Anyone who knows me will be most interested to know that there is one thing that stimulates this one more than any other topic in my house: any talk within our entire inner circle of family, friends and relatives about the city that has grown from one that I first visited as a young kid, but which has grown in the past decade & a half to becoming the biggest single happening in my universe. Even a single mention of it while I am on this desktop that I do blog posts like this will garner a keen eye from me.

When I took that first ever trip to Las Vegas in the summer of 1994 as a young kid on his summer vacation, I had not much to do on that trip... and where kids like myself back then had just the arcades and the midway at Circus Circus to hang out in. But little did I know back then that it would become the preferred and favorite vacation spot for both myself and for our entire family -- both mine and in our circle. Eleven times in the course of twenty-seven years -- including ten of them in fourteen -- have I been able to set foot in Sin City... plus, there have been so many other trips that those in my family, my cousins and my relatives have taken place there that I wasn't a part of.

The last trip I took in 2021 turned out be meaningful in so many ways: the first I took in not only two years, but also one that took place during the pandemic... and like so many others, it was just as memorable -- first trip to Fremont Street in downtown, a Strip view for our hotel room in at the Wynn, and everything else. But most poignant of all, this Vegas trip turned out to be the very last big vacation that my dad ever took in his life... and eight months after celebrating his 71st birthday a few weeks earlier with me, brain cancer took him away from us much too soon than we all had expected -- though if he had wanted Vegas to be his last trip, he certainly made the most of that opportunity... and having just marked a year since his untimely death earlier this summer, we still feel that void in my house.

Twenty-two months after that last trip to that favorite happy place of all, here I am announcing that DC VEGAS XII is now set in stone. There is one reason why my blog work hasn't been as timely as I would have wanted: when my mom made those reservations earlier this summer, that's when the planning process began for this year's big trip. It's as if you have been waiting all summer for it, but yet I have been at work starting to plan out what I want to do for these extravaganzas... one that might take four days for it to unfold, but which take four months for me to ponder what I want to do once I step foot in the Harry Reid International Airport terminal after that hour & a half's flight from California and being full of anticipation just like the football season that's just begun in college and this week in the NFL.

The way things are for me, I've "accepted" that dream job of being a self-employed content creator in addition to being man of the house... and one of those duties is getting to be a part-time YouTuber. If you've seen my DC Vegas videos there, I have put a lot of work into creating those nearly 300 clips of various lengths spanning nine of my trips... and it will be no different when it comes to getting to capture most every minute of this fall's rendezvous. That is, except that I have just bought my very first GoPro action camera... and that will join a few other cameras in my arsenal -- two regular vlog cam's, a gimbal, a camcorder & my phone -- that will disobey that infamous "What Happens in Vegas" stigma.

To put it out there in the open here, I've let those in our circle know that I am ready to take a Vegas trip at any time and will be willing to tag along if they wanted to invite me. It hasn't panned out as much as I wanted so far this year... but now that we have our date set for the last weekend of October (and it will mean, likely sightings on the Strip and on Fremont Street of Halloween costumes) -- I am now officially in that mood of anticipating what is always, in my world at least, the biggest event of all... and one that I see as my very own Super Bowl. If we can speed ahead to Thursday, October 26th, it'll be fine... we will sure have a lot of fun once again in this Ultimate Escape.

- I AM DC

@DC408DXTR

Who Are These Newbies? - The Challenge USA Season 2: The Amazing Race

Due to the heavy presence of graphics and video, "Who Are These Newbies?" is best experienced on desktops and fast-performing mobile devices.

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

For as long as we've been posting on here over the course of the past decade, DCBLOG has maintained 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 it's a result of our vision that viewers watching these shows like yourselves shouldn't get to meet newcomers to these shows without us giving them their deserved treatment and introduction.

DCBLOG has had an unblemished record of doing these posts for every Challenge season until last spring -- and it's with things going on outside of this site that caused me to miss doing introductory bits on the international players who competed on the World Championship spinoff or some of the notable castmates from the return Are You The One? season. Need not worry, we plan to take care of doing those posts at a later date for the sake of those who haven't seen those just yet on Paramount+ during this TV offseason... but now, we go into doing this first installment for this second USA Challenge.

All Photos Courtesy Paramount & CBS

When the field of this year's second Challenge season on network television gathered in Croatia to kick matters off back on Thursday night -- and just as it was a year earlier down in Argentina, the cast makeup was the same both when the CBS alumni came onto the port, and after the MTV veterans invaded their party. That is in the fact that one show was far & away the least-represented of the entire group of competitors who have come to this European paradise to chase the $500,000 that goes to whoever comes away victorious come mid-autumn: that would be The Amazing Race.

As noted in our introductory post on that lonely trio of three who came to Season 1 of The Challenge USA last year, TAR is the one CBS reality show that feels like the lonely little brother who can't get the huge notoriety that Survivor and Big Brother get as far as garnering social media buzz, viewership and a consistent timeslot. It does, though, have so many more Emmy Awards to its credit, including ten statues for Outstanding Reality Competition Series and the Critics Choice Award for Best Reality Show for its most recent season. And those who have stayed loyal through all of this to watching FX Breakfast Time road warrior Phil Keoghan guide the teams on their journeys around the world are lucky to still be here as Road Rules' spiritual and well-traveled successor.

