Archive for the ‘Discussion’ Category

Don’t panic! There hasn’t been another episode of the show. I’m going to take this opportunity to thank everyone for coming here to read the recaps and join the discussions over the last couple of months. It’s been fun! Hopefully the Recap will return with the coming of the next season, but it will probably be on hiatus until then, unless something particularly noteworthy happens in relation to the show – like new trainers being announced or something.
As a couple of people have suggested, I’ve now gone and got a mailing list set up if you’d like to be notified about the return of the Recap, or if you’re interested in whatever I do next. :-)
You should be able to signup over on the right. I hope! The usual disclaimer applies – I won’t use your address for anything except informing you of changes/updates to The Biggest Loser Recap or mythor.net in general (if you tick that box). You can subscribe to either or both mailing list. You can subscribe to neither, if you want, but that would be kind of stupid. ;-)
Note: You will need to verify your address in order to subscribe. If you don’t get a verification message, check your junk folder. If you still don’t get one, you probably entered your address wrong!

Since the show is over various news stories have popped up online. Here’s a selection of some of them:
Chris winning article
Chris wants to gain weight again
Mel and Kelly talking about the unrealistic situation in the house
Various contestants pigging out?
TBL ratings info

Got any more? Let us know in the comments section, as usual! If you don’t know how to make a link, just paste the URL and I’ll take care of it. Oh and don’t panic if they don’t show up right away, comments with URLs get moderated by default, sorry. :-)

This season has had a lot of ups and downs. Seeing the growing maturity of Courtney was marvellous, but the “twists” overshadowed so much of the hard work being put in by the contestants. The producers got a little too carried away with their precious contrivances and seemed to forget why so many people tuned in to the show in the first place – to see a bunch of really fat folk get put through the wringer and come out the other side happier, healthier and in much less danger of being mistaken for a beached whale.
Obviously the feeling is that the show in its “original” format isn’t exciting enough, but is that really what the show is about?

What would you do to change the show next season? Would you change the available options on the stones of The Walk? Would you ditch The Walk altogether? How about Temptation, good or bad idea?

But what I’m mostly interested in talking about is an alternative to the current voting system. The current system clearly heavily rewards those who form an alliance and form it as early as possible in the game. Yes, Pati was a strong competitor by the end, but there’s no denying that she got there primarily by virtue of her alliance with Courtney and Munnalita and her willingness to do whatever it took to get to the end.
That, to me, shouldn’t be what The Biggest Loser is about. Next season there needs to be some way to encourage people to work as hard as possible each and every week, rather than relying on alliances to get them through any eliminations and “saving” their big numbers for later.

My proposal would be to introduce the yellow line right at the beginning of the game. Have the two teams competing against each other for which team has to face elimination, but then on top of that have the losing team be sorted according to percentage of weight lost, with two team members facing elimination if they fall below the line.
Or, at the absolute minimum, give immunity from elimination to a team’s biggest loser for the week. It is absurd to allow contestants to vote out the best performers from their team as it rewards those who’re not working as hard while punishing those who are. This needs to change!

But how would you change things up in the voting? Maybe we can come up with something good and forward it off to Fremantle in time for the next season!

Last but by no means least… I have pictures of the before/after contestant shots! And a picture of who I think might be Sarah, as she was sitting in the crowd during the finale.
And a gratuitous shot of Mel’s guns, purely for my own gratification. ;-)
Check out the pictures after the cut, as well as some interesting statistics…

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First up, I’ve been meaning to post these for quite a few days now (read: a week or two) – some of this season’s contestants have MySpace pages, and you can now find them on their respective profile pages. I’m unsure whether it’s just that the others don’t have a MySpace page or if I just couldn’t find the pages, but the only ones listed so far are the following: Kelly, Damien, Mel, Laura and Courtney.

Damien’s page seems as much a promotional thing for Dr Elephant, and Laura’s is likely to send you blind if you spend too long on the page (bright flashing colours are a really bad idea!), but for anyone who wanted to know if they have MySpace pages, the answer is yes!

A little extra digging around also revealed that Ajay and Bob both have MySpace pages, check their profiles for links: Ajay, Bob.

If anyone happens to know any other contestant or trainer MySpace pages, feel free to let me know. Second season only, not bothering with the first season folk at this stage.

Secondly, regarding the Finale, whenever it airs – the recap process will change on that night. During the show I will make and update a single post with just the previous/current/total weight losses and percentages, as close to “live” as I can manage, because I don’t want to wait around writing the recap instead of finding out who wins ASAP any more than you guys do. After the finale is finished I’ll go through and write up a “proper” recap and post that as a seperate entry, for those who enjoy such things. And then probably post an “entire series” recap a day or two afterwards.

Thirdly, I didn’t think anyone would actually ask, but since someone did it’s possible someone else will as well, so I’ll post an answer out here where people won’t miss it – I won’t be doing recaps of any kind when it comes to Big Brother as I do not watch the show unless forced to do so. I did this (the recap site) for The Biggest Loser because I enjoy the show and it was something to keep me occupied and out of trouble… somewhat. :)

Big Brother holds no interest for me. If I wanted to watch people sit around and chat, I have real life for that. If I wanted to see people in the shower, the internet is really really great… FOR PORN. Etc.

As I said in response to a comment asking if I would be, the only way it will happen is if I were offered money to do it. I could use the money and would suffer through the show for that if I had to… but not for fun, sorry!

Fourthly, nobody has asked this, but they might… I don’t have any plans to recap any other non-TBL shows at all after this series ends, though I may return to recap Series 3, or do the American version if it airs here, etc. In the interim I am considering doing some other intarweb projects and if I do, I’ll let people know via here.

I think that about wraps it up for now. Don’t forget to watch the show tonight and don’t forget it goes for an hour! :-)

(Update: Finale is confirmed for next Thursday – 7.30pm to 9.30pm – check your local guides!)

With thanks to reader Scarlett for pointing this out, the official site is currently soliciting opinions on the show via a survey – click here to take it!

There are a lot of questions in the survey, as it covers a very large number of topics, from what your favourite and least favourite parts of the show are, to what sorts of things you’d like to see added to the show, or just more of each week.

Of particular note are the many questions which reference such “crowd favourites” as The Walk and the Instant Eliminations. This may be our only chance to have our voices actually be heard en masse about the appalling way this season has been run so please, take the time to fill out the survey. It’ll take you 5-10 minutes but if it results in a much better third season, isn’t that worth 10 minutes of your time? :-)

As always, feel free to discuss any questions that caught your eye in particular or points on which you’d just like to share your opinion.

From today’s Sydney Confidential comes confirmation that the “friendship” between Kelly and Michael was indeed a bit more. (And thanks, miss_doobie, for reminding me I had to post this!)

REVENGE may be sweet, but boasting about a new romance has proved an even better dish to serve an ex-husband for a Sydney fat fighter on The Biggest Loser.

Would you like to know more? Rest of the article continues after the break…

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Well, tonight’s episode certainly was one of the more dramatic in Fatties history. One contestant was instantly eliminated with no vote and no option for a lesser evil than elimination.

To me, this seems quite unfair to all involved. What do you guys think?

(Poll has been removed due to incompatibility with new version of the blog. Sorry!)

Even leaving aside that it was P’eta, perhaps my current favourite competitor, this really seems to go against the grain of the entire competition. The voting off of contestants is sort of counter to the whole weightloss ethos, but it’s “necessary” for the show, so it’s accepted to some degree.

But giving one contestant the power to just evict one other player from the game? Especially when the power to do so was granted via pigging out on food during a Temptation? It sets an ugly precedent.

I don’t think this is where The Biggest Loser should be going.