The Office has been gone for weeks, Gossip Girls are dwindling and they've only made 8 episodes of LOST. This Writers' Strike is really beginning to take its toll, huh? But never fear, the networks are starting to greenlight all their most ridiculous and ratings-grabbing reality shows! Mmm, I loves me some good reality. Here's a few of my thoughts on the mid-season's best new reality.
If there's one distinction between the new American Gladiators (AG08) and the old one, it's size! EVERYTHING is bigger this time around: the hosts (Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali, who showed herself by rising up out of the floor through a sea of smoke), the gladiators, the games, the arena. It's all just huge!
The Gladiators are still just big brutes with ridiculous names (some highlights from the past include Turbo, Laser, Tower and Blaze) but this time around they have taken they're character portrayals to the next level. They completely embody...themselves.
Ok so here we go with the Gladiators:
Titan: He's clearly the Peter Perfect of the group: blond, clean, huge!
Crush: The best looking gladiator I've ever seen in my life. She's just beauuuuuutiful. She's like one of those fat pretty girls that keeps super fit. I love her.
Mayhem: Big, black and angry. He's literally the Scary Spice.
Stealth: Sorta looks like Jayda Pinkett Smith in an alternate reality.
Justice: Wasn't this guy's name just Mayhem...?
Siren: Ok. I like it. Striking red hair, sexy body. I see what you're getting at here.
Toa: OMG talk about embodying a character! This guy's done up like a Polynesian idol! Tattooed and bulging, Toa is a force.
Venom: Mmm mmm Venom! Can you say icing on the cake?!
Wolf: Wait, I lied. Toa doesn't ham it up nearly as much as this mangy looking beast. Kudos to you Wolfington!
Fury: Ok. I like what I see.
Militia: Ooooh so this is the gay porn star! Yikes. Muscles everywhere!
and last but never-in-a-million-years least....
HELLga! There are just no words.
On to the happenings: It really is just like the original. Just bigger (Again with this Bigger theme) Four contestants, two boys and two girls, compete in various events in order to gain points. There are two new events in AG08: Earthquake, a wrestling match suspended in the air on a toppling platform, and Hit & Run (aka Indiana Jones on crack) where contestants must run back and forth on a suspended bridge, each time earning 2 points, while 4 gladiators throw 100 pound pendulums in their way. It's brilliant!
And of course some of the old classics are back. My favorite: The Assault. Ok, the Assault has to be one of the most absurd inventions of the 20th century and it just reeks of the late 80s/early 90s. NERF BALL WARS!?! I mean, it's clearly the best. They have made the Assault a lot more difficult this time around: they have to load their own weapons and sometimes find their own ammo. NBC is not fucking around.
The points, I'm remembering, are for one thing and one thing only: a head start in The Eliminator. The Eliminator is exactly how it sounds: two people go in, and only one comes out. This Eliminator is about 1000 time more difficult than the last one and when it comes to obstacle courses, I don't think I've ever seen one this intense. They've obviously added water, because everything that can now has water, and they've extended the cargo net climb, which now come right out of the water (gotta be a killer!) but the thing that really blows my mind is the barrel roll!! The contestants have to wrap themselves around a horizontal column and roll down an incline to their next obstacle. You have to see it to believe it, and even then I still don't believe it!
It's hard to decide whether I love AG08 as much as the original. I mean Hulk's alright, and Laila had some choice lines ("You talked a lot of trash, but you backed it up, so congratulations!"), and it's absolutely wonderful to see that the Gladiators aren't going easy on the contestants. But, it just seems...cleaner, more focused. You know how the old Gladiators seemed like a gymnastics meet or a swim meet or something - there were people watching in this big room, and lots of stuff was happening all the time and the room was really well lit? Well it's not like that anymore. Our beloved competition is no longer a traveling show. It's on the Mainstage: lights, smoke, mirrors, editing, razzle-dazzle! And to be frank I don't really know how to feel about that.
Bottom line: I'm going to watch again, because there's nothing like seeing 4 beefy guys standing in a half-pipe while some pipsqueak bounces back and forth between them trying to make it to the other side!
The All-New American Gladiators is on NBC Mondays at 8PM.
PS. The only things I noticed that were smaller this time around were the Powerball balls and the Joust platforms. What did YOU see that was smaller this time around??
1 comment:
Well, I neva have seen the og, how-eva; I lovve the one where they have to make the balls into the basket, it's one of the first challenges. Well, in that challenge which isn't so exciting, the gladiators just FUCK the contestants up. I mean FLOOR them, which is just awesome. AND, did you see the episode where in the challenge where they have to make it up the stair block things to the top, and the gladiators try to stop them, well, when the gladiator pummeled her ALL the way down? So great. Moving on.
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