Fixing Total Drama All Stars

Prior to the recent renaissance of cartoons over on Cartoon Network (which spawned such hits as "Adventure Time", "We Bare Bears" and "Steven Universe"), the most successful series the channel had was a Teletoon production about several teenagers competing for a cash prize while fending off their sadistic hosts, dangerous alliances, monstrous wildlife, and their own emotions.  While not a flawless show by any means, the "Total Drama" series was without a doubt one of the network's biggest powerhouses.  The show didn't break any major ground in terms of animation, story, or theme, but all of the things the show did was so well done that we as an audience were able to bypass the watchful eyes of critics.

But, like with most shows, the series hit a snag.  However, whereas most animated shows often fall into a creative slump and often retread tired formulas, "Total Drama All Stars" was one with too many ideas and plot points jammed into a thirteen episode run that rubbed many fans the wrong way, so much in fact that the series has declined in ratings ever since.  While I enjoyed the last season "The Ridonculous Race", where they changed up the formula and even brought back some old characters, the show is in limbo and may not get renewed by Cartoon Network should they want to continue.

"All Stars" was a rare case.  The structure for the show was set almost flawlessly, bringing back some of the most popular characters in the series and giving them bizarre and hilarious things to do.  Few of the gimmick characters were brought back, and we were able to see interactions between the Original Cast and the cast from Season 4, "Revenge of the Island".  But, something went horribly wrong.  Whether it was staleness, new writers, a drastically shortened season, or what have you, the show took a nose dive and lost a ton of popularity.

In this post, I am going to highlight the five most irritating things about this series and how they could have corrected this before rushing the show out for it's date with decline...

1. BFF's Courtney and Gwen 

Even hardcore fans of the series were rubbed the wrong way with how this friendship/rekindling of friendship came about.  In "World Tour", Courtney and Gwen were able to find common ground with their hatred of Heather and even a few little things that could override Courtney's suspicion of her teammate's crush on her boyfriend Duncan.  Duncan's return to the show and subsequent kissing of a certain goth girl shattered the illusion of a budding friendship and made Gwen and Courtney mortal enemies until Gwen was eliminated.  This could have been seen as a cautionary tale and should have been a harbinger of things to come in this series.

"All Stars" took a shocking turn and turned a reasonably likable character like Gwen into a pile of melodramatic mush that spent literally half of the season OBSESSIVELY trying to get Courtney to forgive her and for them to become friends.  Uh, did I miss something?  Were Courtney and Gwen really close enough to warrant something like this happening?  Before writing this post, I binge watched the entirety of Season 3 to see if they really were as close as this show made them out to be.  Until I realized, that neither of them considered the other a friend and even criticized the other behind their backs until Duncan came back.  Sure, they bonded over a report both made regarding 18th Century England in the infamous "I See London..." episode, but nothing too drastic.  But to have the two of them sobbing and crying over a "lost friendship" and even commenting about loving each other's hair got me nearly sick to my stomach.

Fixing this major issue would entail them changing the way these two interacted throughout the season.  Not much would have to change on Courtney's part, but Gwen's character would need a MAJOR reshuffling.  Instead of only going back to make amends with Courtney, you could have had her and Duncan going strong and then slowly pull apart as they were on separate teams and Gwen and Courtney began to talk again.  Then, once she and Duncan broke up (I will deal with that train wreck in a moment), she could then set out to try and patch things up with Courtney (especially having few allies on their team once Duncan was moved off).  Courtney could be very distant at first, but eventually forgive Gwen, or better yet, pretend to forgive Gwen in order to gain her trust like the manipulative shrew I know she is.

Of course, Courtney eventually reverted back to the character I have come to know and love over the last few seasons, but Gwen did some pretty irreparable damage to her character in this season and lost a TON of respect from me, especially with how she treated one character in particular...

2. The End of "Gwuncan" 

Granted, while I was a firm believer that Duncan and Courtney should have always remained the argumentative yet passionate couple they had been in Seasons 1 and 2 (mostly because she was the Yin to his Yang in terms of character), I didn't really mind it when Gwen developed a crush on Duncan and the two ultimately became a couple in Season 3.  After all, as proven on multiple occasions by multiple people, the two had a lot in common, were strong competitors that would jeopardize a relationship in order to get money, and even had previous relationships with Trent and Courtney that were doomed to fail.  Their spontaneous hook up in "I See London" was not very out of the blue to me, and I stood behind it because it made the show more interesting.

To say Season 5 was not kind to Duncan would be an understatement, as right from the word go, Gwen continually shows little to no emotion towards her supposed boyfriend and even dodges his attempts to be romantic and spontaneous at almost every level, and then has the gall in "Moon Madness" to blame him for their breakup.  The key to making any relationship work is both being invested in it, and for Gwen to show no reaction to him or any remorse for him later on is absolutely frustrating and makes me despise her character even more.

There is a simple way to fix this mistake and it is to have Duncan break up with Gwen instead of the other way around.  Have Duncan growing frustrated that all Gwen wants to talk about is Courtney and completely ignores his feelings at every turn.  By the time Gwen is close enough to Courtney for her to forgive her, Duncan gives up and breaks up with Gwen.  Gwen is initially stunned and hurt by Duncan's actions, but eventually gets over it, that is, until another event (Which I will talk about in a moment) that causes Gwen to lose focus and get eliminated.

