The Challenge (TV series)

The Challenge casts are season-specific as the cast varies from season to season. The casts are made up of contestants originating from one of The Challenge's related TV programs and, in a few seasons, previously unknown contestants. The cast usually contains both "veterans" (or vets) and "rookies". Veterans are thought of as players that have won at least one Challenge season or have appeared on several seasons of the show; Rookies refer to newer players. Many recent alumni come from various reality shows including Survivor, The Amazing Race, Are You the One?, Big Brother, Ex on the Beach and Love Island.

A season's typical multitude of cast members are usually divided up into separate teams or pairs according to a certain criterion, which varies from season to season. The criteria that teams have been arranged by over the show's history have ranged from gender, the contestants' original show, heroic or villainous status, rivals, countries, family members and ex-romantic partners of contestants. Each of the opposing teams compete in numerous missions in order to win prizes and advance in the overall game. The format of the competition varies by season. In elimination rounds, contestants or teams compete against one another to determine which one is eliminated from the season. Each season has its own, distinctive elimination round, distinguished from those of other seasons in title, design, and general atmosphere. Determining which two teams or two cast members are sent into the episode's elimination round frequently leads to drama and "dirty" gameplay; this is due to the show's contestants being in charge of who is thrown into elimination rounds. Like, that of The Real World, sporadically throughout the course of each episode, various contestants are seen privately expressing themselves through reality TV confessionals about the events taking place on the show.

Some seasons, however, have used entirely different formats from the typical ones: The Island is one Challenge in particular that adopted many features atypical to Real World/Road Rules Challenge, instead taking concepts like that of another reality television game show Survivor; as another example, the first season (Road Rules: All Stars) ironically, only included contestants from The Real World and consisted of a much smaller cast before the show was completely restructured in its second season. Except for season one, a monetary prize has always been the award for winning the final mission.

The series initially used no hosts but instead a former cast member who had been kicked off his or her season, providing assignments as "Mr." or "Ms. Big" (David "Puck" Rainey, David Edwards, and Gladys Sanabria served this role). After one season without anyone in this role, the series began using hosts: Eric Nies and Mark Long co-hosted a season, and Jonny Moseley and Dave Mirra hosted various seasons before T. J. Lavin became the show's regular host by the 11th season.^[4]

Over time, a playful rivalry developed between the cast of Road Rules and The Real World, with the former occasionally attempting to prank the latter while it was in production.^[5] During the filming of The Real World: Boston and Road Rules: Islands, the two casts met while the Real World cast was vacationing in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Producers set up a face-off where both teams would compete for a cash prize. The challenge brought in high ratings and this set ideas in motion to produce yet another spin-off series.^[6] After another face-off called AquaGames, hosted by Kit Hoover and Mark Long, between The Real World: Seattle and Road Rules: Down Under in 1998, the Challenge series was born in 1998 with Road Rules: All Stars, and featured cast members from five seasons of The Real World.

After All Stars, producers decided to include former cast members of Road Rules in the series as well. In the next season, two six-member teams were sent around the world in a competition to see which show could best the other in head-to-head competition. The series followed the format for three years and brought in hugely successful ratings.

Following the hugely successful boom of reality television in the new millennium, from shows like Survivor, producers decided to add new elements to the series. 2002's Battle of the Seasons was the first season to depart from the previous six-member structure and brought in a large group of former cast members to compete in one location. The show added in eliminations that added an additional layer of scheming and manipulation. Earlier season incorporated voting off by majority, but eventually that changed to sudden-death elimination competitions between cast members up for elimination.^[5][7] With this season MTV also added a fantasy challenge game to their website. Players "draft" cast members, a la fantasy baseball and cast members are given points for performing certain tasks, such as cursing or "hooking up."