After the break, Part 1 of "Who Are These Newbies?" of The Challenge USA 2 introduces you to the duo who traveled the world during the midst of a pandemic, and who lived through that challenging experience to make it onto this new Challenge -- Dusty and Luis of the past couple seasons. Then: a follow-up on one of the players who competed on last year's CBS Challenge, and flew straight from Argentina to joining the ladder in last year's race around the world. But first, their introduction...

Inside MTV Reality: Welcome Back to The Challenge USA - Part Deux

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

In the words of Jim Nantz, we say "Hello Friends" and welcome back to DCBLOG, and to our tenth anniversary year Inside MTV Reality... it has been a while since we've spoken to you in this manner of covering the thing that we have followed the most on here in this last decade. For an obvious reason, it's personal: last month, my inner circle marked a year since the passing of my late dad... that life-changing experience and the increased role I've inherited as man of the house (and also, today in us saying goodbye to my aunt as she flies back home to the Philippines) has forced me to step away from this passion project and focus to the one thing that takes precedent above all else in my life: family. But now, we're set to resume matters on here... and we're glad to be back to doing what this site does best.

Exactly ten years have passed since we started covering the world of the most talked about shows of a genre that's been practically owned in the latter years of a cable channel that began its existence with wall-to-wall music videos forty-two years & ten days ago. Well, here we are in the summer of '23... and a lot has evolved since we began since this site first flickered on the blogosphere back in the summer of 2013. We know that a lot has taken place in the several months since we last covered an MTV show earlier this spring when we crowned new Challenge champs -- and that includes a new spinoff... and we'll catch up on those matters of The Challenge World Championship and the 2nd half of Season 9 of Are You The One? just to come on here as we go deep into the coming fall season.

(Jonne Roriz/Paramount)

As for now, we are set to go back to covering all the dealings in and around the MTV Reality world: later this evening sees the return of the sweetest of all sweethearts to grace our screens in Sammi on Jersey Shore. We are well into a new season of the show that saw Cheyenne extend this MTV crossover into the Teen Mom sorority, and there's even a new dating show among other things in The Love Experiment which premieres next week. And then, there's Season 2 of The Challenge USA, which tonight kicks off a year after the fifth major pro sport came to unchartered waters of primetime broadcast network television for the first time. Then as now, alumni of the CBS network's reality programming took on a whole new game that might be one thing to watch and enjoy but certainly a different animal when playing it.

Last season down in Argentina saw familiar faces from Survivor, The Amazing Race and Big Brother adopt from surviving the elements, traveling the world and living in enforced lockdown to playing our own game -- one that a few who have been on the former and the ladder have been able to master to a degree... and capped off by a rather controversial final act. But this time around, Season 2 promises to be a bit different in many ways -- some familiar faces who have been in both parts of being on network television and in cable-ville will be at it again, and joining them for this odyssey are even more familiar faces who are making their network television debut, and an assortment of Challenge rookies. And if things turn out the way they're supposed to, we should be in for quite the next few months ahead.

After the break -- and with just hours before it begins, DCBLOG brings you our first look at Season 2 of The Challenge: USA... and we'll also reacquaint you with not only this year's crop of contestants, but also that chaotic first season too. Welcome back Challenge Nation... it's good to have you with us again.

DCBLOG ExtraTime: Some Gravy & A Rich Shore Kid Come Walking Into a Club...

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Instagram @YungGravy

Tomorrow night, the MTV Reality focus will turn to the show that became the most popular in the channel's history... and to something that's not happened in its second life since the last act of its original series a decade ago. When the Family Vacation relaunch of Jersey Shore took off back in the spring of 2018, one person was missing when the originals of Seaside Heights gathered back in Miami - and mostly out of fear that she might get into it again with her ex turned baby daddy... but that will change when Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola will finally join in on the antics of the Sitch, Snooki & friends. And that leads us to this first installment of this fall 2023 cycle of ExtraTime, which has its roots in something a bit different from the land of fist pumps, but has a spiritual link to it of sorts.

In two of America's biggest pop culture events held fifty-one weeks apart in the month of February and in the same region, a homage was paid to the one musical genre that has influenced generations of fans and our modern American culture more than any other in hip-hop. In February 2022 in Inglewood, CA, Super Bowl LVI represented its biggest moment yet when Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem and 50 Cent shared the stage with R&B queen Mary J. Blige at its halftime show, taking place in one of hip-hop's major hubs of Los Angeles. A year later up in downtown, the 2023 Grammys also gave an ode to the genre's 50th anniversary as LL Cool J, Run DMC and more legends took the stage... a long way from when it was shunned from the spotlight of "Music's Biggest Night."

