“Everything is temporary.”
So said the winner of The Challenge: All Stars, except it seems the MTV reality series is anything but, still going strong 23 years in. In its first season in 1998, The Challenge pitted The Real World and Road Rules stars against each other in an adult spring break atmosphere. Now, 36 seasons later, the MTV reality hit has evolved into a sport in its own right, one an Olympian even had to quit. With that evolution, producers began tapping talent from other reality wells, including Ex on the Beach, Big Brother and Survivor.
And sure, The Challenge is still one of the best and longest running reality series out there, it’s just not what it used to be—which is why The Challenge: All Stars has been such a nostalgia-fueled breath of fresh.
The inaugural season of the Paramount+ spinoff, which was created by Challenge godfather Mark Long, came to its conclusion on May 27, and, to be honest, we already miss it and the blasts from the pasts it assembled, some we had waited almost two decades to see back on our screen. Like—spoiler alert!—winner Yes Duffy.