(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.
Week 1
So it's a new season of Biggest Loser and it's exciting to see
it off and running! This year they are starting off with 11 couples - all
family members.
The season starts off with each team getting the call from Bob
or Jillian to tell them they're on the show. Honestly it can't come as
that big a shock to them, there's a camera crew sitting there with them when
they get the call. I don't think NBC is sending camera crews all over the
country to tape people not getting called.
After that the first twist of the new season. The
contestants have to do their first weigh-in in their home town. In public.
In front of their family and friends and neighbors. Some do it in a high
school gym packed with fans. Others out in front of a favorite restaurant.
All express a lot of angst about having to doff their shirts and let everybody
see what they weigh. It's an interesting twist but I'm afraid I really
don't get all the drama around it - they're going on Biggest Loser. Surely
they've seen the show? Surely they would know that in the first half hour
or so they're all going to have to take their shirts off and weigh-in on
national TV? I guess maybe it's a little bigger deal to do it in person
but really...everybody in the hemisphere is going to see you and know what you
weigh before the first episode ends.
A few thoughts on the contestants...
-
Orange Team is Daris and his mom.
Reminds me a little of Dan and his Mom from a couple of seasons ago.
No, not Daniel (from seasons 7 & 8), but Dan from Season 6. Nice
folks. He actually doesn't look TOO bad for a guy who weighs way over
300. Except for the hair...I hope they make it to makeover week
because the hair needs help.
-
Brown Team is a pair of identical twins; John and
James. First time for twins on Biggest Loser I think. Interestingly
they weigh one pound different - 485 and 484. When they got introduced
Carrie and I were both surprised that they're only 30. Carrie
observed, correctly, that being that heavy makes you look a lot older.
Interesting to note about the twins...last year Shay was the heaviest
contestant they'd ever had and she started at 476. These two have her
beat. A lot is made of the fact that between them they weigh nearly
1000 pounds. They're the heaviest team in BL history - and we thought
Dan and Dave from Season 7 were huge.
-
Pink Team is a mother/daughter team and
they do see very...ummm...pink. When they got told they were the Pink
team they seemed delighted. I don't know if that's just because they
love the color or because they're aware that Pink has been a lucky color in
the house - several former Pink team members have gone on to win, including
Michelle and Ali (arguably the most successful/famous of the BL Alumni).
During the introductions daughter Ashley had some sort odd headband thing on
that looked like somebody had strapped a penny to her head with a rubber
band. Maybe it had a sentimental meaning for her, but she really
should skip it next time. Aside from the minor accessory issues she
seems like a very nice girl and will probably do well in the house. To
Pink team's credit there wasn't all of the televised drama and hysterics of
previous years pink teams. Maybe these girls are a little tougher?
Mom (Sherry) looks tiny - clearly the shortest person in the house - but has
a lot of personality.
-
Grey Team is back! Nice to see Sione
and Filipe back on the ranch! O.k., not quite but Sam and Kolu are
Tongan Cousins, just like the famed Blue team of season 7. I wonder if
we'll see some traditional Tongan dances this season? I hope so, that
was cool. Right away Kolu is one of my faves on the show. He's a
football coach but he has a soft side too. No, I mean in his heart.
He even commented that Sione and Filipe were an inspiration to him, as a
fellow Tongan, and how he envied Filipe's relationship with his wife.
I hope Kolu has the same kind of success Filipe had.
-
Yellow Team...might as well talk about them
now because I'm not sure how much of them we're going to get to see.
O'Neal (yes, that's his name) and daughter SunShine. O'Neal is a
postal supervisor who can't put on his own shoes and socks back home because
of his weight. In the family shots we see his wife and three sons (the
sons all seem normal-sized) and they show a photo of when he met his
wife...and he was a stud! Hard to believe in 25 years or so he's
gotten to where he is now. He's the oldest 51 year old I've ever seen.
I liked him right away though, and I hope he is able to succeed in turning
things around.
