Wall Banger/Western Animation/Total Drama Island

'''IMPORTANT NOTE: Don't complain about every elimination and/or other trivial things. It's not a wall banger just because your favorite character was eliminated. It takes a real dumb reason to be eliminated to count.'''

Island

 * The "last" episode has Gwen giving an Out of Character insult to approximately three-quarters of the entire cast, calling them insane (except for five -- who include OWEN, whose "Mr. Coconut" incident proves that he is insane). Nobody says a thing about it. Because she recorded it in the confessional, and because the entire Reality Show series is -- you know -- a giant Show Within a Show, you'd think that somebody would see it. (It's how Courtney found out about Harold rigging the votes in the first place -- Harold made the mistake of recording his plans on live TV.) Yet Gwen gets off with nobody after her. Not even Eva.
 * One of the campers she insulted was Geoff, a character she had bonded with just a few episodes prior and became friends with. What?
 * Even odder: Gwen doesn't insult Tyler, Katie, and Sadie. Not insulting Tyler is good, as she didn't really know him. But she'll insult Geoff and not Katie and Sadie?!
 * It could be said that Gwen did spend more time with Geoff than she ever did with Katie and Sadie to get a better sense of his overall behavior, or maybe just forgot to include them in her rant. But just as odd as Gwen's insulting of Geoff was also her insulting of Lindsey, who had gotten on Gwen's good side, due to both Lindsey's laying a verbal smackdown on Heather and then later coming up with the one punishment that Heather did not want to do, which got both her head shaved and got her eliminated. Gwen had even said "Lindsey rules!" to that, yet not soon after she's insulting her. Go figure...
 * "The Big Sleep." The wallbanger's not in the elimination, but in perceptive characters like Duncan and Courtney failing to recognize an obvious Alpha Bitch or realize that she's playing them like a fiddle.
 * It's not like they could have done anything about it at the time, anyway. The Bass had already lost the challenge before Heather finished her plan to turn Eva, the team's strongest player, against the other Bass. Whether or not the smarter Bass realized what Heather was up to that early on, they still had to vote one of their own off, and then try to make sure the Gophers lost the next time to risk Heather being voted off. Nevertheless...
 * Heather managed to survive until the final three. They had to bring in convoluted ideas just to keep them from rightfully voting her off.
 * This kind of thing is Truth In Reality Television: people involved in Reality TV shows keep the bitchiest characters on the show as long as possible (Omarosa in The Apprentice, New York in Flavor of Love, Lacey in Rock of Love, etc.) for the sake of ratings and "entertainment."
 * True, except Heather staying in the game wasn't due to Executive Meddling. It was due to several Contrived Coincidences that the producers couldn't possibly have seen coming. Probably the worst example of this is in "Paintball Deer Hunter" when Heather is saved from being voted off because Cody just happened to get mauled by a bear that day.
 * The last couple contestant votes also were like this, especially since there was no invincibility in "Wawanakwa Gone Wild!" nor in "Trial by Tri-Armed Triathlon!" Izzy being voted off in the former is understandable because her unpredictability could be seen as a threat (and her Ax Crazy potential), but almost the entire final six was given one big Idiot Ball in the latter. Geoff's niceness was also considered a threat when Heather was out in the open? Not to mention it probably should've resulted in a tie: Heather likely blackmailed easy-to-manipulate Owen into voting off Geoff, and Duncan also voted off Geoff instead of the Manipulative Bastard. Leshawna explicitly voted against Heather and Gwen most likely did as well, so because it wasn't a tie, who did Geoff think was more important to vote off?
 * Even worse about the latter; Geoff got kicked off because "his niceness was a threat" while Owen, one of the nicest and in-universe biggest favorites, stays. Yep, Geoff was the biggest threat out of the six.
 * Another thing. A few episodes ago, the boys formed an alliance to ensure that at least one of them would get to the finals. After Geoff is eliminated, there are 2 boys to 3 girls which weakens decreasing the chance of a boy winning (though one did). If they wanted to vote off a popular character, couldn't they have picked Leshawna. Heather had said earlier in that episode that Lewshawna hadn't made any enemies and none of the losers had any complaints about her while the rest of the contestants had at least one so much that the writers had to pick an Asspull way for her to be eliminated. This way, they get rid of a threat and increase the boys' chance of winning.
