It's just so funny how the thumbnail is filled with beautiful, well drawn, excellent, TDI styled characters and then you have Inanimate Insanity early season 1 Nickel
For reference, BFDI (and maybe II) later changed the voting for viewers to vote to SAVE a contestant. These leaves the characters with huge fanbases to survive, even if they have huge hatebases, while boring characters with little plot or screentime, are the ones to go. This makes the show better as the characters the viewers seem to like more are the ones that survive longer, more commonly pleasing the fans.
but the characters who are already liked and have a ton of screentime and did a ton of stuff will stay in even longer while the characters who haven't gotten a chance to do stuff yet will get out and will perpetually be underdeveloped characters!!!!
Agree to disagree. Enjoyable characters end up being eliminated because the writers forgot to give the character enough screentime. Bubble in BFB Post-Split and plenty of TPOT eliminations are glaring examples.
@ScarlettJett34 Thats true, I can see where you're coming from as there were some Eliminations I disliked (like Cakes in TPOT) But the boring underdeveloped characters need to leave sometimes so there aren't too many arcs going on. Like, think about TPOT 10, the DPA arc ended, the Winner-Clock arc ended, the Basketball-RF arc continued, and the Book arc returned. This episode has so much going on that if more chracaters were important it would be hard to understand everything going on.
@@lonnie3626 they literally didn't send clock to the elimination place, and instead just kinda left him in the kitchen to assist the host occasionally and help out before actually getting out once he resolved the conflict with winner, so clock and cloudy's episodes where they got out should've been swapped
@h5ypr Yeah situations like that happen sometimes but they needed to wrap up that arc. I think Clock deserved to stay in TPOT 4 because he was interesting before hand and I like how they set up the dream challenge to end it. There are some flaws for sure but the viewer interaction, whether good or bad, definitely makes it more interesting and the writers need to work around what the viewers want.
2:19 this is EXACTLY what happened with Stapy in BFB... he did one slightly wrong thing (which was never ill intended, he was trying to help his team) and everybody hated him for it.
One of the best eliminations that I can think of is a hot take, but it fulfills all of the categories you mentioned: Coiny from TPOT. It was fitting, because he helped further Pin's arc later that episode. It made sense, because everyone else on Team8s either got more screentime, or further plot relevance. And it was unpredictable, because WOAH Bunch's fanbase is freaking stacked to the point where Pin even said it herself that she was confident they would be fine.
but when the inevitable rejoin where the viewers pick someone to come back midway through the season occurs, everyone will vote coiny and underdeveloped characters like lightning and cloudy won't be able to do much for the rest of the show leading to most of the same characters getting far if there's ever another season, then again, then again.
@@h5ypr Contrary to what it looks like, Coiny actually probably won't rejoin. There's actually a significantly more likely chance it's gonna be Teardrop, Puffball, Lightning, or someone along those lines.
@@catlegend7634 I often see Remote or Fries as good rejoin contenders you haven't mentionned, tho I'd argue TD's TPOT elimination is also one that may fulfill all critters or, at the very least, is satisfying enough to *not* warrant her rejoining (and I'm saying that while her being my favorite BFDI character) (personally idk if I'll vote either PB or Remote back in, both were robbed anyway)
@@MegaMawilite Very true, the only reason I didn't include those two was because their fanbases get overshadowed by the characters I already mentioned. Also, TD is my favorite character too!
@@catlegend7634Bracelety also likely beating pencil in the rejoin for Tpot 12 suggests that the fan favorite doesn’t always win and bracelety is also a super underused character so that’s also kinda cool. Thing is Bfdi and possibility inanimate insanity was meant to be a comedy show not something for drama it was only when season 2 episode 11 that the community finally got something equal to the drama of a total drama episode. But Bfb/Tpot has not had a single dramatic episode unless you count bfb 13/14 but I wouldn’t count it and no bfdi 18 doesn’t count either because yes it was a contestant vote and the only one in bfdi history but there was no drama put into it.
8:30 For Geoff, it was because they thought the finale was gonna be a jury vote. Geoff didn't make that many enemies and had a better chance at winning the popular vote than anyone left besides maybe Leshawna. Though it does raise the question of what happened to the jury vote?
I felt this video. All the hate dcas is receiving right now is sad. Nobody feels satisfied, and i hate the statements that onc is only after the money. We don't know how much a production costs and planning everything isn't easy. Dcas is their largest project yet. They even plan to make spin offs hopefully satisfying some of their sad fans. It's okay to critique and vent, but at least let the show finish and give them a chance to change or make it better.
I reapect the hustle they were like the only td project to stay up without getting taken down and that was very cool but Ill admit I dont like how the quality in the WRITING has gone. Its not my favorite and im not a fan that they might save these big holes they left to be filled in spinoffs... Id rather they just extend the seasons length and finish them up in there instead
Solid video, but I definitely find unpredictability to not be as important as the other two aspects of the triangle, as I feel like predictability only becomes a problem if the show itself is failing to entertain or gauge interest. Unpredictable eliminations are good, but predictable eliminations that are written and foreshadowed well can often times be better
2:15 In the modern days, shows let you vote to SAVE a character from elimination, the one with the least votes is gone. This is better for villains, but if a character gets less screentime then they might be eliminated
This creates another problem where if a character isn't flashy, loud, or gimmicky, they're not gonna last long, especially with a cast as large as TPOT.
In bfdi’s 4th and 5th season, after the voting switches from vote to eliminate (the character with the most dislikes gets eliminated) to vote to save (the character with the least likes gets eliminated) it causes the votes to be much closer with multiple characters getting out by a less than ten vote difference when over 20,000 votes were cast
I think comedic characters fit in the "unfitting" criteria. Characters like Zee and the Goths are a good exemple. They don't have an on going arc, but are necessary to lighten up the rest of the drama going on. So when they get eliminated, it's unexpected and consistant, but kinda unfitting.
I think it’s fitting for their eliminations to be where they are. Characters like Zee or the Goths shouldn’t have made it further than 7th place because it cheats out the characters who have actual stories to tell. It was definitely their time to go.
I think a good example of a predictable yet satisfying/interesting elimination is Balloon's Inanimate Insanity II elimination. You knew he was going to be voted out but the real drama comes from whether Suitcase was going to vote with him or against him.
Fr Suitcase straight up became one of my favorites after that. Before her hallucinations started I thought she was fine, but a bit bland, but afterwards she became an actual legend
Spoilers for Inanimate Insanity Season 3 One of my favorite eliminations out of every animated survivor show I’ve watched is OJ from Inanimate Insanity Invitational. Similarly to characters like James and Miriam, they have already won a season and you know they aren’t going to win. An early boot for OJ is not only consistent, but also fitting. But the way he ends up getting eliminated is what makes his elimination unpredictable. The majority of Episode 4 is dedicated to The Thinkers working out who to eliminate after their challenge loss. OJ, taking team leader position, is never tossed out as a suggestion for elimination. Earlier in the episode, Silver Spoon learnt about the winner of the past 2 immunity votes for The Thinkers, baited half of the team to vote for the immune contestant, and using his newfound majority with Candle, sends OJ out of the game. While OJ leaving early is a given for a former winner, this way of going out is what makes it such a memorable elimination.
(I'm sorry if I made a lot of mistakes because I'm not English) In Inanimate Insanity season 3 almost all elimination are PERFECT. They really unpredictable and perfectly close ark of eliminated characters. For example: Cabby(well she rejoin), Candle, Balloon(everyone though he is gonna win), and Ying Yang. And that's because contestants voting and a really great writers. Also, the elimination antagonist early is only in Vote To Eliminate. In Vote To Save they doing really well. Again, my apologies if I made a lot of mistakes 🙏
well yeah but: in inanimate insanity season 3, the vote to save has one character get immunity for the episode. it was given to bot once in episode two, to balloon a few times, but EVERY OTHER TIME, it was YINYANG. They floated through TWO THIRDS of the season getting automatic immunity before the viewer vote for one of them to have immuntiy was removed and it was just the contestants voting someone out and yin yang got out.
