Warning! All spoilers below are unmarked.
- It's virtually impossible to list tropes for They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot in Disventure Camp without spoiling everything or creating Self-Fulfilling Spoilers due to constant mention of Player Elimination.
Season 1
- Will's Ship Tease with Ashley in the remastered version of the season. While Ashley remains loyal to Will even after he was framed by Fiore, him being the first boot cuts it short. That said, the remake's finale reveals that after Ashley was eliminated, she and Will got to bond off-screen and became a couple. However, this still gives their relationship limited screentime. Furthermore, their Relationship Upgrade, including Ashley helping Will overcome his fears, happens off-screen.
- Nick's Ship Tease with Lill. In both versions of the season, it gets very little screentime when it happens and its eventual downfall doesn't get that much attention either. It's even less acknowledged in the remaster.
- One of the post-credit scenes involves Drew seeing Tom take off into the night, then writing about it in his notebook. This implied that there would be a subplot where Drew would try to find out what Tom was up to, but it's unceremoniously abandoned when Drew gets eliminated shortly afterwards.
- Everything about Ellie and Grett returning. For one, many viewers felt that bringing back a major antagonist and former finalist right after they had been supposedly booted (they had actually been assigned to swap teams) was a missed opportunity to give some of the other remaining contestants some more screentime and focus and also made nearly all of the previous episode’s events completely pointless. And for another, many people were infuriated that the writers chose to drag out a twist like that until the next episode instead of just announcing it in the episode of their false boots as a canon Total Drama episode would’ve done, with many accusing the writers of deliberate viewer baiting.
- Ellie's confessional in Episode 8 seemed to hint she'd be able to figure out the Big Bad Ensemble trio's strategy for the challenge, perhaps even realizing that Alec intended for her to rely on their alliance again after Gabby's elimination. However, instead of Ellie or anyone else figuring their strategy out through critical thinking, the strategy was simply revealed to them by Derek showing the voting confessionals instead.
- Episode 9 features contestants living in a Zombie Apocalypse virtual world for a month, where experiencing time passage involves a Year Inside, Hour Outside. Much like in many shows using said trope, aside from first reactions upon being back in reality, the cast pretty quickly glosses over the fact that they essentially had a month of their life stolen from them.
Season 2
- Tess's character bio mentions rumors of her being Born Unlucky. However, while she experienced some tragedies in her life that led her to develop depression, on the show proper this trait of hers ends up being Informed Attribute. She's not shown experiencing any sort of significant bad luck, especially not an exaggerated one like Mickey and Jay from The Ridonculous Race.
- Similarly to Ashley and Will from the remaster of Season 1, Kai and Maggy's relationship gets limited screentime due to both of their early eliminations. Similarly to the aforementioned case, their Relationship Upgrade happens off-screen, even though we see a couple scenes of them in the forest together.
- Episode 4 revealed that both Aiden AND Lake had their first kisses in the previous episode: Aiden with James, and Lake with Ally. While the story focuses on the former pairing and shows how said kiss affected them, Lake and Ally don't suffer any significant changes to their relationship as a result of it, and the kiss ends up being forgotten soon afterwards.
- Episode 7 seemed to hint Lake undergoing a downward spiral where she'd go way too far now that she finally tasted some freedom in her life, potentially even becoming the new main antagonist of the season. A story of a good girl starting doing bad things and finding herself enjoying doing them was already done with Courtney in "Basic Straining" of Total Drama, but unlike Courtney, Lake would still have friends around (Rosa Maria, Riya, Aiden, and even Maggy out there in the forest) who could talk sense into her and teach her to enjoy freedom within being reasonable, thus eventually ending the storyline on a positive note. However, such possibility is dropped by Episode 8 due to Lake's elimination, which renders the potential storyline to Lake just experiencing adrenaline rush from the challenge in Episode 7 and wanting to do simple stereotypically rebel activities such as getting a tattoo in Episode 8.
- Karol's rivalry with James and Aiden is cut short twice - the first time it's because James successfully turns the girls' alliance against her and the second time it's because of her sudden Non-Gameplay Elimination. Her attempts at turning Riya (and subsequently Rosa Maria due to their alliance) against them ultimately amounts to nothing since Riya accepts in the same episode that everyone plays dirty in this game and continues to focus on targeting the remaining Love Triangle members.
- As revealed in the Pride Month 2023 announcement, Lake is a lesbian. Considering that her parents intended on putting her through an arranged marriage to an unknown man, it seems like a missed opportunity to not tie Lake's storyline of becoming more rebellious to her being a lesbian who learns to be more comfortable with her sexuality and ultimately refuses to get married to a man she doesn't know.
- During episode 8, Ally talks with Riya and convinces her to not tell Rosa Maria that Lake is being targeted for elimination. This could've easily created some drama between Rosa Maria and Hunter's alliances, especially since Ally comes across as one of the nicer contestants around. However, Ally and Riya don't speak again until the finale where she's one of her supporters, and Rosa Maria and Lake never find out about what she did, leading Riya to be the target of their ire.
- Rosa Maria ends up performing some questionable choices in the latter half of the season, such as keeping the fact that she found an Immunity Totem a secret from Riya despite looking for it with her, and choosing to betray her alliance with Aiden, James, and Riya to tell Hunter about their plan to ambush him just to clear her conscience, which results in Riya betraying her and getting her voted off. This could've been a perfect chance for Rosa to learn not only how the game works in shades of morally grey, but that her actions had consequences even if she had honorable reasons to do it. Instead, Rosa makes it clear she leaves with a clear conscience and is painted as in the right when she snaps at Riya over how the game changed her for the worst.
All-Stars
- The first few episodes, especially the premiere one, have characters point out several times Miriam's old age and potential health problems caused by it. Of particular note, Ellie recalls Miriam pretending to have a heart attack being the cause of her elimination last season and states that if a similar thing were to happen again, she'd let Miriam "go straight towards the light." This all makes it seem like a Foreshadowing of Miriam's elimination being a medical evacuation due to health problems (or perhaps even outright death, as the show is no stranger to darker themes). However, this ends up being a Red Herring and she's eliminated via a regular Voted Off the Island method, with Ellie's only contribution in it being winning over Alec in the challenge per his plan. Furthermore, despite it being hinted, Miriam's age once again doesn't affect her performance in challenges at all.
- During Cyan Team's first elimination ceremony, Tess ends up throwing her vote for Tom, as she can't bring herself to potentially get Lake to lose the tiebreaker. This could've served as a decent way to kick up some drama between Tom and Tess in the otherwise well-adjusted Cyan Team, and make Tom's anger not so focused on Ellie alone. Ultimately, though, nothing comes out of this; Tess and Tom don't show any animosity over the vote, and the Villain Alliance being exposed ensures Tom remains angry at Ellie until her elimination in episode 8.
