What longtime fans and newcomers alike can expect from The Challenge: USA
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An important elimination is about to begin on the set of The Challenge in Buenos Aires, and after almost 40 seasons that have aired on MTV and Paramount+, nothing looks out of the ordinary on this April day — at least, not at first. But something is very different about The Challenge: USA.
All the competitors are standing on the platform in the elimination arena. Some are wearing street clothes and appear relaxed because they know they're safe tonight, while others lined up in the trademark black Under Armour uniforms are visibly nervous about potentially having to compete. Host TJ Lavin announces the rules of the iconic fan-favorite elimination that's about to go down (as if the telltale single pole laying in the sand wasn't obvious enough). Everything looks standard for a season of The Challenge. However, instead of seeing familiar faces, like seven-time champ Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio, recent back-to-back winner CT Tamburello, or veteran mainstays Nany Gonzalez and Aneesa Ferreira, for the first time ever in the history of the show, there isn't a single returning player from the franchise here. Every person on the cast is a Challenge rookie — but they're no ordinary rookies. All 28 competitors are reality TV legends from Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, and Love Island, including multiple winners from all four shows.
The Challenge: USA is kicking off a new era for the long-running competition series, and the cast isn't the only thing that's changed. This spin-off is airing on CBS, a first for the franchise that premiered in 1998 on MTV, and that means a wider reach of potentially millions of new, older viewers tuning in to see some of their favorite Survivor winners or Big Brother champions or The Amazing Race personalities or Love Island exes, yet they have no idea what to expect from the actual show itself. "We know that the demographic is different, it's a more mature audience for sure, and there's a lot more eyeballs on it," showrunner Justin Booth tells EW the night before the elimination while sitting in the production truck as a two-hour endurance challenge is being filmed. "But we run the show the way that we run it any season."
Booth and the other producers (many of whom are longtime Challenge crew members) went into The Challenge: USA with the goal of attracting fans of the original MTV franchise to the new spin-off as well as viewers who watch the other CBS series yet have never seen a single episode of The Challenge. That meant casting big names while still keeping the format of the show the same as any other season of The Challenge to entertain anyone watching no matter their personal history with the show.
Laura Barisonzi/CBS
"I think that our MTV audience will be patient and have to get to know new people because it's obviously a brand new batch and the only one that they're familiar with is TJ, but we didn't want to lose sight of who we are despite the cast being different from the cast that we deal with on MTV," Booth adds. "We created this show with the same format: we have challenges, deliberation/nominations, and then we have our eliminations, including some classics like Hall Brawl, Balls In, Pole Wrestle. One guy and one girl will win. That is The Challenge, and it's what we've been doing since we moved out of the [Road Rules] RV and got into houses."
There are some updates to the game, however. Along with new challenges and eliminations, there's a twist on the infamous Red Skull rule from season 35's Total Madness (where players had to win at least one elimination to qualify for the final). In the The Challenge: USA, competitors must win at least $5,000 in their personal bank accounts to qualify for the final at the end of the season, or else they'll be left on the tarmac as the rest of the remaining competitors are flown to another location for the grueling multiple-day race. "Everybody started out with $1,000, and then you win money by winning challenges or eliminations," Booth says. "If you win an elimination, you steal [your opponent's] money. It adds incentive for everyone to play harder. The Red Skull in Total Madness was a game changer because it started to get boring to watch how no one ever wanted to go against CT, and it took my whole career before we got to see that [Bananas vs. Wes Bergmann elimination] happen."
And there were some changes made on the production side of things as well, like the design of the competitors' living quarters. The compound in Buenos Aires is the most open and exposed "house" that Challenge players have ever lived in, and it resulted in even more drama caught on camera.
"They can't hide," Booth says with a smile. "The only place they can go [off camera] is into the bathroom, and then they're not talking if they're in the bathroom. We wanted to try to accommodate some of the ideas of the Big Brother houses and the situations that those guys live in but it's still a Challenge house. It's a psychological experiment to see how people deal with basically never being able to completely get out of the game."