@@h5ypr I think that they actually WANT Yin Yang to have immunity because they want yin yang to get far and give him development. They didn't know how to write that Yin Yang will survive his team eliminations
In terms of best eliminations, I’ll always point out that chase in TDI2023 was probably my favourite It managed to serve 3 explanations for his elimination, there was the in-universe reason that chase knocked Julia and Millie off their poles, earning him their ire For the strategy lovers, one could easily connect the dots and notice that the alliances, though not explicitly stated, we’re still there as the votes still very much were on alliance lines Finally his storyline ended with Emma falling in love with him And yet after all of that, there was still some unpredictability. Millie being an alternate target helped push her story, but also could have been a natural stopping point TLDR; Chase’s exit had multiple reasons to be eliminated, and still remained unpredictable due to another storyline being the alternate boot
great analysis video! I would also like to point out, probably, the biggest example of a character that you could tell was going to stay the whole show based on their story is Mike in TDAS; the whole Mal storyline made it WAY TOO OBVIOUS that he was gonna stay for long and made it so boring to watch
a lot of object shows these days are contestant vote, which imo is so much better from a writing standpoint because you can’t predict how viewers are gonna vote and it can seriously mess up a season, this happened to me twice in my object show so in season 3 i made it contestant vote
I have to agree with what you said Billy. One problem I've noticed in TD and in DC is that the writers may try to keep a character a bit longer due to them being biased toward that character with Owen being the biggest example as he ends up in the merge in all three seasons he's been in. I'd say that we could put Jake or Aisen for DC considering how long they lasted.
"Eliminations have the possibility to elevate your story to a whole new level. However, a poorly handled elimination has a chance to do the exact opposite." 1:47 Yeah just like Grett in episode 17 of DCAS even though through deep & critical analysis of the entire season, it's characters, it's writing, etc. she had the markings of being a well written, well developed, satisfying top 2 finalist but got canned for the sake of "shock value". All her powerful scenes about how she's stronger than she first believes, how she's a better person both in canon and in game without Yul, her reconciliation with Gabby, all of it culminates into... nothing. It's not a satisfyingly written end to her otherwise amazing character arc because her arc goes unfinished. Or how about Alec who got eliminated in DCAS episode 16, and even though this is the episode he needed to have the most screentime to warrant this narratively, he only has TWO MINUTES of speaking in a TWENTY-NINE MINUTE EPISODE... that is not nearly enough to properly set up someone going home in a show such as this. Or even Aiden from DCAS episode 15, where Aiden was just kind of... there? He had been floating through the competition because he ultimately didn't have much of a story going for him outside of the Jake, Tom and Aiden love triangle, and then his rivalry/dislike of Jake that he got over by Episode 12 and 13, which means he was just kind of... there... not really doing much for like 3 entire episodes. Let's also not forget Gabby who was eliminated in DCAS episode 14 where we were getting the buildup of Gabby's dark side coming through more and more, symbolizing her transition to the Villain's Alliance. For multiple episodes, we got teases and inklings of Gabby's darker persona peaking it's head out to let her and us, the audience, know that it's there in the background. Building suspense all just for it to go... nowhere? She gets eliminated due to convoluted circumstances and her darker persona storyline just gets... rushed and unfinished fully. So we see the trend here, right? It seems as though what happens is that the DCAS writing team want to shock fans, so they decide to eliminate Person A, however, Person A has a storyline currently going on, and to TRY and make Person A's elimination more satisfying, they rush the character arc so that the elimination "fits better". This culminates multiples issues that I addressed earlier. 1) Leaving Character Arcs completely rushed or unfinished as a whole which is done for the sake of shocking eliminations which, in my personal opinion, messes up the narrative long term like how Grett's elimination narratively makes no sense considering how Grett and Ally were parallels to one another, making them an interesting pair that I personally pegged as the top 2 because of how they both cared so much about how other people's opinions ruled how they lived their lives, and only through not caring what others though, did they each grow exponentially either for better or worse. This season has a lot of Meta commentary about audience reactions, fame, fans, and the internet, which I thought was very intriguing. Grett growing into a stronger, more confident woman who was able to take charge of her life and play the game how she wants while becoming a bit softer with Gabby. Ally growing confident through Riya's manipulation thus creating the unforgiving monster that is Ally at this time, having her go down a dark path for the sake of the game, when all she wants is to be liked by the audience. I like their dynamics, and that they started to have solo moments where they related to each other, which I thought was setting up their top 2 moment, but I digress. 2) Because someone more narratively important left for the sake of shock value, that leaves the filler competitors with less going on to stay and thus creates the issue of certain contestants such as Aiden over staying their welcome. Jared and a few others from the DCAS team have already made it clear that Former Winners and Finalists will not be in the finale because that would be boring. If that's the case, why is Riya still in the game at the FINAL FOUR?? We already know she's not making the finale, which is just going to make episode 18 boring and predictable because Riya is obviously getting the boot. Now, I backup everything I've said with the fact that I have my Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing. I am educated and aware of the topics I discuss. I am in no way trying to allude to my education meaning I know more or know better because of it, all I am saying is that these critiques I've brought up are valid as I am not the only one disappointed with the writing of DCAS right now. I bring up these flaws not to tear the show or it's team down, actually quite the opposite. I love writing, I love art, and obviously I like DCAS as a show because I wouldn't have watched 17 episodes and bring up details that reside within the season if I wasn't a fan. I want to see this show and it's team succeed, and one of the best ways for that to happen is through constructive criticism of what worked and didn't work in the product presented to us.
Billy I feel like you are going to like post merge II2 and III because then they get rid of the viewer voting and the contestants start voting each other off
This is a good analysis on eliminations, I don't agree with everything said there, but it's a good base to have into account while writing my own show. I would say tho that unpredictability is the least important of the qualities, I always saw it as an added bonus if you can have it there. Consistency, timing, logic, and specially character relevance are way more important. It's better to have a predictable but well-written show than a bad show that relies on shock value. TDI Reboot (season 1. Season 2 doesn't exist) was quite predictable in it's eliminations, but it compensated by being so well-planned and polished it wiped the floor with every other season Something very important anyone interested on writing a story like that needs to know it's that they are not writing a Reality TV show, they are writing a story that is told through the Reality TV format. The story comes first, and no matter how big or small each character's role is, their runtime needs to be well planned. If you have to sacrifice something, it's better to sacrifice the game's rules and logic over the character story and themes, that's why I don't mind medevacks or unfair eliminations as long as they contribute well to the story.
