I have done too many write-ups to let this die, so I'm gonna reboot the topic a second time! And this time, we're gonna get everything reposted nice and proper!
Underleveled posted...
That's right, we're going to be counting down all 76 contestants/teams from Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, Amazing Race 30, Celebrity Big Brother 1, Survivor: Ghost Island, and Big Brother 20.
For those who followed when we ranked Survivor winners together about a year and a half ago, Inviso posted his list in order from worst-to-first, while I posted my own ranking/write-up for each winner in his order. (EG: Inviso - 34. Mike Holloway; darkx - 31. Mike Holloway; Inviso - 33. Judson "Fabio" Birza; darkx - 32. Judson "Fabio" Birza; etc.) This time we'll be doing it the other way - I'll be posting my list in order, and Inviso will follow up each write-up with his own thoughts on each contestant.
As of the posting of this topic, Big Brother 20 still has one episode left to air later this evening. My first ranking will be posted shortly after that finale wraps up.
Ben Driebergen (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 1st place) Chrissy Hofbeck (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 2nd place) Ryan Ulrich (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 3rd place) Devon Pinto (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 4th place) Mike Zahalsy (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 5th place) Ashley Nolan (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 6th place) Lauren Rimmer (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 7th place) Joe Mena (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 8th place) John Paul "J.P." Hilsabeck (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 9th place) Cole Medders (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 10th place) Desi Williams (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 11th place) Jessica Johnston (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 12th place) Ali Elliott (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 13th place) Roark Luskin (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 14th place) Alan Ball (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 15th place) Patrick Bolton (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 16th place) Simone Nguyen (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 17th place) Katrina Radke (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 18th place)
Cody & Jessica (Amazing Race 30, 1st place) Henry & Evan (Amazing Race 30, 2nd place) Kristin & Jen (Amazing Race 30, 3rd place) Alex & Conor (Amazing Race 30, 4th place) Lucas & Brittany (Amazing Race 30, 5th place) Eric & Daniel (Amazing Race 30, 6th place) Trevor & Chris (Amazing Race 30, 7th place) Joey & Tim (Amazing Race 30, 8th place) Cedric & Shawn (Amazing Race 30, 9th place) April & Sarah (Amazing Race 30, 10th place) Dessie & Kayla (Amazing Race 30, 11th place)
Marissa Jaret Winokur (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 1st place) Ross Mathews (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 2nd place) Ariadna Gutierrez (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 3rd place) Mark McGrath (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 4th place) Omarosa Manigault (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 5th place) James Maslow (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 6th place) Brandi Glanville (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 7th place) Metta World Peace (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 8th place) Shannon Elizabeth (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 9th place) Keshia Knight Pulliam (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 10th place) Chuck Liddell (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 11th place)
Wendell Holland (Survivor: Ghost Island, 1st place) Domenick Abbate (Survivor: Ghost Island, 2nd place) Laurel Johnson (Survivor: Ghost Island, 3rd place) Angela Perkins (Survivor: Ghost Island, 4th place) Donathan Hurley (Survivor: Ghost Island, 5th place) Sebastian Noel (Survivor: Ghost Island, 6th place) Kellyn Bechtold (Survivor: Ghost Island, 7th place) Chelsea Townsend (Survivor: Ghost Island, 8th place) Michael Yerger (Survivor: Ghost Island, 9th place) Jenna Bowman (Survivor: Ghost Island, 10th place) Desiree Afuye (Survivor: Ghost Island, 11th place) Libby Vincek (Survivor: Ghost Island, 12th place) Chris Noble (Survivor: Ghost Island, 13th place) Bradley Kleihege (Survivor: Ghost Island, 14th place) James Lim (Survivor: Ghost Island, 15th place) Stephanie Johnson (Survivor: Ghost Island, 16th place) Brendan Shapiro (Survivor: Ghost Island, 17th place) Morgan Ricke (Survivor: Ghost Island, 18th place) Jacob Derwin (Survivor: Ghost Island, 19th place) Stephanie Gonzalez (Survivor: Ghost Island, 20th place)
76. Joseph "JC" Mounduix (Big Brother 20, 3rd place)
You know, when I do these things, I generally try as hard as I can to rank everyone solely by what I see on TV. After all, I watch TV to be entertained, I should rank these people based on how well they entertained me, right? I mean, I'm not going to start hating Shawshank Redemption because of the sexual misconduct allegations against Morgan Freeman, am I? This is why people like John Rocker and Michael Skupin are more or less unaffected in my rankings on their seasons by their real-world activities. Part of me judging my rankings for Big Brother is that I don't watch the live feeds, so my opinion of these people is based entirely on the TV edit. As such, I initially had JC a bit higher on this list, because he WAS entertaining television. He thought he was this evil genius mastermind who actually had little more knowledge of what was really going on than FOUTTE. He was energetic in challenges and gave me the satisfaction of seeing Tyler/Angela/Kaycee not make it to the final 3 as a unit.
But the more I thought about it, the more I felt gross focusing on those things with this guy, the more I felt gross having him above people that I hated on television but are probably remotely decent human beings, and the more I thought it was fair to judge JC on the live feed reports despite not having seen them with my own eyes. Because this is something much more serious than your generic live feed hi-jinx and frankly should have been shown on the edit, especially in light of current events. And I'm not even talking about the race stuff with Bayleigh that was shown in the edit, because first, I don't think he necessarily used the word in a derogatory manner, and second, his lapse in judgement in using the word at all probably had something to do with a cultural disconnect.
But no cultural disconnect can explain or excuse repeatedly ignoring warnings not to sexually assault other Houseguests. If it were just the ice cream scooper incident and on that one occasion what started out as just general silliness went to far and he admitted and regretted it, then maybe that could be overlooked. Hell it happened on TV with Frank in BB18, and as soon as he realized he crossed the line he clearly felt terrible, apologized, and never did it again. Yet that seemed more necessary to show on TV than JC's stuff.
But yeah obviously it didn't stop there. Asking Rachel if she was trans was pretty bad, but again, there could have been some cultural disconnect there, especially considering JC is himself a member of the LGBT community, he could be used to people being really open with him about their orientation and just legitimately doesn't get people being private about it. But there's no way he doesn't get that he's not supposed to kiss Tyler while the latter is sound asleep. Or that if he accidentally opens the bathroom door on Haleigh he is supposed to close it instead of make her ask him repeatedly to close it. These are all things JC did that didn't come out on the edit because.....?
Honestly, compare this to what Jeff Varner did on Survivor last year. It was a despicable thing for sure. But it was something that he did out of desperation and possibly even in a compromised state of mind, and he immediately realized the ramifications of what he said and obviously felt remorse. And while his genuine remorse does redeem his character a bit (character meaning who he is as a person, not a character as I often refer to contestants in their TV edit), it doesn't excuse the action and that tribal council still needed to be shown. And yet someone like JC who was repeatedly inappropriate with other Houseguests and clearly never learned or cared got a free pass and a gigantic applause when he went out into the crowd upon his eviction. And I can't blame the general audience for liking him, assuming they don't watch the live feeds or read RTV-specific internet sites, because there's really no way they could have known just watching the show on TV. So in a way this is still judging JC based on the edit - just what they deliberately chose not to show.
So yeah, JC Mounduix is a person with 0 respect for privacy or boundaries with other people and CBS was irresponsible in not showing this on TV. Even though all of the people involved said that they did not feel violated by him (the fact that I even have to type that fucking sentence makes me shudder), it's pretty obvious that if he does this in the BB house with cameras all over him, he does it in the real world too. And that's an assumption I don't feel guilty about making, and a ranking I don't feel guilty about breaking my usual guidelines for. Because at the end of the day, these other people that I have down low pissed me off on TV, but this guy is most likely a legitimate monster.
I feel like Big Brother (especially since the show transitioned to 16 players with multiple return opportunities) has a much greater tendency to produce absolutely abhorrent players in rankings like this. Like, youd have to go back SEVERAL years to the combination of amazing BB17 and awful Worlds Apart before I could genuinely consider a player/team from outside of Big Brother to be the worst of the year. Also, I USED to include Celebrity Apprentice in rankings like these, so some of THOSE players mightve ranked lower, but this particular list is all about CBS, so Big Brother doesnt have an easy fall guy for abysmal personalities.
Ultimately, the problem seems to be twofold when it comes to Big Brother. First, were subjected to 24/7 (give or take) feeds of the players, so theres no hiding their worst qualities. And if said qualities ARE hidden, it becomes more frustrating to watch because we KNOW production is lying to us. And second, unlike Survivor, Big Brother is so much longer of a show. Its up to 99 days at this point in the franchise, and there are at least three episodes every week. So its very easy to get burned out and frustrated with players (see point one.)
Now, thats two paragraphs of exposition, so its time to delve into what I consider JC Mounduix to be CBS worst player of Fiscal Year 2018. Ultimately, while I would say my bottom eight were actively ruinous to their respective seasons, JC is the only one that I think was awful from a HUMAN perspective, as opposed to JUST damaging from a television perspective. Really, there are two halves to JCs awful personality, so Im gonna have to discuss them separatelybut Im sure there will be some crossover.
First and foremost, Ill cover the disgusting aspects of JCs personality, because Im sure people will be more inclined to agree with me there. Within the first week (two weeks?) of the game, it was already being reported that JC was going around and sticking an ice cream scooper into peoples genitals, and really, he only got worse from there. He refused to listen to the rules when being given explicit instructions by production, but because they never punished him, it kinda made production look like a joke. JC also had instances of openly using the N-word, and while Bayleighs response wasnt great, the show tried to portray JC sympathetically, when in reality, he scrambled back to his buddies and showed no remorse for his use of the word.
JC molested Tyler while he was sleeping, which plays into another nasty little aspect of his personality: JC was the equivalent of one of THOSE GIRLS that we see FAR too frequently to enjoy. You know who I mean: your Nicole Franzels, your Christine Brechts, your BB12 Rachel Reillys. Theyre the girls that need to be the sole center of attention, and work to take out any and all other females in order to wind up with a group of guys that dont really care about them. Yeah, JC got super jealous of Kaitlyn for being close with Tyler and Faysal, jealous of Haleigh for being close with Faysal, and jealous of Angela for being close with Tyler. Apparently all the attractive alpha males needed to ONLY care about JC, because JC was crushing on all of them.
