The premise of the show is really simple: A parody of the hit reality show Survivor marketed towards teenagers. A bunch of teens are invited to a crummy summer camp and are forced to compete in survival-themed challenges. The show's characters are common high school stereotypes: The class clown, the delinquent, the nerd, the dumb blonde, etc. The show's simple character designs are easy to make fun of, but I actually think it plays to the show's strengths. Character designs are very readable — one look at Heather or Owen and you instantly understand what they're about. It's important that the designs are easily digestible so that it doesn't take focus away from the show's core theme: A parody of the sleaziness and cynicism of reality television. This theme is perfectly encapsulated by the show's host, Chris McLean.

Total Drama offers a satire of a very dark truth about reality TV production, that being how reality TV ruins people. Reality TV often disregards the mental and sometimes physical well-being of its cast in pursuit of capturing viral moments. For my younger readers who didn't grow up with cable television, a good modern-day analogue would be IRL streaming. Think of how many IRL streamers have ruined their lives for views, people like Vitaly, Johnny Somali, or Chud the Builder. Chris McLean presents this satire in a light-hearted, youth-friendly package that doesn't invite the viewer to dwell on these unpleasant implications. It's the main reason why I think this franchise was so accessible as a kid, and why it's so compelling to rewatch as an adult.

Total Drama Island's challenges are unrealistically dangerous, but they follow the island theme and only barely push the boundaries of believability. Standout examples include diving into shark-infested water and having to prepare fugu sashimi (puffer fish). There are also some less extreme challenges that help ground the show, such as a contest to see who can stay awake the longest and a casual game of dodge ball. Although I do have to say that the dodge ball episode is pretty terrible, not for its writing or its concept but just for its incredibly cheap animation, which is bad even by the standards of Flash. Put a pin in this challenge discussion for now because it will come back later.

Following in Survivor's footsteps, (almost) every episode ends in an elimination, which is typically determined by a vote from the other contestants. This gives the first season a really strong momentum that's carried from episode to episode, and makes the show very bingeable. However, with the first season being 26 episodes long, not every episode is going to have a dramatic conclusion. Total Drama Island, when contrasted with its later seasons, is particularly guilty of what I've come to call "elimination fodder." Characters like Ezekiel, Justin, Katie and Sadie, and Eva only exist to pad out the runtime and give the actually interesting characters more time to shine. DJ is probably the worst offender, and I'm shocked that he sticks around as long as he does.

Meanwhile, characters with more clearly defined roles in the story are given plot armor to avoid elimination. As a kid I remember being so frustrated by how Heather seemed to just be unstoppable. As an adult I was taken aback by how badly she plays the game. Heather takes multiple stabs at Gwen, the show's de facto protagonist, that really serve no strategic function. In the episode Search and Do Not Destroy, she steals a kiss from Gwen's love interest, which is shown to be incredibly unpopular among the campers, and the only reason she manages to avoid elimination is that she wins immunity by complete luck. All of this is to say that story mechanics are generally not where the show thrives. A discerning viewer can easily identify writing blunders and reliably predict who will be eliminated next. Where Total Drama Island really excels is in its characters.

Gwen is the perfect protagonist for this show. Her sarcastic demeanor makes her a great audience surrogate. Gwen is much more closed off than the other campers. In addition to making her very relatable to the show's angsty teen audience, it also makes her inherently intriguing. Unlike virtually every other character in season one, she doesn't wear her personality on her sleeve. We naturally want to learn more about her, and throughout the season we learn that beneath her cold exterior is a warm personality. Watching her persevere through hardships gives her this real underdog quality that reminds me of early Tim Burton films like Ed Wood, which is kind of a perfect reference given her aesthetic. Of course, while she is the protagonist, she isn't the one who actually wins Total Drama Island (at least not in North America) but we'll get to him later...

Among the first three seasons, Heather is the most iconic villain. This is despite her being the worst written of the bunch, as I hope to have illustrated. Heather is completely carried by her witty dialogue and the fantastic performance by Rachel Wilson. The franchise has some really great voice acting in general (I'll have more to say about that when we get to World Tour), and Wilson is exceptional even by the show's high standards. She ensures that Heather is always fun to watch whenever she's on screen. And for as frustrating as Heather's plot armor can be, it just makes it all the more satisfying when she's eventually eliminated. In the penultimate episode, I Triple Dog Dare You!, Heather is undone by the same luck and unfair loopholes she used to cheat her way to the top, and it makes for one of the most cathartic climaxes in animation.