With the design of the old warehouse-turned-compound, where walls are scarce and everyone is constantly on display, producers were also able to figure out a way to cut back on sneaky competitors making secret deals off camera, which only confused viewers who couldn't follow shifting alliances or relationships not shown in episodes. "It has been the best season in the world to be able to tie things together and cover everything because a lot of times in the past, kids will go into other rooms and avoid cameras if they want to talk about something that, even though they're on a TV show, they want to keep secret," Booth says. "This has prevented that largely because there's not really anywhere to go. It's all just big open space. The coverage you'll see this season is unlike anything that we've ever been able to do before. You'll see it in the way that we tell our stories. It's going to be really good."
Another way the spin-off delighted Booth is that, despite the older average ages of The Challenge: USA cast members compared to the MTV vets, players always gave their best effort during challenges and eliminations. "These guys are not necessarily performing the same as our younger batch does, but they're trying," he says. "All of them have been very respectful and they've played the game and as long as everybody is trying, then that's all you can ask for."
He was surprised, however, at how all the CBS reality show alums approached the strategy of The Challenge because they all brought in aspects of how they played on their original shows. "Everybody here is playing the game the way that they know how and it's interesting that we're seeing a different strategy applied rather than the tried-and-proven strategy that our players used [on the flagship]," Booth says. "It's almost been frustrating to me to see these guys make moves that we wouldn't [expect]. That's not frustrating in an angry way, it's just like, 'Man, why would they do that? I don't get it.' That's these guys playing their game their way in our environment, I suppose."
While Booth doesn't want to spoil anything that's happened during filming so far, he does admit the Survivor alums have surprised him the most with how quickly and well they adapted to the political side of The Challenge. "I think the Survivor alliances have probably been the most effective," he says. "But we're seeing alliances happen across all the different shows that the cast represents."
With only a few more days left of shooting the season, Booth has his eye on a quite a few of The Challenge: USA contestants he'd want to see make the transition over to the MTV flagship series. "As the showrunner, I would say sure, let's bring a few of these on over," he says. "Obviously, there's bigger people than me that make those decisions, but there's a few kids that I would love to see cross over. I think it'd be a lot of fun. And we'll see it in a certain way because of the global Challenge championship that we have planned."
CBS
The winners of The Challenge: USA not only go home with the prize money, but they will also go on to compete on The Challenge: Global Championship (working title). The upcoming Paramount+ tournament pits the top competitors of four new international Challenge spin-offs against each other in a battle royale. Details on the championship series are still being worked out, and Booth says a lot of that depends on how The Challenge: USA does, both on the production side and audience response.
"We'll have to take stock before planning that," he says. "I would love for it to do well. I'm very close to this." He adds that he's happy to see how The Challenge world has "exploded" in recent years, as the MTV flagship is currently filming season 38, Paramount+'s All Stars just finished its third season, and now CBS is debuting this new spin-off (as well as the three other international spin-offs feeding into the global crossover). "But I'm a little paranoid about it, diluting the audience with so many Challenges on so many different [networks], but we'll see. What do I know? I love the exposure, but I don't want everybody to get tired of it like they've gotten tired of Fear Factor."
But Booth isn't stressing too much about the future of the franchise. He can't afford to right now, as he's focused instead on making sure the Pole Wrestle matchup for the final women's elimination of the season features players who will put up a good and — most importantly — long fight in the sand. All he wants is for the elimination that's about to take place to potentially go down in Challenge history, and round out the group of players who have already made the final with one more worthy competitor, before overseeing what he describes as one of the toughest finals yet. "It's the next level," he teases. "It's not easy, and these guys have never seen anything like it on their other shows. But if they get on the other side of it, they'll be better people who have discovered something about themselves."
No matter who is on the cast or where the show airs, at least that's something that will never change about The Challenge.
The Challenge: USA premieres Wednesday, July 6, at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
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