 * Total Drama, Drama, Drama, Drama Island's Ass Pull with the diving board. To elaborate, a part of a challenge from exactly twenty episodes earlier appears out of nowhere. It's a tall diving board (with a pool of green jelly) as part of the phobia challenge to which some of the contestants get on. The ladder breaks, and some of the people simply fall off, not getting into Action while the others zoom on the board over to the dock and getting them in. Not only was there not really any Fridge Brilliance like the ones on one side making it in for whatever reason (board breaks in half or such), but Cody and Tyler did not make it despite being tied (It Makes Sense in Context) to two people who did; Owen and DJ. Irritatingly, nearly all of those who did get in were already major characters (and minor character who became a villain, Justin, got in through a different but related accident), and Courtney was amongst the ones who fell yet she got in anyways halfway through the season.
 * "Camp Castaways": Gwen and Duncan, two of the smartest players, thought they were lost for dead on a deserted island when the background was filled with potted plants. Heather sees the absurdity of the situation, but even she starts to play along as the episode progresses.
 * Lindsay's elimination. The rules made even less sense than those in "Haute Camp-Ture." Everyone who wiped out in the bike race or didn't participate in the challenge was as good as invincible, just like Heather was. And it was uncharacteristically stupid of Heather to burn bridges with Lindsay; someone as cunning as she should realize what a dangerous position it puts her in. What if Heather was the only one to cross the finish line and Lindsay didn't?
 * This would mean that the others got a step further in the competition just because they're wimps. Ironically, Tyler says the exxact opposite thing to his team later on in World Tour at one point in The Ex-Files.
 * Just getting to that point was a wallbanger. Apparently, the thick-skulled Lindsay not only built her bike and Heather's from spare parts, but disassembled Chef's motorcycle and incorporated its parts into Heather's bike. Without anyone noticing. Not even Chef.
 * Seriously, why on earth would Leshawna and Izzy be safe after not even participating and the others for not finishing the challenge at all?
 * Because Chris McLean said so. All the convoluted eliminations were his doing. He's Mr. Rule of Drama. He most likely set up the challenge and the elimination so that the events that transpired would happen, going so far as to use "technicalities" to make Lindsay go. If memory serves, this is the first time he so blatantly does this, but not the last.
 * Tyler's elimination because he was unable to stand up to his fear of chickens. Well, not the elimination itself -- that makes sense -- but the way Duncan, Bridgette and Geoff mocked him when he left. Um, hello?! Bridgette and Geoff didn't conquer their fears, either; Duncan did, but he needed help with something that was even more ridiculous than chickens! Courtney's jumping up in Tyler's defense is one of her best moves---after all, any attack on Tyler is an implicit attack on her, too.
 * He's the Chew Toy. Plus hail and getting lost in the woods are life threatening as well as scary while a chicken-based fear is not only ridiculous but senseless (at least in the eyes of the other contestants). Yes, Duncan's fear was more ridiculous but he's The Bully and he'd pound anyone who'd mocked him. The real wallbanger for this troper was that Tyler not Courtney was eliminated, at least Tyler acknowledged his fear while Courtney denied she had any, constantly declaring that she didn't fear anything only to back out of the challenge when it mattered the most. The only explanation I can think of is that Duncan threatened the rest of the team if they voted Courtney off.
 * Leshawna's elimination involved the previous losers voting off the one camper they wanted to see eliminated. What followed was Leshawna getting every single vote because every character found a contrived way to say her name by accident. What got worst was the fact that Lindsay's vote was counted more than once as well as a Parrot who mentioned Leshawna's name multiple times. While this was something made by Chris, he actually did hint the whole "saying the name counts" to the eliminated campers, and still none of them tried another option. Instead of saying someone else's name or just not saying anything, they went "Don't say 'LeShanwa...' Oh wait, I just did." The Wall Banger isn't quite in the rule, but that the contestants fell right for it even after knowing about it.