A special shout out also has to go to Duncan and Courtney for being Total Drama's best showmance. When we meet them, they are diametrically opposed. Courtney is obsessively rule-governed, while Duncan is rebellious and apathetic. Throughout Total Drama Island we learn that Duncan actually has a softer side to him, such as when he helps DJ. The conversation he and Courtney have after this happens suggests that Courtney will bring out Duncan's good nature. So it's a genuinely great twist when, in the episode Basic Straining, it is actually Duncan that teases out Courtney's rebellious side. But unlike Duncan, Courtney is not accustomed to eschewing rules and so bites off a little more than she can chew (literally) when she and Duncan steal food for the rest of the campers. It seems that going forward, Duncan and Courtney will make for an unstoppable alliance, until one of them wins their race to the bottom and carelessly gets him or herself eliminated... Except that's not what happens.

Harold, one of the other campers, who has an ongoing rivalry with Duncan, gets revenge by tampering with the votes, causing Courtney to get eliminated. I remember being shocked by this when I watched the show back on Cartoon Network. While I do wish we got to see more of Courtney this season, it makes for a really clever out-of-the-box twist that could only happen in this show. This is merely a taste of the creative twists we'll see later in the series. Moments like these make the series unpredictable, which is one of the reasons why the show is still exciting to come back to as an adult.

Owen is the perfect winner for season one. Total Drama Island is a mostly light-hearted comedy at the end of the day, but the show does have an underlying sadness to it — the drama of Total Drama. There's manipulation, betrayal, misery, humiliation, ruination, and all other manner of unpleasant nouns. We've already discussed how Chris McLean's sharp, cynical dialogue helps soften the blow, but that's just one piece of the puzzle. Owen is an oasis of happiness in the sea of drama. Owen is incapable of having an impure thought, and so he brings some much-needed levity to every scene he's in. This all comes to fruition in the finale, where all the other campers, apart from Gwen's small clique, team up to deliver him the win.

Gwen, for her role in the series, gets her own happy ending. Even though she doesn't win the big cash prize, she fulfills her season-long arc and finally seals the deal with Trent, her main love interest. It's a really cute scene and, after all the strife she goes through, it's nice to see her just be genuinely happy and outgoing in the end.

...of course, that's assuming you watched the show in Canada or the United States. For each season, two endings were actually created, and the producers would pick the ending depending on who was more popular in the region. It's a novel concept but I personally really dislike it. It comes off as very cynical, and I don't mean the show's usual self-aware kind of cynical parody. If these alternate endings were little extras sequestered away on DVD extras, I'd have no issue with them. I'd just hate to be watching the show as it was airing and seeing Gwen's ending, not because I dislike the character, but just because Owen makes more sense as the winner for Total Drama Island. Owen's ending is also clearly just the canon ending; it's much more entertaining and better paced.

So that's Total Drama Island, or at least the broad strokes. There is a lot of material I didn't cover, and it's not that I don't care, it's just that I'm more interested in discussing the show's themes and characters. After all, that's where Total Drama truly excels. Let's get down to brass tacks: Is the show worth going back to? And is it worth your time if you've never seen it? Despite the show's flaws, and there are plenty I didn't mention, I'd say "yes, absolutely." Of course, you'll want to make sure you're watching the right version of the show, and I'm not talking about my preference for the ending.

When the show first aired on Télétoon in Canada, essentially their version of Cartoon Network, it was marketed towards teenagers. There's some light swearing, such as "crap" or "screw it", and some adult gags that clearly weren't intended for younger audiences. When the show was brought to the United States, it underwent a fair bit of censorship. The light swearing was dubbed over, but there were also some odd changes, like replacing most instances of "sucks" with "stinks" or replacing "shut up" with "shut it", which just seems totally pointless to me.

There were also some really great gags that involved the use of a censorship tone, like what you'd hear on actual reality television if somebody cursed. It gave the show an edge and a sense of authenticity. Seeing these characters curse makes them feel more like actual teens put into frustrating situations. The worst offense the American censorship edit makes is clumsily dubbing over these scenes, which ruins one of the show's best moments: where Lindsay, one of Heather's dimwitted lackeys, finally comes to her senses and curses Heather out.

What makes the censorship odd is that it's inconsistent. To my knowledge, the censorship only affected the show's audio, so there are still some visual gags that were left completely untouched. Noteworthy examples include Gwen getting pantsed and Heather's top coming off during the infamous water-skiing challenge. So I'm not really sure why the censorship edits were made; I can't imagine any parents raising hell over the word "stupid" but being totally fine with the aforementioned scenes. Maddeningly, it is this censored version that you will find on most streaming platforms, including the frequent live streams from the franchise's official YouTube channel.

