Archive for January, 2008

The eagle eyed might have spotted this already, but I’ve just gone ahead and started a couple of Loser profiles for Season 3. Just the people for whom we’ve seen ads so far, as I don’t know any of the other people’s names just yet!

You can check them out by clicking on them over on the sidebar to the right, or by clicking their names here: Carrianne, Dianne, Nicola, Nicole, Sam, Sean, Steven.

These are very, very rough at this stage, because the information is sourced from the ads. The new official site ought to go up on the 29th of January. That’s this Tuesday.

If the Channel 10 webmonkeys can stick to the schedule, that ought to mean some more contestant profile information will be available then and I’ll do my best to pinch it all and add it to the pages here ASAP. :-)

For those who haven’t been visiting the official forums yet, they’re going away on the 29th as well. If you want to get in early you can sign up via the Australian Idol forums and that registration will carry over to the new Biggest Loser site.

In other Biggest Loser Recap site news, I’ve also shuffled the Season 2 contestants list off onto a seperate page to tidy things up a bit.

The “receive notification of comments via email” functionality has gone away, unfortunately. My webhost is having email issues and it was always a bit clunky anyway.

If you desperately want to know when new comments are made on the site, try the Comments RSS Feed. It ought to work much better!

If you’ve never used RSS before, or are looking for a new RSS reader, I recommend Google Reader. It’s easy to use, it’s web based so it works wherever there’s a series of tubes, and it has some funky advanced features like the ability to share things with friends.

Something most of you probably won’t notice (hopefully) is the improved spam protection. If for some reason your comment is going to be held for potentially being spammy, you’ll get an extra confirmation page where you’ll need to enter two words from a CAPTCHA image. Most of you will probably never see it, it should really only trigger if you use certain words (ie; viagra and the like) or you include too many URLs. Even if you do either of those things, the confirmation box ought to let you post your comment. I hope. Holler if it doesn’t!

Oh and the “Contact Mythor” page is gone, but that’s temporary until I find a system that will work without a working email system. No mean feat. If you need to email me I can be reached by sending an email to recap and then adding the at symbol thingy and then mythor.net after that. I think that’s probably obscure enough to avoid the spambots? :-)

And you’ve probably noticed the new theme? And the big shiny Digg Button on every post? Please Digg me when the season gets going. ;-)

I’ll update the FAQ tomorrow and post a link to it, as well as linking it from the top navigation. And don’t worry, the boring header will be less boring once there’s some contestant pictures to flesh out the blackness. But I won’t be doing the red-out effect from S2, because there’s 28 fatties and it was painful enough with only half that!

If anyone would like to design a background for me, the dimensions are 961×126.

I think that about covers it. If you have any questions, pile on in to the comments section!

In a very length press release found on the ebroadcast site, the weekly schedule for season 3 has been laid out in some detail.

If you’d like to read the whole thing, you can click here, or I can save you the trouble and point you to the only really noteworthy section.

Tuesday: The Warehouse

The Warehouse is one of the new elements to this series. Each week the contestants are faced with two different food choices in two covered crates in an old shipping warehouse. This week’s Biggest Loser is able to have first choice over the two food options. This choice will dictate the majority of what each team will eat for the rest of the week. It is a decision that should not to be taken lightly.

This is more than a little troubling, to be honest. It’s all very well to have them camping out on the lawn for the night, but messing around with their diet – particularly every week – is going to cause serious issues. The fatties have their diets planned out specifically for them and the exercise routines their trainers are putting them through and their specific dietary requirements and so on.

If we’re just talking about a choice between chicken and fish for their weekly meat quota, that’s okay. But if it’s a choice between fresh meat and vegetables and takeaway meals, for example, that’s going to be a problem.

