"Not entertaining at all" — The Challenge fans disappointed to see an overnight checkpoint in the finale

The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras aired its long-awaited finale's first part, The End of an Era Part 1, on Wednesday, January 1, 2025. It featured the eight finalists taking on a host of intense checkpoints, vying to outperform the other and emerge victorious. Although each checkpoint tested the players, the fourth one, an overnight task, unsettled the contestants.

However, the results of the fourth checkpoint were reserved for the second part of the finale, which will air in the coming week. As Rachel, Derek, Johnny Bananas, Jordan, Tori, Jenny, Kyland, and Michele finished the task at the third checkpoint, T.J. announced that the fourth challenge would happen overnight.

For their fourth task, the finalists had to count thousands of coins for 30 minutes before heading out on the ship deck to sing Show Me the Way to Go Home for 30 more minutes. Each player needed to repeat the process until all their coins were counted. Whoever had the most accurate count would win the checkpoint.

The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras took to X to express disappointment over the finale's format. While most fans were unimpressed by the overnight task, claiming that it made the finale less entertaining, others were unhappy to have a checkpoint-centered competition.

"This overnight portion of #TheChallenge40 finale is once again just proof that overnight challenges are usually stupid and not entertaining at all to watch as a viewer. I’d rather Challenge finalists get rest and come back in top condition to kill it the next day," a fan wrote.

"Overnight checkpoints in a Challenge final are a b**ch," another fan commented.

"Wtf is this finale? Lmao all swimming and now counting coins and singing The challenge has gone soft," a netizen tweeted.

Many fans of The Challenge 40 were unimpressed to see the finalists compete in an overnight task that required them to count coins and sing.

"Season 40 officially has won the worst final ever… like WTF is this? And you keep telling me this is “Americas 5th sport”? We can’t show any drama but we’ll show singing and people counting coins?!" a user reacted.

"what f**king overnight checkpoint is this s**t," a person commented.

"Are you kidding... this overnight checkpoint is kind of nuts! Not sure if I'd call it a good kind of nuts," another fan wrote.

Other fans of The Challenge 40 expressed dissatisfaction over the overall format of the finale.

"I really hate these timed checkpoint finals, it kills any excitement for me. I’ve seriously been more interested in some of the dailies earlier in the season," one user posted.

"This is, bar none, the worst Final of all time. #TheChallenge40 producers took off, had a beautiful trip and then decided to crash the plane into the side of a mountain instead of landing," a person reacted.

"The #Challenge has had some amazing and brutal challenges in their 40 seasons. This is one of the worst ones of all time. It's all about swimming and being friends. Terrible for such an iconic season. Love you @tjlavin but your final sucks this year," another netizen commented.

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What were the other checkpoints in first part of The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras finale?

T.J. Lavin informed the finalists they had to complete multiple checkpoints and collect tokens to emerge victorious. Each player vowed to put their best foot forward and dominate the last leg of the competitive series.

The first checkpoint was "Sandblast," in which the contestants had to jump into the water from a boat called Sinister and swim to shore to solve a 3D puzzle, whose pieces had to be retrieved one at a time. After finishing the puzzle they had to swim back to Sinister to conclude the task.

For the second checkpoint, The Challenge 40 players had to swim to another vessel called Ghost Ship. Upon reaching the abandoned ship, they had to dive beneath it, memorize a series of symbols, and recreate it in order after climbing on deck. All were required to return to Sinister after completing the checkpoint.

The third checkpoint was called "A Thousand Steps," and challenged the contestants to swim to the beach and race 1000 steps while following a series of clues. They had to solve a mystery puzzle with the help of the clues before swimming back to Sinister. Jordan and Jenny dominated most of the tasks, however, the latter found herself struggling while completing the fourth one.

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The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras will air the second part of the finale on Wednesday, January 8, 2025, at 8 pm ET, only on MTV.