Thankfully, as I write this article, somebody has all of the uncensored versions of the first season on YouTube in good quality. You can view it here. For some more good news, Action and World Tour underwent far less censorship, so any version of those shows you watch should be sufficient.

Speaking of the show's original run, and this will be the last point before we move on to Total Drama Action, it's funny how unapologetically Canadian it is. It's doubly entertaining given how the material it's satirizing is very American. It isn't a huge part of the show, in fact I doubt you'll even notice it unless you're really paying attention. For starters, the show takes place in Muskoka, Ontario, a popular Canadian vacation spot for its many lakes and overall natural beauty. All the voice actors speak with natural Canadian accents, easily identifiable by their pronunciation of -or- in words like "sorry" and "tomorrow." There are also little things like characters using metric units or saying "zed" in lieu of "zee". It's subtle — nobody says "aboot" or talks about their maple syrup addiction — you probably won't even notice unless you're really paying attention.

I find it interesting because non-American media has a tendency to downplay its "foreignness." In his video Pokémon Used to Be Japanese, YouTube user Caribou-kun highlights how the anime Magical Princess Minky Momo specifically avoided Japanese imagery so that the show would be more accessible to westerners. Now it's not like Canada is all that exotic when compared to the United States, it's just a little detail that I thought was interesting, and it gives the show a lot of character. That coupled with the edgy (uncensored) dialogue just makes the show feel so earnest — The show doesn't care about being accessible, it wears its quirkiness like a badge of honor. Maybe it's just me, but I thought it was nice.

Total Drama Action is generally considered the weakest of the original three seasons, and while I think the show doesn't get enough credit, I'm ultimately inclined to agree. Despite that, I would also say that Action is the most clever conceptually. For starters, it's the reason we call this series Total Drama and not Total Drama Island.

Imagine for a second that you had just created a wildly successful Survivor parody and needed to appease your network overlords with a second season. How do you go about doing that? Well, going off of how actual Survivor does it: Go to a new island with a new cast of campers and a new set of challenges. Don't disrupt the formula — you're still going to have the same lovable host, same team structure, same bonfire ceremony, and the same character arcs.

But Total Drama Action doesn't do this. Instead, a skeleton crew of fourteen cast members, all returning from season one, compete for a million dollars on an abandoned film lot in a new set of movie-inspired challenges. Furthermore, Action is a proper continuation of Island, rather than a movie-themed clone. For as easily as I could see them taking the safe route with my hypothetical Total Drama Island 2, I could just as easily see a version of Total Drama Action that completely resets the character development from Island, leaving the characters in a limbo state where they never evolve past their most iconic incarnation à la Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F. I am happy to report that this isn't the case either.

In Total Drama Island's penultimate episode, Heather gets her comeuppance by having her head shaved. She's then seen wearing a cheap wig in the next episode. You might think that Action would just have her hair inexplicably grow back to its usual length, maybe with some hand-waved explanation about how she got a higher quality wig or something. Instead, she keeps wearing the same cheap wig in Action, until she loses it just a few episodes in. Afterwards, she spends the rest of her time in the season bald, and there's a great recurring gag where she tries to steal hair from the other contestants. This may sound like an odd moment for me to have this revelation, but this was one of the main things that made me realize that Action, and by extension Total Drama as a whole, was a lot more clever than I initially gave it credit for.

This continuity extends beyond visual gags. Characters retain their relationships from Island: Lindsay and Beth end up becoming close friends after both were manipulated by Heather in the last season. This leaves Heather alone, forced to play defensively by trying to get on her team's good side. Action also gives some much needed depth to some of Island's lesser characters, most notably Harold, Justin, and Beth, all of whom were largely one-note gags in season one. For Island's returning major players, the creators aren't afraid to be daring with them. As you might guess, this leads into one of the main reasons people consider Action to be the weakest season...

If there is one constant with fans of Total Drama, it is that they hate what was done to Trent in this season — I do too, but for different reasons. Trent was Gwen's love interest in the first season. He was not a very interesting character, although that's not necessarily a bad thing. Trent served a narrative function: He was the straight man amidst the cast of obnoxious teen stereotypes. He was the anchor for Gwen and, by extension, the audience. In season two, however, Gwen is no longer the main character. Therefore, Trent doesn't serve the same narrative function. If Trent is going to stick around, the show needs to do something different with him, and so they do.

At the start of the season, Chris plays a dirty trick by pitting Gwen and Trent against each other. Trent quickly becomes jealous when Gwen starts getting friendly with Duncan, and this exposes a spiteful, bitter side of Trent that we've never seen before. As Trent grapples with his feelings of jealousy and how Gwen reacts to them, he develops anxiety which soon explodes into full-blown paranoia. This crescendos in Trent developing a strange obsession with the number nine, which only serves to ostracize himself further from Gwen and the rest of the contestants.