Thursday: The Walk

The Walk is a fantastic twist in the game and the outcome of it can turn the game on its head. The winner of Immunity at the Temptation will be presented with four vessels, each containing a stone with an outcome. Some will be good for them, some could be bad. Examples include; “Eliminate a Red Team member”, “You are up for elimination”, “Add 10kg to the Blue Team”. The contestant then heads back to the group to announce the news. The choice they make could not only affect the fate of the game, but more importantly, the fate of their opposing team. They could have the power to make a drastic change to the outcome of the competition.

The return of The Walk is why I am so pessimistic regarding the Warehouse. The audience was in an uproar over The Walk multiple times last season and it is widely cited as one of the most reviled features of the show… and yet the producers have brought it back? And brought it back apparently without removing the problem people had with it – mostly the instant elimination idea.

I know it’s a TV show and they need to inject some drama, but I think the producers occasionally forget that they’re messing with people’s lives when they do this. The people on the show know they could get turfed at some point, so they do the best they can and hope that’s enough to keep their team safe. But when you introduce completely abitrary and unfair means of elimination to the mix, it sort of invalidates the hard work people put in from week to week.

The only other thing really noteworthy in the press release is the claim that there’ll be 15 contestants. We’ve already seen 28 walking up the road and unless they’re going to have 3 teams of 5 each and do god knows what with the remaining 13, I’d say that’s a mistake.

Still, the weekly schedule makes for a nice introduction to the game for newcomers, so if you’ve never watched the show before, give it a read.

This is the last of the single contestant ads I’ve seen so far. I’m hoping there’ll be some more as we get closer to showtime, but it’s possible we’ll just be seeing various rejigs of the same stuff.

This ad features Sean.

“When I look in the mirror, I don’t recognise who I am anymore.” Seriously? Did you just balloon up overnight? I don’t think so.

And can you guess how he feels about life passing him by, boys and girls? Yes, that’s right, he’s tired of it. Oh, but they’re not scripted. Damien from Season 2 says so, so they mustn’t be!

At 175kg Sean is likely to be among the heaviest contenders this year. And with those long and terribly untidy locks of hairs, he’s probably also going to benefit the most from the makeover episode, so hopefully he’ll make it that far!

Not really much about his life in this short clip. There’s a little more of Sean in the teaser/sneak peek ad, so I’m assuming he at least gets past the early stages, since I doubt they’d be heavily promoting people who go home on the first day.

(Oh and welcome to the new blog theme everyone. More updates later!)

Yet another ad for the third season of The Biggest Loser Australia, this one another contestant themed spot.

This ad features Sam.

There’s been a bit of conjecture on the official forums over this ad with some people being a little dubious over Sam’s claim that he has been teased at university due to his size. People are saying that such things just don’t happen at university.

I think people are conveniently forgetting that a lot of university students are only just out of high school. And they don’t magically turn into adults in the intervening months. So it certainly is possible that people are harassing Sam over his, let’s be honest, grossly obese body.

But is that what is actually happening? Or does he have other personality faults in play that are a bigger factor? It’s impossible to know just yet.

The rest of the ad is pretty run of the mill – he wants the confidence to meet new people, he’s still young and wants a better quality of life, etc.

Both trainers would seem to have something to offer Sam. Shannan would help his self confidence, and his love of boxing training would probably help Sam’s ability to deal with any teasing, as he’d have the physical confidence to stand up to people if necessary.

But I think Michelle will probably be the better option – the attention of an attractive female is always a nice boost to someone’s self esteem.

Even if they are being paid for their time.

At last! Some footage that comes from the show itself, not just carefully staged promo material!

The latest ad to hit telly is a “sneak peek”, with a bunch of snippets from the show, featuring fat people working out, fat people getting muddy, fat people falling down a sand dune, fat people walking up the road to the mansion…

Well, see for yourself:

As you can see, it starts out with a recap of past seasons. And wow, I’d forgotten how scary Chris was at the end. As good a result as it was, I hope we don’t see anyone that skinny again.

