Sometimes, it’s hard to remember what the world was like before the COVID-19 pandemic. Watching Total Madness, you’ll find a season that transports viewers to that period in time, and it’s a season that is reminiscent of a different reality and different era of The Challenge.
What Happened This Season?
Despite being a “reality” show, The Challenge usually feels removed from the events that are happening in the “real world” (no pun intended — season 39 is the season entirely removed from The Real World). Total Madness parelleled the actual events of 2020 in an eerie way.
In 2019, when Total Madness was filmed, production had no way of knowing the world would go into quarantines in 2020. Even when the cast and trailer were released in early March 2020, the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t been established. By the time the episode aired in April 2020, it was a sobering reflection of the madness going on in the world. While the world never really locked itself in bunkers, Total Madness seemed to tap into the fear of what could happen.
We also had Dee’s removal from the show in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement. While there’s no doubt her comments were ignorant, she received a lot of backlash – including being edited out of the show in a way that fundamentally changed the narrative. Later, she would reveal the severity of this incident put her under serious mental duress.
Beyond these external circumstances, we saw a season that placed cast members in poor conditions for the sake of entertainment. The season kind of felt like a re-skin of The Island, with skulls replacing keys, cold replacing heat, but isolation serving as the biggest struggle. Though Total Madness certainly had better amenities, no one would consider this season a desirable living situation.
What Changed?
After Total Madness, we started to see real pandemic-era seasons. This required quarantines and longer filming commitments, and some veterans felt this was an overbearing experience. Some people opted not to participate in seasons because of the time commitment, but the long filming schedule meant seasons would air over a larger period of time. When we look at Double Agents; Spies, Lies and Allies; and Ride or Dies, the seasons jumped from 16 to 19 episodes.
But, production had no control over the pandemic. However, they did have control over how they responded to public feedback. Before the season aired, production was responding to backlash from War of the Worlds 2 by implementing the skull twist.
Obviously, the biggest scandal on this season stems from Dee’s comments, and this forced MTV to clean up their image out of fear of public scrutiny. This meant production would stop inviting certain people onto the show (at least temporarily), and they’d scrub some drama from the final edit. This mentality carried into subsequent seasons, and it’s why people like Ashley had their departures removed from Spies, Lies and Allies.
MTV decided that they wanted to raise the standard for their reality stars, but they seem to have forgotten that reality stars are interesting because of their messes. So, the show started to feel a bit more boring. Episodes were 90 minutes, but devoid of messy drama.
While Dee can get a lot of credit for this change, she’s not the only controversy on the cast. Mattie’s series of DUIs and Bear’s future legal issues would leave further blemishes on the casting decisions made during Total Madness, and impacted the modern casting model.
Thanks to Total Madness, major elements from the franchise changed, forcing more rookies onto the show and faster disposal of cast members, and it has given the franchise a very different feel.
Was Total Madness Even Good?
This season had a lot of drama, but really, it wasn’t even that great. The elimination process was a bit messy, the female side was predictable, and it often felt slow — especially after Dee was edited out. Ratings-wise, it was successful. Mostly because people were trapped at home during the pandemic, sports were canceled, but The Challenge offered competition.
If you go back and watch Total Madness, it’ll likely be the last truly messy season of the show. Now, competition and comp-related drama rule the franchine — which some people might be OK with. But, for a show that’s inflated to 90 minutes, seasons tend to drag. This is why fans often prefer All Stars or The Challenge USA. Three years later, Total Madness feels like a relic of the past, and the last season with all of the elements of an OG Challenge.
Stop Being Polite 