When I hear people complain about Trent in Total Drama Action, they complain that he acts "out of character." That is arguably true, but the thing is... I really don't care. I find this iteration of Trent far more interesting and brimming with dramatic potential. It ties back to one of Total Drama's core themes: How reality TV ruins people. It's not unheard of for average, otherwise healthy people to have a psychotic break after experiencing something traumatic like, for example, humiliating yourself on live television. Now I'm sure if you've studied abnormal psychology you could pick apart flaws with how the show portrays Trent's descent into paranoia, but I think that would be missing the forest for the trees; the allusion to a mental breakdown is more important and interesting than the actual mechanics of how that's achieved. It isn't necessarily faithful to his character in Island, but something about Trent clearly needed to change for him to remain in the series... And that's just the problem: He doesn't.

This whole negative character arc happens incredibly quickly. Trent is eliminated in the fifth episode, and the number nine obsession begins in episode four. When Trent appears in a later episode, he's essentially back to his old self, and the show oddly downplays how sudden and steep his decline was. And the worst part is: This is it for Trent, he doesn't come back for World Tour.

It's really strange to me that the show was so daring with Trent's character only to drop him just when things started to get interesting. It's essentially the worst of both worlds: The degradation of his character without the satisfying fallout. If I had to come up with a theory, the creators realized that Trent wasn't all that interesting, and so in contriving a way for him to get eliminated, inadvertently made him far more interesting and actually worth keeping around. It reeks of a lack of proper planning, which is probably where Action falters the most when compared with Island or World Tour.

In contrast to Island with Gwen or World Tour with Heather, Action doesn't really have a central protagonist. The closest thing the show has to a protagonist is Lindsay, and her elimination comes so suddenly that fans started a rumor about why she was removed from the show. The story goes that Stephanie Anne Mills, Lindsay's voice actor, had some emergency to tend to and so was hastily written out of the show. Completely bogus, obviously. Putting aside the fact that there's no evidence for this theory, it just doesn't make sense — simply recasting Lindsay would have been far less disruptive to the show's production than having to rewrite the ending.

Total Drama Action also lacks an overarching villain. The show seems to be setting up Justin as the villain, but the lack of a strong protagonist means he really doesn't have anyone to bounce off of. All he has going for him is that he is vaguely prudent, ever so slightly more intelligent than he lets on. Around the halfway point of the show, the true villain is introduced, and Justin is haphazardly discarded. The villain in question? Courtney.

Courtney is not one of the 14 contestants Chris chose for season two. Courtney actually forced her way back onto the show by suing Chris for wrongful termination. In addition to just being really clever, I also think it's an interesting continuation of her character arc from Island. When we last saw her, Courtney was getting in over her head after getting a taste of what it was like to break the rules. Now she has learned how to bend the rules and has become a true lawful evil.

If there's one thing I really admire Total Drama Action for, it's its creativity. Some people don't like Owen's character in this season, but I personally thought he was as great as ever. Owen is eliminated early in the season, but is later let back on the show by Chris, who hires him to stir up drama among the other contestants. Owen, being the most positive character on the whole show, is naturally terrible at this, so he ends up getting fired. Earlier in the season, Chef tries to form an alliance with DJ to split the prize money, but DJ recuses himself from the show after being wrought with guilt. And in true Total Drama fashion, this minor plot point does get brought up again in World Tour.

This season's challenges are quite fun. Each episode bases its challenges on a different movie genre. There are some obvious picks like science fiction, western, and horror, but also some more niche choices like the disaster movie or historical epic. I think the challenges themselves strike a good balance of being ridiculous without being too unbelievable, and they make for some fun character interactions. I think my favorite series of challenges would be in the episode Rock n' Rule, which are based on the rock and roll biopic. One of the episode's challenges has the contestants playing (literally) electric guitars. Courtney manages to play the guitar perfectly, but loses to Duncan who, like a true rock star, barely puts in any effort.

With the show's cast being drastically smaller than Island's, even with the later addition of Courtney, an elimination each episode could not last for an entire season. Total Drama Action pads out the season in two major ways.

Reward challenges are a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, they solve the "elimination fodder" issue I complained about with season one. While I don't think this season has any defining character moments that rival season one's highlights, the show is far more equitable with how it doles out screen time to each contestant — Beth had one great moment with Heather in Island but otherwise hardly had any speaking roles, while Action really gives her lots of time to shine. I actually like the character quite a bit, in large part to the great vocal performance from Sarah Gadon. On the other hand, Action doesn't quite have the same dramatic momentum as Island.

