The Challenge: All Stars Is Losing Its Edge — Here’s How to Fix It

The Challenge: All Stars started with a fantastic idea, but the OG concept seriously fell off with the recent All Stars Rivals.

While the throwback concept brought intriguing pairings and a few returning OGs that made it watchable, it lost the luster that arrived with the first several seasons.

And when that fifth season arrived, The Challenge: All Stars aired on a different network, and producers changed what initially worked, seemingly frustrating many fans.

We received some OGs and then cast members from recent seasons of The Challenge, arriving from CBS or other networks’ reality TV shows.

However, I believe All Stars can keep going and it’s apparent that the man who brought this concept to life, The Godfather Mark Long, is doing his darndest to keep things moving in the right direction.

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Save All Stars With the OGs and Throwback Formats

As a viewer, I enjoyed seeing and hearing about blast-from-the-past MTV stars like Syrus Yarbrough, Beth Stolarczyk, Trishelle Cannatella, Katie Cooley, and Eric “Big Easy” Banks.

That was The Challenge: All Stars Season 1, and we continued to see other OGs pop up in subsequent seasons, including Tina Barta, Kefla Hare, and MJ Garrett.

There are so many more OGs out there who could still appear on this show and make it work like it did for the first several seasons, rather than adding newer stars from Survivor, Big Brother, and elsewhere.

Mark keeps spotlighting videos from some former MTV cast members, including Coral Smith, Mallory Snyder, and Sarah Rice, all of whom I and other fans would love to see return to compete.

Mark has also teased the idea of bringing back other formats for The Challenge from past seasons, including Battle of the Exes, which has many great possibilities for former castmates.

There’s Mark and Robin Hibbard, Brad Fiorenza and Tori Hall, and Danny Jamieson and Melinda Collins, to name a few potential pairings of former showmances and exes that fans might enjoy seeing compete.

The Challenge Needs Some Network Consistency

A glaring mistake I noticed from poring over fan comments is that The Challenge: All Stars should have stuck with Paramount+ in some way, shape, or form.

The first four All Stars seasons arrived on Paramount+, a low-cost streaming service that allowed fans to watch episodes at their leisure.

Rivals moved to MTV, and many fans who had previously watched All Stars on Paramount+ were left scrambling to get MTV again.

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That constant network jump can certainly frustrate a fanbase that wants to consume episodes, but doesn’t want to pay for multiple services to watch The Challenge.

At the very least, I believe they could air All Stars on MTV and put episodes on-demand on Paramount+ for next-day viewing instead of hoping the fans follow The Challenge from network to network.

All of this said, it’s a scary time for All Stars, as Season 6 has yet to be greenlit, but it’s still possible, if Mark and fans can convince producers that the OG format and a consistent network are best for everyone.

Fans sound off below.

Let me know how you think they can save The Challenge: All Stars from potential cancellation.

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