Welcome to The Biggest Loser Recap blog.

Last year I originally didn’t start watching the show from the beginning as I had passed it off as “just another reality show”, however after catching a couple of episodes for one reason or another, I came to the conclusion that there’s actually a bit more to it than that – the show has an important message. We, as a society, are getting too fat! (I’m sure sitting around watching TBL is a great way to lose weight, too. ;-) )

Aside from that, the show is a lot of fun to watch. Bob & Jillian are a fun combination and the trials and tribulations the various “Fatties” go through kept me and a lot of other folks glued to the television.

Towards the end of the season I found myself providing a sort of “running commentary” on the show during the ad breaks on my LiveJournal. This was a great way to chat with friends from around the country about the show, and it turned out it was useful for some folks who missed shows, or to jog memories of what happened in previous episodes, or for people in other time zones to get spoilers, if they so choose!

This season I’ve decided to create a dedicated blog just for those purposes. :-)

Basically, the idea will be that during each episode I will make a post as the show is about to start which people will then be able to follow along with during the show (and make their own comments if they wish!), or read after the show and discuss what happened in a fun way. Censorship will be kept to a minimum, so if you think someone is acting like a right twat you can vent about it here – if I haven’t beaten you to it! (Please keep it civil with other commenters, though.)

I will also be engaging in my usual scarily accurate predictions for the show. They’re like psychic spoilers, if, you know, psychics were real. :-)

Now, to get down to the meat of things. For those who have not been to The Official Biggest Loser Website so far the list of contestants is now up, as are the trainer and host names. You can see all the relevant details on this site as well:

• AJ (Host)
• Alex
• Bob (Trainer)
• Courtney
• Damien
• Gerard
• Greg
• Jillian (Trainer)
• Jules
• Kelly
• Marty
• Mel
• Michael
• Michelle (Trainer)
• Munnalita
• Pati
• Sam
• Sarah
• Shannan (Trainer)

Two new trainers this year, alongside Bob and Jillian. Not too sure how that is going to work just yet, but I suspect either Bob and Jillian will each be receiving an assistant, or, possibly, there’ll be four teams… Seems a stretch to have four teams though so the assistants is more likely.

At this point I’m unsure which name is the most likely to annoy me during the series – Munnalita or Shannan. I’m sure Munnalita is a “normal” name wherever she may be from… but Shannan? Two A’s? Really? Sigh.

An interesting thing to note is that Courtney has been “outed” from the get-go as being homosexual, whereas Artie was not really revealed as one at the start of the first season, despite some fairly large hints. Times they are a changing? Or was Artie just a bit reluctant to say anything?

If Jillian doesn’t try to get both Greg and Damien to shave off their respective beards, I’ll eat my hat!

Expect a big deal to be made about Pati’s Torres Strait Islander heritage, either in promos, by contestants, hosts or trainers or in the trash rags. It should be an irrelevant factoid, like Courtney being gay, but I have a suspicion it will become a Big Issue for one reason or another. Maybe Anthony Mundine will do a bad rap song about it?

And I wonder if the trip to the freaky Chinese food restaurant will be out this year, since Alex runs his own Mongolian restaurant? Not necessarily because the strange foods wouldn’t freak him out, the producers just might consider it “insensitive” this year? That would be a shame as it was one of the highlights of the season for a heck of a lot of people. “Pork bun! Pork bun!”

So, do any of my faithful (and wholly non-existent at this point) readers have any early comments about the impending season?

Don’t forget, it starts 7.30pm on Sunday night! It’s scheduled to run until 9pm but expect it to run overtime like every reality show, ever. :-)