All things considered, I would actually consider reward challenges a net positive. The added runtime between eliminations means that there's more time for character dynamics to develop and change on the fly. YouTube user Chase Bridges made a video wherein he tries to predict who wins Total Drama Island. He watches an episode, predicts who he think will be eliminated next, and tries to guess who will win the whole game. He did a similar video for Total Drama Action and was far less successful with his guesses. I don't say that to discredit him at all, rather I think it speaks to Action's ability to be unpredictable. This unpredictability means the show remains bingeable, even with fewer eliminations.

The other method of padding are the aftermath shows. In concept, these are a great idea: Geoff and Bridgette run back through the season's highlights and give interviews to contestants that were voted off. We even get cameos from campers that didn't make it onto the show, like Noah or Eva. The aftermath show will return in World Tour and is used to great effect there, but in Action they feel like the absolute worst kind of filler. The cast interviews are fun, but those aside the rest of the aftermath show is painfully boring.

This also leads to the show's finale, which is far and away the weakest of the three seasons. Duncan is one of the show's best characters; he was already explored in depth in Island and Action is another great showing for him. While I don't think Beth gets nearly enough love, I'm not alone in thinking she isn't exactly finalist material.

The penultimate episode, Mutiny on the Soundstage! is fantastic. Duncan and Beth have to go through a gauntlet of all of the season's challenges. They can skip a challenge if they correctly answer a trivia question about one of the show's other contestants. Beth's poor athletic skills give Duncan a head start, but Beth closes the gap by correctly answering trivia questions. She manages to get nearly all of them correct, thanks to her sense of compassion. It's one of the reasons I think she deserves more credit, and if this was how the show wanted to deliver Beth the win, I'd have been satisfied. Instead, Beth and Duncan tie in their race to the aftermath studio, and this leads to the series' most underwhelming finale.

The Aftermath IV is as much of a slog to get through as the rest. There are some nice moments between Chris and Chef, even if they don't make all that much sense given the timeline of events. What I hate is how the winner is determined. After a series of random challenges that have no bearing on who wins, the contestants from throughout the season vote for whom they want to win. Depending on your ending, Duncan or Beth are arbitrarily chosen as the winner. There's no tally of votes or any interesting maneuver the winner does to persuade voters to their side.

Unlike Island or World Tour, Action's winner is up for debate. If you watched the show back when it premiered on Télétoon or Cartoon Network, Duncan was the show's winner. If you watch the show on modern streaming services, Beth will be the winner. This is in contrast to Island where Owen was and still is the canonical winner. Action really doesn't leave a good last impression, which is probably why it is widely regarded as the worst of the first three seasons.

Having said all that, Total Drama Action is still more than worth your time. The show is ambitious, creative, and also just really damn funny. For all of its faults, it's incredibly unique, and it laid the foundation for the franchise's magnum opus.

Total Drama Action made me realize that this franchise was a lot smarter than I initially gave it credit for. Total Drama World Tour made me realize that I needed to talk about it. This season is genuinely excellent. If you can only be bothered to watch one season of the show, let World Tour be that season.

17 contestants, that's 15 from the previous seasons plus two newcomers, compete in challenges all around the world for the chance to win a million dollars. This naturally takes us to many different settings, which gives each episode its own identity. I have a much easier time remembering when key moments happened because I can equate the unique setting with the episode. There are also some really unique location choices, speaking to World Tour's creativity in much the same way Action's selection of movie genres did. Standout oddball choices are Newfoundland and Drumheller, both relatively obscure places in Canada. You would think that the premise of World Tour would be an opportunity to downplay the Canadian influence I talked about at the end of the Island review, but the show doesn't take the bait.

Each stop on the tour brings with it a series of locale-inspired challenges. The challenges are really out there and quite memorable, but they do actually raise a small criticism. Total Drama's challenges have always been unrealistically dangerous — in the conceit of the first season, the Survivor parody, overly dangerous challenges are a parody of how reality TV production can be physically harmful to its competitors. The challenges were clearly excessively dangerous, but not to such a degree that you couldn't see where the leap in logic occurred. In Total Drama Action there's a really great moment where Chris excitedly creates a dangerous challenge, only to realize that the challenge is actually too dangerous, and so he panics and tries to abort the mission.

Well, somewhere along the way an association between danger and entertainment was made, and it gets pushed to the extreme in World Tour. Notable "jumping the shark" moments include having to invade Area 51 and scaling an active volcano. It leads to this rather bizarre development where Chris unintentionally becomes a sort of supervillain. Torturing the show's contestants was originally a funny byproduct of the show's satire, whereas now it feels like the intent. It's honestly an interesting character dynamic, just not what I signed up for.

