The Challenge: Total Madness is the thirty-fifth season of the MTV reality competition series The Challenge. This season features alumni from The Real World, Are You the One?, Big Brother, Celebrity Big Brother UK, The Amazing Race, Survivor, Geordie Shore, Ex on the Beach (US and UK), Shipwrecked, and Survival of the Fittest competing for a share at a $1 million prize.[1][2] The season premiered on April 1, 2020, and concluded its run on July 29 of the same year with the Reunion and the Behind-the-scenes specials.[3]
Total Madness features a main challenge, a nomination process, and an elimination round.
Checkpoint One: Players must ski over towards a pile of logs. They can take up to three logs before skiing across a valley towards a skull monument to deposit the logs. Once a player has collected twelve logs, they must ignite a fuse and light up their monument before proceeding to the end of the checkpoint. Unbeknownst to the players, the first male and female player to finish the checkpoint form the final Tribunal of the season, ahead of an Instant Elimination.
The Journey: All nine players must traverse a via ferrata together to reach a compound at the top of a mountain, crossing a tightrope along the way. Once they reach the compound, players not in the Tribunal must select one male and one female to participate in an Instant Elimination. The Tribunal then select the second male and female contestant for the Instant Elimination.
Instant Elimination - Knockout: Players start at opposite ends of a ring and must race to ring a hanging bell in the middle before their opponent. The player to ring the bell first twice, wins.
Overnight Stage: Both Tribunal members and both winners of the Instant Elimination are rewarded with a warm room to sleep inside of the compound for the night. The remaining three players must spend six hours outside by a fire before being allowed inside of the compound.
Final Push: Players follow a trail towards a glacier where the finish line is set up. Tribunal members have a two-minute headstart and the Instant Elimination winners have a one-minute headstart. Along the way, there are a series of math operations, the solution of which forms the combination to unlock a skull that they must smash before proceeding. The first male and female finalist to cross the finish line are declared the winners of Total Madness and receive $500,000 each.
The Reunion special aired on July 22, 2020, and was hosted by former NFL player Vernon Davis. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was conducted by way of a Zoom chat. It was watched by 0.78 million viewers.[20] A behind-the-scenes special, also hosted by Davis, aired on July 29, 2020, and was watched by 0.49 million viewers.[21]
"As a result of Dee Nguyen's offensive comments about Black Lives Matter movement, MTV have severed ties with her. Out of respect for the competition and other Challengers, MTV will air the season as planned. Dee Nguyen will not appear in the reunion to be filmed at a later date. MTV strongly condemns systemic racism."
Following controversial comments about the Black Lives Matter movement on Twitter, during the airing of the season, MTV decided to cut ties with cast member Dee Nguyen on June 9, 2020. After the incident, Nguyen posted an apology on her social media, and was mostly edited out of the remaining episodes of the season.[23][24]
On June 12, it was reported that Nguyen had hired a legal team and was considering taking legal action against MTV for firing her.[25]