‘The Challenge’ Renewed for Season 36 After ‘Total Madness’ Pulls in Record-Setting Ratings; Host TJ Lavin Hints That Shows Like ‘Survivor’ Copy ‘The Challenge’

To be fair, they did bring out the big tanks guns this season.

Get ready another season of physical battles, backstabbing and (if we’re lucky) at least one Hall Brawl… The Challenge has officially been picked up for Season 36! 

The news of ‘The Challenge’ nabbing a record 36th season doesn’t come as a huge surprise, given the stellar numbers of the currently airing season, “Total Madness.” According to a recent Deadline article, ‘Total Madness’ has been key to MTV holding down its spot as the #1 cable network in the 18-34 category, with ‘The Challenge’ coming in as MTV’s Number 1-rated show in that age category.

Cue Wes and Bananas claiming their on-screen bromance made this season in 3…2…

In fact, with total viewership at 1.51 million – a more than 10 percent increase – ‘Total Madness’ is on track to be the highest-rated season of ‘The Challenge’ in eight years. 

While show host TJ Lavin isn’t surprised to see ‘The Challenge’ maintain a solid fanbase after all these years, he actually thinks it’s “the most underrated show on television.” 

“I agree! I feel this way about the other five MTV shows I’ve been on, as well.”

“It’s pretty much the A-1 spot for anyone to see what they can do,” TJ recently told ET Canada.

TJ even stated that other reality shows take cues from what they’re doing on ‘The Challenge.’

“They are looking at our show and saying, ‘OK, maybe we can do this.’ It’s like, OK, I see you, I see you Survivor.”  

“Burn”.

Longtime ‘Challenge’ star (and self-proclaimed pot stirrer) Johnny Bananas commented on the show’s renewal and rising ratings on Twitter, writing, “Numbers don’t lie… But your bitter faves do!!!” 

While the ‘Total Madness’ ratings have been record-setting, the show has received some backlash for poorly editing episodes for its American audience. The backlash began last month when competitor Dee Nguyen was fired for making offensive comments about the Black Lives Matter movement and the network responded by editing scenes from the current season to minimize Dee’s screen time.   

TJ said the show was supposed to be filming right now but plans were put on hold due to the current pandemic. However, he said producers are moving forward with a setting that will ensure safety.

I mean, they could always go back to this…

“We are hopefully going to film again pretty soon,” he said. “The producers are working real hard to try and find a location, to try and get everything locked down, but they’re going to do it with the safety in mind to where it’s almost like an island, lockdown-type situation. 

RELATED STORY: Former Star of MTV’s ’The Challenge’ Camila Nakagawa Welcomes First Child 

(Photos: MTV; Twitter)

6 Comments

  1. Sorry but Survivor has had 40 successful seasons. They don’t need to look at this scripted show for ideas.


      1. Oh please do share this knowledge that you have about the show being scripted 🙄 When is the last time you watched it?


    1. [* Shield plugin marked this comment as “Trash”. Reason: Failed Bot Test (checkbox) *]
      and then again survivor doing the same thing over and over again and its also scripted, also they kind of chose who is going to win by ratings.

      the challenge have new concept every season some are good some are less.
      and you can say the show scripted but its not, the show us what they want and cut things like any other show but you can’t say they picked who going to win like other show, we saw people like wes,c.t and johnny going down in few episodes and also new players reaching top.


  2. Sooooo…Johnny basically confirmed he will be on the next season too?

    But of course he did, as if he has anything better to do!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.