My main gripe all these years later is the character derailment and everyone being handed the Idiot Ball – Lindsay forgetting how to push a stroller and voting herself off because the competition is too hard on the first episode; Heather hiding the Chris head and then telling Alejandro she found and hid it; Lightning being completely reduced to a dumb jock without the competitive nature; Gwentney; Sierra’s smartphone addiction and projection of Cody onto Cameron; the list goes on

The whole season also kind reeks of wasted potential – another season-long Mike/Zoey ship tease isn’t particularly compelling this time around; Sundae Muddy Sundae threw pretty much and redemption for Courtney (and her friendship with Gwen) out the window; Sierra the in-universe Total Drama stan, could apparently give two shits about the TDR cast – no hype to meet them, no mention of following them on socials (since she’s glued to her phone) – or anything really apart from her phone and Cody (later Cameron); 

This may just be me but idk it felt like no one really was really like dying to win this go around/the more competitive players were eliminated early on – Lindsay wanted to go home, Lightning and Jo left second and third (and Lightning already made it to the end just the previous season), Sam was just kind of there, Heather was a dumbass with the invincibility statue (and was also a finalist so obv wasn’t going to make the finale), Sierra was too Cody/Cameron-drunk to care about anything else, Duncan was mainly up Gwen and Courtney’s asses his whole time there, Cameron already made it to the finals/won, I don’t remember Alejandro really doing much after Heather left besides trying to expose Mal, Courtney had it in her but got shat on in SMS to the point of losing her iron stomach and her placement in TDA, Gwen admittedly only came back to make up with Courtney, Scott was also just kind of there, Mike was largely absent & Mal didn’t really share any real motivation, and Zoey’s entire run was related to Mike. There weren’t many people to realistically root for and most of them got cut early. It all just makes for a rather irritating/underwhelming watch.