LAST EDITED ON 08-03-10 AT 04:28 PM (EST)Keep in mind that I'm only saying this about the premiere, the twists have yet to come and will probably ruin everything when they arrive, and entropy loves to increase, but --
-- just for now --
-- it's better than The Biggest Loser.
Count the improvements.
1. One-hour show. No product placement commercials, no endless filler material to take up a hole in the schedule, and especially no thirty minute weigh-in with a scale that can't find a number in less than a full commercial break. And in that time, they still managed to present a complete episode.
2. Twenty-four contestants -- and we spent a little time with pretty much every last one of them. There was some skilled editing going on here. I have at least a basic (presented) read on most of the personalities in the house after that lone hour: recent editions of Survivor haven't been able to manage that in six weeks.
3. Some decent casting (and that's really a subject-to-change first impression call). As the contestants themselves have noted, needing to put up 10K to get in doesn't keep out the ones looking for camera time, but it does require an extra level of commitment. (We did have the one confessional still looking for proof that this wasn't a scam.) If you're here, you're really serious about making the attempt. Ten thousand dollars is not a casual amount of money for these people, and that's not counting what they lose from being away from work for an extended period. They have to fight: going home early means more than one kind of hardship.
4. Great team names. The show may have ripped off the T-shirts, but not the boring 'pink team' designation which goes with it. Instead, we got creative moments of low genius like Roll Models, Mission Slimpossible, Chicago Deep Dish, Grading Curves, Slenderellas, and Flabulous. Now that's how you ID yourself on a reality show -- and as a special bonus, they saved us a little work in making this stuff up.
5. People stay dressed during the weigh-ins. BL has always had a nasty touch of publicly-viewed attack in the removal of shirts before stepping on the scale: this show left that first moment of sadism out. The scale can figure for clothing, thankee.
6. There were a few cute touches in the editing, and no one's afraid to bring out the F/X.
7. The contestants are visibly on their own. You cook for yourself, and temptations are everywhere. You work out as long as you want to: there's a trainer, but it's just one for the whole cast -- and his only job is to show them how to exercise. He's not screaming in their faces. He's not pushing them to the point of collapse just to show how well he can sell his next book. The contestants do a pretty good job of pushing themselves too far without any extra encouragement.
8. On-site physician, on camera, on standby.
9. The host is doing a decent job so far, which mostly means he's known how to show up and stand on his mark. We'll see how he does with challenges when we get to the first one -- the premiere just had introductions, initial workouts, and the first weigh-ins.
10. This bears repeating: the scale moves in one direction. It has a physical dial with a needle instead of Digital Jumping Beans: the needle moves around the dial and stops on a number. I almost cheered when I saw that scale in action. I didn't realize just how sick I was of the BL scale until I didn't have to deal with it...
But with positives, there have to be some negatives...
-1. The season preview footage may have given away some of the longer-surviving teams. It definitely gave away some of the twists. At some point, we are going to voting. Which means alliances. Possibly watering up. We already had a team shave themselves in the hopes of picking up a few ounces. Once the game angle really kicks in, things may head downhill in a hurry.
-2. That bus was rigged.
-3. Phillip. Oh gawds, Phillip...
Well, here's a personality whose totality we may not have seen on a reality show to date. But I'm not bashing him for that, nor am I going after him for his drunkathon, the post-all-clothing-removal hot tub segment, the aftermath of the drunkathon, or his openly feeling regret for another team going home. Instead --
*thinks hard about how to keep this within PG-13 standards*
-- I'd just like to make this request.
If you're a male, and you're capable of doing what Phillip did shortly after entering the hot tub?
Don't.
(You'll know it when you see it. And you can never, ever unsee it.)
Minor change to the information in the starter post: the second-place team does get their entrance fee back.
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