The Travellator!

I've been meaning to post for some time on the whole writer's strike thing and how I'm pretty sure that it's going to bring on reality show armageddon. I mean, Clash of the Choirs? Really? Great googly moogly.

I have to confess though, that I was secretly looking looking forward to the return of American Gladiators. I mean, ok, even at its prime, it was terribly cheese-tastic. And I think it was only ever moderately popular as a syndicated series, so I kind of wondered at the logic behind bringing it back. But after watching a chunk of last night's premiere, I have to say it's pretty entertaining. I think they really did a good job of updating it to make it more "x-treme" but keeping enough of the cheese so that you feel slightly less shame in watching it.

Two hours was a bit much for me, and really, I only watched about the middle half hour (we forgot it was on till and tuned in around 8:30). Mostly, I just wanted to see what they came up with for the Gladiators, and I was not disappointed. Shiny/skimpy costumes? Check. Ridiculous names? Check. Oh, and not to get off track here, but there was one guy - I think his name was Titan - who I swear to god looked like he was made out of wax. Way creepier than any of the "scary" characters, although, the Wolf dude was definitely a close second. I also couldn't help but crack up at the signs that people in the audience were holding up for the "favorites." Are we really supposed to believe that some 42 year-old guy spent a day in his garage lovingly crafting a sign for some Gladiator he's never seen before? It was really pushing the limit for me as far as suspension of disbelief.

The absolute funniest moment for me though was when the two women challengers had to go through the obstacle course. I honestly thought that one or both of them was going to die before they made it through. I mean, it was much longer than I thought it'd be, but to watch them, you would've thought that they were running a marathon through the Sahara Desert! The best part was towards the end, when there was a steep conveyor belt they had to climb up, referred to as the "Travellator." T and I about fell off the couch laughing at the name. It's both terrible and brilliant at the same time. I could see the warped logic behind it: it's kind of like an escalator, but you have to travel against the flow...what about Travellator?!

Even funnier than the name was the fact that one of the challengers was in the lead by a longshot until she reached this thing. Then she struggled and fell off of it about three times before finally making it almost to the top...and just hanging there. I know, it's mean to laugh at someone else's suffering, but if you'd seen it, you would've laughed too.

Oh, I also need to add that a few of the challenges in the Eliminator seemed oddly reminiscent...Ninja Warrior anyone?