What makes JC worse than usual though, is the way production handled him with kid gloves on the edited show. You KNOW he was cast to fill multiple quotas at once: gay, Hispanic, short. And since Big Brother LOVES casting their flamboyant gay men, they knew they could count on JC to be a big personality. Combine that with his difficult-to-understand accent, and CBS had all the footage they needed to shove at least ONE wacky JC segment into every single episode. If I was watching the show without ANY idea of behind-the-scenes stuff (or lacking the ability to think critically about gameplay), I would think JC was just some adorable imp brightening up my day.
This brings me to the second aspect of JC that I honestly hate more than his awful actions. With the advent of longer seasons, Big Brother has become more and more about BIG alliances formed EARLY in the game, sticking together, and steamrolling all opposition. For me, this sort of gameplay tends to be boring, because if youre able to steamroll, then youre usually calm, and rational, and devoid of emotions. Needless to say, Level 6 will not do well on this ranking for me. But while there are times when my ire is directed at the dominant alliances themselves (for example, I think BB19 Paul is quite possibly the WORST person to ever appear on Big Brother), its very easy for me to find fault with the hangers-on who enable them for little benefit. This is the case with JC.
Now, for the first half of the season, I cant really fault JC for his gameplay. He played the middle, got out some threats, and held his ground when it came to choosing a target between Kaitlyn and Rockstar. BUT, JCs complete lack of comp skill meant that he REALLY needed other players to do the dirty work for him. And it was right around the first Scottie boot that I completely soured on JC. He definitely did some annoying shit early on (throwing hinky votes which further-weakened the ALREADY strategically weak FOUTTE side of the house), but Faysals HoH week takes the cake.
Basically, JCs strategy worked well because he was able to play the middle, and there was ZERO reason for anyone to waste an HoH week getting rid of him, because there was always an entire opposing side of the house to target first. But after Rockstars blindside, FOUTTE was already down in numbers by a 2-1 ratio, so it was the perfect opportunity to even things up while still riding the middle. Hell, JC was Faysals best friend in the house, and second-most trusted ally after Haleigh. He couldve gotten in Faysals ear to split up Angela/Kaycee and changed the whole course of the game.
What did JC do? He convinced Faysal to put up Scottie, his own ally, to further decimate FOUTTE and bolster Level 6. Level 6, the alliance that used JC, but pretty much put him at the bottom of their totem pole with Sam. And all the while, he gives these smug little DRs about being a mastermind and a puppet master that controls dumb puppet Faysal. I swear, I want to punch his face in whenever he scrunches it up into that cocky smirk. Needless to say, that was FOUTTEs last chance at a comeback, and we got a month of Scottie, Faysal, Scottie again, and Haleigh booted, before FINALLY Level 6 had to turn on their own, and they blindsided JC by targeting Brett.
Just to recap, JC thought he was a mastermind, thought he was running the show, was in fact enabling a boring alliance to steamroll, and then had the nerve to throw a tantrum when shit hit the fan during the double eviction. And then he survives over Sam to complete the humiliation. But at least we got that BB12 moment, right? Where Tyler/Kaycee/Angela tell the lone outsider theyve been aligned all game, and theres nothing he can go about it? Nope! After being utterly useless in comps ALL season, JC FINALLY wins HoH to guarantee his safety, ruining any chance at schadenfreude.
In fact, as of the writing of this write-up, his win ruins the endgame even harder, because instead of the finale being up-in-the-air as to which pairing make the final 2, we instead have it pretty locked down that JC is going out in third, which diminishes what could have at least been an exciting finale to cap off a boring season. Oh yeah, and fuck the little troll for acting like he was in the loop all season long. He got blindsided with the Brett boot, so he can get the fuck out any time now.
75. Ben Driebergen (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 1st place) Let me just get this out of the way before I go too deep into this write-up. I have the utmost respect and support for our servicemen and women past, present and future and hold nothing against Ben for being a former Marine or wanting that to be a part of his Survivor story and experience. In fact in the episode where Joe held Ben's Marine status over his head in an argument I thought Ben was 100% justified in going off the rails on Joe the way he did.
With that out of the way, Ben as a Survivor character is a completely different story. Early in the season I had nothing against him. I thought he seemed like a nice guy, but not especially interesting amidst all the colorful characters this season had to offer. But as the season went on he started to become this asshole who the producers constantly shoved down our throats, not as a villain, but as a hero, to the point where his edit in the last three episodes (including the fucking reunion) made him so completely irredeemable that it actually dragged what was up until that point a very solid, potentially top 10 season of Survivor into meh territory, and thats something that I cannot forgive. And that is the specific reason that he is at the bottom of this list.
I hate to say that a winner didn't deserve it, and even more so I hate to say that the producers rigged the game in favor of one castaway, but the final few rounds of this season seemed to work out SO perfectly for Ben just when he needed it most that it's hard to imagine that there wasn't a point where the producers decided they wanted this guy and his story to be the hero that America wanted to see win (despite the fact that at that point he had long since become an overbearing asshole and got even worse once things mysteriously began going his way). Case and point, Chrissy said in post-show interviews that the final idol he found was hidden in a spot that he frequented every morning just to sit and think, so there was a high chance that he was going to be the first to find it. Then the stupid final four "advantage" comes into play just when a big "favorite" needs something like that the most and screws the ACTUAL best player of the season out of a spot in the final three (and almost certainly a million dollars) that he completely worked for and deserved and would have gotten under the normal rules of the game that they were all expecting. So despite having been sitting at the bottom of the tribe since the final 7, waving idols in peoples' faces and insulting them, then crying when he thinks he's finally lost (oh hey that description kinda reminds me of one other Survivor contestant), on very little of his own merit and mostly by producer interference o wate i mean pure dumb luck, he gets to go to the final 3 with arguably the two least-respected players of the entire final 9 and win.
But Ben somehow manages to become even worse at the reunion, where literally the entire pre-final 3 cast except Lauren is ignored in favor of multiple extended montages of Ben like we've never seen before, and his Marine buddies coming up on stage to congratulate him and take up a ton of time. Because them shoving this jackass down our throats even more was somehow a better use of time than catching up with Jessica and Cole on their relationship and how it affected their games, or chatting with the ever-entertaining Joe. I usually love Survivor finale night, it's like a gigantic event to me. But this time it was just three hours of the entire Survivor staff jerking off a guy that I was already long-since tired of seeing and it made for a really, really sour ending and left a huge black mark on an otherwise solid season. So fuck Ben.
75. Ben Driebergen (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 1st Place)
Ben would not be this low if he hadnt won Survivor: HHH. Im not one of those people who typically goes crazy and disowns a season because the winner is unsatisfying (usually because an unsatisfying winner is typically the result of a bad, season-long edit), but Ben is that ONE case in 36 seasons where an awful winner actively taints a good season. Its not even that hes a bad person (thoughwell get to personality soon), its just that the means by which he won the season are SO unconventional and emblematic of the problems with modern Survivor that it sucks.
Basically, Ben started out strong on the Heroes Tribe, right in the middle of all the action with little reason to worry about his safety. Fine. Great, even. And then he got swapped into a 3-1-1 minority against the Healers, where he bonded with Lauren and bonded with Mike. Fine. Then he reconnected with Chrissy and formed the Hero/Hustler majority against the Healer monolith. And at the right moment, he flipped against the Ryan/Chrissy/JP trio to take out JP, then played the part of a similarly-betrayed Hero right alongside them until blindsiding Joe. All of that is fine. Good gameplay, I cant complain.
But after all that, Ben established himself as a huge threat, and his own allies realized that he was a danger to their games. So they decided to target him. Lucky for Ben, he had a hidden immunity idol that hed kept a secret from everyone. He played it and saved himself. And again, I will not complain about Bens game prior to the final six. But thats where things start to get bullshit. Ben saved himself at seven with an idol. Then he goes out and immediately finds a second idol at the final six and plays it before the votes are even cast. Starting to get annoying. THEN he goes out and conveniently finals a THIRD idol right by where he tends to sit and give his confessionals (marked with a dig here marking.) He plays THAT as well. Thats three rounds in a row where Ben saved himself by finding a magic idol. Not strategic gameplay, not winning an immunity challenge. Nope, finding an idol.
But at least idols expire at the final five, right? And when Ben loses the final four immunity challenge, the other players could finally eliminate a guy they correctly identified as a huge threat? Yeah no. The producers decided to throw in a new twist that the final four vote went to fire-making, and wouldnt you know it? Ben beats Devon, securing a place in the finals and ensuring he wins because he had the best underdog story imaginable among the final three. Likeeven with the idol bullshit, Ben going out in fourth wouldve given him a perfect fallen hero story arc, and it wouldve given a great vibe to a strong season. Instead, its like if Terry beat out Danielle at the end of Exile Island and won the season.
Speaking of being like Terry, while Ben seems like a great person in real life, and I respect him bringing awareness to PTSDhe was kind of a dick in the game. Once he solidified his power in the early merge, he became extremely overbearing in an unpleasant way. He talked down to Chrissy and Ashley and acted like they were stupid for not going along with the course of action HE wanted. And then he was a complete cocky prick when he found himself on the outs and kept saving himself solely via immunity idols. So yeah, that definitely tainted his win a little more than just the circumstances did. It was like by the end game, the producers needed to white wash him and paint the opposition as either incompetent or assholes, and thats not fun at all. And it seriously diminished my enjoyment of the season, so Ben ranks low for me.
74. Brett Robinson (Big Brother 20, 6th place) What good things can I say about Brett? Well he didnt molest anybody. He didnt singlehandedly ruin his season. So those things automatically save him from being in the bottom two. Um. He was kinda amusing in the Hide and Go Veto competition. Oh, and his blindside was beautiful and so well-deserved. So he provided me approximately 15 minutes of entertainment across 40 episodes. And thats about where the good stuff ends.
The short version is that I hated Brett because he was conceited and obnoxious, plain and simple. The long version is - Brett started the season by saying that he refuses to socialize with his co-workers because anyone besides him who works in cybersecurity must be a mouthbreathing DnD player. He proceeded to make this the MO of his entire character by constantly beating down Rockstar and Scottie, arguably the two nerdiest people of the season, while simultaneously bragging to the audience about being a cyber hacker. Oh did I say bragging? More like shouting at the top of his lungs in the DR as if everyone who watches Big Brother has a severe hearing impairment. It was extremely off-putting. His treatment of Rockstar was especially poor, as he not only took it upon himself to needlessly beat her down when he already had the upper hand over her, but also personally attack her at moments when she was literally not allowed to defend herself.
