American Ninja Warrior

Cafe Society
621

I remember a similar situation with the US Open (golf), how for a long time it had a reputation as an extraordinarily difficult event where the winning score was close to or even over par. Problem is, in recent years equipment and training had advanced to the point where top golfers were getting under-par scores on even the most brutal courses, meaning that the only way to continue to get high scores was to make the greens brick-hard. To the point where any putt that didn’t go in rolled completely off. It turned one of golf’s most prestigious tournaments into an utter joke and got slammed harder than a Hulk Hogan opponent at Wrestlemania. Eventually the USGA accepted the reality that the era of over-par champions was over, and the US Open became watchable again.

This is what happened with siffies this season. A powerful group of deciders saying “It’s a TEST! It’s supposed to be CHALLENGING! We’re not trying to HUMILIATE the greatest ninjas in the country, we’re trying to FIND them!” And then Angry Birds turns a siffie into an absolute farce. And then Northwest Passage turns another siffie into a near-absolute farce. Decision time. “The contestants hate it. The fans are grumbling. We convinced ourselves that this is what siffies should be…is it?” And so we got a course reminiscent of '13 or '14, and it got a relative wealth of finishers, including Michelle Warnky and Jesse Labreck.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem with attempting to tailor the course to have a certain number of finishers…there’s no telling just how strong or weak the field is, and since one tiny mistake is all it takes to kill a run, dumb luck is going to skew things even further. So pretty much the only choice is to become totally heavy-handed…and, as we’ve seen, this makes something of a mockery of past results. And I ask this again: Why does siffies need a certain number of finishers? How is 1 or 2 or 5 or 20 finishers a benefit or a detriment? By design the same number goes through every single time. i]That* should be the milestone, not “finishing”, which depends in a huge part on timing.

And yes, decreasing the time limit would mean fewer finishers…but it would also mean less time to put screaming fans on camera. They’re everywhere now and the main reason this show has become hard to watch. I get the feeling we’re not going to get another NvN until NBC finds a way to include more screaming fans.

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Only 13 are guaranteed to go through: The top 12, plus the power tower winner from qualifiers. Potentially another 2 women advance for a maximum of 15.

Everyone who hits a buzzer advances regardless how many there are, so if you go above 12 to 15 finishers you’re adding extra participants to Vegas that otherwise wouldn’t have advanced.

623

Local TV station (or their translator station) just lost signal (right before Daniel Gill’s run). 15 minutes later and I wouldn’t have cared…

Brian

624

Looks like you can watch on youtube:

625

(sorry for the spam)
Saw both rope climbs, still missed Gill’s stage 3 run

Brian

626

I can’t believe they still haven’t addressed how stage 4 finishers with slower times get nothing. Gil didn’t finish so it’s moot now, but I mean, come on. I think stage 4 finishers without the fastest time should get $100k. Done and done. It’s the same last man standing prize because you beat the course; your run ended standing.

How nuts that there was only a 1 second difference in their stage 3 times.

Caldiero still holds the record for fastest time up the rope.

627

WTG Drew!

what was the announcement they were hyping from Dwayne Johnson?
I wonder if Daniel had enough time to recover after his 3rd stage run to recover.

628

Well, by now everyone knows the result (and more than a few of us called it weeks ago thanks to NBC’s still-inexplicable spoilerizing), but at this point I’m more interested as to whether it’s going to still be worth my time. So, much like a determined movie reviewer, I’m scouring this one front-to-back trying to find anything that might conceivably qualify as “good”.

Here we go.

0:00 Cliches. Cliches. More cliches. Eternal Geoff Britten screwjob going from “blowing off” to “forgetting he even exists. “$1,000,000” shoved into the screen. Cliche-a-palooza-rama-fest-mania-shakalaka. Shot of Drew Dreschel’s pregnant wife. Why was I expecting anything different?

0:03 All right, Stage 3. Grip and Tip (sorta like Battering Ram, but the frames move a bit), High Summit (a climbing board ascent and descent which does not look in the same galaxy as Northwest Passage :smack:), Crazy Clocks with just two clocks, Ultimate Cliffhanger, which looks the same as last year’s, Pipe Dream, a watered-down Pole Grasper with a bit of slidy stuff, and the always-tricky Cane Lane and Flying Bar. Oh, right, at no point is the contestant ever required to do more than one without rest. It’s definitely a massive step backwards from 2017, but since that was an unmitigated horror show, the jury’s still out as to how easy this is. I’m still holding out hope that a lot of beneficiaries of the ridiculously softball Stage 2 are going to get a rude awakening.