After that we move on to some enormously fat fellow, whose face isn’t revealed (expect a surprise in relation to him) but who says that if he were to die the only thing he could give God would be a bunch of fat excuses. I doubt he’d be getting a chance to chat with God, though, since he wouldn’t make it past the Pearly Gates at this point – gluttony’s one of them extra-naughty sins.

“There is no words to explain how much it hurts. […] *tears* YIP.” I have no idea what the “yip” is. I assume it’s supposed to be a response to a question? I hope she doesn’t cry like that all the time!

“I love my Dad to bits and, you know, he doesn’t think I can do it. I’ve come here to show him I can.” Sounds a bit wog-y. Like Greg and Adro. No idea who it is but expect whoever it is to do well!

Then we have Ms Voiceover telling us that there’s more contestants than ever before, as they’re walking down the road to the mansion. And she’s quite correct, there’s a whole bunch of them! I count 28 coming up the road but it’s hard to say for sure. 14 for each trainer seems a stretch though. I’m sure Michelle and Shannan could do it, I have faith in their abilities. But you have to figure there’s not enough hours per week of the show to do them all justice if they’re all going to be there?

It’s possible they’ll have the “Jillian on a bike” moment, where some contestants who thought they were going home will actually be trained in secret. But 28 does not evenly divide by 3. 4 teams is a possibility, 7 in each. With the Commando appearing later in the clip, that makes it a possibility of him training a secret team again. But unless he’s going to take on 14 by himself…?

Perhaps what they’ll do is eliminate one person from each of Michelle and Shannan’s 14 member teams each week, sending the eliminated people off to train with the Commando for a comeback later in the show? This way nobody would ever “get to go home and see their family” as some complained people like Marty got to do, but at the same time the show wouldn’t be seen as abandoning some of the fatties who needed help the most, such as David from the first series.

If that isn’t what happens, Fremantle are certainly free to steal the idea for next season.

Then we get some more twin-whinging, then Sean saying he feels “pretty sad”. And Ms Voiceover saying there are no guarantees!

Then we get a montage! Ooh yeah it’s gonna take a montage! ;-)

Michelle and Shannan doing a lot of shouting at fatties that are caked in mud, exercising on the lawns of the mansion. I’m sure the owners of the mansion are going to love them for it, since the lawn is getting totally trashed!

“The holiday is over!” Go Michelle!

“Where do you think you’re goin’?” – Commando Steve. It’s a very tight shot on him only, so it’s impossible to tell if he’s addressing a group of fatties, fatties in shirts other than blue/red or even just single/duos.

Then we’re told the challenges have gotten even harder, showing a very steep sand dune which it looks like they’re going to have to climb down and then potentially back up? Perhaps many times? Looks like fun!

And then for the next really hard challenge… a maze? Hmm.

While the maze footage plays you can hear someone give a really pained scream. Not sure if that’s foreshadowing yet more horrifying injuries but I hope not.

One of the fatties says, over footage of a car leaving the compound and a huddle of fatties waving at it (from way off in the distance), “There’s the door, see you later!” Do we have another piker?

Some more footage of all the fatties at once, seems to be a couple of older gents in the group.

Then we’re treated to some footage of Commando Steve goading some fatties to climb that sand dune I mentioned earlier. And as I was writing this I noticed something – 7 of the fatties are in black, 7 are in what looks to be khaki. Perhaps Steve has “two teams” to himself and he’s going to put them through boot camp as he did for Chris and Kimberlie? And (further speculating) perhaps either black or khaki will get to come into the game, as Jillian’s black team did in the US season?

And then in a really rapid fire montage there’s a bunch of different things… Including a quick shot of what is obviously once of those motherfucking rocks from the motherfucking Walk. UGH. Fingers crossed it isn’t as retarded as last year’s and they’re more “nice rewards” or at least punishments everyone has to share. Instant eliminations are not going to be welcome this season.

There’s a lot of juicy informational goodness in that ad. And so long as the twists are kept under control, this is shaping up as a good season.