I was doing a little surfing online and looked at the upcoming programming for Cartoon Network, and found this...
According to this page the show is a "buddy comedy" with "18 pairs of contestants." So, 36 players in total. It looks like our guesses were spot on, but if there are only 36 contestants and 95% are new, that leaves only 2 or 3 Total Drama characters, and maybe 4 if we're lucky.
With a cast this big, I'm worried about how much fodder we'll get with such limited interactions. Julie said there wouldn't be much time to chat (between teams) during the race, so that's definitely something to think about in terms of character interactions, the element that makes Total Drama so good.
So, any thoughts?