To make this all worse, Brett prided himself on being like this. He wanted to be portrayed this way, and judging by the fact that he finished in the top 3 for fan favorite, it seems like most of the audience like this type of character. Ive only seen three (four including CBB1) seasons of this show so far and if this is the type of character that the audience tends to enjoy it does NOT bode well for my future with this show. Regardless, this created a scenario where it was impossible to not dislike him in any individual episode. Even in episodes where I could tolerate him in certain scenes, like when he would calmly discuss a decent strategic move with Tyler or JC, or when he owned Hide and Go Veto with an admittedly excellent strategy and some pretty funny commentary, he would follow that up with shouting in the DR like a lunatic, usually about stuff we already knew, accompanied by a fake laugh that was pretty close to the most irritating sound Ive ever heard on television.
To sum it all up, one entertaining competition and a glorious exit were not enough to make up for the fact that Brett was an obnoxious try-hard and a mean-spirited asshole.
There are a lot of archetypes I hate in Survivor and Big Brother, and the next couple entries will be made up of those archetypes, but ultimately, I rank Brett here because he was the most overbearing of this upcoming trio. Now, I have to preface this by stating that I never watched Big Brother 2, nor have I watched Big Brother 7, and unlike Survivor, its difficult to go back and watch old seasons due to the length, and the lack of feed context. But the fact is, I feel like Dr. Will was super popular in Big Brother 2, and hes become such a legend in the years since, that casting loves going out of their way to try and find a next Doctor Will. And maybe if I watched BB2/7, I would hate Will. I mean, I already hate his surrogate in Mike Boogie. But I DEFINITELY hate the people casting selects to try and replicate his beloved status among the fans.
When I talk about Dr. Will clones, what Im referring to is the trend to find one or two players every season who tick a majority of the following boxes. Male. White. Straight. Cocky. Arrogant. Intelligent outside of the Big Brother house. Shouty in the Diary Room. Relatively irrelevant to the action of the season, yet still given narrator duties because despite casting going out of their way to find upwards of sixteen people that will make good television, THIS GUY is the most telegenic. On a related note, usually talks himself up as being more important than is reality. Prominent examples of this would be: Brian Hart (BB10), Matt Hoffman (BB12), Nick Uhas (BB15), Zach Rance (BB16), John McGuire (BB17), Paul Abrahamian (BB18). Note that not all of these guys are AWFUL, and in fact, sometimes theyre NEEDED in a painfully dull season. But they fill similar niches.
This is where Brett comes in, and hes probably the biggest offender of this archetype. Brett made the final six of BB20 as the bottom rung of a four-man alliance, yet throughout the season, he was constantly portrayed as this absolutely hilarious personality because he gave tryhard speeches during televised moments, and amped up his douchebag factor whenever he was in the Diary Room. This is a guy whose only REAL accomplishments in the game were A. winning a single veto competition, and B. convincing FOUTTE that he was a free agentonly to do absolutely nothing with this deception other than laugh at them behind their backs. For fucks sake, in a season with a theme of technology and the internet, he claimed he was a cyber security expert and naturally got to give a ton of tryhard Diary Rooms. He sells SOFTWARE for fucks sake.
And Im not kidding when I say tryhard, because there were two very different Bretts in this season. Whenever he was just chatting with people and going about his normal routine, he was perfectly calm and, dare I say it, charming. THATS the guy who was SO convincing that Scottie came out of a conversation with him assured that Brett needed to go home out of sheer respect for his charisma. Hell, like I mentioned above, he managed to convince FOUTTE (a brain trust, I know) that he was a lone wolf on their side despite them nominating him twice and coming within one vote of evicting him twice. Yet the SECOND it came time for a Diary Room session, a nomination ceremony, a veto meeting, or a live eviction (or hell, his arrival at the jury house), he turns the volume up and starts playing a character.
I dont WANT to watch some douchebag put on a fake persona to come across as an even BIGGER douchebag. I want to watch REAL people with REAL emotions, because Im not an easily-amused casual that laughs when someone yells in the Diary Room. Rockstars meltdown was great because ROCKSTAR had an emotional response, not because Brett constantly stood there and calmly told her to own it. Again, Brett had two settings: in a televised setting, he acted loud and flashy and fake, and in a non-televised setting, he became calm and boring. Thats an awful combination of personalities.
Brett also sucked for a lot of the reasons I mentioned in my JC write-up. Yes, he was part of the Level 6 core (because he was young and attractive and privileged and white, lets not get it twisted). He survived the block twice over Winston and Rachel because they were interesting and he was calm and boring. Calm and boring is smarter gameplay, so of course Level 6 kept him. But then Brett started branching out and usurping Tylers position as fake swing voteronly to let the entire other side of the house get decimated while he remained as guy who was distant from our alliance while getting kinda friendly with the jury. Needless to say, since he couldnt win most competitions to save his life, he got blindsided first from his alliance, but he lasted so long that it almost wasnt even satisfying. Brett was just such an unbearable and draining personality on the show, and he played a BIG part in my hatred for the season.
73. Shannon Elizabeth (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 9th place) Shannon continues the trend of not being dead last by being slightly less awful than the person below her, yet in many other years could have been a great candidate for the bottom spot. Shannon was an absolute nightmare to watch during her time on Celebrity Big Brother. First off, she turned the whole first week into a gender war, and to me there's no easier way to make me hate a season than having it become a gender war. Omarosa may have sparked the flame, but Shannon was the one who did everything she could to keep it going. Until she didn't want to anymore because of a conversation that Keshia and Chuck had and "we still gotta take out da boys but wimenz alliance is over." So she spent the whole first week being an obnoxious gamebot who had the same three confessionals about needing to win and needing to take out the guys over and over again.
In the second cycle she was honestly not THAT bad. She was a little more toned down, a little less dominant, and going after Omarosa, which led to some pretty amazing moments from both ladies, PLUS she was on the outs for the first time and didn't even know it, and for a brief moment I thought that maybe Shannon was going to make a turnaround and become one of the good characters of the season.
Then the third cycle happens. Shannon is still in the game but on the outs due to some unusual circumstances, but even though the whole house is making it blatantly obvious that they want her out she cant see it, so we are once again treated to the bland narrator "I feel good about my alliance" confessional over and over again. Until she finally realizes she's going up on the block, and all of a sudden this crazy competitive player starts crying and sulking and painting herself as the victim when she painted the target right on her own back. Despite SIX EPISODES of her "I feel good about my alliance" confessional, she says how "everyone was against me from day 1
And then the boot episode happens, and much like the finale for Ben, Shannon's boot episode makes her totally irredeemable for me. It starts out by her throwing a pity party where she just cries to the people who already want her gone. She actually says that she will never watch Big Brother again if she gets evicted even though shes such a superfan. And from there it becomes two hours of the Shannon Going Away Party Show. And not one of the fun ones that leads up to a nice blindside either. It was a really unpleasant episode of everybody but Metta just being mean about the whole thing.
You know, I could ALMOST forgive this if this were somebody that wasn't there to play the game, but Shannon was there to play the game and she was playing it hard until she found out she was stuck in a corner. And rather than try to scratch and claw her way out, she gave up and pinned the blame on everyone but herself. It was a horrible two hour episode that was a horrible end to a horrible character.
28. Shannon Elizabeth (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 9th Place)
Had she lasted longer in the season, Shannon had the potential to be the kind of obnoxiously dominant player Id HATE (although if she got super paranoid like fellow NBC Heads-Up Poker Tournament Semi-Finalist Vanessa Rousso, its possible she couldve been enjoyable in her dominance.) Well never know though, because Shannon wound up the third boot of Celebrity Big Brother, and had quite an amazing story arc in that short period of time.
For starters, Shannon quickly formed an all-female alliance when the initial cast contained six women and five men. But then when Omarosa sat out of the HoH competition and the other four women dropped from said comp, that meant Shannon had to stick her neck out to save the girls. And she did. Shannon won the first HoH. This didnt matter, since Keshia got the twist that allowed her to take over Shannons HoH reign, but still, a female won and the girls got Chuck and James on the block. It shouldve been a simple week to take out a physical threat in James, and keep the womens alliance secure.
Yeah, about thatShannon was a paranoid mess. She won HoH and won veto, opting not to use it while putting a massive comp beast target on her back. And then when Omarosa/Keshia tried working with Chuck, Shannon got paranoid and spent like, 24 hours running around the house and flipping the vote through sheer force of well. It was extremely unnecessary, and was a classic example of the moves for moves sake style of gameplay that I hate.
However, immediately after Chucks eviction, rather than go after obvious outsiders in Keshia and Omarosa, Ross decided that Shannon was too big of a threat and needed to go. Yeah, you live by the unnecessary big move? You die by the unnecessary big move, Shannon. However, Keshias breast feeding meltdown spared Shannon, and the wannabe mastermind survived round two without even really being aware of her shaky position in the game.
Round three thoughthat was a complete mess. Ariadna won HoH and rather than go for a backdoor, she just straight-up put Shannon and James on the block together. And Shannon spent the rest of the week melting the fuck down and hating life and especially hating every person in the house that ruined her Big Brother experience. I LOVED it, because not only was it karma for Chuck, but it also turned her into a likable underdog against Ross and his mastermind bullshit. Sure, Shannon got evicted unanimously, but at least she got the last word. She led the charge to deny Ross validation by pushing the jury to vote for Marissa out of sheer force of will. And I LOVED it. That level of bitterness after only a couple weeks was wonderful to watch, and THAT is how you do a mastermind with personality, Big Brother. Take fucking notes.
72. Tyler Crispen (Big Brother 20, 2nd place) I initially had one more person below Tyler above Shannon, but when I went to go do their write-ups I had to find a way to justify putting Tyler above them and I couldnt come up with one, so I swapped them. Doesnt matter too much, theyll be next anyway. And honestly, just a little less praise for Tyler is never a bad thing.
So this is going to be one of the more unique write-ups on the list, as well as one of the longest because Im going to refer almost entirely back to a comparison I made earlier in the season of Tyler to a particular former Survivor contestant. Thats right, I actually had the balls to compare Tyler to Russell Hantz, and needless to say I got a LOT of criticism for that. And with the season finally over, not only do I stand by what I said, but I think the comparison has even MORE weight behind it. While its true that Tyler wasnt a proudly overbearing shithead like Russell was, everything else about his gameplay, edit, bits of personality, and even the hype surrounding him bears an uncanny resemblance to Russell.