There are other little ways that we've lost the plot, such as the characters' wardrobe which is sort of confused now. When the show took place on Camp Wawanakwa it made sense for characters to dress lightly; for us to see exposed navels and open-toed shoes. Now it's just sort of this weird vestigial feature of the character design. Heather's outfit doesn't reflect the environment of the Louvre or the shores of Newfoundland the way it does a humid summer camp. The show makes a joke about the characters being lightly dressed while they're in freezing cold environments, which is another funny cynical take, but I think a part of me would have preferred a few different outfits depending on the climate. Honestly that's a pretty minor complaint though.

The show's original satire has been obfuscated by World Tour's added layers, but it isn't totally absent. It's meant to be a sleazy reality TV show that's driven by ratings over anything else, including personal safety, so naturally cultural sensitivity isn't a concern. While working on this article I saw a YouTube video where somebody complained about the episode Chinese Fake Out and how parts of the episode were racist. I'll be nice and not mention this user by name. I think racism is a little too strong a term; I would say it's fair to call it culturally insensitive. That's the point. The show is mocking the stereotype of the oblivious western tourist. The show directly points this out in an earlier episode, where Harold admonishes Chris for not knowing the difference between Chinese and Japanese culture. In a later episode, Chris ignorantly believes the first Olympics took place in Rome, only to learn that they actually took place in Greece and has to hastily redirect the plane.

There are plenty of examples of this if you're using your brain: Chris wears women's clothing in Jamaica, he pronounces Louvre wrong and gets corrected by Courtney, in Hawaii he blatantly ignores safety warnings from the locals which ends up endangering the entire cast. It's honestly baffling to me that someone could misread the show that badly, and it reminded me why I can't stand YouTube and its brain-dead content creators. Of course, I'm boldly assuming that there was any reading going on here at all, let alone misreading. YouTubers will see a vaguely foreign looking thing not being treated with a surgical level of cultural sensitivity in a Western property and robotically decry racism before ever thinking about what it's actually trying to say. There is truly nothing more reprehensible in this world than a YouTube animation reviewer.

Of course, for as much as I love the show's satire, what makes this season so great is arguably its most unrealistic feature: song numbers. It sounds like a recipe for disaster — introducing goofy song numbers to a series that, in its original concept, had no place for them. And even if the show manages to find an appropriate use for them, they'll almost certainly sound terrible — after all, these are voice actors, not singers. So why are these songs so excellent?

Song numbers are an in-universe mandate from Chris, and there's a candid expectation that they'll sound bad. Chris expects the contestants to come up with songs on the spot and explicitly says there will be no vocal coaching or rehearsals of any kind. That everyone manages to harmonize and come up with perfect rhymes is in and of itself comedic, and it's actually somewhat consistent with the franchise's vibe — the campers of Total Drama Island were unusually adept at avoiding death or serious injury given the fact that they were teenagers who were essentially tricked into competing; so too are the contestants of World Tour when it comes to music.

It also helps that some of the songs genuinely sound great. Personal highlights include Paris in the Springtime, Oh My Izzy, Changing Guard Mix, Boyfriend Kisser, and I'm Winning This. When you hear a song that sounds a little awkward or even outright bad, you get the sense that the show is aware of how it sounds. I believe the first song, Come Fly With Us, deliberately sounds wonky; it sets a low expectation so that when you get to one of the higher effort examples, it's a nice surprise, and a great source of laughs as you think "Wow, so we're really doing this right now?"

No review of World Tour would be complete without mentioning We Built Gwen's Face. The episode takes place in Sweden, so what better style of song than an homage to ABBA? The show puts in so much effort to this song which makes the joke land even harder — simultaneously you'll think "I can't believe they're doing this" and "of course they're doing this."

And even with these being mere voice actors, a lot of them actually sound really good. Kristin Fairlie and Rachel Wilson do a great job as Bridgette and Heather respectively. Their performances aren't earth-shattering but, as the kids say, they understood the assignment. Scott McCord manages to sing well while staying in character as Owen, which is seriously impressive. But the true MVP of World Tour's soundtrack is Emilie-Claire Barlow, who absolutely crushed it as Courtney. Barlow, I learned, is predominantly a professional jazz singer; she's actually a musician first and a voice actress second. Naturally her vocals are phenomenal, but what's so impressive is that she manages to simultaneously sing and play the part of Courtney. I actually went and listened to some of Barlow's music, and her natural singing voice is distinctly more alto to Courtney's soprano.

