A Word from the Editor
BY DC CUEVA
Well, after what we saw tonight with Part 1 of The Challenge Vendettas reunion, just as it was last year - the bad news is, we have to wait one more excruciating week to find out who wins all of the half-million on offer for this season. Yes, it is a frustrating feeling that a lot of you have been venting a bit, but as Mike the Miz got to say at the end of it, "It will be worth the wait." And it will be the beginning of a big two out of three nights for those of you who watch and follow the MTV Trifecta,
But, the good news is: anytime episodes like that end without resolution, it historically has meant that we at DCBLOG would alter our plans on how we get to do our weekly posts. And this week is no exception, as we have a busy slate coming up ahead as we now head into the spring cycle of the MTV schedule. And man, do we have a lot planned for now and during this entire month with next week's launch of two new series... all coming on the heels of last week's record-setting return of
Jersey Shore. So, here's the plan...
● First -- storytelling, as always, is both a cornerstone and a distinctive element of this site's MTV coverage, and tomorrow
ExtraTime will be featuring one of those stories that, I'm sure, you will be touched by. And as we head back into watching romantic reality TV a week from tomorrow, someone who was featured the last time MTV had one of those shows from that subgenre on their air will be featured, but it's not for what he did in the AYTO house - but for him meeting someone one who is extraordinary. You'll want to check that out in its own post here, and as always ExtraTime has a bunch of great stories still to come that this site is working on and should have up soon, and those like that which may come up out of nowhere.
● On either Thursday or Friday, we'll post the first of two preview posts of this spring's MTV slate as we'll be looking ahead at Ex on the Beach USA, a show which I'm looking forward to watching so much, it will actually take precedent in this cycle over the other one that debuts at this time next week. For that other show, we'll have our preview of
Champs vs. Stars III later over the weekend, and both will feature our capsules of the cast, look at how the show works for the former and analyze what to expect in the ladder.
We'll even take a cue from our preseason Challenge coverage to do a special EOTB installment of "Who Are These Newbies?" to introduce the five reality TV veterans from outside the MTV universe who are coming to Hawaii next week. As I teased about on Twitter the other night, wait until you find out what's inside this ultimate bachelor/bachelorette pad, which famous megastar & entourage once rented that treasure by the Hawaiian coast, and why one of those coming to this vacation from hell isn't the only link between his original show and this new series.
● After the
Ex preview post goes to air -- and if you're one of those who prefers not to wait until next week to watch tonight's first part before next week before the double shot that follows, the
Pulse will cover tonight's Vendettas Reunion... all after we give everyone who didn't watch it live to get caught up on tonight's drama. Depending upon how long this preview process goes, it will either be posted this weekend as usual, or just before the real finale airs next Tuesday. But, as we told you last week, our recap of this season's final won't appear until
after the reunion next week. And that will have implications on how I will be handling the original portions of my weekly episode coverage.
With that in mind - and as is tradition for a season finale, the
WRAP for next week will be devoted entirely to
The Challenge Vendettas final, with a review of the final, one more visit to the Strategy Room for final analysis, parting shots from the cast and much more. The week after that, we'll begin recapping the episodes of this spring's MTV schedule with a recap of the first two episodes of
Ex on the Beach. The following week, we'll begin our reviews of Champs vs. Stars with a review of the first three episodes, and starting with Episode 4 of both shows we'll commence our Double Shot WRAP posts in combining our weekly write-ups on both shows into one post... our custom for when two shows that we cover air at the same time. Also for Week 4, it will coincide with the
5th Anniversary of DCBLOG, and we plan to have great stuff planned to mark that milestone here around the time.
● Then, there's what else is going on this month. Going into this spring, the plan was that I would not be covering
Jersey Shore Family Vacation because of the fact that that show gets so much coverage all to fit how big that show is about, and that it would've been pointless to give a show that already gets plenty of buzz a decent amount of coverage on this site. But in a change of heart, I have decided that I would be covering that spinoff on the provision that posts covering that show would be bi-weekly, and that the diary we do would feature just the episode interaction and not the leadup and aftermath of it. I am also working on one or two posts covering that show's rise to saving MTV then, and continuing this channel's renaissance with their record-breaking return last week.
And for the show that served, at least for a brief time, as a prelude of sorts to the madness that will be going down in Miami, there's
Winter Break Hunter Mountain. Yes, everything's been going on all over the place with that show and we've covered the first few episodes of that, but even with all of that we won't stop covering that. All the tweets from the season marathon, or a Binge-Fest as I call it, have been archived from March 31st, and there will be a series of back-tracked posts covering that later this month to coincide with ski resorts closing up for the summer.
● Lastly, there's the thing yours truly has been promising over the course of the past half-year or so. As you know, I have been touting on social media and on here that I would be having my
Reality Debrief review of what we have seen on The Challenge the past year since after Dirty 30 ended. But because of some hurdles that I, and my longtime cohort covering this beat
Andrew Kirk, have been encountering a bit, we did not post our review of 2017 on that show in time to beat the early deadline of a month into Vendettas. But as always, we would never mislead you or give up on it because so much happened there, and so much has happened here... along with what else has been going on during the traditional September-to-May TV season that also had
AYTO,
Celebrity Big Brother,
Survivor and much more... and of course,
Ex on the Beach begins next week.
With all of that in mind, Andrew and I are once again making a try to get our Debrief in as we inch towards the end of the TV industry's regular season. As always, you can tweet us your questions on all of those shows or whatever reality series you're interested in (please, no questions on Teen Mom or anything on Bravo) to us at
@DC408Dxtr &
@CSUGradAKirk and include the
#AskDCBLOG hashtag in your posts. Any question you fire at us on there or via our DM's, and we'll be sure to include them in our two-part recap that should start as soon as we can. We appreciate your patience and invite you to join the conversation there... hopefully, the end is near to finally putting 2017 in bed with that much-anticipated Debrief, and look forward to a good summer of 2018 ahead of us.
Along with that, during this week in between for the reunion finale of Vendettas, I will be going on various Facebook groups devoted to The Challenge to promote selected posts from my DCBLOG MTV coverage as a way to help drive fans from a platform that's been in the news a bit today, to this site and to provide an introduction to the outstanding content this site provides. As always, your feedback is welcome and your support is always appreciated. And you can always tweet to me, respond on this site and offer your thoughts... I'm always here to hear what you have on your mind.
So, there we go. Hope you enjoy your Hump Day... we'll see you here then.
- I AM DC