First, gameplay. Much like Russell, Tyler doesnt understand the most fundamental aspect of his game - the social element. In Russells case, he thought that having an alliance that did what he said was playing a good social game. In Tylers case, he thought that being nice (though Ill argue this point in a bit) and making empty promises of final 2 to more than half of the jury was playing a good social game. Its not. It pisses people off and makes them question everything you said. Furthermore, Tyler admitted to intentionally making enemies on the jury to make himself seem like less of a threat. Newsflash - having enemies on the jury, intentional or not, doesnt make you SEEM like less of a threat, it MAKES you less of a threat. Russell had the same problem. He thought he could be a douchebag to people on their way out the door and have them overlook that at the end. To the surprise of literally nobody else in the world, they didnt.
Second, edit and personality. Like Russell, Tyler got a rather unique edit in the beginning because it was very clear CBS was hyping him up to be the breakout star of the season. So it was made to look like he had a small alliance against 10 other people and had to work to gain the majority, and managed to turn a 6-10 minority on day 1 into a 9-5 majority by the second eviction. But once he had the numbers, his once lively, intriguing confessionals became quite monotone and turned into slight variations on three generic ones - Level 6 has the power this week so were good. I have to convince _____ to put up their own allies so that Level 6 doesnt lose a member this week. and I need to make a final 2 deal with _____ so they will never vote me out. with the occasional Angela is hot. I once again refer back to Russell Hantz and his 100+ confessionals that were just variations on a few themes. It was not only very gamebotty but as the season progressed and it became more and more clear that FOUTTE was not going to mount an epic comeback, it got cockier and cockier (sound familiar), and some of the nastier aspects of his personality started to come out, like with Bayleigh (sound familiar) and really just made for an all around frustrating viewing experience.
Third, the hype. As I said before, it was VERY clear that CBS was hyping up Tyler to be the breakout star of the season, just as they were doing for Russell in Samoa. And it worked. Just like Russell, Tyler won the fan favorite in a vote that was never in question, and just like Russell, the cries of bitter jury by the fanbase were almost immediate. And Im going to make a bold call right now, just like Russell, were not nearly done with Tyler. Hes going to be CBSs new baby. Within the next two years, we will see Tyler either return to BB (as a player, just to make that clear since were getting all these visits lately), and/or be cross-cast to Survivor or TAR. Hes way too popular for them to just abandon ship like that. And lets be real, they probably believe he was cheated out of a win too.
Just to wrap up, while Tyler wasnt horrendous as a personality (despite some increasing arrogance that was honestly not quite as bad and frankly more justified than the arrogance displayed by the rest of his alliance), his biggest crime was making BB20 an extremely frustrating season to watch without being nearly entertaining or original enough to make up for it.
Yeah, Im happy that he got hit with a bitter jury. Tyler seems like a perfectly nice and rational guy, but he is the absolute WORST kind of player for making an entertaining season of reality television (I say, having already ranked three other BB20 cast members lower than Tyler.) I have a lot of almost-disjointed thoughts with regards to Tyler, so Im gonna try to keep this write-up semi-coherent, but that might prove difficult. Basically, Im gonna be rattling off a bunch of reasons why Tyler annoyed me, and sometimes they will coalesce into a larger picture.
First things first, I hate the fact that Tyler was head and shoulders the star of the season. This isnt like Survivor, where a whole season is filmed and the editors can craft a narrative and sometimes choose to focus on one character over another. No, Tyler was literally the star of an ONGOING season from week fucking one, and even if he was interesting, his shtick got old by the end of the first month. Yes, he had a ton of power and control in the house, but there were fifteen other people playing the game. The editors could afford to tell a better story.
Tyler finished the season with 303 Diary Rooms. The ONLY person who he did not have at least DOUBLE the Diary Rooms of was HALEIGH, who finished with 190, still a full 113 Diary Rooms shorter than Tyler. And for as much as I bash Brett for being fake, at least I can UNDERSTAND people liking his Diary Room sessions; hes loud and brash and could be considered funny by other people. Tyler thoughhe was just so straight-forward almost every time we heard him talk, and he had this mellow surfer affect to his voice. It doesnt help that FAR too much of his Diary Room content was him talking about playing both sides, or having a one-sided conversation where he sarcastically tells members of FOUTTE that sure Im on your side before revealing to the audience Im not actually on their side. #chocker.
Additionally, somebody posted an edgic chart for the season and Tylers edgic is just a long bar of toneless CPs with a few mixed-tone CPs towards the endgame. Thats awful. Like, Kaycee or Angela had awful edgic too, with LONG stretches of irrelevance, but Ill take irrelevance over the player getting pushed all season long as the main character. Jack Shepard was the main character of LOST, but he sure as shit wasnt one of the best, because he was just such a flat personality, with occasional bursts of intense shouting. Thats how I feel about Tyler. Hes the Jack Shepard of Big Brother 20.
Now, all of that speaks solely to Tylers EDIT, but there are other reasons to dislike him. Strategically, I will admit he is a decent player. He is naturally charming and was able to come off as disarming, so people trusted him. And in the early weeks of the game, he was able to float in the middle of the house and I give him a ton of credit for FOUTTEs destruction. Sure, they were incompetent in their own right, but his insistence on blindsiding them, even during the Winston/Rachel weeks, made it so that alliance could never really solidify the way Level 6 did. His manipulation of Kaitlyn to take out Swaggy only made Level 6 THAT much stronger.
However, while I can admit that Tyler played a strong game early on, I hate the impact he had on the season. Yeah, the first month was great, but Tylers influence made the season so lopsided that once FOUTTE inevitably crumbled, it was just six straight weeks of watching the same alliance get picked off again and again and again, in large part because of the disparity in cohesion between the two alliances. And because Tyler was the figurehead, he got to claim credit EVERY time and got to give the Were ahead, but Level 6 needs to win this HoH to control the house this week Diary Room. Its boring, and everyone who talks about how he made so many moveshe really only made two moves: flipping Kaitlyn weeks 1 and 2, and blindsiding Brett (in what was honestly poor social play on his part.) Everything else was just stick with Level 6, make final two deals with people and thats it.
Im not gonna bash Tangela in this write-up because honestly? I dont really care. I dislike them both, but I dont dislike them as a couple. If anything, the relationship humanized Angela, and gave Tyler content beyond just constant gameplay Diary Rooms. Plus, I think the showmance is a part of what ultimately killed Tylers game, because he got sloppy and went from controlling everything, to letting Angela have more sway in his decisions. He needed her on the jury a little earlier to advocate for him, so keeping her to the final four did him no favors. That being said, Tangela was definitely the least interesting of the seasons three major showmances though, Ill say that much negative about them.
I dont think I have anything else to say about Tylers time in the house, so Im gonna close with the most actively-annoying aspect of Tyler for me: his fans. Its no secret that I was rooting for FOUTTE this season. Im aware and acknowledge that most (if not all) of them were awful people, but they were FAR more interesting than any member of Level 6. Yet ALL. SEASON. LONG. Tylers fans were utterly unbearable. The guy won the second power app and the AFP prize, so he was far and away the most popular player of BB20, which is fine. I mean, I loved Cody and Victor and DonnyIm not averse to rooting for the fan favorite. But this was different. This was overwhelming love and support for the overwhelming overdog of the season, whichwas awful to deal with.
Look at previous fan favorites: Cody stood up to the dominant alliance. He wasnt an amazing player and made some definite mistakes, and people recognized that while still loving him. Same deal with Victor; he got evicted three times and came back twice. Its hard to argue hes a great player. James Huling was DEFINITELY not a great player in BB17, and Donny was just a likable dude in BB16. Youd have to go back to Jeff Schroeders second fan favorite win in BB13 before you find another overdog player that the fans just coalesced behind. And wouldnt you know itfans were horrible in defending Jeff, in spite of some of the worst aspects of his personality on display. This is what happened with Tyler.
From minute one of the season, Tyler was infallible to his fans. Everything he did and every move he made was amazing, and he was the best player ever, and they crowned him on the same tier as Will/Dan/Derrick even if he got evicted due to Haleighs bullshit twist (I know it was legitimately bullshit, but I sarcastically quote it because those same people calling it bullshit during Angelas HoH week then LOVED when it got Rockstar evicted a week later.)
But worse was the fact that Tyler was SO beloved that it tainted the rest of the season. No one formed organic opinions. Sam was the fan favorite for the first month until right around the time when she was kind of a bitch during her HoH week, at which point Tyler took over for the rest of the season. But the week of Haleighs HoH, Sam felt betrayed by Tyler, in large part because she was closer to FOUTTE than the remaining majority of Level 6, so she talked about flipping and wanting to go against Tyler (Tyler who, as was pointed out, was a massive threat playing an amazing game.) The SECOND Sam turned against Tyler, her popularity PLUMMETTED, and she didnt even make top three for the fan favorite award as a result.
This sort of thing happened again and again all season. Flawed players (ice bitch Angela or active sexual assault aficionado JC) were given a pass and beloved by the fans for their close relationship with Tyler, while Haleigh (perhaps the least offensive personality among FOUTTE) was actively demonized because she had the audacity to put him on the block one time. Even Kaycee, when it became clear that she was a real threat to Tylers win, suddenly started receiving a TON of hate. She starts winning comps and continues to stay loyal to Tyler and being completely inoffensive from a fan perspective, but merely standing up as a rival to Tyler made her an enemy.
That whole fan attitude was fucking annoying, and it happened ALL season, to the point where you couldnt criticize Tylers game without getting taunted. For fucks sake, there were arguments being made that: Kaycee is just Cody if she takes Tyler to the end, but if Tyler takes Kaycee, its because hes so good and he wants to beat the better player. It was like he could do no wrong, and of COURSE him losing is an affront to God Himself, and the whole jury format needs to be changed (to be fair, the final episode is always awful nowadays.) All that fuss over a boring, nice guy. And we had to deal with 99 days of that crap. No thanks.
71. Kaycee Clark (Big Brother 20, 1st place) So let me start with the good stuff about Kaycee, because despite her low placement on the list, I can say some good things for her. Well, for the first 6 weeks or so she was the nicest and least-try-hard member of Level 6, which actually says more about how awful that whole alliance was as opposed to her being really that great, because she was actually pretty boring and irrelevant. But Ill take boring and irrelevant over what the rest of them were. And Kaycee saved the day in the end by stealing the win from Tyler at the last second and not letting that kind of gameplay get rewarded. But neither of those things are all that great.
