I feel the need to apologize for waiting this long to start posting my recaps from Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle Of The Sexes 2. In a small miracle, I obtained a temp position, and I haven't given myself much free time to write. Also, I had wanted to talk about my last few months on Reality News Online, how I felt that I was singled out, that I never meant to piss anyone off, and all other stuff. But does anyone reading this care? At all??
I promise: if there ever comes a time where I am forced to "serve tea," I will. While I feel that I am capable of hurting people's feelings, I never try to do that if I can help it. The other recaps figured I would wake up, have breakfast, then express total lunacy as opinion. I know that I'm probably biased, but I felt the others were elitist jerks that thought Television Without Pity (the place where I posted often and wanted to recap for) was beneath them. Also, I'm thinking most of them were not only in the tank for Donald Trump as he ran roughshod on The Apprentice, they probably voted for him twelve years later. On purpose.
So, basically, I wound up getting cut loose for slow writing time (I wanted to get as much detail as I could), contrary opinions (I remember at least one case of "Jesus Christ, I agree with Jason," which still stings a little), and negative recaps. My defense on that last one is that if they had to watch and write about Eric Nies every damn week, they'd be negative as well.
Here's what I figured what was happening at Bunim-Murray Productions: The Inferno probably did not receive favorable feedback, especially with their elimination games. But instead of trying to improve the format in the next season, it would be junked altogether. Battle Of The Sexes was probably popular enough to warrant another edition, but the leaderboard format (also used in 2002's Battle Of The Seasons) was only exciting when teams did not vote off somebody who was at the very bottom (e.g., Rachel, Veronica). A new twist was needed.
On paper, the format seemed logical. Teams would select three captains going into a mission. If the team won, the captains would get together to vote off one of the other players on their team. A loss meant that the captains themselves would be up for elimination. In retrospect, the lack of endgames led to players getting voted off without getting a chance to stay in the game . . . something that made Gauntlet and Inferno more appealing, as well as giving us unlikely heroes in Sarah and Katie, respectively.
What would ultimately be BOTS2's undoing was the lopsided results. The only other season that would prove to be more painful to watch was The Ruins, where a team of past champions continuously throttled players looking for their first title. I think that would be held worse that BOTS2 because three of the bigger scumbags of that era (Evan Starkman, Johm "Johnny Bananas" Devenanzio, Kenny Santucci) wound up winning, and two of them (Evan and Kenny) would later be accused of molesting Tonya in her sleep, which just added to the overall suck of Ruins. But if you think about it, there's never been a "perfect" season from this series. Back in 2004, BOTS2 was far from perfect.
There was also the situation with Sophia Pasquis, who had originally appeared in Road Rules: The Quest, and who had the distinction of being the first openly gay cast member in the history of the series. (I have to say "openly" because there were a lot of question marks out there. Lookin' at you, James and Theo.) In the span of four seasons, Sophia would be the third person I had made contact with in some form. I did not get to correspond with her like I had Melissa and Sarah, but I had interviewed her in 2001 (which you can read). In my mind, she was pretty cool, at least compared to her female castmates; Ellen was a bitch, Jisela was a waste of a slot, and Katie was just "meh" in general (this was before we discovered her temper and indestructible liver). If current Challenge mainstays are correct about the existence of "Challenge Gods," those deities decided to make it hard to watch Sophia. Don't get me wrong . . . she was all right, but there were a few times where she broke down, and it was so rough to watch. And like Melissa and Sarah, she would be in all of the episodes (remember, Melissa popped up in the BOTS1 finale) . . . but I wondered about the toll on her sanity. And that took a toll on mine. Well, a little more than usual, anyway.
Seriously, so many things went sideways on us. Tonya snapping back to more of a "wild card" personality, newly-divorced Mark diving into the dating pool, Steven Hill in general, the girls' team not picking Angela to go home (this was coming off Road Rules: X-Treme, where she was not warmly received) . . . and an ending where you hated the winning team. Well, maybe not Dan Setzler. Sure, he helped his veteran teammates screw over Brad (then a rookie, that's how long ago BOTS2) took place), but he always seemed like a nice guy.
Then there was Eric Nies . . . or as I took to calling him from that season forward, "Eric Fucking Nies." (I also bitched about "Marky Mark" and "Dodgeball Boy"; the latter coming from Mark appearing on GSN's Extreme Dodgeball) I knew that he had been a pain in the ass in the past, but he seemed nice in BOTS1. In BOTS2? Total pain in the ass. Worse, he used most of the season to promote his jump rope, and that was painful to watch as well. He wound up with a share of $180,000 (the largest "Handsome Reward" at that time), I wound up losing respect for him.
Without further ado, here comes the very depths of my negativity, circa late 2004. Enjoy!!
