Chris McLean (Total Drama, seasons 4-5b)

Chris McLean is one of the two hosts of the Total Drama franchise, with the other being Don. He was a decent character in the first three seasons, but he was flanderized during Revenge of the Island, and he would be portrayed as a sociopathic sadist from then on.

Why He Sucked

 * This page covers the fourth and both parts of the fifth season of Total Drama. So, do not add any loathsome moments of Chris' from the previous seasons (Island-World Tour).
 * 1) He displayed all the contestants from Island - World Tour (minus Blainley) on a yacht in Bigger! Badder! Brutal-er!, claiming they would compete again, only to say that they have outlived their usefulness (though 7 of them did return in All-Stars but Chris himself did not organise their return due to the events of WHS #10)! This shows that Chris is a TV show equivalent of a gold-digger, as he exploits contestants for their drama, but will bail on them as soon as he obtains what he wants.
 * 2) He started obsessing over exploding anything near to the contestants or vehicles that they were on, beginning with the boat that the new contestants from Revenge of the Island were arriving to Wawanakwa on, and later in the same episode, Owen.
 * 3) He gave the Mutant Maggots the win for blowing up the winner's cabin, even though the Toxic Rats made it to the campgrounds first.
 * 4) He revealed embarrassing secrets of Sam, Brick, and B(everly). If neither of the other contestants fessed up to their secrets, then they would be fed to Fang. Whoever told the truth would be electrocuted.
 * 5) He made Dakota one of his interns, which caused her turn into Dakota-zoid after she was exposed to toxic chemicals.
 * 6) While it was nice to see some of the first generation contestants return for assistance in certain challenges during Revenge of the Island, Chris showed absolutely no concern for their safety when things went wrong (often or mainly due to him) or whether they wished to be there:
 * 7) * He let Bridgette and Dakota get blown off their demonstration jet ski in Backstabbers Ahoy! (this was also the final appearance of Bridgette, with her being shown unconscious on the Dock of Shame).
 * 8) * He forced Gwen to confront her fear of being buried alive again (but with Sam, so it even more torturous for Gwen than in Phobia Factor) in The Treasure Island of Dr. McLean.
 * 9) * He forced Duncan back simply because he quit in the World Tour, even though Duncan was already forced to reenter halfway through that season anyway.
 * 10) Just as Anne Maria was about to change her mind on not quitting the season, he hurled her and Brick off the island.
 * 11) To add on with Brick, he hurled him off the island as well for being deemed as a "traitor", because his other teammates (Lightning and Jo) served as villains in the show. He had no right to be called a "traitor", because he saved Mike, Zoey, and Cameron (Mutant Maggots) from a Giant Mutated Gopher.
 * 12) Even though Scott had it coming for his actions, he made Scott ride the Hurl of Shame with Fang just because Scott accidentally hurled Chris into a septic tank through a trap that was meant for Fang.  This rendered Scott immobile for the rest of the season until he recovers in All-Stars.
 * 13) After explaining what happened to Scott to the other contestants, he cruelly states, "But who cares? It's Scott!"
 * 14) He sicced his mutant animals on the eliminated contestants.
 * 15) In the final scene of the fourth season, he detonated the bomb that was supposed to blast Chef Hatchet and the 13 contestants from that season. However, the joke was on him as the bomb was placed under the dock (which is considered as the backfiring of the detonation plot), therefore blowing him off the dock and landing him in prison for dumping toxic waste on Camp Wawanakwa. Despite his arrest, the producers chose him to host the next seasons.
 * 16) He placed Gwen on the Villainous Vultures for being a "boyfriend stealer", despite her good behavior in the past.
 * 17) He constantly calls Gwen evil for accidentally hurting Courtney.
 * 18) It is implied that he had sex with Larry as one of their babies had a head that looks like Chris’. After seeing it, he whistles as if nothing happened.
 * 19) He rigged the "Wheel of Misfortune" in "Suckers Punched" just so everyone (except for Zoey, who was exempt from the challenge, and Mike and Cameron, who swapped fears) can be pitted with their fears. Even Gwen and Courtney were paired with each other, despite the fact that they forgive each other for the events of season 3.
 * 20) * In order to stir up drama between Courtney and Gwen, Chef and Chris, with some assistance from the producers, showed clips of Duncan and Gwen's kissing.
 * 21) He called the police on Duncan for blowing up Chris' mansion, although this is understandable as Duncan blew up his mansion.
 * 22) * However, Chris is in no position to judge Duncan as the former has somehow gotten away with murder, attempted murder, reckless endangerment and arson (and these are only some of the crimes)! The fact that he has the audacity to judge Duncan given his reprehensible behaviour is baffling.
 * 23) He sent Gwen to Boney Island just for refusing to spend another night with him in the mansion.
 * 24) According to him, his prison sentence made the challenges even more dangerous.
 * 25) In "Sundae, Muddy Sundae", he nonchalantly states that he had not fed his interns all week.
 * 26) He changed the rules in "Sundae, Muddy Sundae", even though Courtney was about to win.
 * 27) He disqualified Gwen for destroying his portrait.
 * 28) He let Lightning, Jo, Scott, Courtney, Duncan, Sierra, Lindsay, and Sam float into the sun. However, Fresh TV confirmed that they were okay.
 * 29) He also allowed Chef to sink Camp Wawanakwa, a small island, using a fracking machine.
 * 30) Chris also did not seem to care for the welfare of Mike, Zoey, Heather, Alejandro, Gwen and Cameron who were left to float away on Wawanakwa's debris and decided to move on to announce the next season. While this might make sense given his role as a TV host, it doubles down on how little he cares for the welfare of the show's contestants akin to  Revenge of the Island's finale (see WHS #10).
