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Some Thoughts on Season 9 of The Biggest Loser on NBC

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Normally, I wouldn’t post anything about this television show until after it was over and I could offer some type of congratulations to the overall winner. However, I was so happy to see Melissa removed from The Biggest Loser this week that I felt compelled to write something about it on the blog.

If you haven’t watched the show this season, Melissa spent most of her time trying to game the system and then acting like a martyr whenever Jillian and Bob called her out. No one bought any of her shit and it was obvious that she was lying through her teeth. Maybe she thinks that because she’s not so bright that the rest of the world isn’t so bright, but it was as clear as day that she was lying about the fact that she was putting game play above her health.

Anyway, on this week’s show Melissa gained a pound. One of the stipulations was that the person who lost the least percentage of weight this week would immediately go home. Clearly, Melissa lost this week and was sent home.

But before she left, this woman had the audacity to stand up there after she gains a pound (for the second time this season!) and act like she’s some type of inspirational story. Here’s my message to her:

Get over yourself, woman! No one gives a crap about you and your lying bullshit. I don’t know what type of snake oil you think you can sell to the rest of the nation, but it was blatantly obvious that you threw two weigh-ins and you squandered your chance at being this season’s winner. You’re an idiot.

And let this be a lesson to other people out there that might apply to be a contestant on The Biggest Loser – don’t waste your time trying to “play the game.” Instead, thank God that you have the opportunity to lose weight and attack each workout that you have with the trainers.

I was so glad that this woman was kicked off the show. She tried to play the game instead of focusing on her health and her lying, conniving ways came back to bite her in the ass. If there is any justice in this world she won’t win the “at home” competition either.

As for the rest of this season so far, I’ve been enjoying it. I think that the stories of the rest of the contestants are very compelling and I’m really interested in how Migdalia has managed to lose a bunch of weight now that her daughter is no longer on the campus. There’s a lot of emotional issues wrapped up between those two and I think that they need to get that worked out before they can really be healthy.

I liked how they spent the last week at the Olympic Training Facility – that was pretty cool. If I had to choose someone to pull for this season, I guess I would support either the orange, pink, or gray team. Not sure which one of them I like best yet, but they all seem to be really good people. So do the black and yellow teams. It’s still too early to choose who I want to win, I guess.

Random Thoughts on NBC’s Kings

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Everyone is watching as network television has its parade of season finales. For the next few days I’m going to post up some thoughts on some of my favorite television shows and their season finales. And to start off the discussion I turn to Kings on NBC. I’ll admit up front that I’m wedging coverage of Kings on to the blog even though it doesn’t quite fit. You see, Kings hasn’t had a season finale yet because it was yanked off of NBC after its fourth episode was aired. But wedging Kings on to the blog will allow me a chance to blast NBC some more…

I can’t stand watching shows on NBC. In fact, most of the NBC shows that I do enjoy watching (Biggest Loser, for example) I only watch on DVR now. The biggest problem that I have with NBC – which I bitch about all of the time, by the way – is that they interrupt the flow of their shows way too much. Sure, the highly paid executives all “know” that you have to enter each commercial break with a cliffhanger because that’ll make the viewers stick around, but there is a time when enough is enough. If you’re wondering when that time has come – watch any of the four episodes of Kings.

Horrible, horrible usage of commercial breaks. In fact, the usage of commercial breaks was so bad that watching the show on DVR was even tough to do because the flow of the story is interrupted too much. So that’s my first comment about Kings – NBC sucks with commercial breaks and almost forces their viewers to use DVRs instead.

The next comment is that the Kings story never really got enough air time. How many people out there really knew that the television show was based on a Biblical story and, in fact, it was the story of King David? Right. I thought not.

The other problem, that I’ve had with this show is that the characters are all too pristine. In other words, the society doesn’t look like it is made of real people. Instead, the people who put this show together focused too much on getting model-esque characters. For me, that made the show somewhat hard to watch.

The final problem that I had with NBC and this show is that it was moved in the schedule. The show was promoted as a Sunday night show and then it was almost immediately shuffled to Saturday night. Alright, I get it that the show wasn’t doing well in the ratings and that the suits wanted to move it, but give it a chance!

I heard that there was a chance that there will be more Kings episodes coming out in June. Let’s hope that NBC can fix some of the problems listed above and give this series a chance!

Congratulations Helen – The Biggest Loser for Spring 2009!

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Last night was the live finale of The Biggest Loser on NBC and the show’s content did not disappoint. Jerry, the oldest ever contestant on the show, won $100,000 for the “at home” prize and Helen, a 48 year old mother, won the $250,000 prize for being this season’s biggest loser. Helen had a remarkable transformation from a big 257 pounds down to a skinny 117 pounds. It was amazing. Look at Helen’s before and after pictures:

Last night’s live finale gave hope and inspiration to all of those people who feel that they have been “categorized” into not losing weight. In other words, those people who feel that they cannot lose weight because they are too old or are within a certain age range for a certain gender see now that it can be done. Jerry is 64 years old for goodness sake!