As it stands now, Gwen's breakup with Duncan is one of the most frustrating moments of the series because there was almost nothing to go on except for Gwen's faulty character.  Hopefully, if another season goes by, Duncan will get payback, but until then, it's time to move on.

3. Zoey's Obliviousness 

In case you haven't seen the show yet, I won't spoil how it ends, but let's just say that the main villain of the series is one of a character named Mike's many personalities he has in his head.  Zoey and Mike have been going strong since the end of Season 4, but Zoey's obliviousness to Mike's evil personality in this season until the end was very disturbing.  She had multiple signs handed to her on a silver platter and she does almost nothing to prevent herself from being bought off by it.  She sees Mike break Cameron's glasses, Duncan warns her that he knew the evil personality of Mike from his time in Juvenile Hall, and even a cameo from Izzy can recognize the evil within Mike.  But she remains strong for him until the end, which I guess makes her a somewhat unique character, but it still bugs me that she does that.
Personally, I would have went with a much more different approach.  Zoey recognizes the evil within Mike early on and tries to convince Duncan and her other teammates to help her fix him, until the personality makes Zoey think that Mike was actually the personality all along, causing her to break up with him, unintentionally making the situation worse by isolating Mike on his own.  Upon realizing her mistake, Zoey would work through the issues to rekindle her relationship with Mike and rescue him from the evil within.

This was one of the lesser things, as the things I want to comment on are not entirely in order.  But it still irked me because I really liked Zoey's character in Season 4 and wanted to see something better of her in Season 5.

4. Duncan Do-Right

Aside from the whole "End of Gwuncan" arc, Duncan's arc (From a dramatic and comedic standpoint) was actually one of the better arcs in the series.  After being forced to switch places on the teams with Courtney and joining the Heroic Hamsters, Duncan is surprised to be greeted warmly by his new teammates, especially Zoey, who goes out of her way to make him feel at home.  Having been surrounded by the likes of Heather and the other villains on his last team, he doesn't quite know how to take it and slowly begins to soften.  He knows he's softening and his inner delinquent wants to break free of his niceness, but it's finding a place in his heart and it is what inevitably costs him a chance at a million dollars.

My problem with this arc is, like many of the arcs, it does not get enough time to develop.  Duncan is not able to do something bad and then instantly regret it or something along those lines.  Instead, his character rapidly deteriorates into madness.  And while that is funny and okay from a character standpoint, it still frustrates me as yet another missed opportunity for the series.

Changing this is simply a matter of adding more episodes.  He is dealing with this urge to do good after his breakup with Gwen and has no one but positive role models near him.  He develops good relationships with his teammates and even attempts to rekindle a friendship with his old teammates (except Gwen because F$%# her), but his urge to do bad again comes back into him and he commits a similar action to what he did in the actual show that got him kicked off the show.  And in the end, despite his bad boy attitude, he still gets visits from Zoey and Mike in prison to show him how they believe that he made a change for the better.

The jury is still out on Duncan, especially if they choose to continue the series, but this was probably the least annoying thing of the five I picked...

5. Mal 

One of the best things that Total Drama has done for me over the years is to give me a villain that I can absolutely loathe and despise.  Heather was an antagonist who manipulated her way into the semi-finals of Season 1 by preying on the meek and dumb and tricking others into doing her dirty work.  Courtney took up the villains role in Season 2 by manipulating the rules to her advantage and using these advantages to win many challenges in succession until her bossy attitude cost her her one and only ally left in Duncan.  Season 3's was of course Alejandro, who womanized and tricked almost every candidate on the show into elimination, including: Harold, Bridgette, Leshawna, DJ, Noah, Tyler, Owen, Courtney, Blainely, Duncan and Cody.

The evil personality within Mike, Mal, was the first villain the show had that I really didn't get behind.  His actions were juvenile or retreads of what Heather or Alejandro did previously (and when those two are still in the show, it's kind of bizarre).  While he does get more evil the later he goes (including sabotaging Courtney's friendship with Gwen and Scott by showing them the chart she made about her winning), his actions early on are pretty childish.

A villain of truly epic proportions would have done much more evil things.  If Mike's biggest strength was his relationships with his friends, Mal's first objective should have been to sabotage that.  While doing this, he would also cause trouble for the other contestants.  For example, while he would be pushing Zoey away from him in order to prevent Mike from taking over again, he could push Zoey and newly single Duncan together, all while throwing Gwen off her game along with her teammates.  While Duncan and Zoey become better friends, Cameron would start to feel isolated and in turn would turn to Mike for support, only to find Mal there, ready to cause him more trouble.  Should any of the smarter villains catch on, he could do what he did in the series and trick them into falling prey to his scheme, including Alejandro and Courtney.

In this case, the missed opportunity wasn't as drastic as the previous ones were, but it still made things hard to take seriously, especially when the rest of the things are so oddly placed and awkward.