me: *after watching the new bhultra total drama video more than once* oops, i'm partially focused on total drama again.
theory time: Chris and Chef in the reboot are actually just lookalikes the showrunners hired after they couldn't get the original Chris and Chef to come back for the show.
why Chris has a different voice (i know it was a necessary VA change because the original VA is facing various allegations, i'm talking about in-universe)
why Chef has a different personality entirely.
why neither of them look any older despite the...*checks on my timeline guestimation post from a couple years ago* 15 year time gap (EDIT: it'd actually be 13-14 years if the reboot is set in 2022-2023, sorry), like i know Chris puts alot of money into looking the same age forever but i would've imagined Chef would've had some gray hairs by now.
"But why did Owen look the same?" you might ask, and that's a valid question with a couple of different potential answers:
Priya's dad owned an Owen bodysuit, which could've been official merch from the show in-universe given how popular it was (assuming it wasn't homemade). Wouldn't be surprised if the staff just had the suit on-hand and used it to bring more eyes to the reboot.
Owen just didn't change much
not a well thought out, but it was in my head and bugging me, so now it can bug other people instead :D
came up with an additional theory: the Chris lookalike is actually Topher.
1. While it's framed as him just wanting to become the new Total Drama host, Topher is shown to be obsessed with Chris to an abnormal degree. He dresses like Chris, talks like him, etc. It wouldn't be strange for his character to go the extra mile and make himself LOOK like Chris, either via makeup or facial reconstruction surgery (in fact, it could serve as a commentary for the real people that would do this). Hell, he could've even changed his surname to "McLean" if he really wanted to commit to the bit.
2. In the timeline above, we've already established that it's probably been like 13-15 years. Assuming that Topher was 16-18, he'd be somewhere between 29-33 by the time the reboot came out, which is a seemingly reasonable age to become a host at.
Anyways, this is a free idea because I think it would be both horrifying and funny.