Across the country is another hotbed of this world of Atlanta, Georgia, where the success of OutKast, Ludacris, Future, 21 Savage, T.I. and Lil' Jon led The New York Times to call the ATL "hip-hop's center of gravity." The city's hip-hop culture also serves as the basis of multiple Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning FX series Atlanta, which chronicles the lives of a pair of cousins as they try to navigate their rise up the ranks in the music industry, similar to Empire on former sibling FOX. And mirroring what has been happening the past decade, a number of artists who call North Georgia home have become active in local and national political movements, from Black Lives Matter to voting rights.

What do these two worlds of hip-hop and the MTV Shore franchise have in common? Last year, they collided for one weekend when the man at the heart of its most-recent addition got to party it up with one of its biggest stars to break out into the mainstream to celebrate a birthday... and all that star got to do was to sample someone who first made a name for himself some three decades ago. That's all part of that time when Some Gravy and a Rich Shore Kid Came Walking Into a Club...

The Look - Now United's The Musical: Welcome to the Night of Your Life

 NOTES:  This Post Contains Spoilers for Some Readers; please read with caution if you haven't watched the film yet. For the interest of Now United's global fanbase outside of the United States, you can read this post in your own native language by using the "translate" feature in your browser, where available.

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

ESTIMATED READING TIME: 27 MINS.

All Photos Courtesy: XIX Entertainment, NU & members' socials

Music is no doubt among my biggest personal passions (one of the big four in fact -- alongside sports, MTV reality shows and Las Vegas)... and if you just glimpse into the many playlists of what's playing in my plugs offers a good idea of how diverse a music fan I am. Whether it's the album Meteora by a band I was lucky enough to meet two decades ago in Linkin Park, another artist I discovered before most Americans in first hearing about the Backstreet Boys while spending Christmas overseas, or those hundreds of songs that are topping the charts and even beyond that... music has helped me through both the good and bad times in my life, and through my each and every single day too.

The year that shall not be named of a few years back saw me discover what's become a current favorite of the DC Playlist during these times, and molded together music with something I know well as a sports fan who loves watching relatively obscure events happening outside this country as much as those here at home. That would be the idea of different nations coming together in one big music supergroup just as they do at the Olympics and the World Cup: different singers and dancers from the world's six continents into the global pop collective Now United. Though they're not as big as other acts in this country as they are in others -- and despite me being right up there in age and where its target audience is those the age of my niece & nephew, I can still have them as one of my favorites.

Two years ago, Now United were the subjects of an introductory post and a follow-up... it was caused by them calling home for a week the same house used in one of the many MTV shows I've blogged on here the past decade (I'd normally cover that world of trashy guilty pleasure entertainment on a regular basis on this site) to film one of their many music videos. But last fall saw the end of their first generation when the group in its original formation went on one final tour together and released a last set of songs & videos before most of them began pursuing solo endeavors after five unforgettable years traveling the globe and offering inspiration to a world that has been in need of some feel-good moments when we have had to go through so much during a tumultuous period we've just been through.

And to close it all out, there was something very special that brought this well-traveled group of artists from different nations of the world's six continents to a global melting pot in a concrete jungle in the American Northeast. There, they turned their attention to fulfilling one of the greatest dreams that there is in the world: the opportunity to grace the greatest stage of all -- center stage of a Broadway musical.

Summer of Sports '23: My Favorite Sport of All

BY DC CUEVA        

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

In the past several months, the blogger in chief of DCBLOG has taken a break from this site as my family is approaching the one-year anniversary of the passing of our patriarch, my late father... and the role I've inherited of being the man of the house has caused me to focus more of my attention on those duties. But this site will go on with our MTV Reality coverage which resumes this summer, as do posts on matters outside of this site's primary beat... including our seasonal sports series. That includes this latest post that's taken years to put together and to post during both its biggest time of year and that day of the year where we celebrate the #1 sports fans in our lives of dads everywhere -- but this year is most meaningful for a far different reason than it has been in the life of yours truly.

There have been a number of memorable days in my life -- that day in July last year and our final farewell to Papa a month later among those, but another summer date holds a special meaning to this blogger. It was on June 16th back in those relatively simple days of 2001 that I and 550 other teenagers graduated a local Bay Area high school down where I live in the Silicon Valley... just a glance at the video series I did on my twentieth anniversary high school reunion shows you how much times like those are so cherished. When I went to school back in those days, the end of the school year always coincided with the end of the season of what is my favorite sport of all.

Fourteen years later to the day of that graduation morning, that was joined by a very other special day that was celebrated by the broader part of the place we call home. Earlier on June 16, 2015, a tragedy took place where some Irish Americans died in a San Francisco balcony collapse, but later that would be bumped off the front page in this most dynamic of American metropolitan areas: on that Tuesday night in Northeast Ohio, the Golden State Warriors capped off one of the greatest seasons in NBA history with a six-game NBA Finals win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

With one of the best records in league history, a dynamic MVP in Stephen Curry, a team of great players and a rookie head coach with championship pedigree, they outlasted the NBA's best player in a stirring series. And finally, those rabid Bay Area fans who put up with many years of futility but stayed faithfully loyal finally had a chance to release 40 years of frustration with their 2nd NBA title since that 1975 triumph... and it was part of a glorious decade in Bay Area sports that saw the Dubs and the Giants relish in championship glory, and the 49ers return to being a force in the NFL.