In almost every song Courtney is in, she takes lead or plays some other prominent role. It tells me that the show's creators, having worked with most of these actors for two seasons, had a sense of the cast's musical talents. Lindsay's voice actress, for instance, isn't nearly as talented a singer as the other actors I mentioned (no offense!), so the show doesn't try to squeeze a big performance out of her. Some of the songs also stress rhythm more than melody, that is to say there's a lot of "speak singing," such as in Sea Shanty Mix, which also helps disguise some of the weaker singers. Nobody is pushed too far beyond their limit... That is, except for Alejandro.

Being a major player in the season, Alejandro has more prominent singing roles than most other characters, and the voice actor just doesn't have the same singing chops as his peers. The song This Is How We Will End It has him singing lead, and his verses sound awkward. You can tell the show didn't have much confidence in him since they actually use some pretty aggressive autotune on his verses. I've heard some people say that this was intentional: Alejandro is a very deceptive character, so the autotune works to obscure his voice and deceive the audience in a way. However, the show also uses autotune to touch up some of the weaker vocal performances, such as those of Gwen or Harold — there's no character-based justification for these two to have autotuned vocals, so it leads me to believe it was probably not intentional. I can understand how it happened, seeing as Alejandro is a new character, so his voice actor was, unlike the rest of the cast, an unknown... Except that Sierra is also a new character, and her voice actress absolutely nails every song she's in, so maybe they just got unlucky with Alejandro.

In my opinion, World Tour's cast is the perfect size. Action was smart to shrink the cast, but I think they took it a little too far. The selection of characters was mostly smart, but the show's pacing suffered due to there necessarily being fewer eliminations. We still have reward challenges, aftermath shows, and contrived additions to the cast, but they are used far more cleverly in World Tour.

Obviously the fan favorites like Duncan, Owen, and Gwen return, but we also get to see some of Island's lesser characters like Ezekiel, Noah, and Cody. World Tour gets far more mileage out of its characters than Action does in my opinion. Noah is one of the show's funniest characters; his sarcasm puts Gwen's to shame. Eliminating him so early into Island was a huge missed opportunity, so I'm glad World Tour finally capitalized on him. He and Owen make for a really entertaining duo this season.

Even with the increased cast size, there still aren't enough characters for us to have an elimination every episode, so some padding will be necessary. Reward challenges are back from Action, but now occur at random, so the show manages to stay unpredictable. I find that this system is a lot better than Action's, but it comes with its own set of issues. World Tour can sometimes be a little too unpredictable. I didn't talk about this much in my critique of Total Drama Island, but that show usually made it pretty obvious who would be the next contestant to be eliminated; you just know Geoff's time on the show is limited when Gwen opens an episode by talking about how he gets on her nerves. Action was unpredictable due to the way it quickly established and resolved plot lines, but the actual plot lines themselves were still fairly straightforward. There were some curveballs, naturally, but nothing too crazy. Gwen being eliminated so early in Action comes as a surprise after her prominence in Island and the way the season starts, but her elimination is still fairly easy to see coming once it's established to be on the table.

World Tour was too eager to subvert expectations, and this leads to what might be my least favorite elimination in the whole series: Gwen's elimination. Throughout the episode, the show sets up Courtney as the next elimination, only to give Gwen the boot at the last second. The way this is done is incredibly convoluted, and horribly unsatisfying with how it robs the characters of agency. Being able to predict what happens next isn't always the mark of an uninteresting story. For as exciting as twists are, sometimes seeing a well executed plan is just as satisfying.

Aftermath episodes also return, but are much better. They're a lot less formulaic, and they directly contribute to the story. When the crew get stranded in Jamaica due to the show going over budget, the following aftermath show is a fundraiser to keep the show going. The next aftermath episode is a contest for one of the season's losers to have a second chance at competing, only for the prize to go to Blaineley, a tabloid journalist who stepped in to replace Bridgette on the aftermath show. Her tenure on the show is very short-lived, naturally, but also very entertaining.

Speaking of new characters, Sierra is easily my favorite addition to the cast. This is largely owed to her voice actress, Annick Obansawin. In addition to being a great singer, she just has a naturally fun voice that makes Sierra a delight to watch. Much like Heather in season one, the voice acting carries this character. Sierra's recurring gag of being obsessed with Cody should get old pretty quick, but Obansawin's enthusiasm is just infectious. She and Cody's relationship is an endearing aspect of the show. For most of the show, it's a one-sided relationship that's a recurring source of comic relief, but the two become genuine friends by the end, which is really wholesome to see.