So now the bad stuff. For most of the second half of the season, Kaycee was almost as bad as Brett in the obnoxious try-hard department. I say almost because first off, her voice didnt make my ears bleed, and second, she was actually winning competitions and becoming a pretty crucial player, so her cockiness was at least somewhat justified. But I dont think a single episode went by in those Bayleigh-through-Sam weeks that didnt have at least one moment that made me go God I hate Kaycee. Aside from the diary room shouting, she also started to become very mean-spirited and hypocritical towards the other side of the house. She loved making false accusations of people being the hacker, and yet when she was legitimately the hacker she took any (correct) suspicions of her being it as personal attacks and responded with hostility. She was also extremely aggressive with Scottie when Brett was trying to take the blame for the rogue vote against her, and while this was mostly because Brett was giving one of the worst acting performances Ive ever seen and she had to make up for it in some way, she was being WAY too harsh on a guy who didnt deserve it and already had high anxiety as it was.
One more thing that got REALLY annoying about Kaycee as the season progressed was how two-faced she was. Shed constantly tell people how sorry she was that she had to put them on the block, or how it was a tough choice not to use the Veto, or that she really liked them and sympathized with them, and then go into the diary room and go PSYCH! I DONT FEEL BAD! which we already knew. She very much took a how dare you attitude to FOUTTE being happy or confident about anything, while CONSTANTLY being, during that time, the most stuck-up member of Level 6. She just came across as very standoffish and mean-spirited and it rubbed me the wrong way such that I was definitely not happy for her that she won, just happy that Tyler lost.
I hated Level 6. This isnt a big secret. Yet due to a combination of their boring, competent gameplay, and FOUTTEs emotional, incompetent gameplay, Level 6 dominated the season and eliminated everyone I actually cared about. So in a way, my feelings towards Kaycee are a lot like my feelings towards Josh in BB19: in another season, Id probably be annoyed by herbut in conjunction with the awful alliance she was part of, she was the best of a bad bunch.
Really though, my relative enjoyment of Kaycee is the result of my utter disdain for Tyler. Kaycee was, by all accounts, the anti-Tyler. Tyler was front-and-center as the star of the season from week 1; Kaycee was forgettable and in the background until the week she won the hacker competition. Tyler insisted on making himself the focal point of all strategy; Kaycee went with the flow, won vetoes and HoHs at the right time, and just stayed friendly with everyone while not getting their hopes up. Tyler was worshipped as a god by the fanbase; Kaycee was called furniture until Derrick called her the player to beat, then all the Tyler fans got pissy and started outright hating her for potentially (and then ACTUALLY) robbing their fan favorite.
Ultimately, I just enjoyed Kaycee by default, as she gave me someone to root for once FOUTTE was decimated, and it became clear that Sam stood zero chance of making the endgame. She wasnt the best character by any means (there was definitely some of the arrogance evident in the rest of Level 6), but she was tolerable.
70. Bradley Kleihege (Survivor: Ghost Island, 14th place) Aka the most annoying last name to spell ever.
You know, for all the hate Ghost Island gets (which is totally warranted, what a horrendously shit-tier season and lately thats really saying something), I think Bradley is actually underhated. The first half of Ghost Island was not THAT bad. There was some pretty decent stuff - Jacob being awkwardly awful, the Morgan blindside, Michael being a leader to the Malolo minority, the emotional stuff with Stephanie Johnson, and of course, the incredible Chris/Domenick rivalry. I actually thought it was shaping up to be a solid mid-tier season. But among it all was this little annoying, lazy, stuck-up kid named Bradley mucking up my television show.
In the early episodes, Bradley was shown to be lazy around camp and just a little bit arrogant while not actually really being involved in the episodes due to being on the winning tribe. While this UTRN is one of the worst types of negative edits to get aside from maybe just being a straight-up shit-tier human being, it can often foreshadow a Drew Christy-esque departure (and in fact, that was Drew Christys edit in the first few episodes of San Juan del Sur as well), so even though I disliked Bradley I remained cautiously optimistic. But then post-swap he ended up in the majority on the new Malolo tribe, and unfortunately because Malolo sucked this meant he was going to tribal council more often than not, where in addition to being lazy and whiny around camp, he decided to be stuck-up and rub it in the faces of the people obviously going home. Other than a really on-point voting confessional from Stephanie, this added NOTHING of value to the season and instead just made me annoyed with a season that, at the time, I was enjoying. Of course it would go way downhill later on, but thats a story for later.
This was just so bad that I couldnt even appreciate his boot episode. He was just being, in Domenicks words, a nasty son of a bitch to Donathan for no reason and I couldnt find any enjoyment out of the Roger Sexton-esque farewell episode, nor could I appreciate Bradley as an early boot villain because he had already long overstayed his welcome. And yet I firmly believe that had he stuck around even longer than he did, I would have put him at 73 just above Brett. Considering he wasnt even around for the shittiest parts of Ghost Island, I have to believe he would have made them even more unbearable.
63. Bradley Kleihege (Survivor: Ghost Island, 14th Place)
Bradley used to be my most hated Ghost Island cast member (really, the list has shifted a lot), but its hard for me to really kick up a fuss about an annoying pre-merge boot when the season was SO dull and SO dry, and Bradley at least had a story arc. I think if Bradley went out in episode four, I mightve even loved him as a character. He had all the makings of a quality villain. Arrogant, obnoxious, adversarial to nicer characters, and him getting idoled by Michael wouldve been a perfect downfall.
Instead, we have him shittalking Malolo beach for several episodes, taking advantage of a stupidly-early swap in which he wound up in the majority, and then he avoids the idol, allowing for several episodes of picking off the better half of the pretty alliance on NuMalolo. Then we get a second swap and he FINALLY gets blindsided because Chelsea didnt like the control he had over the game. But even THAT wasnt enjoyable because it was several episodes too late, and the editors used the boot to build up Domenicks story over Chelseas. So really, Bradley was just this minor irritant who thankfully got booted early. Thats all.
69. Angela Rummans (Big Brother 20, 4th place) For a long part of the season I thought I was going to have Angela in my bottom 5. While she managed to escape that, shes still very low. The biggest problem with Angela for the majority of the season was that she was, in her own admitted words, a spoiled selfish bitch. She came into the season as someone who is used to getting what she wants, and continued to get what she wanted in the house, and wasnt shy about letting everyone know that. This was especially annoying in confessionals, when she would just talk about how happy she was that she was getting her way, or in her goodbye messages, when she would just absolutely rip into people for no valid reason. The worst one of all was Rachel, who was her best friend up until like, the day before she was voted out. And despite the fact that everything Rachel said to Angela was true, Angela tore Rachel a new one like she had absolutely no regard whatsoever for her feelings. And this was Angelas story pretty much up until Hayleigh was voted out. Not only was it grating to watch, but it also made her seem like just a horrible person.
So what made me ease up on her just a little bit? Well the first was the revelation of her backstory. I can totally understand how someone who was forced into competing at such a young age might turn out like that, especially if they felt they lost something of their childhood because of it. Second, her flirty scenes with Tyler were actually kind of adorable. Almost made me forget everything else she was doing. Third, she gave me the satisfaction of one of the most glorious blindsides ever when she used the Veto to send Brett home. Yeah she saved JC but lets face it he was never going home that night. She really saved Sam. Fourth, even though she was a bitch, at a certain point I actually began to appreciate the fact that she was so upfront about it, as opposed to the absolute fakeness of Tyler, Kaycee and JC. Even though she was terrible, it was almost a bit refreshing. So yeah, towards the end I started to appreciate her a bit, but she was still God-awful for well over 80% of the season so I cant forgive her too much.
And just like that, with only 8 entries in, the entire final four and 5/6 of the final six of BB20 is already eliminated. What a great season.
On paper, Angela SHOULD have been a character I liked. Shes a bitchy ice queen with competition prowess, which works towards my love of badass alpha female villains. In practice however, Angela sucked. See, Angela turned out to be one of my least-favorite archetypes: the stealth bitch. This is a female player who has bitchy qualities, but maintains such a low profile that these qualities only manifest in boring, catty, high school fashion. Like Kaitlyn from Big Brother 15, she rolled her eyes and hid behind bigger characters, doing little to warrant her inclusion in the season.
Angela proved her competition prowess early on bybeing the 5th or 6th person to randomly find an object in a darkened room that randomly gave her a chance at winning power, which she failed at when competing against Swaggy. This put a target on her back (although being an introverted bitch probably helped with that), but she pulled a Homer Simpson and faded completely into the bushes for like, the first month and a half of the season. Sidenote: that shit is why we need shorter seasons, Big Brother. These long seasons only encourage players to keep their heads down as long as possible, much moreso than the complaints about bitter juries.
But of course, Angela is a physically attractive white girl (yeah, Im going SJW here, deal with it), so she got welcomed into Level 6 with open arms. And due to FOUTTE being hilariously incompetent, that really fed into her mean girl attitude, whispering behind their backs about how stupid they were (keeping in mind that this was BEFORE Level 6 began establishing themselves as decent in competitions). The first real sign of Angela being terrible though, came during Rachels eviction week.
To recap: Bayleigh puts Rachel up as a pawn and stupidly tells her about the power app she won, thus earning some trust from Rachel that Bayleigh tells the truth. Tyler wins the veto and goes to HoH Bayleigh with some intention of saving Level 6 from having two members on the block. Tyler, even though it was innocent in his mind, suggested Angela as a potential target. Bayleigh relays this information to Rachel, because at that point, I think the girls WERE gung ho about the whole all girls thing, which was why Angela pushed for Kaitlyn to leave over Rockstar. Rachel freaks out and relays that info back to Angela, BECAUSE SHE WANTED HER FRIEND TO BE INFORMED. Keep that in mind.
At that point, Angela is skeptical, so she gets confirmation from Tyler, and her immediate response is not Bayleighs a liar, but instead RACHEL is a liar. Rachel. Angelas final 2 ride-or-die at that point in time. Rachel going home at that point is whatever, because Level 6 was made up of emotionless gamebots and Rachels paranoia made her a liability. But then Angela delivers the bitchiest goodbye message possible to someone who thought she was her best friend in the house, and it was so unnecessary (and emblematic of Angela being a bitch in the same way Brett was entertainingonly in the Diary Room.)