What we didn't know that summer of 2015 that it would be the start of a glorious era in the NBA's 75-year history: four titles in the span of seven years coming after both they and their opponents endured long droughts of being on the losing end. It was also the first of what would become five postseason battles between two of the preeminent players of this generation in Curry and LeBron James -- the first four between the Warriors and the Cavs in consecutive years for the title, and the fifth most recently that was won out by the Northeast Ohioan who, a year later, would fulfill his promise to a region who he scolded to win for the Heat and then returned to give them their deserved title.

For two months, one thing would be on our TV's in both our living room and my room every night and weekend afternoon from mid-April until mid-June: the NBA Playoffs kicking off in mid-spring, and culminating with an NBA Finals series at the footsteps of summertime that has always been a special time to be in the Cueva household. It represents just a chapter in a long and great relationship that my family has had with a sport that is, far and away, a religion to us... and it begins before I was around.

DC FORUM: Here's to The Next Ten Years...

A Word from the Editor

BY DC CUEVA 

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It might be a little bit strange, but it has been a while since we got to speak to you on here. But more than a week ago marked something of a milestone around here: last weekend while I marked Mother's Day with the most important person in my life of my mom -- and having my sister, bro in law, their kids and two puppies at my house to mark this day with her, it also marked the ten-year anniversary of DCBLOG. But that milestone was marked a little bit low-key due to something else that has taken place off of this favorite hobby of mine.

The situation my family has been in for over a year now -- us having to go through the process of being one person short in our house -- has really given me a new appreciation of how precious life is, and of how my responsibilities as the family man have grown in the wake of the passing last summer of the most important man in our lives of my late dad. That is the reason for why I have decided to take a break from doing much blog work on here: necessary to do my part in helping out everyone in my life, but also in a way much deserved after having done a decade of doing posts like these... and for a change, I have been able to enjoy watching these MTV shows and my favorite content I love just as a viewer.

During this time, I have also been thinking about what the next ten years of this hobby will be like, and of how I would want to still fit in doing these posts and my supplemental YouTube work around my increased duties as man of the house... and it's also been necessitated by something I got in my inbox this week. As you might have noticed -- and having just spotted it with the notice I got from the folks who run this Blogger platform, some editions of the Pulse have now been tagged with a disclaimer... we always put one at the top of those as a precaution. That now will mean a change in how I will do things.

Starting with the summer and fall cycle of covering The Challenge and everything else Inside MTV Reality when that begins in short order, I will be shifting my weekly episode coverage to doing it in a traditional way -- that is, focusing on recapping the shows with the top moments of each week, and embedded Twitter highlights from them too. This is what I call the MTV WRAP and the format I have used with a few of the shows I've covered the past few years, and now it will become permanent when we begin to cover the weekly episodes again starting with Season 2 of The Challenge USA on CBS and Season 4 of The Challenge All-Stars on Paramount+.

Unfortunately -- and with this post taking place during season (and series) finale time in TV land, this will mean the end of the Pulse presentations as you have known it over the last decade. But with the lack of Twitter activity for the World Championship series that just wrapped up a few days ago, the growing sentiment among those who still use that platform in its new formation and everything else, it is a necessary change to make that evolution in the way we cover the episodes each week -- and also, it gives this site a safety net of sorts to prevent us from possibly going off the air too... and let's hope that doesn't happen to us as it may happen to your favorite show during the current work stoppage plaguing the TV industry as this post goes out on the last Friday of the regular season.

Hopefully this won't be a disservice to those of you who have visited this site for years, and we look forward to doing our weekly Challenge WRAP's during the summer and fall... and even starting with recapping the top moments of the World Championship coming before the summer Challenge seasons kick off -- we'll give you plenty of time to watch that before we offer our Things to Know season review coming up then. And even then, those will have to wait until after posting all three editions of our rookie primers... plus there's the many ExtraTime stories that we're doing also around all of that. That will all be coming up as we get into this summer of 2023... and it's hard to think we're a week away from the start of all that.

But most importantly -- and while we marked this anniversary several months back ago, the fact that DCBLOG is now officially ten years old is something this site and its blogger in chief is proud of. I have worked tremendously hard to make this site a place for all of you to come and indulge in my biggest passions through the power of the written word in this world dominated by TikTok, YouTube and all else. And to those who have made visiting this cherished site a regular habit in your life -- and those who have visited this page at some point in the last ten years, thank you... and here's to the next ten years.

- I AM DC

#DCBLOG

The Look: The Caucus Challenge - "Resurrection"

 CAUTION:  Videos Embedded Below Contain Adult Language and Content Intended for a Mature Audience. Viewer Discretion is Advised. 

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

NOTE: As my family and I continue to go about life without our patriarch, the increased duties this blogger has as man of the house has forced me to step back a little from blog work. But rest assured, DCBLOG has been working on what we got on offer as far as covering all the weekly action, the stories behind the story and everything else from in and outside the world of MTV Reality. So, stay tuned for all that coming up during this spring and summer just ahead... but for now, here's this.

