With the Writer’s Guild strike in full force, many networks have been trotting out new game shows and reality television experiments in attempts to make money without the creative force behind their sitcoms and dramas, while also showing the striking writers they can survive without them. As a result, American viewers have been inundated with game show “hits” like CBS’s Power of 10 and The Moment of Truth on Fox. Garbage…
However, NBC dug into it’s vault and brought back a classic show I was excited to see again: American Gladiators. As a kid, I remember watching Larry Csonka and Mike Adamle call the events as athletic and powerful athletes like Laser, Nitro, Gemini, Zap, Ice, and others put on a show physically, but remained within the realm of reality. While the show had a hokey, character-driven interaction with the Gladiators in Season 1, they quickly abandoned it as the network likely realized the events sold themselves without making the athletes into knockoffs of professional wrestlers with backstories and personas. Watch this clip of Malibu, a gladiator from Season 1 who was the “California surfer” of the show, and see for yourself how cheesy making the athletes get in character could be:
I love being healed by Mother Nature as I take rays with a brewski and a babe. Side effects may include melanoma, nausea, and spontaneous pregnancy.
Thankfully, NBC quickly ditched this concept and kept the show purely about the competitors going up against high-caliber athletes. The Gladiators were impressive, but realistic and seemed like real people. This made the show seem like an actual competition and not some kind of scripted, poorly acted action movie as it’s managed to become today.
Fast forward 12 years from the end of the original run of the show (1996). Gladiators is back, but so is the cheese. Gladiators have gimmicks again (Wolf with his howling noises, Toa with, as NBC describes it, “tribal” chanting and dancing, and Militia constantly saluting and standing at attention before and after events). In short, the male athletes all act like that douche at the bar who likes to run his mouth and act tough, but when anything starts, he’ll throw a girly slap and then backpedal away to safety. Or, in Mayhem’s case, push you off the Joust platform and yell at you because he got disqualified twice in a row (see Episode 1, Part 2 at the 18:00 minute mark).
To make matters worse, the set has more special effects than the MGM Studios’ Backlot Tour, including pools of water to fall into, pyrotechnics, overly-active lighting effects, and even an editing team that syncs emotion-driven music to the falls and triumphs of the athletes (head to AOL Video/Hulu to check out the new generation of AG for yourself). The overwhelming attempt at grandeur is furthered by how scripted the speaking sounds. New hosts Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali are speaking like like Dr. Tobias Fünke auditioning for a role and the contestants’ responses all sound scripted and unrealistically cheery. It just doesn’t seem real…
NBC - Fix this quickly! It may be a guilty pleasure for now, but the freshness of the show could wear off fast… Make it more about the competition - sports has always written its own exciting scripts. This is one reason why the XFL crapped out…you do remember that, right? Oh, and bring back the Zonk!