American Gladiators

Yes, you read the title of this post correctly. TV is so freakin crappy these days that I’m forced to write about American Gladiators, just to have something to write about this weekend. The 2-hour Lost premiere on January 31st can’t come soon enough!

So, American Gladiators is back on the tube after a 20 year hiatus. Not much has changed, but there are certainly a few noticeable differences. In case you missed out on tonight’s back-to-back episodes premiere, here’s what’s different in NBC’s new go around of everyone’s favorite show featuring dudes named Laser.

1) Incessant Talking — This show is the American version of Japan’s Takeshi’s Castle or Ninja Warrior in that you don’t really care about what the contestants or hosts have to say; you just want to watch them take on the physical challenges. Well with A.G., better have your Tivo remote ready to go because the talking to action ratio is like 60/40. You’ve got the idiotic contestants blabbering on about how they’re definitely going to beat the Gladiators (which they obviously never do), you’ve got host Hulk Hogan doing stupid puns on the contestants names (my favorites were “Holy Moly” and “the moon, the sun, the stars, and now Venus”), you’ve got Muhammed Ali’s daughter doing the patented “useless female broadcaster from on the field” perfected by TNT’s Michelle Tafoya, and you’ve got the bland play-by-play commentary done by some dude we never see. Blah blah blah blah blah. Go hit the dude with the giant Q-Tip thingie already!

2) Elimination — One positive change that NBC has added is to make the series more like their current reality competitions, such as The Biggest Loser, by having a set group of contestants who are eliminated one by one as the weeks go by. Whereas the old A.G. featured a motley collection of athletic nobodies who were individual to each episode, the new version introduces you to all 24 each episode, and each episode, 1 male and 1 female competitor is eliminated. Whoever endures for the entire series will win bragging rights plus 100,000 bucks (side note: Remember the show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire where you had to answer some questions to win a million bucks? The best NBC can do for these 24 people getting beat up for 12 weeks is a measly 100 grand? So lame.)

3) Revamped Events — Most events are exactly the same, which I appreciate because if ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? So you’ve got The Pyramid, Powerball, Gauntlet and Hang Tough just as you remember them, but The Joust has been tweaked (opponents now stand over a huge pool of water), The Eliminator has added some swimming under fire bullcrap, and there’s an event called Earthquake, which is essentially “Wrestling on a Suspended Disc.” The events are very entertaining to watch for the most part, though I don’t really see the point of The Gaunlet, as it’s nearly impossible for the Gladiators to impede any forward motion of the competitors.

4) Female Gladiators — This time around, the female gladiators are all pretty damn hot. They’re buff, but not scary “if we ever had sex, you would crush my puny body in an instant” buff. Siren and Fury are particularly good looking. I’m pretty sure most girls watching would not find the male Gladiators very attractive. For the record, Titan looks like Mr. Incredible and Wolf likes like Sabertooth from X-Men.

5) Level of Competition — In the first hour, the level of competition was laughable. In the guys portion, Anthony, an NYFD hunk, took on Chad, a San Diego skateboarder. Anthony prevailed with a score of 34 to Chad’s 4. Give me a break. Something that bugged me about the guys’ run through the eliminator: no urgency. If you’ve ever watched Ninja Warrior, those dudes are focused and pushing hard from the first step until the end. These lazy Americans were walking lazily from obstacle to obstacle, climbing with the tenacity of a small child rolling on the ground in a fit of joyful laughter.

The woman’s Eliminator was even worse. In the woman’s portion, the first chick, Jessie, busted her leg in the first event and was replaced by Venus, who would go on to beat her opponent, Koya, in The Eliminator. But when I say “beat,” I really mean “didn’t collapse from exhaustion first,” which is basically what happened to Koya. About 20 seconds in to The Eliminator, the girls looked so tired that the show was no longer interesting. When they got to the obstacle where you wrap around a log and roll down an incline (exactly like Ninja Warrior Stage One), both women immediately fell off and skipped the obstacle. Next obstacle, the arm bicycle: immediately fell off and skipped. Watching Venus try to climb the Pyramid was like watching a dying, one-legged 90-year-old run the New York Marathon. But nothing was worse than watching Koya try to make it up the incline treadmill/rope pull obstacle. She had a 2 minute lead over Venus, but when it came time to motor up the incline, she just kept slamming her face into the wall, over and over, and hanging limply from the rope. Maybe it was first night jitters or something, but you can bet your ass I’m not going to be watching this pathetic display every week. It’s like watching an NBA game and a WNBA game simultaneously and being told to enjoy each level of skill equally. I’m no Gladiator (if I were, my name would be Ice!), but I know I wouldn’t lie around on that treadmill like poor Koya. You’ve got to want it, people! You need to push yourself to the limit!

Overall, the show is mildly entertaining at best. It’s the kind of show you can watch once, three times, religiously, never– and your life will not be changed a single bit. But if you’ve got Tivo and some free time (the next episode is tonight at 8), it’s better than nothing, especially in these miserable times. Besides, who doesn’t like to watch losers like Chad get bodyslammed into a wall by bros named Mayhem and Militia?

Genius or idiocy? You be the judge.

Grade: C+