Action

 * Courtney surviving into the final four. Unlike Heather, Courtney starts winning almost every challenge with her superhuman physical abilities, which she didn't have in TDI. Heather staying on, you could buy because she was smart; Courtney suddenly became invincible out of the blue.
 * There's a lot of Character Derailment in this season so bad that you would think you're seeing a Fan Film. Trent goes insane over nothing and starts to obsess over Gwen; Geoff and Bridgette are now one-dimensional and are just used for make-out jokes; Harold became the series' punching bag; Courtney became a whiny, spoiled jerk comparable to Sarah -- this Sarah -- who threatens to sue if she doesn't get what she wants... etc.
 * Trent does get over it though.
 * Leshawna's alliance idea "One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Basically she expects to form an alliance with her ex-boyfriend, whom she coldly dumped like yesterdays trash, and the jerkass ex-con who is constantly bullying and tormenting him. Oh, and she's surprised when they say no.
 * Lindsay's elimination here (in "Rock and Rule") was worse than her first elimination. After proving how clever she could be in the previous episode, Lindsay officially becomes TooDumbToLive by voting herself off without even realizing it!
 * Beth admitted it was her fault because she distracted Lindsay.
 * In "Crouching Courtney, Hidden Owen" Courtney complained about Lindsay "selfishly" voting herself off, leaving the girls outnumbered. But Courtney voted for Lindsey herself, on purpose. And if Courtney didn't want the girls to be outnumbered, then why did she help Duncan get LeShawna voted off earlier?
 * Beth getting to the final two with Duncan. There were MANY episodes in Total Drama Action that built up Duncan and Harold's conflict, which seemed to indicate that the two of them would resolve everything in the finale. But nope, Harold gets eliminated by a treacherous Owen after winning a challenge; and Beth, who has no relationship with Duncan whatsoever, gets it just because they apparently wanted another boy-girl, Badass vs. comic relief finale.
 * Then there's the finale itself. It ends in a tie because the final two form an alliance. Guess what's wrong with that last statement.
 * They formed an alliance against Chris, which is really the smartest move you could make on the show.
 * The "you pick the winner" thing was a cop-out on the writers' behalf. It was cute the first time around, when we didn't necessarily know that our votes would determine the winner; but by not committing to one person, they admit that the actual winner will have no effect on the plot of future seasons. It's also disillusioning to watch the finale once you know that the characters' actions have no effect on the final result.

