I just finished watching Naked and Afraid XL recently, which is basically the Naked and Afraid formula, but super-sized in all ways. Multiple teams, lots of past challengers, and nearly twice the duration, going for 40 days instead of 21. I found the special season to be very entertaining, and it did a good job of making me buy in emotionally to particular people, and I was actively rooting for the successes of some challengers, while wishing hell and failure onto others. After all, putting two people together is vastly different than putting a larger number together; predictably, the show devolves into a lot of personal drama between challengers, and conflicting ideologies and survival strategies, and we as the viewers end up taking sides, because that’s what we do whether we want to admit it or not.
That being said, upon the final episode of the challenge (the reunion show has yet to air at the time I’m writing this, although it too will undoubtedly be a train wreck of a guilty pleasure), I felt compelled to write something of a power ranking of the challengers of the XL challenge. Some of them were no-brainers, but ultimately, it’s really a reason for me to blast the people on the show that I liked the least, as if they’re going ever read this.
From best to worst:
Continue reading “Naked and Afraid XL subjective power rankings*”