-
White Team is a mother/son pairing from
Chicago. Mom Maria doesn't look that big (by BL standards) but son
Michael tops the scale at 525 pounds - making him the biggest contestant
they've ever had. To put that in perspective...he's about 50 pounds heavier
than Season 8's Shay...the previous biggest ever.
-
The youth movement is over. Nobody in the house under
22 this time and since she went home (as did 24 year old SunShine) I guess
that leaves Tongan Sam (24) as the youngest in the house.
-
The senior movement is over too. No obvious grandparents on
the show this time. Even though the contestants often look a lot older
than they are, the oldest in the house is 55 year old Patti. (Purple Team)
-
The Name Game: Most interesting names this year would
probably have to go to the Green Team. Mom "Miggy" and daughter
"Migdalia". Honorable mention to SunShine for the extra capital "S",
O'Neal & Daris
-
Where's the villain? In previous years America learned
to love to hate the BL villains.
-
Last year it was crazy Tracey who
in-between tears and collapsing made everybody's eyes roll with bad
decision after bad decision. And yet...somehow got away with it.
First time I think I ever saw Jillian want to kick somebody out of the
house. At the finale Tracey showed up looking lean, happy and
muscular...but still somehow odd. A little TOO muscular really,
almost masculine. Speculation on the fan-boards ran rampant that
her dramatic new fitness level might not be entirely natural, though
that might have just been folks taking a last shot at a disliked
contestant.
Honorable mention last year goes to Rudy
who towards the end double-crossed show-sweetheart Shay and then openly
told Rebecca he didn't trust her. Not nice Rudy, you're lucky you
didn't have to rely upon America's vote to get into the finals.
-
Season 7 had Joelle the woefully
out-of-touch lady who rambled philosophically whenever confronted with
the fact that she was going thru the motions. Be interesting to see
where Carla, her partner from that year, is today.
-
Season 6 had the woman who really got BL Fans riled up.
Brown team's Vicky.
By midseason she was terrorizing the show with enough attitude for
everybody. I'm not sure I've ever seen a BL contestant so openly
contemptuous and even hateful towards other contestants. She later
claimed, plausibly, that she's really not like that and that it was just
the show's editors making her look bad. Perhaps. But even trainer
Bob called her out as "conniving" and he's not influenced by the editing
- he's really there and see's what's going on.
So who is our villain this year? So
far none has emerged, but don't let that fool you into thinking there isn't
one. Vicky didn't really show up for a few weeks in Season 6. So
we'll see...
First Challenge
For their first challenge of the season the teams are shown
exercise bikes and told they have to ride 26.2 miles. The winning team gets
immunity...the TWO teams at the bottom go home. Wow. They've been on
the ranch for 5 minutes and already they're facing elimination. The next 15
minutes or so we watch big people labor on bikes. Blue team's Cherita has to be
helped off the bike before the end because of massive cramps. I'm a little
surprised she's the only one.
In fairness, as teams, each team member only had to ride
about 13 miles, which isn't dramatically far. It's probably an hour or
maybe a bit less, of pedaling. But for folks who are THAT out of shape
that is a LOT of work.
In the end it's the Green team who pedal like absolute
MANIACS who wins and Blue and Yellow teams going home. A little
disappointing because I was hoping to see Yellow get a couple more weeks on
the ranch. O'Neal seemed really sincere about wanting to fix his life
and really crushed to have lost the bike race and be going home so soon.
Naturally this is Biggest Loser so there has to be a twist.
While the Blue and Yellow teams are crying in their limos as they drive way
from the ranch and we're all sitting at home commenting on how it sucks that
they're sending folks home so early...suddenly Bob and Jillian jump out of
the bushes and stop the limos. They tell the contestants that they're
only going home for 30 days. After the 30 days they'll come back and
whichever team has the highest percentage of weight loss will be back in the
game. Apparently the REST of the contestants don't know about this
deal - they just think Blue and Yellow are history.