The month of May that we are about to enter will mark exactly ten years since DCBLOG first came onto the blogosphere for the first time with a simple introductory post. During this decade, we have seen through countless numbers of shows, seasons, episodes and personalities covering the world of television's most-talked about reality programming of the MTV Reality scope. However, there is one thing that we have closely followed during the past several years that doesn't even come from that community we cover the most, but one inspired by the shows its creator watches religiously as I do.

Twitter @DreMediaa / IG @dre.media

Almost six years have now past since we first came across a then-high school student from Secaucus, New Jersey and his friends spending a summer day across the river in the Big Apple working out with the cast of the very first season of MTV's The Challenge that offered $1 million in prize money. But the one thing that intrigued us about Andres Rodriguez and co. was they not only got to meet up with Bananas, Tori and co. of that Dirty 30 season, but also for that they had done a made-for-YouTube version of the big show that they got to do for fun at the place he calls home in the same part of town sports fans know for its role in the media space.

This homemade version of the show is so one-of-a-kind, you'd think that The Caucus Challenge is just as good as any other iteration of the show we cover the most on here... and a lot of people who watch his show and spinoffs (including various MTV'ers) seem to agree with that sentiment -- not surprising considering how skilled the man at the heart of this is at, both on camera and coordinating things off of it. And since we first discovered Dre, DCBLOG has followed every step of the evolution of Dre.Media ever since: every season of Caucus that's emerged since, plus Real World-like spinoff The Life We Live, and a summer with his friend group... over twenty seasons worth of YouTube reality guilty pleasures.

And this spring, there's the fourteenth and latest chapter of The Caucus Challenge: players who have come to Dre's backyard with a chip on their shoulder, and a mission to finally win the big one.

DC FORUM: Back from My Spring Break...

A Word from the Editor

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Instagram @dc408dxtr

It's hard to comprehend... but it has been a while since we spoke to you here. We greet you once again during this Easter week at this outset of springtime, one that is always a time of renewal in our world... and one that is certainly needed in this manic world of ours. And for us in the Cueva circle, it's more than needed -- it's one that we've been wanting for some time after a year that has been unprecedented in our lives and in mine.

It has now been more than a year since the news that turned upside down this perfect of mine in our family inner circle when we found out of my father's cancer diagnosis... and it's been three-quarters of a year since that summer day that changed all of our lives. It's with that in mind that I have taken time away from the thing I do best of sitting behind this screen putting together both outstanding blog content and quality YouTube videos that so many of you have turned to for a much-needed escape from everything that has transpired in the thirty-seven months since this world totally lost our minds.

For a life update of sorts, this past month our family drove out to our sister's house out in the Central Valley to spend eight nights babysitting my niece & nephew when my sister & brother-in-law flew down to Mexico to mark wedding day for one of their friends. It marked the first time in a year & a half that I got to go to their house, which is always a nice place to go to when the summer weather heats up... but all of you know that we here in California have had quite a dreary winter & spring weather-wise, and I couldn't go out in the cold and wet weather to enjoy some quality time in their amazing backyard.

This vacation doubled as what I termed "#DCSpringBreak" as I got to do something I didn't get to do in over a year: utilize my secondary Twitter portal to live tweet a bunch of TV shows, sports and music every day during my stay. There, I watched a bunch of figure skating, the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, the iHeartRadio Music Awards, and that standard daily dose of live YouTube streams from that happy place known as Las Vegas... as well as that thing known as the MTV Challenge. This doesn't factor in a couple other movies that kept me entertained in rekindling that life in lockdown we had three years ago.

Perhaps the highlight of Spring Break was getting to do something I haven't done since my last stay in their pad: indulge in daily sessions of Netflix & Chill with the sister's account. By the time I checked out of their hotel, I watched three full seasons of the streamer's reality shows: Hype House (which we did a post on featuring Nikita and her SnapChat show date with MTV alum Corey Brooks), the much-hyped Real World sendoff Twenty Somethings Austin, and most important of all -- Perfect Match.

The ladder had to be added at last minute to take the place of Season 9 of Are You The One? after a season finale coming a week earlier than expected (we will cover all of that on here coming then), and even before that it was of interest to me for that an alum of the last season of that MTV show prior to its pandemic-forced hiatus, Kariselle Snow, was cast onto the streamer's big reality crossover mega-series thanks to extending her 15 minutes of fame as the panda on Sexy Beasts (which we also featured here previously) after being on the LGBTQ+ friendly season of AYTO. Obviously, there was a lot of buzz for Perfect Match... and I plan to do a blog review of that on here coming up this spring. In fact, I loved watching those shows so much that I will soon add a Netflix subscription to the trio of Hulu, Peacock and Paramount+ which I currently subscribe to... with maybe more to come beyond that.

