History Main / EliminationHoudini

** Bristol Palin from Season 11. Three times she's finished at the bottom of the judges' standings, and is always near the bottom of the overall standings, yet has managed to make it all the way to the final four. She's stayed alive thanks to a number of internet campaigns being conducted on her behalf and a large base of Conservative viewers who support her for political reasons.

* Though animated, Owen from ''TotalDramaIsland'' is a good fit. He rarely did anything productive, just gross out everyone else. Despite all this, he made it [[spoiler:all the way to the final round... and ''won'']]!

*** Nick & Vicki, as of this writing, have yet to even finish a leg in the front half of the pack. Their best finish was 5th out of 9 on leg 3. Most recently, they came in a distant last place and were saved by a non-elimination. Of the prior legs, they've finished second-to-last once and third-to-last twice.

** Season 17 has ''three'': Chad & Stephanie, Nick & Vicki, and possibly Jill & Thomas. They somehow manage to get hopelessly lost repeatedly, yet all three are still in the race as of this writing (6 legs in) usually because one other team royally screwed up or got stopped dead in their tracks at a task they found particularly hard. Some particulars:
*** Jill & Thomas may be a borderline case because they started strong and finished first in the first leg to earn the Express Pass, but they still got hopelessly lost and fell into last place on Leg 4 only to escape elimination solely by using the Express Pass.

* [[FridgeLogic By retrospect,]] Hottie of ''FlavorOfLove'' was this, given that it was obvious that [[GoldDigger she was only on the show for fame and fortune]]. Even ''Flav himself'' admitted that keeping her as long as he did over someone else was a WallBanger

** Season 17 has ''three'': Chad & Stephanie, Nick & Vicki, and possibly Jill & Thomas. They somehow manage to get hopelessly lost repeatedly, yet all three are still in the race as of this writing usually because one other team royally screwed up or got stopped dead in their tracks at a task they found particularly hard. Jill & Thomas may be a borderline case because they started strong and finished first in the first leg to earn the Express Pass, but they still got hopelessly lost and fell into last place on Leg 4 only to escape elimination solely by using the Express Pass.

* Virgina from season 2 of ''HellsKitchen'' acutally made it to the finals. She lacked talent, was on the chopping block a lot, yet survived by sole virtue of luck (and perhaps Gordon Ramsay's hard-on for her). There was also Bonnie from Season 3 who may have gotten to the finals for the same reason.

* ''TheAmazingRace'' Season 13's Andrew & Dan, a.k.a. "Dandrew." They made at least one boneheaded mistake in nearly every leg, making it to the final three only because either at least one other team made an even ''worse'' mistake (Terence & Sarah wasting time on the Fast Forward, Dallas losing his and Toni's money and passports, etc.) or because they lucked out with a non-elimination leg. They are widely credited with being the worst team to ever make the Final 3, and they're the only team Phil has out and out told that he thought they would be the next team eliminated. They were even ''aware'' that they weren't that good at the game and were making bone-headed mistakes. (They even said that there should be a video on YouTube of their mistakes)
** Others from The Race include Kami & Karli from Season 5, who finished in the bottom 2 in 7 of their 10 legs.
** Eric & Danielle on All-Stars, who are the only Houdidnis to win the Race. They are the only team to win without winning a previous leg, are the only team to win after finishing in the bottom 2 more than the top 2, and had two legs where they finished more than twelve hours behind the lead team, and were only able to catch up to the leaders due to the most blatantly contrived equalizer in race history.
** Mark & Michael from Season 14, who had a knack for getting tragically lost on every single leg, and are the only team to ever get multiple penalties both on the same leg (which they did on two separate legs) and the same task (for sabotaging the other teams, and getting outside help when the clue told them that was not allowed).
** Brian & Ericka on Season 15, who survived twice, despite huge deficits, because another team quit a task. Maria & Tiffany quit a Detour where they were physically unable to do either task, while Big Easy quit a Roadblock where he was unable to unscramble the name ?Franz?

*** It's a PortmanteauCoupleName; the act is actually called "John & Edward" (no, [[PhonyPsychic not that one]]). Ironically enough, when they were finally eliminated another act, Olly Murs had actually finished bottom of the public vote, but the judges finally came to their senses and sent John & Edward home instead.