World Tour

 * The ending of I See London... Team Amazon won even though they didn't catch the Ripper, which was the entire point of the challenge. Team CIRRRRH did, and yet they lost because the Amazons found Duncan. Sure, Chris likes to screw around with the rules all the time, but they obviously just did this to get rid of Noah and bring back the Gwen/Duncan/Courtney love triangle crap. The wallbanger isn't the elimination, but what led to the elimination.
 * It Got Worse. The very next episode, at the voting ceremony, Chris deliberately ignores the votes just to keep Duncan. He even lampshades that he's doing it strictly for the drama! Then again, this is Chris we're talking about.
 * Much like what they did twice with DJ's wasted subplots (that is, the "cheating" subplot in Action and the "cursed" subplot in World Tour), they tossed aside Noah's subplot regarding his friendship (and sometimes annoyance) with Owen and Character Development throughout the season just to bring back a fan-favorite and force the Duncan/Courtney/Gwen Love Triangle. Really, writers? You're going to just forget about the whole "let's give the Ensemble Darkhorse characters from the first and second seasons their chance to shine" idea and go back to the "Duncan/Gwen VS Duncan/Courtney" subplot, which was old and tired when Action was first being aired? It's one thing to have a character voted off to make room to develop newer characters, but voting a character off just as he's starting to develop as a character just so Duncan can come back? Why!?!
 * Duncan has since become a Base Breaker.
 * Gwen staying with Duncan after the kiss is exposed is a Wall Banger for two big reasons:
 * 1) She should be feeling too guilty about betraying Courtney to continue on with Duncan, especially seeing as she should understand how Courtney (her FRIEND) feels, having felt anguish at thinking Trent cheated on her with Heather.
 * 2) Shouldn't Gwen be smart enough to consider that, if Duncan cheated on Courtney with her, who's to say that he won't cheat on HER with some other girl later on down the road?
 * According to some Fan Dumb poor little innocent Duncan was abused for utter shrew Courtney in Action, so he is totally justified to cheat her with Gwen in World Tour, but then that leads to Fridge Logic of why he even got back together with her in the second season finale and the TDA special if she was that bad to him in TDA. Seriously, he decides to cheat when she finally gains some character development and becomes nicer, but yet the thought of cheating on her when she was at her worst last season apparently NEVER ENTERS HIS HEAD!?!
 * It used to be said right here on this page that "when you're in love, you don't think clearly," potholed to Fridge Brilliance. It was apparently taken down because this is not a good thing or an actual excuse. This is one of the problems people have with this triangle: If this is what's really going on, it's still a massive example of Derailing Love Interests. Ignoring how massively derailed Courtney was between seasons 1 and 2, Gwen used to be one of the only sane characters on the whole show, and also seemed to be one of the nicer characters. Helping a guy she previously only showed a bit of interest in cheat on one of her best friends is pretty out of character.
 * The argument "you don't think straight when you're in love" is pretty much the definition of Love Makes You Dumb.
 * DJ's storyline in World Tour being thrown away to make more room for Duncan. DJ became the first character to become a "Team of One" and an entire episode was devoted to both DJ regaining his confidence and Alejandro and Heather trying to form an alliance with him. DJ was eliminated the very next episode because he couldn't officially join Alejandro's team, and Alejandro decided to pull a "You Have Outlived Your Usefulness." Seriously? Even if DJ couldn't become an official member of CIRRRRH, an alliance would've gave Alejandro a numbers advantage, so it made no sense for him to stab DJ in the back.
 * The "main" ending to Hawaiian Punch and the season (well, at least it appears that way even though Canada aired the other ending). Mere seconds after wins  One part Gainax, one part Downer, all-Mood Whiplash from a too-brief Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. Plus, this particular Wall Banger made this the only "finale" that doesn't end on a mostly-high note. Hopefully it'll all be resolved in the inevitable special bridging Season 4?
 * Chris practically cheats throughout the whole season, almost as if he wanted to make sure . Every time Team Victory loses, they have to vote someone off; every time they don't come in last, the other teams are spared elimination. Every. Single. Time. The only reason ! And then when, he changes the rules of a challenge (as mentioned above) so that goes, and next challenge disregards votes so  can stay. He later makes the call to eliminate , because the show is running thin (which wouldn't have happened if he didn't make so many non-eliminations, so it's his own fault.) He spares Heather, Duncan, and Alejandro at least one once each, . We all have Willing Suspension of Disbelief when it comes to Chris, but how many times he changed the rules, spared some and not others, makes him and the eliminations very irritating throughout the whole season to some.
 * The alternate ending to World Tour in which  Top this off with that it's the "official" ending for Canada, and you have a terrible season finale.