In addition to covering the Challenge World Championship with a series of "Who Are These Newbies?" on the international players and a bunch of other things in our MTV coverage, also forthcoming on this site is something I have never done before: do a movie review. My stay at sister's saw me watch three of those: the Filipino-themed Easter Sunday with Jo Koy, the film version of the play my niece took part at her middle school 13, and a film that also doubled as my very first purchase for a non-fungible token that starred one of the unsung heroes to me of these past three years.

Though I'm getting up there in age, Now United has become a favorite artist to me in that it blends my passion for music with a favorite aspect of mine from the Olympics and World Cup in bringing different nations together. The supergroup from eighteen different countries wrapped up the cycle of their first generation by doing a full-length musical along the lines of 13 and High School Musical... and with how tense the world is right now even as things have gone back to normal, the energy of the stars of that film, the positive message of its soundtrack and the film's underdog story is exactly what this world needs... just as the group burst on the scene when the world needed that pick-me-up. And if it's worth spending that $10 to buy a ticket on OP3N to watch it with your kids this coming Easter weekend, then you'll be entertained by The Musical: Welcome to the Night of Your Life. Perhaps, your young ones may even find your favorite new pop group just as I did.

But above all of that, the most important reason for Spring Break was based in one thing that’s very much still fresh in your memories, even as you try to get away from what we had to put up with in this decade. You do not need to be reminded of what we all had to put up with three years ago, but if there's something I've been able to better appreciate during this time, then it is the importance of family... and after a year things still do not feel normal just over 250 days since my dad left us. Had he beaten that opponent known as brain cancer, our trip would've been a few weeks earlier to watch the niece in her first play... or he & my mom would've added more stamps to their passports. Instead, we continue to press on in this time without him... and the days have pressed on as we continue to grapple with this reality, and my mom hasn’t visited his gravesite for the first time since that funeral weekend.

Family is something that ranks right up there among the things that mean to me the most - and you all have been reminded of how important that has become in the 1100-or-so days of this time in our world. We ourselves are not exempt from heartache and have learned that lesson quite a bit... and our week with those who loved being around has been one we needed the most to remind ourselves of important and precious quality time with those who we love truly is. That is why I took time away from here to better appreciate that very reality... but we are now ready to resume doing what this site does best: cover reality of a different kind and a few other things. See you on here this holiday weekend.

- I AM DC

#DCBLOG

Inside MTV Reality: Welcome to The Challenge World Championship

BY DC CUEVA 

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Pic: Paramount+/MTV

Just two months out from something that, except for our grandparents who are lucky to be alive, most of us have never experienced in our lifetimes in the upcoming coronation of King Charles III, we have just witnessed the ascending to the throne of a new pair of Challenge champions. But instead of dwelling a bit on the crowning of Devin & Tori as the King and Queen of Ride or Dies, there is this to comprehend... and one-half of that duo isn't quite ready yet to take a break to relish in that win.

This is the fifth anniversary of The Challenge's expansion to a global game than just an American MTV invention, and we're a long way from Vendettas and when the first crop of overseas players taking aim at the establishment veteran group. We have seen a slew of competitors from the four corners of the world join in on the fun ever since, and to coincide with the launch of Paramount+ last year & the early part of this year have seen the show expand much more with the addition of four all-new incarnations of the series that came after the very first one of the All-Stars trilogy.

Those local versions of The Challenge at Paramount's corporate sisters in Argentina, Australia and the United Kingdom, together with its American network television debut on CBS last summer, have helped to bring the show outside of our borders while we have been watching Ride or Dies. And it offers the context for the next chapter in this franchise: a World Championship that sees top performers from the four versions of the show pair up with the main MTV show's greats... and it was as if the MVP's first times on here were just freshman outings compared to what they have to deal with this time: Challenge legends and staples of the show we love will now be their partners.

In the country that hosted a memorable World Cup tournament a baker's dozen years ago, The Challenge has come to the nation of South Africa -- itself host to a few Challenge seasons of many years past -- for this latest franchise spinoff... and after the break, our first look at The Challenge World Championship.

DC SocialPulse: The Challenge Ride or Dies - The $1 Million Final: Part 3

 ADVISORY:  #DCSocialPulse contains adult language, objectionable content and spoilers for some readers. Viewer Discretion is Advised. Due to its length, take frequent eye breaks if you're viewing this top to bottom. Enjoy...

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

And welcome back Challenge Nation... if you can stretch back last fall, that was when it all began for The Challenge: Ride or Dies when seventeen teams began Season 38 underneath that scorching Argentinean sun. Now, here we are in the first week of March to put a wrap on all of this as far as DCBLOG's coverage is concerned -- and we're not yet at the finish line to this latest MTV affair.

When we left you back earlier this afternoon (as we talk to you just before midnight on the West Coast before we reach March 7th & a day before the next chapter of this franchise kicks off), the rookie pair of Olivia & Horacio were on their way out after that now-infamous golf ball contacted with her eye, ending their bid to shock the three established veteran teams. That didn't mean that Aneesa & Jordan or Bananas & Nany struggled to make ends meet in the first day or so of a final that will have taken 100 hours to complete by the time this one wraps up. And they all had to look up to Tori & Devin, whose partnership has blossomed a bit during this season including during the time that matters the most: before the final.

