Ever since The Gauntlet, eliminations have been a fundamental part of The Challenge (well, except Battle of the Sexes 2 and The Island), and we’ve seen many formats through the years. There have been some systems that fans loved, like the draw on Free Agents, but other formats have made seasons worse.
These elimination formats didn’t work out as well as expected, and the seasons became less interesting as a result.
The Gold Skull (Double Agents)
After War of the Worlds 2, it became obvious that production needed to shake up the game so people couldn’t just skate to the end. They did that with the Red Skull twist on Total Madness, and that made many deliberations harmonious and predictable. At least every finalist had to see at least one elimination.
Lesson learned? Not quite. Double Agents gave us a Gold Skull twist, and unsurprisingly, it had the same results. Many of the cast members made deals with each other, and no one had a problem getting sent into The Crater so they could get their skull.
The Skull Draw (Rivals 3)
Many seasons have required the winning team to send another team into elimination, but Rivals 3 had a twist — the winner would nominate two teams, and they’d draw skulls. It felt like this season-long twist was designed for a moderately shocking announcement by TJ on episode one when he told the winning team (Vince & Jenna) to nominate a second team, on the spot, at deliberation.
Afterwards, it was just an unnecessary element of randomness that didn’t really serve the game. In fact, the only benefit of the Skull Draw was making it possible for Devin & Cheyenne to skate to the end of the game (after they returned) without needing to see another Jungle.
The Selection (The Duel 2)
As the first individual season, The Duel used a dodgeball-style selection process to determine its first Duel competitor. It worked fairly well because most of the cast was new to The Challenge scene (11 players were on their first or second season), and the staggered male/female Duels allowed for the chain to be broken. The Duel 2 had a much more seasoned cast, and their relationships made the selection process much more predictable.
Winners would go down the chain to determine the inevitable Duel competitor, and there wasn’t a single incident when that foresight was incorrect. But when you have a season packed with best friends, roommates, and fiancées, this should be expected. These relationships seldom became points of contention; they were more likely to result in monotony.
The Draw (Battle for a New Champion)
Bringing champions into The Arena was a necessary element in Battle for a New Champion, but it also allowed the game to really, really draw out. The winning group would pick one elimination contender, but then the rest of the house would deliberate on the second nominee, which would take about a third of the episode.
For such a time-consuming process, that second nominee didn’t have such a terrible fate. The champion would show up for the Arena, and would draw one of three poles. This meant the second nominee only had a one-in-three chance of competing in the Arena. As a result, the house nominee only competed against a champion four out of ten times, and Ciarran and Big T were the only two to get sent home.
The Captains (The Gauntlet 2)
Becoming a captain on The Gauntlet 2 was a really terrible fate, and the whole process made no sense. The initial batch of captains was determined by a random King of the Hill competition in the first episode, and some competitors seemed eager to take a leadership role. But the position was more of a punishment than anything else.
The format meant the same people would be sent into Gauntlets over and over until they were dethroned. Sure, it allowed people like Kina and Alton to have hero storylines, but it also allowed the bulk of the cast to fall into the background and have unimportant roles on the season. In the end, the winning captains got the same cut of the grand prize as all of the non-captain winners, but they did get some small prizes, like a Nintendo DS or a Best Buy gift card.
Stop Being Polite 