Expedition Robinson (Sweden) is the original, Survivor is the american version of that show and got so popular that people think ER is just another version of it
As someone with a plush competition show in its 4th season, I can absolutely relate with how frustrating it gets to balance everything. I realized unpredictability is a good thing to have in these kinds of shows, and recently I've been experimenting with it to see where it goes. Usually I avoid boring eliminations as much as I can, unless it makes sense. This vid is making me think about it more, and now I'm finding out why it's so hard to come up with a good boot order 😭
Great video as always Billy! I agreed with all of your points on these types of shows, and as a big fan of all of these shows, every single one has its eliminations problems. Thank you for the very fun informational video! ❤
I think the downfall of shows where contestants vote (aka they script the elimination order) is how each writer manages their eliminations. Total Drama: They usually have a similar elimination order across the board. Some characters (almost) always make it to the merge like Owen, Duncan, or Courtney. Other characters are often doomed to be irrelevant such as Ezekiel, Bridgette, and Noah. Their elimination orders are created with bias. Disventure Camp: Other than season 2, back when it was a small project, elimination orders suck. I mean, we live in a world where a side character like Miriam wins over main characters like Ellie, Jake, or Gabby. Sometimes a character’s story is dragged out to no end because they’re supposed to get 5th place. Other characters who are eliminated early aren’t done justice. All this is because they want to make eliminations shocking and clever. The first eliminations of DCAS were *James, Lake, and Miriam*. You could not pick a worse trio for the first three boots. Then they got rid of all the good characters and we’re stuck with Connor, Riya 🤢, Jake 😕, Ellie 2.0, and Queen Grett. This was a shocking elimination order, but not a good one. Most of all is the predictability. With “Survivor” or “BFDI”, in which real people vote, you can’t exactly predict who will be sent home. You aren’t left saying “boo hoo it should’ve been x character/person”, because you know no one is specifically in charge of that. For other shows where the writers determine the elimination order, they have to write out the eliminations to be shocking and/or acceptably satisfying. For Total Drama and Disventure Camp, people try to predict the elimination order based on story relevance and gameplay. Thats why it was so predictable that Heather was going to win TDWT or that James/Aiden was going to win DC2. When the elimination is completely unexpected and/or trashy, it’s annoying. A show that works with this is Inanimate Insanity seasons 2 and 3. Each elimination feels natural for each character’s arc to end at that point, they all make sense, and a good number of them still happen to be shocking. Nobody complains about the elimination order for Inanimate Insanity since they actually know how to write.
Interesting take on the elimination process of these shows and what can make some more satisfying or unsatisfying than others. To me an unsatisfying elimination tends to be ones where the elimination makes no sense/the reason itself sounds ridiculous,(An Example for me being Total Drama Island, where Heather gets on her teams nerves and almost cost them the challenge, Owen eats their food and messes up the challenge but Beth gets eliminated because she brought her team "Bad Luck". I don't mind most of the eliminations where Heather gets by but this is the only one that really bothers me.) or the character is built up to do something big, only for them to do nothing and get booted. (Sammy from Pahkitew is a big one for me. They make it clear from the 1st episode that Sammy has it rough from how badly Amy treats her. They build up to her standing up to her sister and in the 3rd episode it doesn't go well for the first time and that makes sense. Then her sister gets eliminated in that same episode. A really cool elimination to be fair but it comes way too early and afterwards Sammy does nothing until she gets booted 2 episodes later when her sister comes back. Considering that she got on the show just to get away from her sister, it feels really underwhelming that when she gets the chance to be out of her sister's control, she doesn't do anything until she is eliminated. It makes her story really unsatisfying, where it feels like Sammy never grew or changed at all from the beginning and makes the whole idea of her becoming someone who will stand up for herself feel wasted.)
I'm a huge fan of Survivor, and I watched Total Drama as a child which is what got me into it, I've always wondered how a narrative live action attempt at a consistent elimination style game would go where the eliminations are of course all planned but has a consistent unpredictability where each character can fulfil a role whether large, small, supporting or to fulfil a trope. From what I've seen, Squid Game is the closest to this but it's not consistent at all compared to Survivor, but this video is a great tool when designing a story like that!
The shows I’ve watched currently with some eliminations I either dislike or could fall into a BS tier. I’ll skip the constantly talked about ones like Leshawna Island elimination, the Medical squad, or honestly any from the All Stars seasons or Pahkitew From Total Drama: -World Tour Noah forever my least favorite elimination. I know Leshawna is worse but the Hoops they go through to make it possible to get him out and how much focus he was getting in the episode only for it to just screech to a halt makes it my least favorite -Geoff from Island and Bridgette from Island because it doesn’t really make sense when you start to think about it -Lindsey from any season really because they don’t know how to get her out -Justin and Harold from Action. The former because it just felt cruel and the latter because Duncan vs Harold would’ve been way better than Duncan vs Beth -a good chunk of world Tour to be honest. I do not like that order especially since Amazon doesn’t lose a member till Gwen and the majority of them make it to merge -B from Revenge. Might be the only Revenge elimination I don’t like because Dawn at least has some logic to it and I actually like Brick’s elimination. Like Noah, B’s elimination requires some leaps in logic for them to trust Scott over B especially since Dawn can sense aura and presumably people’s pasts given a couple of her lines so why wouldn’t she immediately sense that B was good and Scott was lying. She even was getting along with B so I don’t get it -I actually don’t hate the Fashion Bloggers elimination, I just wish they lasted a little longer -the Adversity Twins elimination was pretty cruel, and I’m not a fan of those types of eliminations especially towards more innocent characters. Also just grinded their growth to a halt -Damien’s second Eimination and Priya’s elimination should’ve been swapped around. I even wrote a what if on it Disventure Camp: -Drew just another character I don’t mind the elimination but I wish lasted longer -Jake because I don’t like he immediately gets out after the whole thing with Tom and the speech Ellie gives irritates me -Kai and Connor is up there for one of my least favorites. Kai’s character could’ve had a cool arc of balancing zen mode with his inner anger as well as do more with his relationship with Maggy. As for Connor, it felt like his story was just starting and then it randomly ends to give Riya of all people more screentime -Yul’s because it felt like afterwards they didn’t know what to do for a villian -I know people dislike Tess’s but Ally’s was worse in my opinion. She gets out because Hunter solely won immunity despite his blindfold being knocked off as well as his partner in the race just so she wouldn’t be immune and be easy pickings -same to Lake because Rosa’s infuriated me more. And it led to villian Riya which I hate BFDI(season 1 only because I haven’t watched the other object shows yet) I’ll be a lot nicer since this is fan voted -Snowball got the most votes but yet Teardrop gets out instead because the in characters voted. Pencil went against their alliance voting too if I remember correctly. I don’t fully mind since I love that Snowball is just “grumpy old man yells at cloud” but it did feel like they got out Teardrop because they didn’t know how to write for her -Woody should’ve gotten our way earlier -Pencil got out because even though they won the challenge, the board couldn’t hold 3 digit numbers so they were in the bottom three. I find it funny but that must’ve felt unfair to some -speaking of unfair but funny, Ice Cube got out because not only for the eliminated contestants vote instead of the fans, but they were desperate for AC. It’s like if Leshawna’s elimination was funny
I thought this was gonna be an analysis on how fictional reality show 'formats' would be incredibly broken from a game design perspective, but this is interesting too
4:11 It's non-existent in the Total Drama remake. Writers are bickering between each other who's gonna create the most pitiful joke aimed for the youngest audience.
Imo the worst elimination ever is Grett in Disventure Camp All Stars 17 All of her plotlines were pointing to her being a great satisfying winner, and then they decide to eliminate her because Ally decided that after gunning for Jake the whole season she would work with him and vote Grett, who she literally had a final 3 deal with, then they have the audacity to call it "A good game move" like seriously
9:28 i can't tell you how much lake's elimination in DC:AS annoyed me when i saw the episode. on one hand, i can understand why she was eliminated (she did admit to wanting tom eliminated, but didn't mention it was to save aiden), but it's annoying to see a great character who could've made the merge get eliminated so soon instead of ellie, who provided absolutely nothing story-wise to the villains alliance and the show in general. i believe some things that happened in the show (i.e. gabby's flip against the heroes, alec throwing the challenge) could've been executed as they were now without ellie in the mix i am very salty as you can tell
12:10 II actually drops the view voting halfway through season two and I believe that silver spoon should’ve been here, you knew by episode 13 in season three that he’d probably be a finalist but he’s so fun and evil-
Katie and Sadie come to mind for me about elimination, because splitting up the two through elimination is fitting because splitting them will lead to conflict, unpredictable because which one will go and consistent because it's a known possibility one will leave before the other eventually . But when Sadie is not eliminated she basically just stays upset about being separated and doesn't go through anything by herself, no coming into her own or trying to replace Katie, she ends up getting the more unsatisfying elimination despite the fact that staying longer should have put her in a more opportune spot to receive something more. They could have continued to have them be split up through seasons 2 and 3 or wound up on the Ridonculous Race but as more individuals. The other reason I often think about these two is because besides Eva they're only in the first season so despite having 3 season, I find most interesting about them is the potential of what these 2 could be when given the chance to change, where they are despite Sadie having stayed longer she's still seen as a duo, they're basically just one character eliminated twice for padding.
