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

A Word from the Editor

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

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 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

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.