Of course, then Angela wins HoH, effectively killing the season since it allowed Level 6 to maintain the numerical majority they held ALL FUCKING SEASON. And again, shes completely bitchy to Bayleigh for dumb fucking reasons, when Bayleigh desperately wanted to be friends with the cool kids in the house. Bitchy goodbye message once more, and then Rockstar gets fucked over by the Hacker twist (which killed the season even more than Angelas HoH did), and wouldnt you know it, Angela leaves the bitchiest goodbye message of all.
Now, Level 6 was the casuals favorite alliance at the time, so they all cheered Angela and booed Rockstar. Fuck you Rockstar, you SJW bitch! ButRockstar WASNT FUCKING WRONG. Sure, she was mean-spirited in the things she said, but she called Angela privileged because shes pretty. Angela is from a rich family, and shes an anti-social bitch. You cannot tell me that if someone looking like Rockstar had Angelas same personality, she wouldve slid right in with the cool kids clique. And then for Angela to laugh at Rockstar with a I guess youre right, I get what I want, and I wanted you goneit was far more petty and proved Rockstars point more than even a fake Im sorry you didnt like me sort of goodbye message mightve been.
From that point on, Angela was sitting pretty in the majority, with everything going her way, and a new showmance to boot. She got booted in 4th because of a bad combination of JC winning HoH and Kaycee winning veto, but it wasnt like it was even a downfall. At the final four, SOMEONE had to go, and so what if she went out a week before she wouldve otherwise gotten second place. There really wasnt a satisfying ending for her once she got everything she wanted until the final week of the game.
The lack of a downfall is one reason why I hate Angela, her generally bland personality preventing her from being a truly detestable villain is another. But I think the worst thing of all is that because shes in Level 6, she was constantly lauded as being amazing and popular among the casual fanbase. And because she never at any point did anything to work against golden boy Tyler, fans didnt give a shit about her negative personality towards anyone else. Hell, her getting into a showmance suddenly made people outright LOVE her to the point where they felt so sorry that the poor rich girl was stressed out about her gymnastics training. Yeah, the casual fans really made this season more unbearable than it already was, and at least with Brett, I can understand the stupidity. But Angelas popularity just pisses me off. Shes an unpleasant, uncharismatic bitch.
68. Laurel Johnson (Survivor: Ghost Island, 3rd place) I talked about Tylers biggest crime being making BB20 more frustrating to watch than actively bad, well Laurel was the embodiment of one of the most frustrating kinds of Survivor players there is - the person who is knowingly and willingly playing for 3rd place by complacently enabling two dominant players despite admittedly having every reason to want to turn on them, which makes her a strategic cocktease, a boring confessionalist, and a detriment to the season as a whole.
Laurel started out okay enough. She was a smart woman on a tribe that was floundering, then got swapped to a tribe that was flourishing. Not only that, but she had a key ally in Donathan, and seemed like she had put herself in a prime position to win the game. Not incredibly interesting, but nothing overtly offensive either. But then she hooked up with Wendell and Domenick (you know, right after blindsiding them by voting out their closest ally in one of the most well-executed minority > majority blindsides ever) and it was all downhill from there. At this point, barring Chris actually managing up the numbers to take out Domenick (which was never going to happen because Chriss game was a shitshow), Laurel was pretty much guaranteed to make the endgame and was almost certainly going to be final 3 because there was no way Wendell and Domenick were going to let Donathan sneak in there.
And here we come to the real problem with Laurel. After the merge, pretty much every episode there was some kind of plan to try to take out Wendell and Dom, and every single time Laurel had a confessional about how it might be a good idea for her to go along with this. And in 36 seasons of Survivor I can tell you that there is no clearer-cut sign that someone is NEVER going to turn on their alliance than to constantly get confessionals of maybe I should. And so despite all this talk of making a move that could have been an interesting spice-up that the season desperately needed at that point, it never happened and Laurel got to go to the end AND be rewarded in her own weird way by getting to go down in Survivor history by casting the first ever tiebreaker jury vote and being the only person who has ever gotten to unilaterally decide the winner of the game. An honor she both deserved and didnt deserve at the same time. So yeah, whatever. Go home Yanni, err, Laurel. Hope you dont come back.
67. Laurel Johnson (Survivor: Ghost Island, 3rd Place)
Rounding out my bottom ten, we have another in a long line of losing finalists whose entire story seems to be I have no chance of winning, and its quite possible Im not even aware of this, so Im going to position myself as the swing vote and stick with my alliance EVERY single time. Sometimes, this can be a good character because they show personality, and its a not a big deal since they were gonna lose either way (See: Albert Destrade, Monica Culpepper), but in Laurels case? Jesus Christ.
I dont know why Survivor cast her, I genuinely dont. Laurel is a calm, rational person who, while not unattractive, doesnt fit the mold for the usual sex appeal Survivor goes for when casting women a lot of the time. And shes an actuary, so she played the game in a very risk-averse manner. I mean, maybe they thought because she was an athlete and an Ivy League graduate that shed be a stronger playerbut she just wasnt charismatic, and its not even like shes the kind of person you cast to fill space before they get cut early (like Chelsea was, allegedly). Its just bizarre.
The point is, Laurel was on the awful Malolo Tribe, and she wound up in the minority after the pretty people banded together against the minorities and Jacob. But then the swap happened and she managed to take advantage of the animosity between Domenick and Chris to better-situate herself (after James pushed for them to make a move). From that point on though, she just latched onto Domenick and Wendell, and stifled ANY attempt at ever making a move against the two guys she KNEW had idols and KNEW were running the game. For the last few weeks of the season, she kept giving the same Im gonna make a move! confessional, followed soon after by oh, its not the right time now, Im gonna stick to the plan. Shes a strategic cocktease, and all it got her was a spot in the final three where NO ONE respected her game. Im not gonna say shes solely responsible for the season being so bland, but her presence certainly didnt help.
67. Joey & Tim (Amazing Race 30, 8th place) Okay so starting with Laurel we are officially done with the people that I outright hated and onto the people that annoyed me to some degree but I wouldnt say I hated. The moderate dislike before the sea of meh-ness thats coming soon. So yeah, I didn't hate any of the teams in TAR30. This was one of the best casts in a long time. But if there was one team that rubbed me the wrong way a bit, it was Joey & Tim. They came on the show as competitive hot dog eaters. Cool. But then they just kept saying it over and over again. Everything they did was like "this is like eating hot dogs!" and it got annoying. Its like, we get it already, Joey Chestnut loves shoving hot dogs in his mouth, shut up! I also don't really know how being a competitive hot dog eater is going to help you on the race, except in the like average one eating challenge they do per season. Seems like it would hurt you by making you a fat, lethargic, and easily hungry. Luckily they were gone by episode 5 so we didnt have to hear about it for all that long. Other than that they werent anything special anyway. Just this run-of-the-mill early-boot M/M team (in TAR I consider the early-boot cut-off to be whichever comes first of 8th place or episode 5, usually they are one in the same) that kinda floated around the middle of the pack and was never really going to do much in terms of affecting the season or entertainment.
Inviso posted...
49. Joey & Tim (The Amazing Race 30, 8th Place)
Its hard for me to keep this write-up unique because everything I say about Joey & Tim can pretty much be applied to Trevor & Chris, who I rank just one spot lower. Both were MM teams that were middle-of-the-pack for much of their time on the season, and then had some major screw-ups towards the end that got them booted. For the most part, Joey & Tim seemed like nice guys, and I enjoyed the dynamic of Tim having a smile on his face while he secretly boiled with rage at how incompetent Joey could be. Unfortunately, the story never really revolved around them, and a different team did that same storyline much, much better this season. So yeah, they wind up middle-of-the-road on my list as well.
66. Brendan Shapiro (Survivor: Ghost Island, 17th place) I kinda feel bad for Brendan going out the way he did stuck in an impossible position, but then I remember how I did dislike him a bit during his time on the season, and I dont feel quite as bad. First off, the dude just looks like somebody who is going to be a boring tool, and he lived up to it. He spent the first few episodes just talking about how much he wanted to vote off the girls and weaker guys, and while he wasnt a complete asshole about it, it was very off-putting and didnt really make me want to root for him. It made him seem kinda like Brad Culpepper in the early days of Blood vs. Water, and you know that I hated Brad in that season. Other than that he was just this run-of-the-mill guy in a crap season that did nothing to warrant me wanting to like him, nor did he last long enough nor make enough of an impact for me to hate him. In case you couldnt tell write-ups are going to get short like this for a while as we head into the apathy section of the list.
Inviso posted...
55. Brendan Shapiro (Survivor: Ghost Island, 17th Place)
Yet ANOTHER member of the Malolo pretty alliance falls, and this time its DILF Brendan Shaprio, who is the second-oldest member of the cast at only 41 years old. If you told me before the season that, of the two 40+ players in this cast, one would be the fourth boot and the other would get fourth placeno way in hell would I have predicted such an early elimination for Brendan. Sadly for him, he wound up on the wrong side of the numbers on the awful NuMalolo Tribe, and he was an easy target to avoid idol backlash. He was still pretty boring though, so I dont feel TOO bad for him.
65. James Maslow (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 6th place) My feelings on James Maslow are rather torn, because on the one hand, he could sometimes be quite funny in the DR, and his rivalry with Brandi brought us some of the greatest moments of the season. On the other hand, he was a complete tool who was utterly unbearable during the entire first three weeks, when, just like Shannon, he wanted this thing to be a battle of the sexes. Funny that the two would end up becoming a power couple that threatened everyone so much that it lead to the latters early exit. Not only that, but he thought he was so much more important than he actually was in terms of what was going on in the house, when out of the entire final six he had arguably the least amount of control and power. In the personality department he reminded me a lot of Paul 1.0 (who I did NOT hate in that season), but the difference is that BB18 Paul was a pretty decent player and was also an underdog in a season where the overdogs were awful people, so as obnoxious as he could be there was something about him that you just couldnt help but root for (too bad he returned as a fan favorite and ruined that by becoming one of the worst RTV contestants of all time in his second go). James was NOT a good player and wasnt even that much of an underdog and so it was hard to like or root for him. The lows really outweighed the highs on this one.
Inviso posted...
72. James Maslow (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 6th Place)
For all intents and purposes, you can copy/paste my Brett write-up here, because theyre pretty much the same exact character. Cocky, talking shit about the minority alliance behind their backs (when he really shouldve been trying to work with them), never REALLY had any power except winning a veto to pull himself off the block (when the other person was the target anyway), voted out in sixth when it became clear that he wasnt useful to the majority anymore and he got backdoored onto the block during a double eviction.
