sophy soph

THIS REVIEW BROKE THE WORD LIMIT OOPS I don’t necessarily have a full opinion on Total Drama as a franchise: my opinion differs based on which season, as I’ve noticed that Total Drama’s character writing has changed a lot since its debut, and sometimes for the worst, sometimes for the best. I’ll begin with Total Drama Island, which is my favourite season and one I think is a 4.5/5. Warning that this review DOES contain spoilers, I include spoilers to point out both the good qualities and bad flaws of the franchise. Total Drama Island Total Drama Island is the classic first season. If you’re a fan of Total Drama, you most likely enjoy the first season. This season is my favourite: it’s the introduction to a fun parodical concept, that you could do lots of things with, and FreshTv took that opportunity and ran with it! The show is set on a “mucky old summer camp”, hosted by a stereotypical greedy dude called Chris McLean, where 22 teenagers are forced to stay in. The unique thing about this idea is that the teenagers are all stereotypes that differ from each other, but can also pair up incredibly well. Of course, they can also pair up AWFULLY, but in this case I see it as a good thing. It gets the plot point going. Character interactions are the most important thing in Total Drama, as the series is based around drama, which is fairly obvious unless you haven’t looked at the title before. The fact that they’re all stereotypes is good, but I have one problem with it: Leshawna. I wouldn't want to get in depth with Leshawna, but in short, her stereotype didn’t exactly age well…Thankfully, Leshawna is a likeable character, being one of the ‘moral good’ characters of the franchise without being a saint, similarly to the goth girl Gwen. Speaking of morality, let’s talk about the main antagonist: Heather. Heather is written to be unlikeable, and Fresh TV did it well. They made her unlikeable without making her insufferable. I wanted her to get voted off when I was younger but I couldn’t (and still can’t) help but enjoy her presence. She carried the plot, being the cause of almost all the drama in the series. This is what makes her being unlikeable good, unlike some other characters in the franchise (which I’ll get onto much later). Her alliance with Beth and Lindsay was very good, especially when the two of them eventually snapped at her. Lindsay snapping at Heather served as possibly the most iconic scene in the franchise. It’s a top five scene for sure. She also was the cause of Heather’s elimination, which is great. These two events were crucial to her character development. Heather even broke up a couple. My only issue with her is her immense amount of plot armour, but at least it bought something good to the competition. Noah: You may be wondering, “Why are you making a paragraph on Noah? He was barely in this season!”. Well, here’s my answer- missed potential. And I’ll explain. Noah is the most wasted Total Drama character ever, or at least one of the most wasted. Noah’s title is quite literally “The Schemer”. Using this information, I believe that Noah was originally supposed to have a bigger role in Total Drama Island, and he’s canonically one of the smartest characters in the franchise, with Izzy being the smartest. I’ll also talk about Izzy, but later. In “Total Drama Drama Drama Island”, the special episode of the first season that leads up to Total Drama Action, Noah mentions Justin being his nemesis, which is something I wish Fresh TV elaborated on, but unfortunately that never happened. In short, I wish they put the Schemer title to good use.

Wanna sit down and have a laugh? This show is for you, it’s pretty much for everyone, from young children to teens to grown adults. Me and my mum watch this show all the time and it never fails to make us laugh. I love how the cartoony characters are able to fit in with the realistic backgrounds, and there’s such unique designs! There’s a lot of sweet episodes too, like the Origins, one of my personal favourite episodes. Everyone in the Wattersons is likeable, and this show is one of my favourite cartoons. Great show, if you like Regular Show you’ll like this. Overall, recommended!