Total Drama All-Stars

Total Drama All-Stars is the first half of the fifth season of mh:besttvshows:Total Drama, alongside Pahkitew Island.

Plot
Fourteen previous contestants from the first and second generation cast come back to Camp Wawanakwa for an all-star season of the Total Drama franchise, and are split into teams based on perceived hero or villain status.

Why It Deserves the Flush of Shame

 * 1) The worst aspect of this season is how much potential it had. This was a completely missed opportunity to have so many things take place and be the best season yet.
 * 2) The writing is lack-luster and sometimes inconsistent, and the writers clearly didn't watch the whole show. For example, Gwen openly states in World Tour that she kissed Courtney's boyfriend, Duncan. Now she claims he and Courtney weren’t together at the time.
 * 3) The jokes in general are just filled with mindless toilet humor.
 * 4) Some of the characters get placed on teams that are the complete opposite of their personalities:
 * 5) * Gwen gets placed on the Villainous Vultures because of her "actions" in World Tour, despite the fact that she's overall a nice person.
 * 6) * Courtney as a Heroic Hamster makes no sense because she's done terrible things on her own: She wanted to leave everyone for dead in "Dial M For Merger", she knocked Justin off a cliff in "The Princess Pride" and almost let Owen, Cody, Tyler and DJ fall to their deaths in "Total Drama Drama Drama Drama Island". While Duncan and Courtney do swap teams later on, this is only because Courtney uses Sam as a human shield.
 * 7) * Cameron gets placed onto the Villainous Vultures for no reason other than him trying to quit the season.
 * 8) The eliminations are way too predictable.
 * 9) Cameron, Mike, and Zoey are severely overused.
 * 10) Lazy writing: Instead of properly focusing on each of the characters, most of the season is focused on: The rivalry between Heather and Alejandro, Mike keeping his personalities in check so that he can be with Zoey and the infamous love triangle between Duncan, Gwen and Courtney. The worst part is that each of those storylines had already been resolved in their respective seasons and gives us nothing original here.
 * 11) As mentioned above, the show completely missed a golden opportunity by mixing first and second generation players. This could've made it a great season, but the selected cast of characters was disastrous. In fact, Brick was originally supposed to return, but they replaced him with Sam for unknown reasons. Anne Maria, Cody and Owen were also supposed to return, but we ended up with characters who can barely be considered "All-Stars".
 * 12) * Also, shouldn't the point of mixing the casts of the first seasons be that the audience finally gets to see these characters that they've never seen together before interact in interesting ways, thus generating new friendships and rivalries? Because in here, the characters stick to those they already know.
 * 13) * The only characters that can be considered "All-Stars" are Gwen, Duncan, Heather, Lindsay, Alejandro, Lightning, Mike, Zoey and Jo since they're fan favorites, but that can't be said for the rest. Sure, Courtney is a popular character, but she's also one of the most hated ones and her inclusion in this season only served to keep the romantic triangle storyline going, which again, only dragged the season down. Sierra and Sam literally have no reason to be here and become annoying quickly.
 * 14) * It doesn't make sense that characters like Trent, Leshawna, Bridgette, Geoff, Anne Maria, Dakota and B are completely forgotten about, despite being genuine fan-favorites. And even outside of the characters popularity element, including some of them this season would've made sense considering their performances in past seasons: Owen literally won in Island and always made the merge in the seasons he competed in, Harold came 5th place in Action, Tyler came 10th in World Tour, Cody came 3rd place in World Tour, Izzy and Brick are two of the most agile and strong ones, and while Noah and Dawn were eliminated early in Island and Revenge of the Island respectively, both of them proved to be very smart and clever.
 * 15) *It doesn't help the fact that out of the 14 contestants, only 5 (Gwen, Duncan, Courtney, Heather and Lindsay) are from the original cast.
 * 16) **They brought Lindsay back just to have her eliminated in the first episode.
 * 17) There is little-to-no reference to the other past contestants, as the rest of the first-generation cast are not mentioned or even referenced at all.
 * 18) Not only did the season finale was very poor, but it's also considered to be the worst finale in the entire series: Chris goes beyond the line, the eliminated contestants most likely died because of him, Mike gets rid of his personalities on a rushed manner, and Camp Wawanakwa (the birthplace of the show) sinks into the ocean.
 * 19) Not as many interesting cameos as there were in Revenge of the Island, with most of them just serving for more crappy jokes, like Owen's cameo in the finale.
 * 20) Chris is at his absolute worst in this season, as he goes from just messing with the contestants to directly insulting them and flat-out trying to KILL them! The worst part? He directly taunts the contestants about their personal lives.
 * 21) Chef Hatchet starts to have less screen time starting from this season, which would unfortunately continue into the next season. Out of the 13 episodes in the season, he is silent in 7 of them (more than half!).
 * 22) A lot of gross-out humor, such as Sam urinating into the ocean.
 * 23) Mal being Mike's malevolent persona and the main antagonist of the season was an interesting concept that was poorly executed to the point where many consider it to be the worst storyline, and worst villain in the series.