Bob and Jill also assured Blue and Yellow they'd be
available to them during the 30 days. It's not clear yet what that
means - I'm guessing it means they'll prepare workouts for them, talk by
phone and maybe make the occasional guest appearance. You know Blue
and Yellow will get to work out at 24 Hour Fitness.
Weigh-In
So we now fast-foward to the weigh-in. The thing with
having SO many contestants and spending so much time setting up the teams and
the season is that you really don't get to see much of the week's activities.
They have a lot of product placements to squeeze into those two hours (Bob
explaining about using the 24-Hour Fitness Body Bugg device, Jillian with the
obligatory Brita placement, etc.) and so before you know it, we're off to the
last chance workout and elimination
weigh-in.
Keep in mind...Week 1 always has jaw-dropping numbers. Lot
of water weight getting lost, of course, and these guys are smart enough to have
bulked up some before they came in order to drop big numbers. And, it's
their first week getting professional training and diet. This will be as
good as it gets for single-week numbers.
Before it started I predicted that we'd see somebody drop 30+.
Carrie was skeptical but we'd see...and as expected, big numbers.
Remarkably the twins each dropped 23 pounds. Even Allison can't help but
comment on that. A few folks drop 29. Even some of the (relatively)
little ladies are dropping pretty good numbers. Every single contestant is
in double-figures.
Last to weigh in, with the Brown team (twins) on the bottom,
is the White team. Maria and big Michael. For some odd reason
they decided to weigh them in separately with Maria going first.
Didn't make sense to me other than to manufacture still more drama. No
great surprise, Michael drops a huge number (34) and is out of the 500 pound
range already. White team is spared, Brown team is on the chopping
block.
Don't get used to these numbers. Week 2 is notoriously bad
on the back of these numbers. Most of the water weight is gone and the
bodies are starting to adapt. We'll see what happens.
Now the contestants all get to sit around and decide which
twin to send home. It's hard enough to tell them apart but now folks who
barely know them have to decide their fate. Predictably each brother tries
to fall on their own sword, but ultimately it's James - the twin with the
bad knee and no need to rush back to work when he gets home who gets sent
home, almost unanimously. Only the Green team votes for John -
gameplay perhaps?
Random Stuff
-
Bob and Jill are training together again this season. That
certainly removes a lot of the team drama we've seen in previous years which
has led to some conflict on the show. Especially when contestants
developed loyalties to one trainer or the other and then ended up having to
switch. Lot less tension this way - maybe the producers heard feedback
from the audience that they found the tension distasteful? Last season
natural teams tended to coalesce around the kids versus the older folks with
the kids getting the worst of it after a pivotal week when TWO of them got
sent home.
-
James had one of the more dramatic transformation moments
I've seen. After he got sent home it was revealed that in the 8 weeks
since...he's lost 100 pounds! WOW! He says he's shooting for
Danny's record of 240 pounds in total weight loss.
-
Anybody notice that it looked like Michael had to be helped
out to meet Bob and Jillian the day after the bike race?
-
Bob has taken to calling Lance (a rancher from Texas)
"Texas".
-
From the "Lead by Example" department: Allison Sweeny looks
AMAZING, less than a year after giving birth. Somehow she looks even
better than before she got pregnant.
-
Lot of emphasis on matters of the heart this first episode.
O'Neal talking about wanting to get back to the man his wife fell for.
29 year old Stephanie admitting she's never been in love. Coach Koli
tearfully admitting he didn't think anybody would ever love a 400 pound man.
-
Predictions: It's pretty early and we don't
know the teams that well yet. Green are obviously driven ladies but it
remains to be seen if they have enough weight to lose. Black team is
going to have a tough go of it, I suspect. The Tongan cousins seem
primed to recreate the success of their countrymen.
Best Quote of the Night
"I could lose an entire other
overweight person and I'd still be overweight."
-Michael-
Honorable Mention
"You've got to be kidding me."
-Jillian, meeting huge twins John and James for the first time-
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