It's The Cast in 'The Challenge All Stars: Rivals' | "Old Friends, New Rivals"

The Challenge All Stars: Rivals succeeds thus far in one way: the competitors are random enough that no innate alliances dominate the season. However, it’s a cast with no style of chemistry, which is a large percentage of what lures viewers. It’s the same formula with The Real World when it started. Who will get along? Who will clash? Who will disagree and on what? 

Replicate this season with a dynamic, camera-ready cast, and it works. Here, it’s a disparate set that makes for political drama and little else. 

Devin, Leroy, Faysal, Amber, and Big T,  players fans are accustomed to sticking around to the end, are all watching at home now. For them, it’s the lack of a strong alliance. For viewers, it’s less of “What’s going to happen next?” and more of “Why am I watching?”

“Old Friends, New Rivals” begins with a lot of conversation and shifts of possible compacts. Most notably, Frank’s more open about listening to various rival pairs and openly grouping with Katie and Veronica. Frank never states it, but his game is to maintain obvious layups, a la Katie and Veronica, so that he can get to the final and win. It’s a brilliant strategy, and with his partner being Sam, he needs that plan to work. 

For the daily challenge, the players have to be good with analog clocks. Cue Faysal guessing the difference between analog and digital. The players run a short, straight course, memorize a few clocks with hours added or subtracted in different time zones, and get with the partner to share info for some math. 

The winners are safe from elimination and if they do not have a star, they may send themselves in for the chance to win. It’s Veronica and Katie who win as they take a lot of time. Since time didn’t matter in this daily, they get it over Shane and Da’Vonne. 

The house vote comes down to a surprised Faysal and Amber, as Amber had thought she secured some safety from Melissa. Melissa can’t control what Nicoloe wants, Nicole, who’s aligned with Katie and Veronica. They, too, want strong players out for the obvious reason that they suck at anything physical and have a low chance of living through a final. 

Both Frank and Turbo have something in common: both are rage animals and neither have shown their sides until this week. Frank begins his unhinged moments in the deliberation for house vote. Amber takes the brunt of it as she blames him as the shadow organizer for the last few votes. In a confessional, he devilishly smiles that it’s him. So why get so angry? 

And Frank is an excellent player under one condition: how weak is the cast and how easy are they all to manipulate? He gets points for his work on Devin this season, at least. 

Katie and Veronica decline entry into The Jungle, which surprises no one, but the unexpected moment here is T.J. chiming in that he “loves it” that they’re playing for another day. Is T.J. on Ativan, too?!?

The Challenge All Stars: Rivals is mediocre television at best and a lot of reasons make it so. This week, it’s that production creates one of the saddest, weakest, uninteresting eliminations in years. 

“Scratch Off” takes Turbo and Nany versus Faysal and Amber, asks that they use a coin to scratch off a board to see an image, then duplicate that image in puzzle form that my six-year-old could do in five minutes. 

The puzzle can easily be solved without the scratching, but as that must be a rule to the game, why not scratch very little, run to the board, put that obvious top of “The Challenge All Stars Rivals” together, then do the rest as a puzzle on the vacation table top? God, this season. 

No, they don’t do that. They run back and forth. And some of it is warranted. Since the picture is obviously AI generated, some players look out of place or off their bodies for the image. Still, it’s a puzzle. 

Turbo and Nany go home. It’s not without a classic Turbo anger release, which Nany calms down by reminding him they’re better than the other players. And, yeah. They are better than most of them. 

The episode ends with some unseen footage of Frank implementing more of his place from previous episodes. One can forgive and understand the time constraints the editors face, but inserting this footage when it happens improves the season. 

It’s more of the season relying on what’s come before to garner viewers. It’s not enough. 

• Confessionals
  I hate to sound like a scratched record here, but the easiest fix for this season would’ve been sticking to some guidelines on who warrants the “All Star” label. This mix  works at times, but when it fails, it falls flat. 

• As divided on whom they wish to work with, Shane and Da’Vonne can’t last too much longer, right? 

• It’s time for a enthralling, physical, demanding daily challenge or elimination or both. Come on, MTV. 

• It’s unclear at times how warranted Amber’s heat is about Frank. More key moments feel missing. 

• How smart is Freddie Mercury Frank, really?