13:21 If I remember correctly, I think it was moreso Second place that the Ice Dancers had the Vendetta against, At least in the first episode it was said that Silver is Jacques’ least favorite color, not Bronze.
This applies to reality shows as well, it just functions a bit differently. For social-strategy reality shows, the production will play the game and film it and then, knowing the outcome, they have to construct a cohesive and satisfying narrative from whatever footage they got. Reality TV is not really reality, an audience will not tune into just a bunch of people starving on an island. There still needs to be a story to hook viewers and if the show doesn’t stick the landing, the viewers will riot (see: any and all modern-day Drag Race discourse). They have to be just as mindful when portraying their contestants so they have a satisfying arc throughout their run, while also having to consider the real life consequences of portraying someone poorly (if the production has any sense of ethics). So in that case, this phenomenon is not isolated to these animated shows, the reality shows have to be just as mindful of this when constructing their stories. I’d even argue that it’s far easier to construct a good narrative for these animated shows as they have the benefit of being able to fully control their cast. You can make your characters do whatever you want, if you want a big move to be made then you just write one into your story. Reality shows don’t have that luxury. They can’t force any of their contestants to make a decision that they don’t want to make so if the players decide to be boring and make safe and boring moves, production can’t do much about it, especially as they are obligated to maintain fairness in the game else they open themselves up to a potential lawsuit. The animated shows run no such risk. The characters aren’t real and neither is the game, the writers can do whatever they want. In this sense, writing these types of shows isn’t any more logistically difficult than writing any piece of fiction.
1:08 Damn I watched all of those 😭 I’ll share my perspective on vote to eliminate as a bfdi fan regarding the first part of the fourth season (bfb) Because there’s around 64 contestants, the characters don’t get a lot of screen time to do anything, so the creators can easily manufacture hate for a character to get them eliminated. Examples: Pencil Leafy 8-Ball (debatable) Stapy Firey Jr. Spongy While other characters who couldn’t blend into the background got eliminated for being different or unique Examples: Liy (debatable) Roboty Loser David Dora Other: Bracelety’s gag was getting stale even though she had 5 minutes of screentime
I feel Ashley's elimination in DCAS kinda fits the criteria of being Consistent, Fitting and Unpredictable. Her elimination was really unpredictable (to me at least), I felt like this was a good time for her to be eliminated for her and Jake's storyline, and no game changing things happened to her besides the merge, but I wouldn't even consider that to be nonsensical.
Watching your videos about these kinda of stuff is making me rework my own Total drama fan series, it helps me think and re-think things like characters or plot
And also one of the most important diffrences between irl and animated shows: in irl shows producers must pick only hour or 2 of footage, that is usually few houndred hours long. And because of it producers are creating the perspective (sometimes much diffrent from reality) and they must pick the right moments which creates an interesting story. Even the season with excellent cast, gameplay etc. can be ruined if it's edited badly, in an inconsistent way and if we only see boring moments. Producers can't change the events, but they can chnage the way the events are perceived. Meanwhile in animated shows, creators must create the material by themselves and they have the full control over what is happening - instead of picking over from hours of footage, they are creating the events themselves
II seson 2 is not voted by the viewers and viewers will generly vote the boring charecters instead of the charecters with plots,take the BFB book and taco arc for example
I didn’t think I’d see DR linked to these Survivor shows, but you’re not wrong. It just makes cast reunions difficult. I can imagine how hard it is to make a show like this. There would be so many character interactions and arcs to keep track of. You would need notes on how the eliminations affect each character and decide when their story should have a satisfying ending and when they shouldn’t if they’re being set up for something further down the line. Plus the writers need to destabilize and reestablish the cast every single episode. On one hand, it’s an interesting writing challenge, but it seems like one that you can easily get wrong.
seeing SEASON ONE NICKEL in the thumbnail in the middle of well drawn tdi style characters is HILAROUS
EXACTLY
Bro is the imposter😊
Nick le*
Are you a part of the OSC?
@@TheWorldsLargestOven o
dude that thumbnail😭 just a bunch of dc and td characters and just NICKEL LOL
LMAOOOO I WAS ABOUT TO COMMENT THE SAMEEEEE
I KNOW 🥲
"And Bumblebee!" ahh thumbnail
AND ITS HIS GOOFY OLD LOOK TOO 😭😭
THE ONLY REASON I CLICKED THIS WAS BC OF THAT LMAOO
It's just so funny how the thumbnail is filled with beautiful, well drawn, excellent, TDI styled characters
and then you have Inanimate Insanity early season 1 Nickel
The villain being eliminated around 4th place is so engraved in my brain it's just a rule to me now honestly
Edit: Mum I'm famous, I have 100 likes
This is so real like Heather Courtney Scott scoot again sugar ice dancers Julia julia again and Alec all were eliminated 4th or 3rd
@@notreallybob669Alec isn’t the main villain though, it’s Riya
@@mamamiaawoodenboy I’m talking about season 1 of Disventure camp even tho he wasn’t main villain he still is a villain
@@notreallybob669 oh season 1
Riya going episode 18 let's see if it's true ;)
For reference, BFDI (and maybe II) later changed the voting for viewers to vote to SAVE a contestant. These leaves the characters with huge fanbases to survive, even if they have huge hatebases, while boring characters with little plot or screentime, are the ones to go. This makes the show better as the characters the viewers seem to like more are the ones that survive longer, more commonly pleasing the fans.
but the characters who are already liked and have a ton of screentime and did a ton of stuff will stay in even longer while the characters who haven't gotten a chance to do stuff yet will get out and will perpetually be underdeveloped characters!!!!
Agree to disagree. Enjoyable characters end up being eliminated because the writers forgot to give the character enough screentime. Bubble in BFB Post-Split and plenty of TPOT eliminations are glaring examples.
@ScarlettJett34 Thats true, I can see where you're coming from as there were some Eliminations I disliked (like Cakes in TPOT) But the boring underdeveloped characters need to leave sometimes so there aren't too many arcs going on. Like, think about TPOT 10, the DPA arc ended, the Winner-Clock arc ended, the Basketball-RF arc continued, and the Book arc returned. This episode has so much going on that if more chracaters were important it would be hard to understand everything going on.
@@lonnie3626 they literally didn't send clock to the elimination place, and instead just kinda left him in the kitchen to assist the host occasionally and help out before actually getting out once he resolved the conflict with winner, so clock and cloudy's episodes where they got out should've been swapped
@h5ypr Yeah situations like that happen sometimes but they needed to wrap up that arc. I think Clock deserved to stay in TPOT 4 because he was interesting before hand and I like how they set up the dream challenge to end it. There are some flaws for sure but the viewer interaction, whether good or bad, definitely makes it more interesting and the writers need to work around what the viewers want.
2:19 this is EXACTLY what happened with Stapy in BFB... he did one slightly wrong thing (which was never ill intended, he was trying to help his team) and everybody hated him for it.
dont forget match!! she apologized in bfb 11 yet got elim'd right away next episode simply because she was "mean"
One of the best eliminations that I can think of is a hot take, but it fulfills all of the categories you mentioned: Coiny from TPOT. It was fitting, because he helped further Pin's arc later that episode. It made sense, because everyone else on Team8s either got more screentime, or further plot relevance. And it was unpredictable, because WOAH Bunch's fanbase is freaking stacked to the point where Pin even said it herself that she was confident they would be fine.
but when the inevitable rejoin where the viewers pick someone to come back midway through the season occurs, everyone will vote coiny and underdeveloped characters like lightning and cloudy won't be able to do much for the rest of the show leading to most of the same characters getting far if there's ever another season, then again, then again.