But after what we saw with all those three teams having to put up with the most-excruciating component of any Challenge final of having to consume several courses of food like it's Thanksgiving night, now they have to muster whatever energy is left in their tank to tackle the last third of this Ride or Dies final... and let's face it: there's a certain reason why they stretched this final over the last three parts -- just ask anyone who works in the TV business & they'll tell you it's all a numbers game. But on another note, a few other numbers are popping up: around 30 hours remain in this four-day & four-hour ordeal, and $1 million awaits who wins. And all that separates the final three is a rite of summer & autumn: a corn field that serves as their final destination, two final eliminations and a last test of strength and intelligence.

Ahead, Aneesa & Jordan, Bananas & Nany and Devin & Tori decide amongst themselves who are the ultimate Ride or Dies as DCBLOG brings you our last installment of the Season 38 Challenge 'Pulse, along with our parting shot on these final 100 hours. Thanks for joining us this Monday night...

DC SocialPulse: The Challenge Ride or Dies - The $1 Million Final: Part 2

 ADVISORY:  #DCSocialPulse contains adult language, objectionable content and spoilers for some readers. Viewer Discretion is Advised. Due to its length, take frequent eye breaks if you're viewing this top to bottom. Enjoy...

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Twitter @TheChallenge

We bring you all back on what will be quite the week ahead for those of us who follow this MTV world in one big world championship to take place just a few weeks after another one of those was determined out in the desert... but more on that will be forthcoming on here. As for what we got between now and then, we have a doubleheader to bring you to wrap up Season 38 of The Challenge: Ride or Dies.

When we last left you on here back on Friday night, we commenced the longest final by length of time that the fifth major pro sport has ever had: Aneesa & Jordan, Bananas & Nany, Devin & Tori, and Horacio & Olivia. They gathered at the start line to begin the 100-hour finale, and through the first day it has already tested each and every one of them... but one choice to sabotage the rookie pair of Olivia & Horacio set up one of the most memorable moments in Challenge history: a golf ball got slingshot off of her face, leaving her with both her hand and her face in ruins as did their chances to cap off the greatest rookie season ever with an ascent to the throne as part of the show's next generation. 

With Olivia & Horacio sent off, the spotlight is now on just on the veteran teams to duke it out for the money: two champion men with multiple championships looking to add to their trophy case once again, together with their female partners desperate for their first titles, and a scrappy pair who haven't won one of these yet but who have already established themselves in this world over the past half-decade. They've just survived the first 30 hours of so of this 100-hour final, but what lays ahead will test them quite a bit as only a Challenge final can... and that includes everyone's least-favorite finals checkpoint: a dinner table full of food that would want to make them not look forward to next Thanksgiving.

Ahead, DCBLOG brings you part two of the Challenge Pulse finale special as Ride or Dies enters the midway portion of the $1 million, 100-hour final... and we'll also let you in on something big coming up this month. We're glad you're here with us again...

DC SocialPulse: The Challenge Ride or Dies - The $1 Million Final: Part 1

 ADVISORY:  #DCSocialPulse contains adult language, objectionable content and spoilers for some readers. Viewer Discretion is Advised. Due to its length, take frequent eye breaks if you're viewing this top to bottom. Enjoy...

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Twitter @TheChallenge

It's now the month of March: it's been a few weeks since Patrick Mahomes collected his second Super Bowl, Mac McClrug and Jason Tatum rule NBA All-Star Weekend, and we're now onto the Road to the Final Four which will take both the men's and women's fields to Texas. But as far as the fifth major pro sport is concerned, as far as the timeframe this site has on this third day of the third month a season 38 of The MTV Challenge that has seen plenty go down has reached its climatic point which, by the time we wrap this month's first weekend will have reached its conclusion.

When we last were in Argentina -- and it has been a long time since we last spoke to you just after that Super Bowl (real life & family responsibilities as the man of the house have something to do with it), it was what we at this site refer to as "Semifinal Week" -- our definition for the episode that features the season's last regular daily challenge and elimination that set the field for the final. There in the kind of freezing conditions of sorts that those out here in California have had to put up the past week, Tori & Devin won their way into the final and then opted to put Bananas & Nany into the last elimination against Feysal & Moriah. In the end, the former came away victorious -- and that has usually meant that it would lead to a Bananas title -- a few of his seven rings came by way of carrying that momentum from that last "Win or Go Home" battle to winning the whole box of crayons.

Those two teams have joined with Jordan & Aneesa and the unqualified Rookies of the Year of Olivia & Horacio, who have all emerged out of that pack of seventeen pairs that began this thing back in October, to becoming the four finalists who have made it to the season's final stage. They will all have to endure not just an ordinary Challenge final that will test everything that they learned in the game itself and also testing the bonds of their relationships with their partners. In this case, this is a final that is double the length of what five of our finalists have been used to in the past of it taking place over two days... it is the same length as most any golf tournament. And it's not just one that will take place over four days, it's exactly four days & four hours... which equates to 100 hours -- easily the longest final ever.

