Inferno 3: Episode 2

I think I may need to write to MTV and kindly request that they start and end their shows on time. Once again my DVR started recording during the last minute of that aberrational program in the 8:30 timeslot and stopped recording Inferno just as they were about to show what to look forward to on next week's episode. I thought that the entire reason they created time zones was so mishaps like this could be avoided. Anyways...

I am really unhappy with MTV's trend of frequently trying to make elimination challenges some sort of battle of brawn and brains. Last season, how many times did we have to see that stupid Ascender game? What an absolute waste of what could have been a really prolific match up this week. I am not saying that I don't enjoy Alton getting straight up surgical with whatever they throw at him. He is a steed and I enjoy watching him compete. He could play a game of Bunco with Scott Bakula while eating a grilled cheese sandwich and I could still find a reason to waltz into work the next day proudly tell all my co-workers "ALTON IS A STEED."

But imagine seeing him go against Tyrie is some sort of American Gladiator type shit. That is the type of quality television that has the possiblity of blowing your asshole clear off the end of your rectum. Save the brainteasers for the final challenge when they are necessary so everyone thinks the underdogs always has a chance.

So congratulations to Alton for, uh, annihilating (I guess) Tyrie in the Inferno. And congratulations to the entire cast for, as usual, using the events that occurred over first 36 hours of filming to make overarching assumptions about the rest of the season. In Denver, Jen knew after one night that she would never talk to Alex again and that Colie would be at her wedding. Here in South Africa, after the first elimination (and their first win at anything) John and Timmy are convinced that their winning "trend" has so much momentum that it can not be stopped.

A quick side note: I am sticking to my claim that is detrimental to both shows to have the Denver cast on this season of The Challenge. The first preview for Wednesday's Real World episode has Jen claiming that if she had a gun, she would shoot Davis after he (suprise suprise) goes out of his way to stir shit up for no apparent reason. Yes, the episode most likely will not end with a gun homicide, but I would have at least appreciated the opportunity to find that out the old-fashioned way.

Easily the highlight of this week's episode was listening to Tonya, Abe, Kenny and Ev's engrossing conversation on the Hamiltonian mechanics of kinetic and potential momentum. If you pay close attention, you can hear Abe briefly trying to explain Riemannian manifolds to Ev, who responds with an eloquent "Get the fuck out of my face." It looks like the Bad Asses are having just as hard of a time figuring out who the hell she is as I am.

The second most notable incident from this episode involves Danny completely flying off the handle after the Good Guy victory. This comedically overexaggerated performance of his can be explained with two words: 'Roid Rage. The amount of clandestine doping going on at these challenges probably makes professional cycling look like a BattleCry convention. The theory my friends and I have come up with goes like this: Sometime between The Inferno 2 and The Gauntlet 2, all the male competitors began to realize that appearing on these challenges is as much of a career as they are going to have their entire life. The only exceptions I can think of are Ace, Syrus and Cameran, who host the newest Girls Gone Wild video. And Tonya has been in soft core porn. But that is beside the point.

Everyone else has to prepare for the upcoming shows the same way football players and middle relievers prepare for their upcoming seasons: by conditioning their bodies with the help of banned performance enhancing drugs.

The minute the cameras stop rolling at the end of a season, they hit the gym and the juice, and they hit them hard. Notice the impressive bulk that Wes put on between the conclusion of Fresh Meat and the start of The Duel. How about MJ, Landon and Alton on The Gauntlet 2? And now there is Danny, who was always a muscular guy but is now a complete brick shit house with a short fuse and horrific bacne.

It is bad enough that when I am 40 I am going to have to look back knowing that a vast majority of the baseball players I idolized growing up where worse drug abusers than Pete Doherty, but to also reach the same conclusion about the MTV cast members that I talk about with friends and write about in stupid blogs? Kick me while I'm down, world.

Some final notes-

• What is MTV trying to pull with Living Lahania? I didn't watch that show the first time it was on when it was called Maui Fever. Or the second time it was on when it was called Twentyfourseven.
• I am still really sad that I will not have any real reason to write anything relevant about CT this time around.