Revenge of the Island

 * There are two things I hate to see in the challenges: useless rewards and wins via catch-22. The first episode of season 4 manages to have both. The "bad" reward is a hacksaw, ie the very thing they need for the challenge, if push came to shove, they could have chopped down the tree. By contrast the "good" reward, a trampoline, was only mildly helpful - especially when the axe they were given was hopelessly stuck in the tree. Chris' logic appears to have been that it would be harder to climb a tree than it would to improvise a cutting tool. At best, the playing field could be called level, which really defeats the purpose of rewarding the team who finished the footrace first. And that's not all, after the Ratls make it to the finish line first, they lose because their cabin gets blown up when the other team fails to defuse their bomb. There are just so many levels of Fridge Logic: What were the Rats supposed to do besides exactly what was instructed of them? What kind of logic dictates that a team can win a challenge by destroying something with their own crest on it? Why did Chris make such a big deal about the Rats not having a "still standing" cabin if he was just going to replace it (albeit with a shabbier one) two seconds later? The worst part is how predictable this made the elimination ceremony - the Maggots had several people getting on their teammates' nerves, but the Rats had just one,

Season spanners/Other

 * Ezekiel's first season elimination (for offending the girls with "sexist comments") gets worse and worse after it's shown just how sexist the other campers can get:
 * 1) There's the elimination itself. If Ezekiel didn't complete the challenge, then fine, vote off the sexist. But no, he did the challenge; and yet Courtney stays on, totally free. This says a lot about the campers: they voted out someone who made sexist comments instead of someone who refused to do the challenge. This makes "ZOMG! This camper was good in our team and won nearly everything we faced yet failed this one challenge! Kill It with Fire!" reasons hypocritical. And it was the first challenge, so it's too soon to think that failing them will be a pattern. It's not as if they knew that the next challenge would be how long one can stay awake! It could've been something that played to his strengths. So you have to put up with someone that offended you (even if it was just once); if they can keep your team going, then keep them until the merge.
 * 2) (Another Wall Banger, above, brings this up.) Making gender-biased alliances after this.
 * 3) Several contestants, including Courtney and Eva call someone "a girl" as an insult, both being girls on Ezekiel's team. Duncan even asks Courtney to make dinner for him. And then seasons later, Alejandro and Duncan were practically praised for how they were using the girls, but Chris still refers to Ezekiel as a misogynist (and this is also despite the fact that Ezekiel hasn't said anything bad towards girls since that first challenge in the first season.)
 * Justin's villainy in the second season had no Foreshadowing (aside from him Taking A Level In Jerkass on the first season special) and it was dropped later on anyway. In two more Wall Banger moves, they replace him with a character-derailed Courtney as the villain, and in Total Drama World Tour, the villain is basically an evil Justin Expy anyway! WTF?
 * The show spent several episodes building up Tyler and Lindsay's relationship, using it as a tool for drama because Heather disapproved of it... But, not only does it end suddenly, but Lindsay also doesn't even care about it ending. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot.
 * It's like she said when she got eliminated in Action: " 'Bye' is just 'Hi' with a B." As cheesy as that sounds (and as inaccurate as it is on paper), she probably had a feeling that she would see him again. She later did in the finale, but...
 * It only gets worse. Lindsay forgets who Tyler is.
 * Thankfully, she ended up figuring out that Tyler was in the Total Drama World Tour series. Of course, it had to take a few episodes in that series before she remembered Tyler, but better late than never.
 * Many characters seem to suffer from an allergy or condition that only exists to serve the plot of particular episode and in future or earlier episodes they cease to exist.
 * Harold claiming he was allergic to apples in Who Can You Trust, yet it in the next episode he accepts apple juice(actually kitchen grease).
 * Leshawna said she couldn't eat cheese in One Flu Over the Cuckoos, but she was eating it in Super Hero-ld.
 * Leshawna's hair turning into an afro when exposed to water, in "Action" despite going swimming several times in "Island" without being affected. Even worse, it wasn't even a plot point for which they damaged continuity, just an unfunny recurring visual gag.
 * Beth was incapable of screaming in The Sand-Witch Project but she screams in The Princess Pride.
 * Courtney said she was Lactose Intolerant in Dial M for Merger but she eats cheese and chocolate in future episodes.
 * Lindsay was supposed to have big feet in The Princess Pride, but whenever we see her feet they are shown to be normal sized.
 * And of course Trent's 9 obsession, which he didn't have for the whole first season.


 * Back to
 * Back to