SPOILERS FOR TDI23, OBVIOUSLY

I’ve been thinking about the new season since it came out, and I’ve been floating some ideas around my mind that I felt like sharing today. Like many of you, my biggest problem with the season when it came out was the boot order, but over time, that aspect of the season grew on me as I became more fond of the end gamers. Nowadays, my biggest problem is that both main villains aren’t as strong as they could be, but for opposite reasons.

Bowie is consistently presented as a schemer, but we very rarely see that translate to eliminations. At most, he’s responsible for Caleb and Julia in episodes ONE and TWELVE. It makes Bowie’s turning Millie and Priya against each other in episode 12 feel very 11th hour-ish. He doesn’t need to be the main antagonist, but some more bts scheming was definitely in order.

Julia on the other hand, despite being more of a jerk villain and less of a strategic one, is actually given a few schemes, however, they’re all pretty dumb. Her plan to get rid of Chase in episode 7 is laughably bad, because ignoring Chase and Emma getting back together, her plan involved getting people she was actively screwing over during the challenge to ultimately work together with her afterwards. That being said, she’s at least indirectly responsible for all of MK, Ripper, and Emma’s eliminations.

So, you have the schemer who isn’t sending players home except for the beginning and the end, and the person sending players home during the middle of the game who isn’t scheming, or at the very least, isn’t scheming well. So…here’s how I’d adjust things.

Episodes 1-7: Honestly, I would keep all the premerge boots Wayne and Raj consistent. Still sucks losing Damien and the Hockey Bros this early, but to the show’s credit, the first 7 episodes do a really nice job connecting the stories of the characters in the final 8 and I really wouldn’t change any of them out.

Episode 8: The first change comes in episode 8, where I would actually have Millie go home instead of Ripper. In this version of the season, Millie fills the role of being Bowie’s victim number two. So, here’s how I’d have Bowie take out Millie. Have Bowie and Millie talk to each other after being first out of the challenge. Have her open up slightly to Bowie about the tension between her and Priya. Then after Priya falls out of the challenge, have her join them and have them argue a little in front of Bowie, giving him the idea to exploit the rift. He assumes Priya is going to vote for Millie, and ropes in Ripper, Emma, and Chase. Millie goes home with 5 votes. For good measure, give Bowie a confessional explaining that he saved Ripper because he was the closest to beating Julia for immunity and therefore could come in handy in the future.

Episode 9: While I kept him around longer his actual boot, I do think Ripper should go here. Priya, more galvanized than ever due to her mistake in the last episode, is going to be hell bent on taking out Ripper. Have Julia realize why Ripper is still there (even if she doesn’t necessarily realize right away that it was Bowie that saved him), and agree with Priya to vote for him. Then, since it’s already established that Ripper has flirted with Emma in the past, have him do it again this episode, which ultimately convinces both Emma AND Chase to take him out and thwart Bowie’s plan.

Having Ripper around one extra round props both Bowie and Julia up as strategic threats and rivals. Bowie for saving him last episode, and Julia for catching wind of it and squashing him this episode. From a character perspective, it makes sense for all three as well. It fit’s Bowie’s nature as a schemer; Ripper, for all his faults, is regularly established to be great in challenges in episodes 4, 7, and 8; and Julia, who’s main strategy is to win out, would obviously be intimidated by that and want him out.

Episode 10: I think Chase going here still works.

Episode 11: Honestly, as easy as it is to fault the writers for the weird way they eliminated Zee in episode 9, I can’t say I blame them, as he was the hardest person to place once I started shifting things around. Definitely didn’t feel like he belonged in the finals, but I couldn’t think of a natural place to dump him before then. Ultimately, I decided to take him out here. After a drama intense episode of Bowie, Julia, and a now Chase-less Emma being at each other’s throats, have Priya win immunity, and have the three members of the Frogs of Death realize they outnumber the two remaining Trout, and put aside their differences to take out Zee, the only remaining Trout eligible to go home.

Episode 12: The toughest decision so far was Emma or Julia, but ultimately, I think this episode should play out the same and Julia should get the boot here. Mostly because I have plans for Emma in the finale. Have Bowie discover Millie’s confessionals about the book still though, just instead of using them to drive a wedge between Priya and Millie, have it just be used to upset Priya and throw her off her game mentally.

Finale: I think it’s pretty obvious that Emma is the distant third here. The Priya and Bowie finale works too well for me to change it out for anything other than maybe Bowie VS Julia, which I was admittedly close to doing. The main ideas that would be different in this version of the finale are as follows:

-In this version of the second half, Chase and Emma don’t break up again in episode 8. Instead, Chase winds up being her partner for the raft building competition, and this is where Emma realizes that Chase wasn’t actually apologizing for the brakes incident. This reignites her hatred for him, and sets up their break up as the catalyst for Emma’s elimination and sets up a potential storyline for season two of the reboot.

-Priya’s partner ends up being Millie instead of Damien, and now the conflict between the two has stakes on both sides. Priya is still obviously hurt about the book, but now Millie is also hurt that Priya voted her off accidentally. Still have the same resolution as the actual finale where Millie admits that she doesn’t care about the book anymore and was just happy she finally had a friend, but now Priya forgiving her doesn’t feel as rushed because she also recognizes she was a bad friend earlier and voted Millie off for a stupid reason.

That’s it for my ideas for a rewrite. Notes? Positive or negative? Would you have liked this more or less than what actually happened? No shade to the writing staff, TDI23 was still one of the best seasons of the franchise as a whole imo, but with a show like this, everyone is gonna have slight preferences to the boot order, and I just felt like sharing mine. My main goal was to make both main villains more threatening, and I think this changed order does that. It makes both responsible for a few more eliminations than the actual season, and it makes Julia a more strategically aware and competent player.