LogFAQs > #963370597

Mewtwo59 posted...

The rumor is that Russell replaced Shane or Penner, and Ace was the alternate over either of them? That's got to be one of the more baffling casting choices I've seen.

The alternates know, especially on an All-Star season, that there's like a 99% chance that they're just going to turn around and go home, and so in this case they probably gave it to someone like Ace who'd be happy with a 1% chance to get to play again over a Penner or a Shane who would've been like "don't waste my time with that shit."

The exact order of events for the fifth male villain casting is as follows:
-Rob, Coach, Tyson, Randy and Penner as cast as the male villains pre-Samoa.
-Samoa starts and production immediately knows that no matter what happens they are going to want Russell back. Of the five, they cut Penner. My guess is that because Rob represents the classic/golden age era while Coach, Randy and Tyson are all from the three most recent seasons, so Penner gets the boot for falling in the middle.
-As Samoa goes on, production begins to question whether Russell would want to immediately play again with very little break, especially considering how hard he's going at it. Rather than call Penner back, they cast Shane, who had been on the shortlist for Micronesia but was one of the last cuts when they changed it from a full All-Star cast to Fans vs. Favorites.
-Samoa wraps up, they ask Russell if he wants to play HvV and are legitimately surprised when he accepts, so they tell Shane sorry.