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The Biggest Loser  

(Note: This is NOT an official NBC website)

O.K., so I'm a fan of the show and all-too-fond of spouting off my opinions and observations about it so I figured maybe I'd throw up a page on it so that other people could be bored with my opinions and observations.

The Premise

I'm not a big fan of "reality TV" in general.  Most of it seems to be people eating bugs and marrying strangers for money.  It seems like every B-list celebrity on the planet now has a show where a dozen star-struck dimwits vie for their affections (and presumably some cash prize?) on television.  But if that's what America wants to watch...well...

Anyhow.  Biggest Loser is a bit different.  The premise of this show is that 16 (typically) severely overfat people are brought to a "ranch" where, under the supervision of doctors, nutritionists and two very photogenic trainers, they proceed to try and change their lives and lose fat.  It's a noble and appealing effort and I've enjoyed (mostly) watching the participants engage in the various challenges.

The transformations are often dramatic.  Some contestants will lose 100 pounds or more during the course of the show, which is truly amazing!

You can watch The Biggest Loser on Tuesday nights on NBC.

The Show

Each episode starts off with a challenge; something physical usually, though sometimes it's a "Temptation".  Challenges might include having to run up and down a mountain, or having to accurately estimate the number of calories in a certain thing of food.  The winner of the challenge gains some advantage later in the show.

The rest of the episode revolves around the contestants working out, learning about nutrition, interacting with each other.  Towards the end of the episode is the weekly weigh-in - each participant gets on the scale to see how much weight they've lost that week.  The one with the greatest percentage of weight loss (not total weight loss, but by percentage) is the Biggest Loser of the week and is typically immune from elimination.  The contestants with the lowest percentage of weight loss (typically 2 of them, but sometimes more) "fall below the yellow line" which means they are candidates for elimination.  The rest of the contestants then get to vote on which of those contestants are to be sent home that week.

Gradually as the show progresses thru the season the number of contestants is whittled down week by week until by the end there are only four.  And ultimately it comes down to which of those four has the greatest total percentage of weight loss for the show.

Editing

An important thing to remember is that the producers of the show have an entire week's worth of footage, between all of the different cameras in use probably hundreds of hours of footage, of the contestants and they have to cut all of that down to fit in a two-hour block of TV time - with commercials!  And don't forget that Biggest Loser, like many such shows these days, does a lot of repetition.  They cut to a commercial and when they come back from the commercial there are 5-15 seconds of replaying what happened before the commercial.  So what you're seeing on Tuesday night is really just a tiny fraction of the total footage shot during that week and it's a hand-picked tiny fraction.  The producers and editors very carefully choose what bits we're going to see on TV.

Those choices can seriously effect how somebody is perceived or what the "reality" of the show is to the audience.  With careful editing you could make Hitler seem like a nice guy, or Jimmy Carter seem like a brutal dictator.  Heck, I once saw an old lady turn into MC Hammer on TV.

Just keep in mind when you're watching the show that it's ultimately a TV show and what you're seeing is only that tiny fraction of what went on that the producers and editors want you to see.  Just because it may not be scripted doesn't mean that they aren't telling a story.

The Theme Song

The theme song, in case you're interested, is "Proud". It's performed by Heather Small and written by Heather Small and Peter Vittese.  I actually liked last year's better.  It sounds like they've mixed it differently this year, maybe slowed it down slightly?  The lyrics can be found here.  You can buy the song from iTunes.

The Trainers

Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels are the trainers on the show - interesting and knowledgeable folks.  I won't bother reprinting their bios here - if  you'd like to know more about them just click the links on their names above.

The Episodes

I'll try to do a weekly summary in here.  I'm starting a bit late with this so we'll pick it up with Week 8:

Articles

Useful Links (if you have a blog, article or other Biggest Loser content, send it to me at feedback@factplace.com and I'll try to include it.)

Ali Vincent's Blog: Ali was the winner of Season 5 and one of those dramatic transformations I was talking about.  On her blog she relays observations about the show from the point of view of somebody who really lived it.  I wish it was a little more current (as of 11/14 she hasn't posted a new article since 10/24) but it's interesting reading.

Allison Sweeney's Blog: The hostess of "Biggest Loser" posts her thoughts, generally each week, here.

Sam Barrington's Blog: I'm not sure any contestant in Biggest Loser history has generated more negative feelings among the fans than Vicky does.  Sam has posted a blog entry here that seems to sum it up pretty nicely.

Donna Emery's Biggest Loser Coverage - Some really good recaps and analysis of the players.

Michelle Oak's Biggest Loser Blog - Just a viewer like us posting her observations and thoughts on the show.

 

 

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