My only gripe with the finale was that it was too long. A three hour finale is completely unnecessary. The entire show could fit into a 90 minute show, which would be nice since there could either be a 30 minute pre-show or a 30 minute post-show. But NBC relies so strictly on the results it gets from audience testing that it completely misses how to put on a television production that makes viewers comfortable while watching the show. Sure, people tuned into the finale to see who was going to win, but the truth is that watching any NBC show is horrible because of the crappy timing and pacing of their shows.

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Anyway, congratulations to Helen and Jerry as well as everyone who lost a ton of weight. Mike’s (the 18-year-old kid) transformation is also an amazing story. I’m happy for him and I hope that he sticks to a good diet and workout regime because he can now be healthy for the rest of his life.

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry Wins $100,000!

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The Biggest Loser live finale is on tonight and even though I’ll probably fall asleep before it’s all over I had to come online and say how excited I was to see Jerry win the $100,000 “at home” Biggest Loser prize. Good for him! Here is a 64 year old man that lost 47% of his body weight. The man lost 47% of his body weight at an age where most people are either retired or a few months away from retirement!

That’s an amazing feat and one for which Jerry should be immensely proud of himself. And let this serve as a lesson to everyone else out there who is trying to get themselves into shape or begin living a healthier lifestyle. A man in his mid 60’s lost about half of his body weight. If he can do that, then the rest of us can suck it up and lose weight and/or begin living a healthier lifestyle.

Congratulations, Jerry!

Some Thoughts on This Season’s TV Shows

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It’s been a while since I offered some random thoughts on the current state of television, so here we go! Hopefully my rantings make sense to the rest of you like they make sense to me!

The Biggest Loser: Families
For some reason I’m not getting as into this season of The Biggest Loser as I was into the last two seasons. Part of the problem is the contestants on the show. I just don’t care about their successes and failures like I cared about the contestants on the last two seasons. The concept of this season – that families would be competing on the show and that the trainers picked out their own trainees – was a novel one. For my television habits, though, it’s just not working.

Although a large part of the problem is NBC (and this is a recurring problem that you’ll see below). NBC is a great example of a company that is run by people who work with numbers and look only at the bottom line (which, by the way, currently sucks for parent company, GE). You can tell that no one at NBC is watching The Biggest Loser because there is NO way that a competent executive would allow the show to be broadcast the way it is. What does that mean? Well, every single time the show cuts to a commercial it is at a crucial point in the drama being told (whether that drama be real or made up). You can’t do that EVERY single time! Once in a while, you have to give your audience a bone and give them the payoff right there.

Plus, when the show comes back from commercial the viewer is treated to some 30 – 60 seconds of pre-commercial break content before getting to new content. What an insult! This is what you get when you combine “big television corporation” think with a “make more money” mindset.

Crusoe
This is a new show on NBC that follows the “new” adventures of Robinson Crusoe on his deserted island. For those of you that don’t know the story of Robinson Crusoe, it’s the story of a traveling merchant/businessman who is shipwrecked on an abandoned island. While on the island, he befriends a “savage” who is then named “Friday” – the day of the week he was saved by Crusoe. Think Lost and Gilligan’s Island, but starting in literary format almost three hundred years ago.

The first episode showed Crusoe defending his island against both pirates and corrupt Spanish prison guards – both groups which eventually wind up looking for buried treasure. Not a bad plot for a two-hour series premier. I thought the first episode was fun to watch and had the beginnings of a great show. Then the second episode came on…guh.

For some reason Friday and Crusoe spar over meaningless issues. Then we find out that there is a burial ground hidden within a mountain on the island – too Lost-esque for my liking. And not just too Lost-esque, but like a low-end version of Lost being pushed by a corporate powerhouse. Part of this show is also Crusoe’s constant flashbacks to what his life was like off of the island. Those flashbacks worked well in the first episode, but became burdensome in the second episode. Combine this with the fact that NBC doesn’t know how to go into a commercial break and you have the makings of an uncomfortable viewing situation for the people at home.

Finally, the preview for next week’s episode teased whether this would be the week that Crusoe gets off the island. So is this going to be the theme of the show each week? I hope not because that type of plot has no legs. Want proof? The preview suggested that a ship was coming to the island and this may be Crusoe’s chance to get off. Bleh. Wasn’t that the plot of the first episode? Let’s hope NBC doesn’t kill off what could be a good show here.

More thoughts on this season’s television shows coming soon!