After the break, DCBLOG and our Challenge 'Pulse presents Part 1 of our coverage of the Ride or Dies Final, which includes one game-changing moment where one team doesn't have their eye on the big prize -- quite literally. And welcome to the weekend, folks...

Who Are These Newbies? - The Challenge: Ride or Dies - Global Invasion

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.

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Earlier this winter, the finest nations and the best players in the world's most popular sport converged on the Middle East for the 22nd FIFA World Cup -- a tournament that had everything. From controversy before the opening kickoff, to plenty of upsets and intriguing headlines on & off the pitch, it was capped by a classic final confirming the GOAT status of Lionel Messi. Qatar punctuated an 18-month stretch of global sport and world-class soccer that, for the first time, took place not in its traditional spot in June & July but in the fall & winter, following two Olympics held not too far away in Asia that brought the world back together. And it's with this in mind that we bring you into this second half of our traditional introduction to the newcomers of the fifth major pro sport of The MTV Challenge.

Five years ago, the competition show that was invented in America that was an offshoot of the shows that started the reality television genre began its expansion to becoming as much as a global game as the sport that those outside of North America refer to as football. To help spice up the field of prospective rookie competitors when both The Real World and Road Rules ran their courses, draft calls were sent out to some unexpected territory that foretold the eventual re-merger of their networks' respective parent companies when houseguests from CBS summer hit Big Brother began competing on Vendettas a year before the CBS/Viacom merger. Joining Natalie Negrotti & Victor Arroyo that winter of 2018 were not one, but five people with different accents hailing not far from Spain in the United Kingdom.

The entry into this world of Kyle, Melissa, Joss, Kayleigh and Rogan heralded the return to American shores of the Shore franchise (Kyle coming in between Jersey and Floribama), the arrival of their original series Ex On The Beach that came after that season, and signaled the start of The Challenge to becoming a truly global TV show where everyone in this wide world of reality TV are welcome to join in. Since then, those from the Isles, the European Union, the Middle East, the Asia/Pacific region, Latin America and outside the Paramount corporate stable have taken part in every Challenge since -- and that includes international versions of this franchise that's feeding into the Paramount+ World Championship which kicks off in early March.

As we have reached the final act on Ride or Dies, some of the rookie competitors have been more than hanging tough in this new game that is mixing both old and new... and it has given us plenty of worthy new talent that will sure carry this series forward into its next twenty-five years. But all the way back towards the beginning of this, DCBLOG conducted our annual tradition of introducing players participating on The Challenge for the very first time on Season 38. And after the break, Part 2 of "Who Are These Newbies?" shines the spotlight on the two rookies who have more than exceeded our expectations to make it to the end, along with the latest set of players to come to us from Germany.

DC SocialPulse: The Challenge Ride or Dies - Semifinal Week

 ADVISORY:  #DCSocialPulse contains adult language, objectionable content and spoilers for some readers. Viewer Discretion is Advised. Due to its length, take frequent eye breaks if you're viewing this top to bottom. Enjoy...

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

Good Sunday's evening to all of you on this second February's Sunday, better known as Super Bowl Sunday... and we have just witness one thriller of a final act of the 2022 NFL season. One who Challenger LaToya met a few years back, Patrick Mahomes, just led his Chiefs back over Jalen Hurts & the Eagles to claim his second Lombardi Trophy in four years... we're sure a few in Challenge Nation are whooping it up there in Kansas City. And with respect to Gordon Ramsey, we have a perfect nightcap to your festivities: DCBLOG's coverage of The Challenge, and Ride or Dies entering its very own postseason... that is, one that has a $1 million pot awaiting the challengers.

When we were last in Argentina last weekend (as this site has it on our own calendars), it was the time of season that always gives us the best clue of who is really up to the task of handling this late part of the season, the same way KC and Philly have earned their way to Arizona today. For this Challenge, the reunited Ride or Dies pairs got to endure a nighttime daily of dancing on top of a skyscraper, a wild ride solving a puzzle while riding a school bus, and going through the biggest twist yet of having three eliminated teams return for one more shot at winning their way back into the game... and also, watch the latest chapter unfold in the soap opera surrounding two former ride or die exes as well.

In the end, Jordan & Aneesa won their way back from The Challenge's own version of Redemption Island and now they, Bananas & Nany, Fessy & Moriah, Devin & Tori and Horacio & Olivia have made it into what at this site like to refer to as "Semifinal Week" -- our definition of the last regular daily challenge & elimination week before the final. For the week that will determine the field for the $1 million last act, the teams' puzzle & communication skills will be tested in a tub of cold water and where they will find who might be the most vulnerable. Whoever wins may have the biggest choice yet of who joins them in the final... and it may also bring to mind past history of one who knows what it's like to skate along to the end and also take momentum from the arena to Fort Knox.

Join us here after the break as DCBLOG brings you all the action, reaction and interaction to Week 16 of The Challenge: Ride or Dies... and we'll also let you in on who's joining the club of Challengers turned moms. Thanks for joining us, friends...