Archive for August, 2011

In news I can only describe as disturbing, the next season of The Biggest Loser Australia is said to be fishing for unattached singles in attempt to “sex up its weight loss format”. (Source: News.com.au )

Getting beyond the obvious “oh my lord I don’t want to think about fat people having sex” issue we get to the area of greater concern – who watches The Biggest Loser for the romance?

Most of the contestants spend most of their time on camera sweating, crying, swearing, backstabbing or otherwise competing with each other. That shit is why we watch. And for the payoff at the end where many of them have gone from morbidly obese to more or less “normal”.

The friendships and romances that have sprung up on the show have been interesting, certainly. Who wasn’t wondering if Michael and Sheridan ever hooked up? Or Garry and Carrianne? Or Lara and Shannan… I mean Lara and Jarrod?

But those hookups were never the main drawcard and there was never an intention to try and make anything happen. They run the risk of alienating their current fans in the chase for others… who probably don’t want to watch a bunch of fat people slog it out every week, else they’d already be watching.

The other side of the coin presents a problem, too. What if they get 20 fat singles, cram them all into Camp Biggest Loser and none of them get along well enough for anything juicy to happen?

Or will next year’s Wheel of Temptation be more like Spin the Bottle?

[Update]

There’s now a First Look trailer: http://www.mythor.net/thebiggestloser/2011/12/12/the-biggest-loser-australia-2012-first-look/