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The Biggest Loser  

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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 3

The Temptation

Today's temptation is a food temptation.  The contestants are led to a room where Ali shows them a table full of food: Tacos, pizza, donuts, etc.  She tells them they'll each have 5 minutes to eat whatever they want and that for the teams with partners back home those partners were offered the same deal.  Here's the twist...the team that eats the MOST calories will get private training, with their trainer, AT HOME.

Immediately the players understand the real temptation - it's not the food, it's the chance to go home and see their families.

Most of the players stand strong and choose not to eat.  Mandi wants to see her kids so she eats one slice of pizza.  Filipe doesn't eat, but via video we see that Sione does because he wants Bob and Filipe to come to their home to train him for a while.  Filipe is conflicted about that but it ultimately doesn't matter much because they are soundly defeated...

Joelle's struggles have been well-documented and the footage makes it LOOK like she actually eats a donut.  But after we return from commercial we discover that at the last possible moment she put the donut down and did NOT eat it.  Carla, however...ate more than 2,000 calories of pizza and cupcakes.  Again ostensibly so she could get Joelle and Bob to come to Detroit and work out with her.  It worked.

Orange Team?  Some sharp-eyed fans noticed that the Orange team was not present for this temptation.  Daniel was nowhere to be seen in the house and David, who has been shown each week pigging out at home, never appeared via video.  Allison Sweeney's Blog explains that Dr. H had some follow-up questions and tests for Daniel and that Dan chose to excuse himself from the temptation so the tests could be performed.  But is that the real story?  Here's one for you conspiracy nuts...

...how about if the producers saw the tape and KNEW that David gorged himself on pizza and tacos and donuts and that it was the Orange team that would be going home this week.  But they WANTED the Silver team to go home because they knew that an explosive confrontation between Carla and Joelle awaited and that made for much more interesting TV.  So they arranged for Daniel to get more tests done during the temptation so they could excuse the Orange team and engineer a Silver victory. 

Is that what I think happened?  No.  But it's interesting to speculate.

Challenge

The challenge this week is a Biggest Loser classic.  The contestants are led to a giant contraption where styrofoam bars on struts will swing around in a big circle, very much like a jump-rope.  The contestants will have to jump the bar as it comes around for as long as they can - last person standing wins.  The reward: immunity.

I'll fill in the details later but in short it was a record-breaking performance by both Kristen and Tara, but ultimately Tara won for the Green team.  Second consecutive week of Green team immunity.

Last Chance Workout

Weigh-In

Here's the table...sorted by highest percentage of weight loss...

The weigh-in was fairly straight-forward.  Black team (Blaine and Dane) dropped huge numbers, and Brown team (Ron and Mike) did too.  Filipe was justifiably excited to drop a 14.  Joelle was understated about her 6; Damien was very down about his 4.  Kristen just did get in over the wire with her 7. 

Dan's 15 was heart-warming to see - the kid is just so likeable.  By the way, does anybody remember last week when I predicted Daniel would drop double-digits this week? :-)

Strategy

The first real example of gameplay reared its head this week.  With Damien and Joelle on the chopping block Bob's team made the clear decision to vote Joelle off.  No surprise, she's not pulling her weight (pun intended) and when asked the simple question "Do you want to stay here?" by Tara she couldn't even give a straight answer.

The Jillian's team met up with Bob's team to ask for their guidance and acted like they would go along with what Bob's team wanted to do.  But in the elimination room it was time for a shocker...

Bob's team all voted to send Joelle home, as expected.  Jillian's team, undoubtedly recognizing that Damien was a bigger threat and that Joelle was not only a weak player but also her presence undermined Bob's team in general seized the opportunity and sent the stronger player home.  Strategically that was the smart move - and the producers are undoubtedly happy that the drama queen Joelle is still in the house and that there will be more opportunities for her and volatile Carla to have on-screen fireworks.

Random Stuff

• Though we don't get to see the results in this show because it was taped months ago, host Allison Sweeney had a baby girl, Megan Hope, on January 12th.  6 lbs. 7oz.  Apparently mother and daughter are doing great.

• Tonight's big product placement was for Yoplait yogurt.

• Joelle has lost only 21 pounds, or 7% of her weight so far thru 3 weeks. That's the lowest percentage of any contestant.  She lost 60% of that in week 1.  Tara lost 21 pounds the first week.  Mike, Ron, Jerry, Sione and Dan all lost more than 21 the first week.

• Predictions: Green team stayed strong.  bounced back this week and Silver team's Joelle is still very definitely the weakest player right now.  She survived week 3 because nobody thinks she's a threat.  Black team still looks pretty strong. 

Best Quote of the Night

Articles

• Reality TV Recap of Week 3

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