We’re about two weeks away from the premiere of The Challenge: USA 2, and we’re starting to get interviews. And there’s something exciting about this because there’s a good chance you actually know the people included in the interviews.
If you’re a longtime Challenge fan, this used to make new seasons exciting. We’d see some familiar faces, but then we’d get reintroduced to people who hadn’t been on TV for the past few years. Then, the main series started casting the same people over, and over, and over. But now — with the increase in international cast members — we get season introductions, where we’re actually meeting people for the first time.
This may be an unpopular or overly-optimistic opinion, but the Challenge: USA 2’s direction could be great for the show.
Right now, The Challenge USA has a huge pool of potential cast members coming from Survivor, Big Brother, Amazing Race, Love Island (theoretically), and the MTV main series. Likely, there are many people who would like to compete on the show, but that number isn’t infinite. And that’s a good thing for The Challenge.
For the most part, The Challenge is — and has always been — a reunion show designed to expand your familiarity with cast members. Because we’re only pulling from a pool of CBS and MTV alumni, we can do that again.
Since Double Agents, one of the biggest complaints on the main series is the number of disposable, new cast members coming onto the show. The casting choices often don’t make sense to US viewers, and when the competitors go home, they’re instantly forgotten. But on The Challenge: USA, viewers can always go back and rewatch a season of Survivor or Big Brother.
With this, we have more potential to assemble teams based on origin shows or assemble formats that will squeeze new storylines out of fan favorites. This is something that’s been missing from the main series, and it at least seems feasible on The Challenge: USA.
We’ll have to see if the show gets picked up for a third season and if production can continue building stories, but it seems likely that they’ll want to invest in this type of reality programming during the writers’ and actors’ strikes.
Let’s be honest, for a long time casting hasn’t made sense on the MTV Challenge. It’s nice to see a show that’s a bit more contained, and it’s refreshing to actually know most of the people who are debuting in the competition.
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