@@h5ypr Contrary to what it looks like, Coiny actually probably won't rejoin. There's actually a significantly more likely chance it's gonna be Teardrop, Puffball, Lightning, or someone along those lines.
@@catlegend7634 I often see Remote or Fries as good rejoin contenders you haven't mentionned, tho I'd argue TD's TPOT elimination is also one that may fulfill all critters or, at the very least, is satisfying enough to *not* warrant her rejoining (and I'm saying that while her being my favorite BFDI character)
(personally idk if I'll vote either PB or Remote back in, both were robbed anyway)
@@MegaMawilite Very true, the only reason I didn't include those two was because their fanbases get overshadowed by the characters I already mentioned. Also, TD is my favorite character too!
@@catlegend7634Bracelety also likely beating pencil in the rejoin for Tpot 12 suggests that the fan favorite doesn’t always win and bracelety is also a super underused character so that’s also kinda cool. Thing is Bfdi and possibility inanimate insanity was meant to be a comedy show not something for drama it was only when season 2 episode 11 that the community finally got something equal to the drama of a total drama episode. But Bfb/Tpot has not had a single dramatic episode unless you count bfb 13/14 but I wouldn’t count it and no bfdi 18 doesn’t count either because yes it was a contestant vote and the only one in bfdi history but there was no drama put into it.
It’s so funny seeing the thumbnail be all in the total drama style but then nickel is just there
It's summer Billy why are you making us listen to logic and thinking
That has to be my teacher brain xD
@@SillyBillyDuckyno ur Mr billy! Or Mister?
Lol wait till you’re older, summer doesn’t mean shit anymore😂
@@SillyBillyDuckyYou should watch bfdi since bfdi came before ii
Well it’s winter in my country XD
Fun fact! The EE acronym also works for the object show Excellent Entitities!
That's what I thought it was
@@restrictedcontroller5486Same!
@@Wince_Media you may count this point!
@@SillyBillyDuckyalso OI and OL can be Object Invasion or Object Lockdown lol
Jesus christ, watch as Billy’s elaborate points system is destroyed by object shows.
8:30 For Geoff, it was because they thought the finale was gonna be a jury vote. Geoff didn't make that many enemies and had a better chance at winning the popular vote than anyone left besides maybe Leshawna. Though it does raise the question of what happened to the jury vote?
The jury vote was the 5th placement, a.k.a Leshawna
HE MENTIONED BFDI BOIS
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Nothing felt better than seeing the main villain get eliminated the only time I thought he wasn’t being eliminated
I felt this video. All the hate dcas is receiving right now is sad. Nobody feels satisfied, and i hate the statements that onc is only after the money. We don't know how much a production costs and planning everything isn't easy. Dcas is their largest project yet. They even plan to make spin offs hopefully satisfying some of their sad fans. It's okay to critique and vent, but at least let the show finish and give them a chance to change or make it better.
I reapect the hustle they were like the only td project to stay up without getting taken down and that was very cool but Ill admit I dont like how the quality in the WRITING has gone. Its not my favorite and im not a fan that they might save these big holes they left to be filled in spinoffs... Id rather they just extend the seasons length and finish them up in there instead
@mxm8029 I hope they learned that from the project. But we are likely not seeing these characters anytime soon, so I'm glad for the spin-offs.
@delila9426 also can I just say the pain All-Stars has given the YT Royal Prince is saddening
@mxm8029 Yes. I saw that, too. I hope that Tess gets at least a spin-off for him.
Just wait until to see who gets eliminated next (it’s to heart breaking 💔)
Solid video, but I definitely find unpredictability to not be as important as the other two aspects of the triangle, as I feel like predictability only becomes a problem if the show itself is failing to entertain or gauge interest. Unpredictable eliminations are good, but predictable eliminations that are written and foreshadowed well can often times be better
2:15 In the modern days, shows let you vote to SAVE a character from elimination, the one with the least votes is gone. This is better for villains, but if a character gets less screentime then they might be eliminated
Also, it could conflict character arcs. People are so quick to hate.
@@delila9426 well, people would eventually start saving people in arcs, wanting to let the characters arc play out and see what happens next.
This creates another problem where if a character isn't flashy, loud, or gimmicky, they're not gonna last long, especially with a cast as large as TPOT.
@_moomini well... how they behaved over Jake and Ally I'm not so sure.
@@azimmeme9994 that sounds like a big improvement, although I imagine it leads to a lot of favouritism
Silly Billy is really silly for thinking we understand anything he’s saying 😂
Mr billy lol silly teacher? Teacher billy? Mr silly? 😂😂😂
Fr like I lost it half way through
Lol oops XD I'll take this into consideration for future videos 🤩
Don't know what y'all are talking about, the video was clear as day. Maybe you just have short attention spans?
@@artstyle1340 it’s a joke lol 😂
In bfdi’s 4th and 5th season, after the voting switches from vote to eliminate (the character with the most dislikes gets eliminated) to vote to save (the character with the least likes gets eliminated) it causes the votes to be much closer with multiple characters getting out by a less than ten vote difference when over 20,000 votes were cast
I think comedic characters fit in the "unfitting" criteria. Characters like Zee and the Goths are a good exemple. They don't have an on going arc, but are necessary to lighten up the rest of the drama going on. So when they get eliminated, it's unexpected and consistant, but kinda unfitting.
I think it’s fitting for their eliminations to be where they are. Characters like Zee or the Goths shouldn’t have made it further than 7th place because it cheats out the characters who have actual stories to tell. It was definitely their time to go.
Agreed yk what else is trash gabbys elimination HOW DID SHE GET HER OWN PHONE I will NEVER let this go
I think a good example of a predictable yet satisfying/interesting elimination is Balloon's Inanimate Insanity II elimination. You knew he was going to be voted out but the real drama comes from whether Suitcase was going to vote with him or against him.
Fr Suitcase straight up became one of my favorites after that. Before her hallucinations started I thought she was fine, but a bit bland, but afterwards she became an actual legend
Silly Billy’s deep dives are basically my questions for narrative writing being answered completely every time. Good video!
This is why BFDI switched to vote to save back in 2020
Bro survivor type of shows are one of the best thing that happened to my life. How did I not know there were so many.
I am a simple man. I see Nickel, I click.
REAL
Spoilers for Inanimate Insanity Season 3
One of my favorite eliminations out of every animated survivor show I’ve watched is OJ from Inanimate Insanity Invitational. Similarly to characters like James and Miriam, they have already won a season and you know they aren’t going to win. An early boot for OJ is not only consistent, but also fitting. But the way he ends up getting eliminated is what makes his elimination unpredictable. The majority of Episode 4 is dedicated to The Thinkers working out who to eliminate after their challenge loss. OJ, taking team leader position, is never tossed out as a suggestion for elimination. Earlier in the episode, Silver Spoon learnt about the winner of the past 2 immunity votes for The Thinkers, baited half of the team to vote for the immune contestant, and using his newfound majority with Candle, sends OJ out of the game. While OJ leaving early is a given for a former winner, this way of going out is what makes it such a memorable elimination.
(I'm sorry if I made a lot of mistakes because I'm not English)
In Inanimate Insanity season 3 almost all elimination are PERFECT. They really unpredictable and perfectly close ark of eliminated characters. For example: Cabby(well she rejoin), Candle, Balloon(everyone though he is gonna win), and Ying Yang. And that's because contestants voting and a really great writers.
