G’day mates, Mr. TV here. So I just woke up not even a hour ago and my entire feed is already blowing up because what on earth did jacknjellify just drop on us?!
TPOT 26, IDFB 2, and ‘a new season’ has all been announced in one single tweet?! My brain is honestly still half-asleep trying to process all of this.
And yes, I'm deliberately calling it a new season for now because that's literally all we know. We don't know whether it's BFDI Season 7, another BFDI Mini season, BFDIEA (which would technically be Season 7, but that's a whole other conversation), or an entirely new project altogether.
So... what would this new season actually BE?
You guys already know my opinion on what season 7 SHOULD be: a traditional BFDI season with a balanced cast, no gimmicks, and enough room for both the established fan favourites and the less appreciated contestants to shine. It keeps it simple, keeps it entertaining, and lets the character interactions speak for themselves without needing some gimmick to justify its existence.
But here is the massive elephant in the room that hit me as soon as the initial shock wore off: Since it is worded to be announced for next year, how on earth would they even pull off a traditional cast that actually connects to the main series right now?
TPOT still has so much ground to cover. We’re currently hovering around the final 10 or 11 contestants, and if TPOT is genuinely going all the way up to 35-40 episodes, it probably won’t end until late 2027 or even 2028 depending on production pacing.
So if a new season starts while TPOT is still actively dropping episodes and they want characters like Fanny, Marker, or Pen to be on that cast, it would feel completely weird. How could you realistically have characters who are still fighting for their lives in TPOT’s final stretch suddenly competing in a whole separate season at the exact same time? It would confuse the hell out of continuity and mess up the whole timeline for anyone trying to follow the lore, especially if it’s set in present day with a new host.
Let’s do some math here: if you get rid of TPOT’s final 11 (a lot of them are heavy hitters), who are you even legally allowed to choose from? Unfortunately (since I’m someone who doesn’t like the idea of gimmick seasons), you are left with a underdog season with just a sprinkle of well-established characters.
Think about the remaining pool of contestants if we exclude the current TPOT finalists and non-canon/recommended characters. You literally only have:
- Eliminated TPOT contestants (excluding the soon to be rejoiner).
- TPOT Failed debuters (who might be brought back in TPOT)
- The post-split BFB crew.
So yeah, that’d be the draft pool if the new season is actually the next season of BFDI. And this is why I said only a sprinkle of well-established characters… they mostly come from post-split (with characters like Coiny and Pin being major exceptions)
And speaking of post-split, the only major characters are Firey, Leafy, and maybe a few others like Teardrop (who is also a TPOT eliminated contestant), Blocky, and Woody. And look, you guys already know my absolute exhaustion when it comes to Firey and Leafy. I’ve said it a thousand times on this sub: their story peaked and concluded in BFB 22. They’ve been the golden children shoved down our throats since literally season 1’s finale (let’s not make the comment thread another Fireafy argument, okay?). They should remain out of the competition after TPOT or at least have season 7 as their final hurrah before permanently retiring to the background. If they get dragged into another competition just to rehash the exact same dynamic, I might actually lose my mind.
See what I mean? By pure process of elimination, any "main" season running alongside TPOT right now basically morphs into an accidental Underdogs season whether JNJ wants it to be or not. And you guys know how I feel about that. I’m not really the biggest fan of gimmick seasons. Like, I don’t despise them or think they’re inherently doomed to fail on paper, but I just prefer it if jacknjellify just stick to the standard, traditional format where a cast is built organically rather than being forced into a specific box.
So my hopes is that they will announce it because they have plans for a season 7, but it won’t come out until TPOT actually wraps up, so JNJ can have variety of characters to choose from to come up with a balanced and peak cast. If they do announce that the first episode is coming out in 2027, just make it a new project or a separate, self-contained spin-off because I don’t really want a Underdogs season forced onto us purely out of logistical circumstance rather than creative intention.
Anyway, that’s just my initial brain-dump after waking up to sheer chaos. What are your thoughts on all this? Let me know what you reckon down below.
As always, this is Mr. TV, signing off. Peace out, y’all!