Kudos to the makers of MTV’s competition series The Challenge, who have made some really good changes to the game in recent years.
Gone were second-chance houses and final challenges that didn’t necessarily match the million-dollar prize that came with winning them. The twists and turns that came with nominating players for eliminations were good, and the finals were brutal.
The latest: thanks to the new trailer for Season 35 — Total Madness — we have one of the best twists of them all. As host TJ Lavin says, “The only way to make it into a final is to win an elimination.”
WHOA.
Over the years, every decision was made to avoid elimination or set it up so that your opponent was a good matchup.
This changes everything. While we don’t know HOW players are chosen for eliminations, the strategy changes. You might see the competitors volunteer or argue to go in, maybe early in order to go against a weaker player. Or you could see players try to avoid it and go late to qualify for the final last-minute, which gives them time to survive the game as they did under the old rules, when some competitors could — in Lavin’s words — skate to a final without ever seeing an elimination bout.
The 35th season kicks off on April 1 at 8 p.m. ET, with 28 competitors (including a group of rookies) individually going for $1 million.
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