Also, the elimination antagonist early is only in Vote To Eliminate. In Vote To Save they doing really well. Again, my apologies if I made a lot of mistakes 🙏
yeah I agree that is one of the reasons why season 3 is so good
well yeah but:
in inanimate insanity season 3, the vote to save has one character get immunity for the episode. it was given to bot once in episode two, to balloon a few times, but EVERY OTHER TIME, it was YINYANG. They floated through TWO THIRDS of the season getting automatic immunity before the viewer vote for one of them to have immuntiy was removed and it was just the contestants voting someone out and yin yang got out.
@@h5ypr I think that they actually WANT Yin Yang to have immunity because they want yin yang to get far and give him development. They didn't know how to write that Yin Yang will survive his team eliminations
Yin Yang was the most predictable, I literally predicted it a few days before the elimination.
object shows are also a prime example of this, a lot of challengers in BFDI don't have certain limbs
In terms of best eliminations, I’ll always point out that chase in TDI2023 was probably my favourite
It managed to serve 3 explanations for his elimination,
there was the in-universe reason that chase knocked Julia and Millie off their poles, earning him their ire
For the strategy lovers, one could easily connect the dots and notice that the alliances, though not explicitly stated, we’re still there as the votes still very much were on alliance lines
Finally his storyline ended with Emma falling in love with him
And yet after all of that, there was still some unpredictability. Millie being an alternate target helped push her story, but also could have been a natural stopping point
TLDR; Chase’s exit had multiple reasons to be eliminated, and still remained unpredictable due to another storyline being the alternate boot
great analysis video! I would also like to point out, probably, the biggest example of a character that you could tell was going to stay the whole show based on their story is Mike in TDAS; the whole Mal storyline made it WAY TOO OBVIOUS that he was gonna stay for long and made it so boring to watch
TPOT the best season and series ❤❤
a lot of object shows these days are contestant vote, which imo is so much better from a writing standpoint because you can’t predict how viewers are gonna vote and it can seriously mess up a season, this happened to me twice in my object show so in season 3 i made it contestant vote
I have to agree with what you said Billy. One problem I've noticed in TD and in DC is that the writers may try to keep a character a bit longer due to them being biased toward that character with Owen being the biggest example as he ends up in the merge in all three seasons he's been in. I'd say that we could put Jake or Aisen for DC considering how long they lasted.
0:22 I only recognised the object shows and RR
Same
"Eliminations have the possibility to elevate your story to a whole new level. However, a poorly handled elimination has a chance to do the exact opposite." 1:47
Yeah just like Grett in episode 17 of DCAS even though through deep & critical analysis of the entire season, it's characters, it's writing, etc. she had the markings of being a well written, well developed, satisfying top 2 finalist but got canned for the sake of "shock value". All her powerful scenes about how she's stronger than she first believes, how she's a better person both in canon and in game without Yul, her reconciliation with Gabby, all of it culminates into... nothing. It's not a satisfyingly written end to her otherwise amazing character arc because her arc goes unfinished.
Or how about Alec who got eliminated in DCAS episode 16, and even though this is the episode he needed to have the most screentime to warrant this narratively, he only has TWO MINUTES of speaking in a TWENTY-NINE MINUTE EPISODE... that is not nearly enough to properly set up someone going home in a show such as this.
Or even Aiden from DCAS episode 15, where Aiden was just kind of... there? He had been floating through the competition because he ultimately didn't have much of a story going for him outside of the Jake, Tom and Aiden love triangle, and then his rivalry/dislike of Jake that he got over by Episode 12 and 13, which means he was just kind of... there... not really doing much for like 3 entire episodes.
Let's also not forget Gabby who was eliminated in DCAS episode 14 where we were getting the buildup of Gabby's dark side coming through more and more, symbolizing her transition to the Villain's Alliance. For multiple episodes, we got teases and inklings of Gabby's darker persona peaking it's head out to let her and us, the audience, know that it's there in the background. Building suspense all just for it to go... nowhere? She gets eliminated due to convoluted circumstances and her darker persona storyline just gets... rushed and unfinished fully.
So we see the trend here, right? It seems as though what happens is that the DCAS writing team want to shock fans, so they decide to eliminate Person A, however, Person A has a storyline currently going on, and to TRY and make Person A's elimination more satisfying, they rush the character arc so that the elimination "fits better". This culminates multiples issues that I addressed earlier.
1) Leaving Character Arcs completely rushed or unfinished as a whole which is done for the sake of shocking eliminations which, in my personal opinion, messes up the narrative long term like how Grett's elimination narratively makes no sense considering how Grett and Ally were parallels to one another, making them an interesting pair that I personally pegged as the top 2 because of how they both cared so much about how other people's opinions ruled how they lived their lives, and only through not caring what others though, did they each grow exponentially either for better or worse. This season has a lot of Meta commentary about audience reactions, fame, fans, and the internet, which I thought was very intriguing. Grett growing into a stronger, more confident woman who was able to take charge of her life and play the game how she wants while becoming a bit softer with Gabby. Ally growing confident through Riya's manipulation thus creating the unforgiving monster that is Ally at this time, having her go down a dark path for the sake of the game, when all she wants is to be liked by the audience. I like their dynamics, and that they started to have solo moments where they related to each other, which I thought was setting up their top 2 moment, but I digress.
2) Because someone more narratively important left for the sake of shock value, that leaves the filler competitors with less going on to stay and thus creates the issue of certain contestants such as Aiden over staying their welcome. Jared and a few others from the DCAS team have already made it clear that Former Winners and Finalists will not be in the finale because that would be boring. If that's the case, why is Riya still in the game at the FINAL FOUR?? We already know she's not making the finale, which is just going to make episode 18 boring and predictable because Riya is obviously getting the boot.
Now, I backup everything I've said with the fact that I have my Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing. I am educated and aware of the topics I discuss. I am in no way trying to allude to my education meaning I know more or know better because of it, all I am saying is that these critiques I've brought up are valid as I am not the only one disappointed with the writing of DCAS right now. I bring up these flaws not to tear the show or it's team down, actually quite the opposite. I love writing, I love art, and obviously I like DCAS as a show because I wouldn't have watched 17 episodes and bring up details that reside within the season if I wasn't a fan. I want to see this show and it's team succeed, and one of the best ways for that to happen is through constructive criticism of what worked and didn't work in the product presented to us.
BFDI(battle for dream island) is an object show(the first one) not survivor animated copy, but it was inspired by total drama.
Billy I feel like you are going to like post merge II2 and III because then they get rid of the viewer voting and the contestants start voting each other off
Gabbys elim was also trash but not mentioned here. Another purge for no reason
It had not taken place when I recorded this audio, but it is indeed a good example as well
@@SillyBillyDucky oh yeah never mind... I only realised it at the shout outs my bad
The thumbnail has an odd one out.
No way total drama Crapstars was mentioned I’ve been subscribed to you for ages this is crazy
lmao nice to have you swing by! A couple of the Discord members mentioned it so you have a special place in their hearts xD
The thumbnail is so funny for me, the way nickel is just there
11:40 ...well that was fast
This is an amazing video to watch before the premiere of Reality Resort 😁
This is a good analysis on eliminations, I don't agree with everything said there, but it's a good base to have into account while writing my own show.
I would say tho that unpredictability is the least important of the qualities, I always saw it as an added bonus if you can have it there. Consistency, timing, logic, and specially character relevance are way more important. It's better to have a predictable but well-written show than a bad show that relies on shock value. TDI Reboot (season 1. Season 2 doesn't exist) was quite predictable in it's eliminations, but it compensated by being so well-planned and polished it wiped the floor with every other season
Something very important anyone interested on writing a story like that needs to know it's that they are not writing a Reality TV show, they are writing a story that is told through the Reality TV format. The story comes first, and no matter how big or small each character's role is, their runtime needs to be well planned. If you have to sacrifice something, it's better to sacrifice the game's rules and logic over the character story and themes, that's why I don't mind medevacks or unfair eliminations as long as they contribute well to the story.
