'Stars on Mars' Introduces a Fan-Favorite From Bachelor Nation
This week's Stars on Mars brought us a sentence started by the six words one never wants to hear on a reality television show: "I'm the most liberal person, but…" That's how Lance Armstrong began summing up his views about transgender athletes—that they should be given their "own category" in professional sporting events, rather than simply be allowed to compete as men or women. Lance doesn't seem to realize how uncomfortable the topic—and his stance—is making his castmates, nor does he seem to realize that he's probably not the best person to lead conversations about sports ethics. But the infamous cyclist, who's admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs to compete, carried on anyway.
Look, these are important conversations. They should be happening on our televisions. But they should not be spearheaded by affluent white men pretending to be in space. YIKES.
With that aside, let's get into the rest of this week's episode.
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What happened on Stars on Mars Week 5?
Brook Rushton/FOX
Despite only being on Fake Mars for eight days, the celebrities continue to act extremely stir-crazy in their habitat, relying on darts and space-related fun facts for entertainment. The situation is so desperate that there's actual competition over who gets to go outside and look for interesting rocks.
This week's challenge involves rescuing four new celebrities who have come to Mars on a resupply ship and deactivating some radioactive canisters that detached from the ship when it crash-landed. We all know that this is a television show about pretending to be on Mars, but at least previous weeks' challenges have had some degree of realism to them: building a water transfer system, finding a mold source, repairing fire damage, hoisting a communications signal. Compared to those, "pretend this prop is nuclear waste and bury it by blowing up this cave" is difficult to buy into.
With Adam as the base commander and Porsha as mission specialist, the rest of the celebrities head out in the Mars rovers to direct their robotic space dogs to find the radioactive canisters. This basically means we spend a large portion of the episode watching celebrities either use video-game controllers or look through binoculars, which isn't the most riveting television. But things pick up once the canisters are located, brought to a cave and detonated in a massive explosion.
Once the canisters are successfully destroyed, the crashed ship-door opens, revealing four new celebrity astronauts, and everyone celebrates with a ceremonial opening of the newly delivered supplies, which include pizza and buffalo wings for everyone.
Who joined the Stars on Mars cast in Week 5?
The four new celebrity astronauts are:
Andy Richter (comedian)
Paul Pierce (NBA champion)
Cat Cora (celebrity chef)
Ashley Ianconetti (Bachelor Nation mainstay)
Right away, Paul is rankled by Ariel telling him what to do before he's even been welcomed onto the base, Ashley is desperate to hear what drama has transpired before she arrived on Mars, Andy announces he's "here to make friends," and Cat puts her strategy of winning everyone over with her cooking into place.
Next week should be interesting!
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Who went home in Stars on Mars Week 5?
No one! After the new celebrities are successfully rescued in the time allotted, William Shatner informs them that because there are "so many new and yummy supplies," there's no need to eliminate a player this week. When this news is revealed, Adam is barely able to conceal how annoyed he is that his one shot to make big moves by forming the bottom three as base commander is negated by the twist, and the face he makes is stellar.
Equally delightful is his and Porsha's decision to fake out the rest of the original astronauts. They do a long, solemn pre-elimination speech before revealing everyone is safe.
Who's still competing in Stars on Mars?
Brook Rushton/FOX
Besides the newbies, who will have to prove their worth in next week's episode, we have:
Ariel Winter
Ariel continues to stand up for herself, and Lance continues to be mad about it. After multiple missions staying back in the habitat, Ariel does well in the field this time around, proving herself to be a very well-rounded competitor. But with so many of her castmates writing her off as a "little tyrant," it's hard to see how she'll manage to make it to the end of the game, which is unfortunate. If anything, she continues to seem bold and direct, not overly domineering.
Adam Rippon
Adam does the best job of refuting the claims Lance makes about transgender athletes. He comes into the conversation armed with actual facts and information, and expresses the most (entirely justifiable) anger about Lance even bringing the topic up in the first place.
He finally gets to be base commander this week after some low-key strategizing with Porsha and Tinashe to make it happen, and he does an excellent job both continuing to play the social side of the game and leading the celebrities through the challenge. His pep talks are epic.
Tinashe
Tinashe spends a great deal of this episode in a green sweatsuit with a puffy fleece coat on top of it and it's absolutely iconic. She's also the first one to speak up when Lance suggests separate competition categories for trans athletes. She just calmly points out that what he's saying is just a way of othering and excluding, dressed up as celebration. She should win Stars on Mars and she should also maybe run for president.
Marshawn Lynch
Marshawn continues to nap his way through the experiment. Literally. It's actually very impressive.
Lance Armstrong
It is wildly satisfying to watch Lance lose at darts. It is also wildly satisfying to watch Adam, Ariel and Tinashe actively side-eye him while he goes on his rant about transgender athletes and then tries to advocate for an "agree to disagree!" approach. It is also actively gross to watch him take his vendetta against Ariel to the next level. Before they've even come all the way into the hab, he pulls Cat and Ashley aside to tell them that Ariel was causing tons of drama the night before. That's both a lie and an interesting strategy coming from someone who talked several episodes ago about how people playing the social game was annoying.
Porsha Williams Guobadia
Tinashe calls Porsha the "most influential" celebrity still in the game, since she's able to connect with everyone socially with an ease no one else has mastered yet. She also stays the most relatable, musing, "I want butter, and I want…cheese. Cheese. I just want cheese" when pondering what might be on the resupply ship. Most importantly, she puts Lance in his place without breaking a sweat. She doesn't engage in the conversation about transgender athletes, she just points out to Lance that the Mars habitat "isn't his kitchen table." It's not the place for him to bring these issues up.
Ronda Rousey
Ronda has her own history with being on the wrong side of the debate about transgender athletes, so it's interesting to see her stay mostly silent during Lance's rant. She's as steadfast as ever in her alliance with him and Marshawn, though, which is saying something. While she continues to deliver in challenges, stay helpful in the hab and do what she can to keep morale up (her boxing clinics seem to be the highlight of many of the other celebrities' days), her "I'm just a science nerd here for a good time!" shtick is getting a little tired.
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