What elevates James just SLIGHTLY higher than Brett is the fact that for starters, he was never as secure in the house as Brett was. James started the season on the block, and were it not for a completely unnecessary flip from Shannon, he goes home week one. He then had several other instances where he wasnt really part of the majority (though he DID worm his way past Brandi in the pecking order at least, and couldve gone farther if not for an unfortunate Omarosa win.) Plus, unlike Brett who befriended the outsiders only to laugh at them behind their backs, I think James genuinely wanted to strike deals with people. He just never managed to win competitions to put those deals into effect, nor did the people he was dealing with.
It also helped James a lot that Celebrity Big Brother was such a short season. So while, yes, his shouty Diary Rooms and inflated ego were obnoxious, at least we only had to put up with it for three weeks. There was never a chance for him to REALLY grate on my nerves the way he easily could have, nor was there the same chance to squander any good will he managed to accrue. So yeah, he was still awful, but its hard to HATE him too much because at least he didnt dominate an entire summer.
64. Jenna Bowman (Survivor: Ghost Island, 10th place) So as we phase between the dislike and apathy sections of the list were getting to the point where Ghost Island is going to start to take hits left and right. The first victim is Jenna, who early in the season we were led to believe was going to be this positive major character, but ended up just fading into obscurity shortly after the first swap. I guess its because they had to give even more screen time to the six characters who were already eating it up? Whatever the reason, past like Stephanie Johnsons boot episode where Jenna was shown crying, we were given hardly any reason to root for or care about her despite her seemingly being the focal point of a love triangle between Michael, Sebastian and herself that got all of two minutes of relatively ambiguous attention in the whole season. She then went on to suffer from what Im going to refer to from now on as Rebecca Borman syndrome, in which the first person booted in a double boot episode of any kind (including two full episodes aired back-to-back) doesnt get their final words aired which is utter bullshit. So yeah she didnt do anything despite having the potential to. not do nothing? So whatever. I dont care. Enjoy your boyfriend you got out of the deal.
And just for the sake of it, to justify putting her below some of the other upcoming yeah whatevers, I think she looks EXACTLY LIKE someone and I cant put my finger on it and that bugged me all season and still does when I see a pic of her.
Inviso posted...
65. Jenna Bowman (Survivor: Ghost Island, 10th Place)
Much like Level 6 in Big Brother 20, the pretty alliance on Malolo (Stephanie Johnson excluded) was an awful, boring collection of non-personalities. Casting on these shows loves to bring in pretty people to fill space and offer sex appeal, under the assumption that the biggest bores will be early boots (see what they thought about Chelsea compared to how she actually performed), and naturally they clique up time and time again to create a vortex of blandness. Ive already expressed my dislike of Michael, but Jenna is right down there in the muck with him. She was blandly bitchy, offered nothing to the season, and in her boot episode, she lined up to try and take out the only person on her tribe that actually wanted to work with her and was even willing to maybe play an idol on her. She sucked, but like the previous boot, she didnt impact the season enough to truly annoy me.
63. Chuck Liddell (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 11th place) Chuck was one of the biggest duds of the whole year for reasons that I dont fully understand. I mean he obviously didnt want to be there (hell, he straight up said to Julie in his exit interview that he would have rather been on Amazing Race, which came off as very ungrateful for the experience and definitely soured my relatively neutral view of him), but he seems like hes got a fun, energetic personality. It just didnt come out. He was ignored, and when he got screen time he was boring. He was booted first for the most boring, gamebotty reasons ever despite being up on the block against James, a perceived threat who would have been a deserving first boot. Not only that, but because the final vote was 6-3 for Marissa, his key wasnt even pulled until after Marissa won and the celebration was had so it was just an afterthought. So he was a dud on just about every level I can think of.
Inviso posted...
58. Chuck Liddell (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 11th Place)
Chuck brought absolutely nothing to Celebrity Big Brother. He was kinda aligned with James, but he was much lower energy and lacked the matching personality. They got put on the block together with Chuck as a pawn, but Shannon decided to flip the vote for reasons, and suddenly the big character that shouldve gone out in the first eviction was replaced by a guy that was only eliminated because the other option was protected. Its a lot like how Kara was super-underedited in BB14, because the vote was more or less about Frank instead of being a real choice between two players. At least he joined the girls in voting Marissa though.
62. Katrina Radke (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 18th place) The first boot of a Survivor season often has the potential to be one of the better characters of the season because the editors have just 45 minutes (or in most recent cases 60 minutes) to craft a full story arc around them. See: Zane, Timber Tina, Pat, Fairplay 2.0, and Francesca 2.0. Even when they arent amazing like those examples, they are still usually at least memorable for the same reason. Well the bottom tier of Jim Lynch and Jessica deBen of who? first boots has been trumped by Katrina Radke. And at least those two had valid excuses to not receive a great edit - Jim got hurt and sick just hours into the game and thus didnt have the energy to give much usable material, and in Fiji the first episode was dedicated mostly to the God-awful Haves vs. Have Nots twist along with all the big dominating male personalities. HvHvHs premier was pretty evenly-edited, and the Heroes tribe got a TON of screen time. Not only that, but there were no fewer than three decoy boots edited in. And yet somehow Katrina managed to get just one measly confessional after the final commercial break of the night, and very little thought or reasoning was given as to why to vote her out over the sick Chrissy, the sleeper-threat Ashley, or the ticking time bomb Alan. Additionally, her closest friend and ally, Chrissy, decided it wasnt worth it to use a super idol expiring that night on her, and we didnt really get much explanation for that. It was the biggest *thud* of a first boot ever. Go home, editors, you are drunk.
Inviso posted...
59. Katrina Radke (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 18th Place)
I feel bad for Katrina, because I think she got downright SCREWED by the editing in HHHs premiere. The editors had to introduce a bunch of tribes AND introduce Ryans one-episode immunity idol AND create a solid story, and unfortunately, despite her first boot status, Katrina just wasnt relevant. The entire episode built up Chrissy as the target (aligned with Katrina) who would play her idol and cause chaos. But then Katrina was voted out unanimously and the idol became completely pointless. So Katrina got one confessional and never got to show us any personality. Its a damn shame, thats for sure.
61. John Paul J.P. Hilsabeck (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 9th place) Its hard to talk about total duds and not bring up J.P. from HvHvH. After having a fairly fun role in the premier in which he did an optional strip-search to prove he didnt have an idol, the dude totally faded into the background for the rest of the season. I thought for sure he would be the merge boot based on the fact that he was always talked about as a target but never actually targeted. But he lasted deep into the merge and was booted in the first episode of a back-to-back two hour night, so he didnt get his final words aired, rendering him all but completely invisible in his own boot episode, joining the ranks of such players as Leif Manson and Rebecca Borman. Truly elite company. I mean I guess I can maybe see what the producers saw in him; he could occasionally be kinda derpy, but that's about it. Other than that I don't remember a damn thing he said or did, and for someone who went as far into the game as he did, that's either piss poor editing or a bad casting choice (or both).
Inviso posted...
51. JP Hilsabeck (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 9th Place)
JP was WILDLY irrelevant to the season, to the point where I question production casting him in the first place. I mean, yes, he was kinda funny with his Do you know how many dolphins weve seen? Zero! Thats why youve gotta watch for them! clip in Ashleys Ponderosa. But on the island, he was just some guy. He stripped episode one because Alan was paranoid, and then was generic strong guy until Ali tried to target him as a threat going into the merge. Then he was betrayed and blindsided forsome reason. Seriously, Chrissy and Ryan were bigger threats, but maybe the players saw something I didnt. The point is, JP was a non-entity, and it almost became hilarious just how ignored he was (and how pissed it made Probst that he wasnt charismatic.) But this is as far as that ironic humor can carry him in my ranking.
60. Eric & Daniel (Amazing Race 30, 6th place) One of the more bland teams of the season, I can't say Eric & Daniel were COMPLETE duds. There were a few running gags that got a chuckle from me most episodes - the fact that nobody could remember which was which, and them totally failing at almost every challenge yet still surviving deep into the race. Other than that though they were easily they were just kinda this there M/M team that didnt get a lot of focus and I had pegged as roughly 6th place from very early in the season. Sorry this ones so short theres just not much to say about them.
Inviso posted...
41. Eric & Daniel (The Amazing Race 30, 6th Place)
If you asked me to rank these two after episode 3 or 4, I would easily rank them dead last for the season. Early-season Eric & Daniel were the RARE instance of annoying me in TAR30, not because they were especially offensive, but because there were some really fun and colorful early boots, and Eric/Daniel were bottom feeders who constantly outlasted teams I really wanted to stick around. Its like how Ally & Ashley in TAR23 are one of my least favorite FF teams of all time. Yes, it can be fun when a team sucks so bad that theyre constantly at the back of the packbut that team has to be amusing in their ineptitude. Eric & Daniel (like Ally & Ashley) were just generically weak, constantly stumbling through the tasks and surviving because someone else fucked up the leg even harder than they did. These two beating April & Sarah in the Head-to-Head competition was the worst possible outcome for the leg, for example.
BUT, once we hit the middle of the season and the milder teams started getting picked off, I stopped hating Eric & Daniels continued survival so much. They morphed into pleasant guys (a lot like Tim & Danny, also from TAR23 now that I think about it) who goofed around and told corny dad jokes. It seems like they were much-beloved among the rest of the cast, and it actually became somewhat amusing to watch these two doofuses bumble their way through the race while competing against such high-level athletes and challengers. And then they went out in sixth place, allowing a set of five EXTREMELY interesting teams to make the end gameso really, they didnt hurt the season and I cant fault them too much.
59. Roark Luskin (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 14th place) Would you look at that, ANOTHER person from HHH that left virtually no impression on me. At least I can say for Roark that the second half of her boot episode she was fantastic, and for a second she really teased me into thinking she was going to stay, and proved that she COULD be a good player/character, which puts her ahead of Katrina and JP, but other than that she was one of the most invisible players of her season and even for an early boot made no real difference in terms of gameplay or entertainment for the season. The sadistic side of me really got a kick out of the live portion of the final when Jeff Probst was naming off the pre-jury boots and said everyone else out of order, then stared at her for a solid two seconds before going, .....and even Roark is here. Looks like she didnt leave an impression on production either, which means she wont be coming back even as a complete WTF pick.