Bro put Balloon as an antagonist 💀4:46
balloon was an antagonist in season 1, but after that yeahhhh he definitely isn't
he has only reacted to like up to s1 e8
Im a simple person i just see nickel in the thumbnail i click
I'm pretty sure Expedition Robinson is the inspiration for Survivor. Most American reality shows have been inspired by European shows.
Expedition Robinson (Sweden) is the original, Survivor is the american version of that show and got so popular that people think ER is just another version of it
You just summoned the whole BFDI fandom
Such a good video analysis!!! Great job Billy!!!
This is why i love YTTD.
As someone with a plush competition show in its 4th season, I can absolutely relate with how frustrating it gets to balance everything. I realized unpredictability is a good thing to have in these kinds of shows, and recently I've been experimenting with it to see where it goes. Usually I avoid boring eliminations as much as I can, unless it makes sense. This vid is making me think about it more, and now I'm finding out why it's so hard to come up with a good boot order 😭
Great video as always Billy! I agreed with all of your points on these types of shows, and as a big fan of all of these shows, every single one has its eliminations problems. Thank you for the very fun informational video! ❤
I think the downfall of shows where contestants vote (aka they script the elimination order) is how each writer manages their eliminations.
Total Drama: They usually have a similar elimination order across the board. Some characters (almost) always make it to the merge like Owen, Duncan, or Courtney. Other characters are often doomed to be irrelevant such as Ezekiel, Bridgette, and Noah. Their elimination orders are created with bias.
Disventure Camp: Other than season 2, back when it was a small project, elimination orders suck. I mean, we live in a world where a side character like Miriam wins over main characters like Ellie, Jake, or Gabby. Sometimes a character’s story is dragged out to no end because they’re supposed to get 5th place. Other characters who are eliminated early aren’t done justice. All this is because they want to make eliminations shocking and clever. The first eliminations of DCAS were *James, Lake, and Miriam*. You could not pick a worse trio for the first three boots. Then they got rid of all the good characters and we’re stuck with Connor, Riya 🤢, Jake 😕, Ellie 2.0, and Queen Grett. This was a shocking elimination order, but not a good one.
Most of all is the predictability. With “Survivor” or “BFDI”, in which real people vote, you can’t exactly predict who will be sent home. You aren’t left saying “boo hoo it should’ve been x character/person”, because you know no one is specifically in charge of that. For other shows where the writers determine the elimination order, they have to write out the eliminations to be shocking and/or acceptably satisfying. For Total Drama and Disventure Camp, people try to predict the elimination order based on story relevance and gameplay. Thats why it was so predictable that Heather was going to win TDWT or that James/Aiden was going to win DC2. When the elimination is completely unexpected and/or trashy, it’s annoying.
A show that works with this is Inanimate Insanity seasons 2 and 3. Each elimination feels natural for each character’s arc to end at that point, they all make sense, and a good number of them still happen to be shocking. Nobody complains about the elimination order for Inanimate Insanity since they actually know how to write.
Interesting take on the elimination process of these shows and what can make some more satisfying or unsatisfying than others. To me an unsatisfying elimination tends to be ones where the elimination makes no sense/the reason itself sounds ridiculous,(An Example for me being Total Drama Island, where Heather gets on her teams nerves and almost cost them the challenge, Owen eats their food and messes up the challenge but Beth gets eliminated because she brought her team "Bad Luck". I don't mind most of the eliminations where Heather gets by but this is the only one that really bothers me.) or the character is built up to do something big, only for them to do nothing and get booted. (Sammy from Pahkitew is a big one for me. They make it clear from the 1st episode that Sammy has it rough from how badly Amy treats her. They build up to her standing up to her sister and in the 3rd episode it doesn't go well for the first time and that makes sense. Then her sister gets eliminated in that same episode. A really cool elimination to be fair but it comes way too early and afterwards Sammy does nothing until she gets booted 2 episodes later when her sister comes back. Considering that she got on the show just to get away from her sister, it feels really underwhelming that when she gets the chance to be out of her sister's control, she doesn't do anything until she is eliminated. It makes her story really unsatisfying, where it feels like Sammy never grew or changed at all from the beginning and makes the whole idea of her becoming someone who will stand up for herself feel wasted.)
1:05
oh my god i like 3 of those- (BFDI, total drama, danganronpa)
Total drama gone while I love that 0:23
I'm a huge fan of Survivor, and I watched Total Drama as a child which is what got me into it, I've always wondered how a narrative live action attempt at a consistent elimination style game would go where the eliminations are of course all planned but has a consistent unpredictability where each character can fulfil a role whether large, small, supporting or to fulfil a trope. From what I've seen, Squid Game is the closest to this but it's not consistent at all compared to Survivor, but this video is a great tool when designing a story like that!
The shows I’ve watched currently with some eliminations I either dislike or could fall into a BS tier. I’ll skip the constantly talked about ones like Leshawna Island elimination, the Medical squad, or honestly any from the All Stars seasons or Pahkitew
From Total Drama:
-World Tour Noah forever my least favorite elimination. I know Leshawna is worse but the Hoops they go through to make it possible to get him out and how much focus he was getting in the episode only for it to just screech to a halt makes it my least favorite
-Geoff from Island and Bridgette from Island because it doesn’t really make sense when you start to think about it
-Lindsey from any season really because they don’t know how to get her out
-Justin and Harold from Action. The former because it just felt cruel and the latter because Duncan vs Harold would’ve been way better than Duncan vs Beth
-a good chunk of world Tour to be honest. I do not like that order especially since Amazon doesn’t lose a member till Gwen and the majority of them make it to merge
-B from Revenge. Might be the only Revenge elimination I don’t like because Dawn at least has some logic to it and I actually like Brick’s elimination. Like Noah, B’s elimination requires some leaps in logic for them to trust Scott over B especially since Dawn can sense aura and presumably people’s pasts given a couple of her lines so why wouldn’t she immediately sense that B was good and Scott was lying. She even was getting along with B so I don’t get it
-I actually don’t hate the Fashion Bloggers elimination, I just wish they lasted a little longer
-the Adversity Twins elimination was pretty cruel, and I’m not a fan of those types of eliminations especially towards more innocent characters. Also just grinded their growth to a halt
-Damien’s second Eimination and Priya’s elimination should’ve been swapped around. I even wrote a what if on it
Disventure Camp:
-Drew just another character I don’t mind the elimination but I wish lasted longer
-Jake because I don’t like he immediately gets out after the whole thing with Tom and the speech Ellie gives irritates me
-Kai and Connor is up there for one of my least favorites. Kai’s character could’ve had a cool arc of balancing zen mode with his inner anger as well as do more with his relationship with Maggy. As for Connor, it felt like his story was just starting and then it randomly ends to give Riya of all people more screentime
-Yul’s because it felt like afterwards they didn’t know what to do for a villian
-I know people dislike Tess’s but Ally’s was worse in my opinion. She gets out because Hunter solely won immunity despite his blindfold being knocked off as well as his partner in the race just so she wouldn’t be immune and be easy pickings
-same to Lake because Rosa’s infuriated me more. And it led to villian Riya which I hate
BFDI(season 1 only because I haven’t watched the other object shows yet)
I’ll be a lot nicer since this is fan voted
-Snowball got the most votes but yet Teardrop gets out instead because the in characters voted. Pencil went against their alliance voting too if I remember correctly. I don’t fully mind since I love that Snowball is just “grumpy old man yells at cloud” but it did feel like they got out Teardrop because they didn’t know how to write for her
-Woody should’ve gotten our way earlier
-Pencil got out because even though they won the challenge, the board couldn’t hold 3 digit numbers so they were in the bottom three. I find it funny but that must’ve felt unfair to some
-speaking of unfair but funny, Ice Cube got out because not only for the eliminated contestants vote instead of the fans, but they were desperate for AC. It’s like if Leshawna’s elimination was funny
That thumbnail made me chuckle
Noah’s elimanation has everything wrong with it
For 2 years I literally forgot that Ripper is comic relief
Thanks Billy :) I like him even more now
I thought this was gonna be an analysis on how fictional reality show 'formats' would be incredibly broken from a game design perspective, but this is interesting too
when your trying to write an unpredictable outlash elimination sigh 😔
4:11 It's non-existent in the Total Drama remake. Writers are bickering between each other who's gonna create the most pitiful joke aimed for the youngest audience.