 * 31) * Additionally, Chris is shown to care so little for the aforementioned contestants and all previous contestants who did not compete or appear in All-Stars that he chooses to not bring any of them back in Pahkitew Island, not even for a cameo, despite doing so in Revenge of the Island and All-Stars. This then makes Pahkitew feel like a spin-off ra ther than a "direct continuation" and reaffirms a sentiment established in Bigger! Badder! Brutal-er! where Chris is just happy to toss aside any ex-contestant (akin to WHS #1).
 * 32) He refused to let Samey pronounce her name as "Sammy".
 * 33) When Samey eliminated her sister Amy, he further tests Samey (as Amy) hindering any chance that Samey has on being her own woman.
 * 34) Despite having a season's worth of singing in the past, he refused to let Ella sing. (Although, Sugar is the one who caused it.)
 * 35) * He even threatened to disqualify Ella if she did. This was successful when Sugar goaded her into singing in order to release Dave from the bear's grasp.
 * 36) He staged Topher's elimination by posing as one of the producers.
 * 37) * While some fans argue that Topher had it coming for trying to steal his job, even though he wasn't a very nice person after all, this move would negatively impact his career in real life.
 * 38) At the merge, he fed the final 7 some Juggy Chunks, which consisted of expired meat and mayonnaise from the 1970s.
 * 39) When Scarlett became evil, he refused to rescue the contestants, caring more about his coffee machine. This is extremely hypocritical because in "Masters of Disasters", he states if the contestants die, he will lose his paycheck.
 * 40) After Scarlett was eliminated, he eliminated Max just for boasting about being evil.
 * 41) In the final episode of Total Drama before the show went into spin-offs, he rigged the finalist helper selection so that Shawn gets Jasmine, and Sky (after two tries) gets Dave. He does this just to show Shawn's confessionals to Jasmine saying that he didn't agree to share the money with her in the first place, and some of Sky's audition tape to Dave so he can learn about Sky's boyfriend Keith. This move didn't sit too well for Dave, who wanted to try and hurt Shawn and Sky as revenge. Ultimately, Dave wanted to hurt Sky even more.
 * 42) He still allows Dave to hinder Sky even after he threatened to burn the million-dollar prize money just because Sky didn't tell him about her boyfriend regardless of who would win! Given that Dave was willing to ensure all Sky and Shawn's hard work would amount to nothing, he should have just got rid of Dave.
 * 43) In addition to the above, Chris decides to let Dave and Jasmine split the money if they successfully prevented them from reaching the finish line in 10 minutes. While Jasmine would probably be fine to give the money to, it makes no sense why Chris would want to give the money to Dave. Besides his abovementioned threat, Dave has also become very flanderised and does not care at all about how the person he has a crush on feels or her life circumstances
 * 44) He ended Total Drama unpunished for what he did to Shawn, Jasmine, Sky, and Dave.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Chris McLean from the first three seasons was more tolerable. He’s also tolerable when he appeared in the Total DramaRama episode, "Broken Back, Kotter", and while retaining his sadistic personality, it is notably toned down.
 * 2) The episode where he gets kidnapped by Feral Ezekiel could be enjoyable for some, even considering Chris was not liked by the contestants.
 * 3) He at least did vote out/eliminate some bad/unlikable characters off the season like, Amy, Staci, Beardo, Leonard, Topher, Rodney and Sugar.
 * 4) He did host the first round of Skatoony, which was pretty good.
 * 5) In response to WHS#28, he did had a fair point to eliminate Topher, which he found out that his phone was stolen by him, and he also tries to steal his job, which would negatively impact his career in real life.
 * 6) In response to WHS#18, he refused to let his interns eat the tainted sundae that Courtney made, though it does not put him in the right for not feeding those interns for a week just for the sake of a challenge.
 * 7) He does not host The Ridonculous Race. Instead, he makes a small cameo in the episode, "A Million Ways to Lose a Million Dollars", only for a few seconds.
 * 8) Christian Potenza still does a great job voicing him.
 * 9) In response to WHS#14, at least he had a reason to call the police on Duncan for blowing up Chris' mansion, although he still had it coming for his behavior.
 * 10) Two more seasons of Total Drama are slated to air in HBO Max and Cartoon Network, so maybe Chris could be rewritten into the decent host he was in the first three seasons and recover from his flanderization.
 * 11) One of his best and funniest quotes was "WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG?!" in Total Drama All-Stars' "Evil Dread" episode.
 * 12) He does gets his comeuppance at times.

Trivia

 * Chris McLean is voiced by Christian Potenza, who voiced Jude in 6teen and Total DramaRama.
 * Even though Chris did not host The Ridonculous Race finale, he was seen in the season finale ("A Million Ways to Lose a Million Dollars") where he is reading a newspaper. He can be seen when the Police Cadets are driving by after one of the commercial breaks.
 * Chris is contrasted to Don (the host of The Ridonculous Race).
 * While Don is portrayed as a by-the-book host, Chris is willing to change the rules and eliminate who he wants.
 * While Don's challenges are life-threatening, they are not as extreme as Chris'.
 * Chris frequently kills his interns through his own means, while Don lost one of his in a mishap.
 * For the most part, Chris is willing to allow cheating (one example was in "The Princess Pride", when he didn't care that Duncan cheated in the bridge challenge by peeking a little), Don would not hesitate to punish cheating contestants (or any contestants who break the rules).
 * One of the possible reasons why Chris was not in Total DramaRama was because of his past behavior in the original series.
 * Beth, Chris, Duncan, Izzy, Lindsay, and Mike have been arrested at one point by the police.
 * From those six, Chris and Duncan are the only characters seen wearing orange prison suits.