American Gladiators

The classic Saturday morning competition reached primetime this week as a new season of "American Gladiators" began Sunday. With 12 new gladiators, the contenders are set for some stiff competition. After watching three hours of the show, I have some early opinions about the return of the show, the new events, and changes to the old events.

Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali host. Except for Hulk constantly injecting "brother" or "sister" into his interviews, I approve of them.

The competition starts with a common event for the men and women. Then each gender takes on three other events before the Eliminator. If my mind serves me right, the old show would finish a set of events before showing commercials. In conjunction with modern reality shows, they go to commercial after introducing an event or after one person competes to provide a cliffhanger to bring you back. Of this I disapprove.

Certain events are unchanged: Gauntlet, Pyramid, and Power Ball. Other events have replaced the cushions below with a pool of water (Why?!?): Hang Tough, The Wall, and Joust. Assault has five stations instead of four (although one is to find the crossbow arrow in a sand pit and no one has reached station five). Earthquake (wrestling from a suspended platform) and Hit & Run (cross a bridge and avoid swinging demo balls) are new. I miss Atlasphere (roll inside metal cage balls toward point stations).

The leader after four events gets a head start in the Eliminator worth half a second for each point he or she leads. (Some older episodes started both contenders together and accounted for the point differential with their finishing times.) Because the Eliminator is quite grueling, the head start means little.

The Eliminator changed a few times in the past. My favorite setup was 8' Wall, Rotating Balance Beam, Hand Bike, 30' Cargo Net, Zip Line, Finish (3 of 4 paths had a gladiator waiting). Some versions put the Travelator (an inclined treadmill) at the beginning. Others required rolling a large ball up the initial ramp.

The current Eliminator is very exhausting: 8' Wall, 20' Underwater Swim, 30' Cargo Net, Barrel Roll, Hand Bike, Balance Beam, 30' Pyramid, Zip Line, Travelator, and break through the block wall. (Are you tired just thinking about it?) Through 12 competitors, only one has completed the hand bike. The Travelator has eliminated leads for many people because they do not allow the free pass after two tries as they had in the past. Also, there are no specific penalties for failing to complete a task. My biggest grief: the barrel roll????

The first show had a contender who tried out for "American Gladiators" in 1994. He qualified but missed his opportunity when he got stuck in L.A. traffic. Despite being the oldest person competing, he found strong until the end when "the spider monkey" pulled out a win.