* ''TheAmazingRace'' Season 13's Andrew & Dan, a.k.a. "Dandrew." They made at least one boneheaded mistake in nearly every leg, making it to the final three only because either at least one other team made an even ''worse'' mistake (Terence & Sarah wasting time on the Fast Forward, Dallas losing his and Toni's money and passports, etc.) or because they lucked out with a non-elimination leg. They are widely credited with being the worst team to ever make the Final 3, and they're the only team Phil has out and out told that he thought they would be the next team eliminated.

*** Brett, who did almost ''nothing'' for more than half the game, receiving maybe a couple seconds of screentime until the final 6. This was actually his strategy - and once more, it actually ''worked''. Brett was the last member standing of the original [[XanatosSucker Galu tribe]] and evaded elimination twice because he managed to win three immunities in a row.

* The first ''WWE Diva Search'' featured Carmella De Cesare, who made it all the way to the final before losing at the very end, thus taking second place overall. She had managed to become so universally hated that it's seriously believed they deliberately fudged the votes and kept her on just so people would keep waiting to see her finally get eliminated (and thus hopefully keep watching.) This is the WWE, after all--totally scripted {{Face}} vs. {{Heel}} matchups is what they do. Her existence was finally justified when, just before the winner was announced, Trish Stratus took both competitors apart in a CrowningMomentOfFunny.

*** This troper felt that Amanda Overmyer was one for even making it to top 12 in the first place.
*** This troper believes that David Archuleta, the runner-up for that season, is one.

** In this troper's opinion, Leon Jackson, winner of ''X-Factor 2007''.

** And then there's Ambreal of Season 9 who was actually eliminated, but got a reprieve when her fellow bottom two contestant Ebony quit right on the spot. She spent the next two weeks telling the ConfessionCam how she wasn't supposed to be there before she was eliminated for good. That was the season that [[TheScrappy Saleisha]] won. That was the season ThisTroper stopped watching.

** This Troper spent the first half of the 10th season screaming at the TV to get Kate Gosselin booted off.

* Nikki Ziering from Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling. Despite her lack of talent/motivation and utter stupidity (when asked by Eric Bischoff if she'd taken away any experience from the show partway through, her answer was 'I got nothing'), she stayed on for at least half the season. This troper suspects it was because she wore nothing but a tight t-shirt and underwear when she wrestled. Of course, Dennis Rodman letting her have it for claiming that 'this wasn't what she signed up for' is quite possibly one of the show's few [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Crowning Moments of Awesome]].

** An example of how YourMileageMayVary on this subject -- was it only [[{{Caswin}} this troper]] who liked Fat Mama?
** You and [[ManCalledTrue this troper's]] mother...
** This troper thought Hyperstrike did really well in the final tests.

* Chelsea from SciFi's ''WCG Ultimate Gamer'', despite being completely out of her element (the sole PC gamer on a show full of console games) and really not that great, made the final 6, over the much stronger (yet more argumentative) Dante and Ciji.
** She did win a number of the "real life" challenges that figured into half the final score for each episode, however. 6th out of 12 seemed about right.
*** The original troper believes that she stuck around because she stayed out of last place and didn't stir up trouble in the loft (so no one put her against the last place competitor). Out of all the competitors, Chelsea was the only one who hadn't gone to Samsung Stadium for any reason.

** Dzintra was on her way to becoming one in the first few weeks of Season 6. The first episode she didn't even cook because she "got something in her eye" and had to go to the hospital! Then she consistently underperformed and showed she was just plain crazy and still didn't get eliminated until the fourth week. Also, Aarti is a special case because nobody this troper talked to thought she should win, but the judges just seemed to gush all over her. It was like Gallagher, but with professional opinion.

**** It did get silly when Autumn was being nominated because she had been nominated a lot.

** You could count the entire Killer Grips team in ''TotalDramaAction'', considering they won all of two challenges in the first half of the season, yet by the time [[spoiler: Courtney came back]] they had a man advantage over the much more savvy Screaming Gaffers.
*** And of course, any character that was a human ConflictBall was guaranteed to last a while. Especially Heather, who was the main antagonist (well, aside from Chris) through most of Season 1. Her getting to the final three was mostly a mix of luck, other people being idiots, and in-universe ExecutiveMeddling that was pretty obvious. [[spoiler: Courtney]] also managed to do this in Season 2, albeit to a lesser extent.