Substandard singing aside, I really enjoy Alejandro as a character. He's basically a far more developed version of Justin. He can be as cruel as Heather was back in season one, but far more patient and calculated. He's careful never to reveal too much about himself or what he's thinking. He's also a very adept player, always choosing the right person to buddy up to.

Alejandro successfully foils Heather's plan to form an alliance with DJ. Later, when he learns that DJ won't be joining his team, he course corrects and uses the rapport they developed to blindside DJ. It's an example of someone playing the game very well, what I think Island clumsily tried to do with Heather. Of course, he's not perfect — there are some times where we see the mask slip. Al could barely contain his disgust for Owen, the show's most optimistic character. He will eventually get Owen eliminated in a scene that is genuinely kind of heartbreaking. I find it interesting since if he were solely committed to the game, voting off Heather would have been a much better option; she's clearly more of a threat, and he'd probably have an easier time convincing the other competitors to vote against her... But maybe that's not really what he wants.

Heather steps up as the season's protagonist, and asserts her status as Total Drama's best character. Following Action, she again has a new design that visually communicates her journey through the show. She's no longer bald, but her hair isn't back to its full length. Later in the season she'll get into a fight with LeShawna, who will actually knock out one of her teeth, and it doesn't magically regrow in the next episode. Rather, she's taken by an Amazonian tribe that considers her to be a god (this show gets pretty weird), who give her a gold tooth that she wears for the rest of the season. It's easily my favorite character design in the whole show.

It's been fun to watch Heather's trajectory throughout the series. She was a cold-hearted villain in Island who was humbled in its penultimate episode. Action forced her out of her comfort zone, shaving off (no pun intended) some of her rougher edges. Heather enters World Tour with a renewed sense of determination. In many ways, she's the Yin to Owen's Yang: the other most honest character on the show — honest in so far as she's committed to the singular goal of winning, and isn't driven by emotion the way characters like Courtney are. We see all sorts of spiteful behavior in this season, but Heather only indulges this behavior as a means to an end. She's not above temporarily ceding control of the team to Courtney in Newfoundland, or forming a temporary alliance with Gwen in Australia. Of course, that's not all Heather has going for her, as World Tour gives us something I was delighted to see: genuine character development.

There are some great little moments like Heather commiserating with Courtney after Duncan breaks her heart, or helping Sierra after an accident leaves her bald. You could argue in both cases that she was acting strategically, but I think it goes deeper than that. The show not-so-subtly implies that Alejandro has feelings for Heather, which she reciprocates. Both deny that this is happening and insist that any hint of romance is really strategic manipulation, but you can pretty clearly tell this isn't the case. So if Heather was driven by emotion for Alejandro, who's to say she wasn't motivated by sympathy for Courtney or empathy for Sierra? The latter example really shows us how far she's come. Total Drama Island's Heather had no qualms about humiliating other people. Heather would have jumped at the chance to shave Gwen's head in season one if the opportunity ever arose. Seeing her express genuine compassion is honestly really heartwarming, and I desperately wanted to see her win after this.

So imagine my sheer elation when I watched the final episode, a showdown between Alejandro and Heather. This was a match up that was steadily being built up throughout the season, and it's so satisfying to see it conclude, especially in such a dramatic way. Alejandro spent the whole season abusing people's trust, so having his feelings for Heather be his undoing was the perfect way for him to get his comeuppance. And I have to say, thank God this ending is the one you'll see on streaming services.

There's an alternate ending where Alejandro wins, and it's so terrible it's barely worth talking about. The scene of Heather triumphantly defeating Alejandro plays out exactly as it does in her ending, but she then loses the challenge on a technicality. After such an amazing buildup, it's a horribly anticlimactic way to end the series. If I were watching this show back in the day and this was the ending I got, I would have felt cheated. To my absolute shock, I literally learned this as I was writing this paragraph, Alejandro's ending was actually the first one aired in Canada. I just naturally assumed Heather's ending was what first aired because it's clearly just better. I've said nothing but negative things about the alternate endings, and I still don't think I've been harsh enough. I really, really, really hate this two ending system. I'm incredibly proud of my country for getting the superior Heather ending, like more proud than any of our society's accomplishments, and I'm only partially joking about that.

There's plenty more to talk about with this season, I didn't even get into "Gwuncan" or Ezekiel's recurring appearances, but I think you get the point. For all its faults, World Tour is truly one of a kind. More than anything else, this show is just endlessly entertaining. You may not like all of the choices it makes, but you will not be bored. The voice acting is fantastic, the story is genuinely quite gripping at times, and even the show's animation is a step up from previous seasons, although maybe that's just me getting used to it. At any rate, if you haven't done so already, give this show a watch. You'll be glad that you did.