User blog comment:AverageHero/Avi's Reviews: "Total Drama All-Stars" Episode Three/@comment-1874924-20130928200646

Whatever other weaknesses this episode had, I thought it had one of the franchise's funnier challenge portions.

Gwen trying to patch things up to Courtney only to make things worse appears to be Gwen's new running gag. I suspect it will eventually be resolved either in the episode where Gwen is eliminated, or in the finale. Likewise, being physically incapacitated seems to be Sam's new running excuse for a gag. The way things are going, he seems unlikely to reach the merge.

Jo going before Heather was disppointing but not surprising. Heather's been heavily overused--she even had a major role in her Season 4 appearance, as opposed to a mere cameo--whereas Jo still had room for development by virtue of having been in only one previous season, and a short one at that. Speaking of overused characters, at least we haven't had to deal with Owen, knock on wood.

Until "the malevolent one" basically imprisoned them, Mike's previously known alternate personalities seemed to have reached a more comfortable relationship with his main persona, continuing to emerge at various times but accepting that Mike is now the one in charge. The ability to control who emerges and when would have made Mike a fearsome player in the challenges, because only Chester seems to be truly useless.