 * 24) *The show tries hardly to make him seem like this evil and super intimidating force but in reality, he's just pathetic. All he did was break people's things and just be a "creator's pet" (he, Mike and Zoey were the "creators' pets" of the season).
 * 25) *The biggest problem with him is that unlike the other villains in the series like Heather, Justin, Courtney, Alejandro, and Scott who had strategies and good planning for winning, he's not a smart and clever villain, he's a cartoonish villain.
 * 26) *As for Mal, he tries very hard to be like Mike. But he ends up failing to do so as he doesn't know what actions Mike previously did, as Mal told Zoey that he gave her a bracelet in the previous season while Mike actually gave her a necklace. Zoey later criticizes Mal for this during the confession tapes however.
 * 27) *His plans also doesn't make sense, he tries to manipulate Cameron into only trusting him while at the same time also trying to get him kicked off.
 * 28) *The reason why Mal was unleashed was simply because of Scott hitting Mike over the head with a shovel by accident.
 * 29) *He's also defeated in the most stupid way possible: by a button inside Mike's mind which caused Mike's other personalities to be completely erased. The problem is that Mike's personalities were what made his character compelling and interesting, without them, he's just bland.
 * 30) Just like the Mal storyline, the season's poor handling of the "Duncan-Gwen-Courtney" romantic-triangle is also considered to be the worst part of the season:
 * 31) * Whether people love or hate the relationship between Gwen and Duncan, the season missed the opportunity to further develop the relationship between them two, especially when you consider that we barely got to fully see them as a couple in World Tour. Instead, they had them break up on a whim, which doesn't make sense if you think about it since Duncan broke up with Courtney as he was in love with Gwen. It wouldn't make sense on why he would suddenly obsess over the former, since Duncan and Courtney had numerous problems and the latter obviously didn't want anything to do with him anymore. The same thing can also apply to Gwen, who didn't have any interest in trying to make things right with Courtney in World Tour, but she now is suddenly obsessed with making things right in this season. Even worse, in the first episode of this season, Gwen tries to apologize and make things right with Courtney by claiming that she did "nothing wrong".
 * 32) * Speaking of Gwen, she got a terrible and sad story arc. It goes from her trying to reconcile with Courtney, to her dumping Duncan for no reason, and finally to her having a feud with Courtney yet again. She ends the season with neither Courtney nor Duncan, so what was the point?
 * 33) * Gwen and Courtney's friendship was also poorly done and was nothing like in World Tour.
 * 34) This season is also infamous for its mass character derailments and flanderization.
 * 35) * Duncan's character was ruined as he became a very bland character who had no personality outside of being "the bad boy" to the point where he literally destroyed Chris' mansion just to prove that he's a villain which ultimately got him arrested; he was also very unlikeable as he didn't care for either Gwen nor Courtney. His story arc also gets overdone.
 * 36) * Courtney was a tolerable character this season and actually started to change for the better, until the terrible and infamous "Sundae Muddy Sundae" episode really destroyed her character and threw her entire development out of the window.
 * 37) * Gwen was honestly not the same character she used to be. In the previous seasons, she was a sarcastic goth loner who actually had a good side and respected everyone who treated her nicely; in this season, she acts more like a girly girl rather than a goth girl, which is supposed to be her main trait. She was also kind of insufferable as she became so obsessed with trying to prove that she's not a villain and making amends with Courtney; to the point where she openly confesses that that's the only reason she came back to the show.
 * 38) ** Additionally, her being desperate to prove she's not a villain directly contradicts her assertion in TDI that her bad attitude got her far.
 * 39) * Lindsay went from being a sweet bubbly girl with some knowledge and intelligence to a stereotypical completely air-headed dumb blonde who now doesn't even know how to push things.
 * 40) * Sierra went from being somewhat funny in World Tour to an overall creepy and annoying character this season as she becomes obsessed with Cameron like she did with Cody, to the point where she even starts thinking that Cameron is Cody.
 * 41) *Alejandro, who in World Tour was the most strategic and manipulative contestant, became a complete douchebag as he spends half of the season pretending that his legs are asleep and at no point are we given a proper reason of why he did this.
 * 42) *Mike's MPD was poorly written and it is not what the disorder really is, unlike in Revenge of the Island, such as the reviled "reset button".
 * 43) *Cameron and Zoey are completely oblivious to Mal's presence despite how obvious he was been until then.
 * 44) **In fact, a lot of the characters were dumbed down to make Mal look stronger.
 * 45) Speaking of the elimination order, it was terribly executed over the course of an entire season. The infamous "Love Triangle" makes the merge, as well as the characters of Alejandro, Mike, Cameron, Scott, and Zoey, who had already made the merge in the seasons they were in. Lindsay being the first boot was a very bad decision, since her character could've greatly benefitted from development and characters like Sam and Sierra were much better options for being the first boot.
 * 46) Just like in the next season, the merge happened very early.
 * 47) Like Revenge of the Island, this season also ditched cool concepts and traditions such as the "Aftermath" episodes and bringing back the eliminated contestants for the final episode. This sadly continued on Pahkitew Island.