The thumbnail having *Nick Le* alongside with TD and DC characters reminds me of "and Bumblebee"
Imo the worst elimination ever is Grett in Disventure Camp All Stars 17
All of her plotlines were pointing to her being a great satisfying winner, and then they decide to eliminate her because Ally decided that after gunning for Jake the whole season she would work with him and vote Grett, who she literally had a final 3 deal with, then they have the audacity to call it "A good game move" like seriously
9:28 i can't tell you how much lake's elimination in DC:AS annoyed me when i saw the episode. on one hand, i can understand why she was eliminated (she did admit to wanting tom eliminated, but didn't mention it was to save aiden), but it's annoying to see a great character who could've made the merge get eliminated so soon instead of ellie, who provided absolutely nothing story-wise to the villains alliance and the show in general. i believe some things that happened in the show (i.e. gabby's flip against the heroes, alec throwing the challenge) could've been executed as they were now without ellie in the mix
i am very salty as you can tell
Objects cannot survive
BFDI MENTIONED
12:10 II actually drops the view voting halfway through season two and I believe that silver spoon should’ve been here, you knew by episode 13 in season three that he’d probably be a finalist but he’s so fun and evil-
ey thanks billy! this will rlly help w something im writing w this same set up!
This video is gonna hit especially hard for y’all after episode 17’s elimination 😭
i love how everyone here is either a tdi fan or an object show fan
(i personally fall into the object show fans! but i wanna watch tdi at some point)
1:08
Wait you just listed literally all of my interests? How did you?
What? Why? When? Huh?
Guys, guys, guys Trevor is playing minecraft!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have an entire seperate channel for Minecraft content! Check out @sillybillymc if you are interested :P this clip is from there
7:00 I’d choose Unpredictability and Fittingness
I want silly billy to make his own animated survivor show he has potential
Katie and Sadie come to mind for me about elimination, because splitting up the two through elimination is fitting because splitting them will lead to conflict, unpredictable because which one will go and consistent because it's a known possibility one will leave before the other eventually . But when Sadie is not eliminated she basically just stays upset about being separated and doesn't go through anything by herself, no coming into her own or trying to replace Katie, she ends up getting the more unsatisfying elimination despite the fact that staying longer should have put her in a more opportune spot to receive something more. They could have continued to have them be split up through seasons 2 and 3 or wound up on the Ridonculous Race but as more individuals.
The other reason I often think about these two is because besides Eva they're only in the first season so despite having 3 season, I find most interesting about them is the potential of what these 2 could be when given the chance to change, where they are despite Sadie having stayed longer she's still seen as a duo, they're basically just one character eliminated twice for padding.
BFDI MENTIONED, WE WIN BOIS
there is a whole community on youtube with minecraft survivors, its a really small community but its more like real survivor
13:21 If I remember correctly,
I think it was moreso Second place that the Ice Dancers had the Vendetta against,
At least in the first episode it was said that Silver is Jacques’ least favorite color, not Bronze.
2:40 oh, I feel like that Heather would be the first boot of her team if it was a viewer vote
I loved this video!!! Please more like this!!
Bro turned into that one goofy ahh teacher
no spoilers but total drama 2023 season 2 caleb shouldnt have been put with the other atagonists
1:06 YES THREE OF MY FAVORITE SHOWS/GAMES
Gabbys elimination was I think the most unexpected ever 😭
This applies to reality shows as well, it just functions a bit differently. For social-strategy reality shows, the production will play the game and film it and then, knowing the outcome, they have to construct a cohesive and satisfying narrative from whatever footage they got. Reality TV is not really reality, an audience will not tune into just a bunch of people starving on an island. There still needs to be a story to hook viewers and if the show doesn’t stick the landing, the viewers will riot (see: any and all modern-day Drag Race discourse). They have to be just as mindful when portraying their contestants so they have a satisfying arc throughout their run, while also having to consider the real life consequences of portraying someone poorly (if the production has any sense of ethics). So in that case, this phenomenon is not isolated to these animated shows, the reality shows have to be just as mindful of this when constructing their stories. I’d even argue that it’s far easier to construct a good narrative for these animated shows as they have the benefit of being able to fully control their cast. You can make your characters do whatever you want, if you want a big move to be made then you just write one into your story. Reality shows don’t have that luxury. They can’t force any of their contestants to make a decision that they don’t want to make so if the players decide to be boring and make safe and boring moves, production can’t do much about it, especially as they are obligated to maintain fairness in the game else they open themselves up to a potential lawsuit. The animated shows run no such risk. The characters aren’t real and neither is the game, the writers can do whatever they want. In this sense, writing these types of shows isn’t any more logistically difficult than writing any piece of fiction.
1:08 Damn I watched all of those 😭
I’ll share my perspective on vote to eliminate as a bfdi fan regarding the first part of the fourth season (bfb)
Because there’s around 64 contestants, the characters don’t get a lot of screen time to do anything, so the creators can easily manufacture hate for a character to get them eliminated.
Examples:
Pencil
Leafy
8-Ball (debatable)
Stapy
Firey Jr.
Spongy
While other characters who couldn’t blend into the background got eliminated for being different or unique
Examples:
Liy (debatable)
Roboty
Loser
David
Dora
Other:
Bracelety’s gag was getting stale even though she had 5 minutes of screentime
Are there any characters eliminated that you feel don’t fit any of the 3 ways an elimination can be satisfying?
What you said about Expedition Robinson applies to Survivor too
I feel Ashley's elimination in DCAS kinda fits the criteria of being Consistent, Fitting and Unpredictable. Her elimination was really unpredictable (to me at least), I felt like this was a good time for her to be eliminated for her and Jake's storyline, and no game changing things happened to her besides the merge, but I wouldn't even consider that to be nonsensical.
Watching your videos about these kinda of stuff is making me rework my own Total drama fan series, it helps me think and re-think things like characters or plot
4:47 MAKOTO NAEGI IS HERE
And also one of the most important diffrences between irl and animated shows: in irl shows producers must pick only hour or 2 of footage, that is usually few houndred hours long. And because of it producers are creating the perspective (sometimes much diffrent from reality) and they must pick the right moments which creates an interesting story. Even the season with excellent cast, gameplay etc. can be ruined if it's edited badly, in an inconsistent way and if we only see boring moments. Producers can't change the events, but they can chnage the way the events are perceived.
Meanwhile in animated shows, creators must create the material by themselves and they have the full control over what is happening - instead of picking over from hours of footage, they are creating the events themselves
II seson 2 is not voted by the viewers and viewers will generly vote the boring charecters instead of the charecters with plots,take the BFB book and taco arc for example
(i thought ee was excellent entities lol)
Damn I thought EE was excellent entities
BFDI in thumbnail‼️‼️‼️
I didn’t think I’d see DR linked to these Survivor shows, but you’re not wrong. It just makes cast reunions difficult.
I can imagine how hard it is to make a show like this. There would be so many character interactions and arcs to keep track of. You would need notes on how the eliminations affect each character and decide when their story should have a satisfying ending and when they shouldn’t if they’re being set up for something further down the line. Plus the writers need to destabilize and reestablish the cast every single episode. On one hand, it’s an interesting writing challenge, but it seems like one that you can easily get wrong.
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