The Challenge: USA is well underway, and more than half of the players have been eliminated, amid suspicions from viewers that producers are manipulating the onscreen action. As a spinoff of MTV’s hit competition show, The Challenge, the Paramount Plus show features members from Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, and Love Island. Initially, castmates from their respective shows naturally gravitated towards each other, but alliances soon shifted, as the players vied for the grand prize of $500,000, which would be split between a male and female.
Just like the original show, The Challenge: USA had the cast members compete in daily challenges, which tested their physical and mental abilities. The losers of the daily challenges would immediately get thrown into the arena. The winners, who were safe from elimination, would choose who to send in against the loser. Host TJ Lavin put a surprise twist in The Challenge: USA’s first season. He told the contestants that they needed $5,000 each in their bank accounts in order to compete in the final. They would be earning money with each daily challenge win, or the elimination winners would take their opponents' cash.
After the first daily challenge, TJ revealed another surprise twist. Initially, the players were allowed to pick their partners. Naturally, the physically strongest castmates wanted to pair up together. However, TJ announced that moving forward, a computerized algorithm would be pairing the contestants. Many of the players were dismayed to hear this, as it gave them no control over their partners. The algorithm, which was a first for The Challenge, was met with suspicion by contestants. After getting eliminated in the arena, Tiffany Mitchell and Cashel Barnett believed they were “set up” by the algorithm. The supposedly random pairing raised eyebrows again when Angela Rummans was partnered with Domenick Abbate, even though they had been partners before.
Leo Temory, who was recently eliminated, spoke out about The Challenge: USA possibly being manipulated by producers. In the latest daily challenge, contestants had to race across a soapy runway and retrieve multiple keys. It was a timed event, and Leo believed that he was the fastest. However, Ben was declared the winner, and Leo told Screen Rant that he thought producers chose the winner to fit a certain narrative. After he got thrown into the arena and lost the elimination, cameras showed him calling his castmates “snakes,” and it looked as if he refused to get up, and was being a sore loser. However, Leo told Screen Rant that the scene was actually from three weeks ago, when he and Sarah got thrown into the elimination. He revealed that he didn’t say goodbye during the last elimination because he had a concussion, and was sent to the hospital.
Viewers take reality television with a grain of salt, and know that many scenes are edited. However, a competition game such as The Challenge: USA should be more upfront, and show evidence of their timed events. The algorithm was also highly suspicious, as it did not seem to make random pairings. Before the last daily challenge, TJ announced that they would no longer be using the algorithm, as players would be performing individually. Perhaps The Challenge: USA producers caught wind of the skepticism from viewers, and decided to allow the drama to unfold more naturally.