What’s this show called … Wipeout?

This week I decided to do something a little different with my regular column. Up to this point, I’ve been trying to keep a healthy balance between reality and scripted shows. But for the first time ever, I attempted a game show.

So, first of all, I totally thought Wipeout was the one were contestants try to reproduce the stances they see in the wall coming at them so that they can fit through the cutout and don’t get pushed off the platform. Guess not.

This one starts with 24 people competing for $50 thousand through various rounds of crazy obstacle courses. I’ll be honest with you — it’s empty calories and completely lacking in substance, but it’s definitely entertaining, and it sucks you in before you know it.

I wonder how the viewing experience would have been altered without the announcers. I think there needs to be some commentary, but both of the announcers dish out way too many bad one-liners. I also kind of wished we’d seen more of the action. The early rounds employ a lot of montages instead of showing a full run through the course. I know they can’t show everything, but even a montage that shows multiple people completing the course from start to finish would have been nice.

The sound effects also have significant impact on the experience. There are the corny beeps and bops, but then there are also the ones that make it sound like people are breaking bones. I know the apparatus has to be soft given the amount of violent contact the contestants have with it, but it also must be firm enough to stand, run, jump, and hang on. I wonder how they avoid injuries.

I’d been wondering if in round one the contestants had to go back to the beginning of a section when they fell. While I never got an answer on that, in round two — “the double cross” — it was mentioned that they had to do so there. Not surprising, considering there’d be no way to start that crazy thing in the middle. It was funny how many people hung onto the sweeper arm only to be knocked off at the knees by the rotating platform.

It looks like the final elimination round changes from week to week; otherwise why would this episode have been called “Food Fight?” The final six faced off on “the cafeteria,” where food was thrown at them from above while they walked on a moving platform with … well, it’s hard to explain. But the final contestant standing in each of the four rounds got to move on to the “wipeout zone.”

There were some funny surprises during “the cafeteria”: the bucket of ketchup, the whole fishes, the lunch lady, and that guy who took a bite of something that was thrown at them. It reminded me a lot of something they would have done on Double Dare.

The “wipeout zone,” on the other hand, looks like that free online game where you can turn the screen upside down and it changes from black to white (you know what I’m talking about?). That, or a torture chamber. The running clock in the corner is very weird, because it isn’t clear where the time comes from. I mean, I know where it comes from, but we never see how three minutes and counting suddenly become nine.

Anyway, the so-called “rock star” won the money (the sobriquets assigned in the opening round are cute — the guy’s a geologist) with ease. He hit the final obstacle with eight minutes left … the only way he could have lost at that point would have been if he’d literally died. The “wipeout zone” looks exhausting.

I definitely had fun watching the show, and I found myself rooting for contestants, cheering their successes and grimacing at their failures. But can you watch the show a second time? What’s different aside from the players and maybe the occasional apparatus? I had a good time, and I enjoyed my show-of-the-week, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch the same thing all over again.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Sep 14, 2010 @ 16:00 EST5EDT