Inviso posted...
52. Roark Luskin (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 14th Place)
I would say that, despite me hating two of the finalists, HHH had a solid cast overall, with only a handful of ignored characters. And of those ignored characters, even someone like Roark at least had a moment of greatness to contribute to the overall quality of the season. Sure, she was completely ignored through the first four episodes (as is typically the case when you have a young girl that gets swapfucked and eliminated pre-merge), but at least her boot episode had her going toe-to-toe with Chrissy in a battle of the smug know-it-alls. I wish we got to see more of this Roark, all snarky and mean-spirited and sarcastic. It was fun to watch, regardless of how little overall screentime she received.
58. Mark McGrath (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 4th place) Theres one thing I really found funny about Mark in CBB1 - the fact that he thought he was so much bigger of a star than he actually was. I listened to Sugar Ray in the 90s and I had no idea who this guy was when I saw his name. Not only that, but keyword there is 90s. And maybe early 2000s. Are Sugar Ray even still around? How did this guy think he was the biggest deal in the House? It was quite hilarious actually. But other than that he was very middle of the road. He had some control but he was no Ross or Marissa (and much like in real life, thought he was a bigger deal than he was). He did some shouting in the diary room but it was neither funny enough for me to like it or obnoxious enough for me to dislike it. And then he was unceremoniously booted along with Ariadna, the much bigger character, and since his name was said first he technically was evicted a second before her and got 4th place while she got 3rd. So yeah thats Mark McGrath. Oh, and I cant believe the dude claims to have had no plastic surgery. That might actually be funnier than his thinking hes a star.
Inviso posted...
66. Mark McGrath (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 4th Place)
Mark McGrath is, in essence, a poor mans James Maslow. He was loud and shouted in the diary room, he had little to no real impact on the season (other than James giving him an HoH win at the final seven to take out massive threat Brandi Glanville), and he was part of Ross obnoxiously self-righteous alliance of men and Marissa that hated all the most interesting players of the season. Ultimately though, he wasnt AS visible as James, he wasnt on a season long enough for me to grow tired of his do-nothing presence, and he got unceremoniously cut at the final 4 in a double eviction. So while Mark was a minor annoyance, he just didnt do enough to REALLY annoy me like my bottom 10.
57. Dessie & Kayla (Amazing Race 30, 11th place) It was fun to see them overcome some personal obstacles, like heights, but at the end of the day they simple left little impression on me compared to the rest of the stellar cast of TAR30. By the end of the season I had almost completely forgotten they were around. I felt bad for them that they got eliminated in the closest footrace in TAR history, but of the last three teams left in that first leg they were the ones that I was most okay seeing go home first, so I wasnt too upset.
Inviso posted...
57. Dessie & Kayla (The Amazing Race 30, 11th Place)
I really cant remember anything about these two aside from the fact that they had a footrace to the mat for last place, and despite looking physically stronger and faster, they managed to lose to the Goat Yoga women, giving us just one more episode of hilarious meltdowns. I didnt hate them though, and maybe they wouldve been nice if theyd lasted long enough to get an edit. Who knows? Ill that that it speaks volumes to the quality of TAR30 though, that it nearly took twenty entries before I eliminated a team. AND that first team out of my list was the first boot of the season, so thats pretty good boot order-wise, too.
56. Sebastian Noel (Survivor: Ghost Island, 6th place) Were getting close to the part of this list where Ghost Island is going to get hit hard and fast. In fact, theres soon to be a large string of consecutive Ghost Island eliminations. But before we get to what Ill refer to as the Ghost Island Gauntlet, Sebastian has to go. For most of the season he was just this complacent dudebro in the Naviti majority wherever he ended up in the shuffles, and although he was nice he was a bit smug and VERY boring. He had an opportunity to make a big move after the first swap and didnt, leading to a boring elimination followed by a heartbreaking one. And it didnt pan out for him - he got booted in 6th like he was pretty much destined to and scowled on his way out. He DID leave a lasting impression on me though by showing up to the FTC drunk out of his mind and being super dazed and almost completely incoherent, which I found hilarious and probably the most Sebastian thing to do, which is why he ranks above some of these other whatevers.
Inviso posted...
54. Sebastian Noel (Survivor: Ghost Island, 6th Place)
Sebastian is a perfect example of where the editors went wrong in Ghost Island. This is a guy that they HAD to have cast because either A. they wanted him to be the seasons Ozzy, just loving the outdoors and winning challenges and catching fish, or B. they wanted him to be some goofy, stoner, comic relief. But because this is Ghost Island, we got none of that. Sebastian got minimal screentime, with a few in-jokes like high all the time, but was otherwise completely ignored. He had a showmance with Jenna, I think? But then he cut her and we never got any insight into his thought process. Oh, and he got an extra vote that he never used because Dom/Wendell were so amazing. Really, the one good thing he did was be a bitter juror and keep the show from devolving further into vote for the guy that made the most BIG MOVEZZZ!Z!!1! Other than that, he just wasnt relevant.
55. Desi Williams (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 11th place) I wish Desi had gotten more screen time in HvHvH. She seemed like she had a good strategic head on her shoulders, she was very pretty, and she was great in challenges. Unfortunately, other than being Joes closest ally post-swap and then suddenly being a big threat post-merge (albeit a legitimate one), we just didnt see too much of her for me to really care about her all that much. I will give her this - I think she deserves a second shot at this thing. She wont get it, but she deserves it.
Inviso posted...
42. Desi Williams (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 11th Place)
Katrina, Roark, JP and Desi were the only four underedited cast members of HHH, and Id say thats pretty damn good, given what bullshit Ghost Island managed to pull off one season later. Desi falls in that sweet spot between Roark and JP where she lasted longer than Roark, and got a LITTLE more content spread out over her time in the game, and she went out before JP, so her under-the-radar edit didnt become actively distracting. She won the first immunity challenge, got a target on her back, and got booted over Joe because she was deemed a bigger threat in spite of his abrasive personality. Sounds about right as far as modern Survivor goes. Still, Desi played nice and was reasonably charming when we got to hear from her. I wish shed gotten to stick around just a few episodes longer though.
54. Steve Arienta (Big Brother 20, 16th place) As much as I didnt want Steve to be the first boot, it had little to do with him and more with what I thought it would do to the season (and was right). Steve himself was just barely more entertaining than any of the other borewhores this fiscal year, because he was God awful at lying about being a cop. And yet very few people ended up picking up on it despite all the ridiculous hints he gave away. His friendship with Scottie wasnt really anything special either. There have been far more fun bonds even this year. But at the first eviction, I REALLY didnt want him to get the boot, not because I liked him or disliked Sam, but because I knew it would be the start of the Level 6 slaughter that the season devolved into. Best case scenario that night would have been Sam receiving the most votes then staying in with her power app. But Steve got voted out and thus began a string of unfortunate boots that lasted right up until the final 6 when Sam outlasted Brett. So yeah. Thanks Steve for I guess not being able to find a way to stay and prevent this crap.
Inviso posted...
55. Steve Arienta (Big Brother 20, 16th Place)
Yeah, originally I didnt have all the first boots clustered together like this, but it just seemed neater and tidier to move a few people up or down a slot just to keep everything organized. This was not a great year for first boots, and this is ME saying that. Im like, the crown prince of worshipping first boots, yet none of these four inspired anything in me (and Gonzalez only avoids this cluster by being above average in a season that had so many long-lasting players with little personality.)
Theres not much to talk about with Steve though. He was the only old person in the cast and was always gonna be fodder. He smoked outside, he fell off a balance beam, and he, like Chuck, was only booted because Sam received the power app. I guess I feel a little bad for him, and he associated with the better alliance of the season, so it pushes him to the best of this cluster, but theres not much else of value there. In fact, with his elimination, thats half the BB20 cast gone already, just barely out of the bottom 20 of this list. Thats a real shame, because this season had potential. Oh well. Down to Winston to rep for the guys this season too.
Chrissy Hofbeck (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 2nd place) Ryan Ulrich (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 3rd place) Devon Pinto (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 4th place) Mike Zahalsy (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 5th place) Ashley Nolan (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 6th place) Lauren Rimmer (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 7th place) Joe Mena (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 8th place) Cole Medders (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 10th place) Jessica Johnston (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 12th place) Ali Elliott (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 13th place) Alan Ball (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 15th place) Patrick Bolton (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 16th place) Simone Nguyen (Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers, 17th place)
Cody & Jessica (Amazing Race 30, 1st place) Henry & Evan (Amazing Race 30, 2nd place) Kristin & Jen (Amazing Race 30, 3rd place) Alex & Conor (Amazing Race 30, 4th place) Lucas & Brittany (Amazing Race 30, 5th place) Trevor & Chris (Amazing Race 30, 7th place) Cedric & Shawn (Amazing Race 30, 9th place) April & Sarah (Amazing Race 30, 10th place)
Marissa Jaret Winokur (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 1st place) Ross Mathews (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 2nd place) Ariadna Gutierrez (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 3rd place) Omarosa Manigault (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 5th place) Brandi Glanville (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 7th place) Metta World Peace (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 8th place) Keshia Knight Pulliam (Celebrity Big Brother 1, 10th place)
Wendell Holland (Survivor: Ghost Island, 1st place) Domenick Abbate (Survivor: Ghost Island, 2nd place) Angela Perkins (Survivor: Ghost Island, 4th place) Donathan Hurley (Survivor: Ghost Island, 5th place) Kellyn Bechtold (Survivor: Ghost Island, 7th place) Chelsea Townsend (Survivor: Ghost Island, 8th place) Michael Yerger (Survivor: Ghost Island, 9th place) Desiree Afuye (Survivor: Ghost Island, 11th place) Libby Vincek (Survivor: Ghost Island, 12th place) Chris Noble (Survivor: Ghost Island, 13th place) James Lim (Survivor: Ghost Island, 15th place) Stephanie Johnson (Survivor: Ghost Island, 16th place) Morgan Ricke (Survivor: Ghost Island, 18th place) Jacob Derwin (Survivor: Ghost Island, 19th place) Stephanie Gonzalez (Survivor: Ghost Island, 20th place)
You might want to continue this without me, at least for a little while. I've got a lot going in in the next two weeks and also dealing with some medical stuff. ---
You might want to continue this without me, at least for a little while. I've got a lot going in in the next two weeks and also dealing with some medical stuff.
Oh, okay. Ill post a few things and you can catch up when you get the chance. ---