After transitioning to the "vote-off" format, the series alternated between 'Battle' seasons. These included two seasons of Battle of the Sexes, as well as themed Challenges such as the Gauntlet and Inferno seasons. Both the Gauntlet and Inferno seasons contained "showdown" matches between members of the two opposing teams. The cast member who lost the showdown would be sent home. The Gauntlet seasons featured an intra-cast dynamic as teams were forced to vote off cast members within their own groups into the showdown, while the Inferno seasons featured an inter-cast dynamic as teams were forced to vote off cast members from the other group into the showdown.

Contestants are various reality television cast members from different television shows. Originally the cast consisted of The Real World and Road Rules alumni, and cast who debuted directly on The Challenge, but eventually MTV expanded it to other alumni from other reality shows.^[8][9][10]

The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars

The Challenge: Champs vs. Stars (originally known as The Challenge: Champs vs. Pros) is a special recurring mini-series of The Challenge.^[11] In each multi-week event, alumni from The Challenge compete against celebrities to win money for charity.^{[12][13][14][15][16][17]}

The Challenge: All Stars

In 2020, Road Rules: USA – The First Adventure alumnus Mark Long started asking his social media followers if they'd be interested in seeing former cast members of The Challenge coming together for a new version of the series. The movement was titled "We Want OGs". After his idea went viral, he announced a partnership with Bunim/Murray Productions to further develop his project and began gauging interest from potential former cast members.^[18] On February 24, 2021, the show was officially announced as The Challenge: All Stars.^[19]

The Challenge: World Championship & International versions

In February 2022, different series of The Challenge were announced, this included three international adaptations for Australia, Argentina, the UK, as well as The Challenge: USA, another American series which aired on CBS with CBS reality show alumni. All editions of the series aired locally on a Paramount-affiliated network and were available globally to stream on Paramount+. These four series were followed by The Challenge: World Championship, which features winners and notable players from the international adaptations and the main series of The Challenge competing for a grand prize.^{[20][21][22][23][24][25]} On May 22, 2023, following the conclusion of World Championship, CBS announced that a second season of The Challenge: USA would premiere on August 10, 2023.^[26]

Versions

Spring Break Challenge

In March 2010, prior to the airing of the 19th season, MTV aired a special spring break spin-off of The Challenge filmed at the Playa Suites Hotel in Acapulco, Mexico.^[30] The five-episode spin-off was titled Spring Break Challenge and aired from March 22-26 2010.^[31] The season featured seven Challenge alum who coached teams of college-aged friends through various challenges and elimination rounds in an attempt to win $50,000 in cash and prizes. Fresh Meat alumnus Evan Starkman and The Real World: Key West alumna Paula Meronek served as broadcasters, with T. J. Lavin as the host.^[32][33] Camila Nakagawa, a contestant of the winning team, went on to appear on future challenges, with her debut season being Cutthroat.^[34][35] To date, Nakagawa is the only player to appear on the main series.

The season was won by Team Susie, coached by Road Rules: Down Under alumna Susie Meister.

The Challenge: CT's Getting Married

The Challenge: CT's Getting Married is a two-part special revolving around the wedding of Challenge star Chris "CT" Tamburello and Lilianet Solares. MTV released the trailer and premiere date on November 20, 2018. The two-week special premiered on December 11, 2018, and concluded on December 18, 2018.^[36][37]

The Challenge: Untold History

The Challenge: Untold History is a six-part documentary about The Challenge. It featured over 30 former competitors and several celebrity fans, discussing the show and telling behind the scenes stories. It premiered on September 21, 2022, on MTV. A sneak preview was shown during the Unscripted portion of the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards.^[38]

The Challenge: Home Turf

The Challenge: Home Turf is an eight-part Youtube docuseries which premiered on January 29, 2024. The docuseries focuses on eight cast members visiting their hometown and sharing stories about their career and upbringing.^[39]

• MTV's Official The Challenge website
• MTV.ca's Official The Challenge website
• TV.com series reference page Archived June 29, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
• TVGuide.com series reference page