Pretty obvious that it's scripted. I used to love watching this show but now that I think about it, the judges tend to favor some contestants. For example, Jaala and Matthew had less negative critiques on a tag team challenge than Sadie and Malia, yet they got eliminated. The girls team should've been eliminated due to their performance and the outcome of their performance. Plus, every kid tends to say the same thing like "I'm not like the other kids" or "Other kids my age would be playing sports or whatever." I'm very sure these kids aren't actually like this. The food waste is also atrocious, and the kids tend to scream a lot. I'm assuming this is to add to the excessive drama. The favoritism, drama, and scripting is just really hard to watch.