Trashy TV Friday: The Challenge

I'm going to attempt to highlight a super trashy reality tv show every Friday. It's not as fun as Jen's Midweek Macho Man, but it should be fun in its own trashy way.

To start off, I am going way off the deep end into a previously unblogged (at least by us) wasteland of depravity, drinking, and violence. That's right! MTV's The Challenge, previously known as Real World/Road Rules Challenge. Some background info for those of you who have never watched. Former Real World and Road Rules participants are put in a house in some exotic location, separated into teams, and compete for money. Essentially, it is Survivor with Alcohol. There have been 20 previous seasons that have included Real World vs. Road Rules, Men vs. Women, Fresh Meat (where previous contestants of challenges were paired up with people who hadn't been on RR or RW before), etc. This current season is Rivals, where the contestants are on teams of two, paired up with their biggest enemy. Fun!

(Image from mtv.com. Go to the Rivals page to check out all sorts of info, videos, full episodes, etc.)

Road Rules hasn't been on for a while and I haven't watched Real World or Challenge in the past few seasons. But when I heard about Rivals, I had to watch. I mean, each Challenge there is at least one big fight per episode, a lot of the time ending with someone punching someone else and being sent home. And there are drunk hookups. And wild parties. And the challenges are actually usually pretty cool. Plus, TJ Lavin is the host and he is awesome! But Rivals? Take people who hate each other and make them work together! So simple, yet genius. The fun part is that so far, the enemies have gotten along pretty well. People who have previously punched each other out are getting along great. But there is still fighting among the teams. The most ridiculous part of every season is how much the contestants seem to care. They really don't like when someone says something bad about them, or votes them into the duel (where one team goes home). Perhaps that is all amped up due to the alcohol?

So here is my suggestion to you...watch The Challenge. No, you probably won't know who all/any of the people are. But that really doesn't matter. There is a cool local, lots of alcohol, fighting, yelling, hookups, etc. And all in a lovely hour long show you can watch on your couch while shutting your brain off for a few hours.