 * 48) Courtney and Scott becoming a couple was teased for most of the season, but then they break up in the same episode where they become a couple.
 * 49) * It doesn't help that it was the only love interaction between the two generations.
 * 50) Alejandro and Heather becoming a couple was poorly executed.
 * 51) Challenges lacking creativity as seen in the last season. For example, one of the challenges this season was simply a boat race.
 * 52) Speaking of the challenges, in the first episode, it was mentioned that the challenges would be based on the challenges from the previous seasons, but that plot became pretty much non-existent after a couple of episodes.
 * 53) The season's elimination exit, the Flush of Shame (a giant toilet in which the eliminated contestants are flushed down the drain), is a very disgusting idea for the contestants to leave the show.
 * 54) This season, given how many episodes this season had (13 opposed to 26 in earlier seasons) and number of contestants (14 opposed to 22), was very short. Why couldn't we have gotten, say, 18 contestants? That would've made room for fan-favorites like Owen, Noah, Cody, Harold, Izzy, Tyler, Leshawna, Bridgette, Brick, and Dawn.
 * 55) While it celebrated the 100th episode of Total Drama, it was with a very dark episode called Zeke and Ye Shall Find where feral Ezekiel captures Chris and dangles him above a toxic waste pool. His helpless screaming and the scary music later in the episode don't help, either (until Gwen saves him, that is).
 * 56) * Although one can argue that Chris deserved it for all the things he has done to Ezekiel, like turning him into a feral monster.
 * 57) * It's also not clear whether or not Ezekiel dies after the island sinks.
 * 58) The beloved intro with the iconic theme song was shortened to only 20 seconds for no apparent reason.
 * 59) As well as the finale having the events WIDTFOS #10, the episode itself also does not bring back 8 of the 12 eliminated contestants (Lindsay, Lightning, Jo, Sam, Sierra, Duncan, Courtney and Scott; they instead appear in silhouette inside balloons, even though it doesn't make sense why Chris brought Duncan back after the latter destroyed Chris' mansion and Duncan being in prison). As a result, many storylines including Gwen and Courtney's friendship and Courtney and Scott's relationship are left unresolved as none of the contestants from this season return in Pahkitew Island or The Ridonculous Race, meaning their send-offs were bad. This would unfortunately occur again in Pahkitew Island.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) The second part of the season, Pahkitew Island, while still mediocre at best, was a massive improvement over this and was much more well-received.
 * 2) The animation, while being downgraded in quality from the previous seasons, is passable.
 * 3) Tolerable voice acting (most of the time, anyway).
 * 4) Funny jokes here and there, such as:
 * 5) * After Gwen tells the Villainous Vultures to work together, the confessional shifts between Gwen's teammates as they form the sentence "I don't trust anyone on this (censored) team!"
 * 6) * Larry's eggs hatching and one of the offspring resembling Chris.
 * 7) * Chris and Chef laughing their heads off as Alejandro struggles to start his stalled boat.
 * 8) * Mal facepalming after Scott thinks that "driving a wedge" means literally driving a wedge of cheese.
 * 9) * "Courtney! I'm your girlfriend!"
 * 10) * Scott's "special way" to cross a rope bridge.
 * 11) It did celebrate the 100th episode of Total Drama.
 * 12) Courtney and Gwen's friendship was entertaining to watch. (Well, most of the fans do seem to like their friendship)
 * 13) Some good characters in this season:
 * 14) * Chef is still a pretty tolerable character, and is way better than Chris, but as mentioned in WITDTFOS #13, he has much less screen time than he did in the previous seasons, so his character is wasted.
 * 15) * Scott was a great character this season and, by extension was arguably the only contestant who was not flanderised, pointless, or wasted at any point. He was one of the few funny characters and pretty much carried the comedic purpose of the show.
 * 16) Alejandro and Heather had an interesting story arc in this season that was fun to watch.
 * 17) There's a somewhat effective running gag of Chris constantly getting pestered by lawyers reminding him that he's only out of jail under parole.
 * 18) The interactions between the first and second generations are interesting to watch, even though only three of them are prominent.
 * 19) Some good episodes such as "Suckers Punched" and "Evil Dread".
 * 20) Alejandro and Scott are no longer in their cruel conditions (the "Drama Machine" and "Trauma Chair", respectively), despite the latter having no explanation to it.
 * 21) The chemistry between Mike and Zoey is still relevant.

Episodes with their own pages

 * Sundae Muddy Sundae
 * The Bold and the Booty-ful
 * The Final Wreck-ening

Reception
Total Drama All-Stars has received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and overwhelmingly negative reviews from fans, largely due to the mass flanderization and derailment of character present on the show which affected both the new and old casts of characters, as well as the predictable eliminations, rather simplistic challenges and repetitive tropes such as Gwen attempting to befriend Courtney multiple times and Duncan trying to prove that he's still a "bad boy", which results in the episodes having wasted plotlines. Series creator Tom McGillis would later apologise to fans for the season, and admitted he regrets some of the things he included and did.

Videos
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Trivia

 * DeviantArt users JasperPie and Bloom-Tazza93 made a fan rewrite in order to fix the many issues of All-Stars.
 * In many non-Canadian countries, All-Stars is a standalone fifth season, while Pahkitew Island is the sixth.