First contestant is…someone neither you nor I nor anyone with a modicum of decency need give a crap about. Seriously, get bent. :mad:

0:06 Michael Torres, who won the Safety Pass and never got to use it, because nobody’s allowed to use the pass on Stage 3, because reasons. I wonder how he’d feel if someone who did use the pass won it all. Probably super bummed. And apparently “Chicago” is just the current Thing They’re Completely Overhyping Of The Hour, having previously gone through “rock climbing” and “mother”. It just feels funny how for nearly the entire season it’s tiny little village this and quaint farm that, rural, rural, rural, rural, and from that NBC effortlessly switches gears to the third largest city in the country.

Profile shows the reason for this…a big publicity push by Ethan “Lemming” Swanson. Man, if he knew he’d become this big, I bet he’d have chosen a nickname that wouldn’t associate him with eternal stupid ridiculous arm flapping.

And now the first of about a hundred absolutely unbearable chants has begun. :mad: Torres starts running out of steam on Ultimate Cliffhanger, has to rush the dismount, and comes up short.

0:13 Oh, lovely, a waiweewuwwawei. In Stage 3. Of course with 21 contestants this was going to happen, but I didn’t expect it to be this fracking soon. It’s Chris Digangi, out on Ultimate Cliffhanger.

Now comes the last of the Chicago-ers, Lemming. And you know what that means! Being forced to do the same stupid ridiculous embarrassing motion at the start of every goddam freaking run and see a bunch of utterly mindless drones do the same! With no possibility of any change no matter how sick of it he gets! This… :smack: …I’m sorry; we’re reached the point where to continue watching would be cruelty. Enough. I’m done. Out on Ultimate Cliffhanger, all three Chicago-Chicago Chicago something Chicago. Next!

0:21 “Ultimate Cliffhanger! It used to be a thing we love repeating endlessly for episode after episode after episode!” :mad:

0:22 3WA: Hunter Guerard (Ultimate Cliffhanger); not one of the super-good contestants, so not much surprise. Incidentally, I find “Lizard” an almost insultingly stupid nickname, but I’m not sure he’s the kind of competitor who gets enough airtime for this to be an annoyance. The last I remember of him were a couple runs in NvN. Anyway, I’ll have my own nickname ready should he ever get any real hype.

Lucas Reale steps up…oh, geez. Listen, mourning is natural, but obsessing that much over a dead relative that long after the fact is downright unhealthy. Ask anyone who’s studied the issue. It’s kind of like that profile that went on and on and on about the dead child while trying to ignore the fact that there was a living child who still needed to be raised. Out on Pipe Dream, and for crying out loud, just live, kiddo.

0:32 Profile of Joe Moravsky, where he dwells on his failures, because that’s just the thing to get the crowd fired up. :frowning: Oh, yeah, career winnings: $0. Lance Pekus has $2,500, dammit. This year, tragically, would only result in more agony as he…

OH, YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!! :mad: THEY’RE SHOWING A GODDAM CLOSE UP OF HIM RIPPING HIS SKIN OFF! RIPPING HIS SKIN OFF!! FOR THOSE OF YOU KEEPING COUNT, THIS IS THE SECOND TIME THIS SEASON NBC IS GLORIFYING SELF-MUTILATION! :mad::mad: OH, AND NOW THER’ES A SLOW-MOTION REPLAY! YOU’RE ALL SICK! YOU’RE ALL COMPLETELY, UTTERLY SICK! I’M NEVER WATCHING ANOTHER GODDAM EPISODE OF THIS AGAIN!! RAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!! :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

…makes it all the way to Cane Lane, flubs the last transition, and falls. Add to that NBC’s apparent new direction of pretending that all the team events never happened, which effectively erases his TNW2 heroics, and I honestly have to wonder what the hell keeps him going.

0:43 3WA: R.J. Roman (High Summit). That’s three so far.

And just like that it’s the anointed one himself, Drew Dreschel. He got more airtime than anyone last week, and now he gets the boffo Olympic-size profile. Given how much NBC is trumpeting him, you have to think that he’s either a lock to win it all or he’s going to underachieve in horrifying fashion. That’s usually how it works with reality shows. All right, profile…oh, lovely, a sappy leitmotif. :rolleyes: Which, incidentally, is the one thing on this show even more nauseating than self-mutilation. Oh, in case you missed it, he’s going to be a father, which is why he really needs the million, as opposed to Alyssa Beird who just needs an apple every so often. :rolleyes: I am damn glad that he keeps it completely real about the course, as his image couldn’t be more bogus if the goddam President made it.

As for the run itself (remember that?); no mistakes, smooth all the way, clear. Like there was any doubt.

0:57 3WA: Tyler Gillett (Cane Lane). Four.

Karsten Williams, another middling-to-pretty-good contestant who’s been around for a long time, accompanied by a shrieking bag whom the camera cuts to approximately once every five fricking seconds, so here another one I’m just going to fast forward and forget. Out on Pipe Dream, as well as could be expected.

1:06 3WA: Tyler Smith (Pipe Dream). Five.

1:07 Seth Rogers! He’s 19 years old! He’s 19 years old! He’s 19 years old 19 years old 19 years old 19 years old 19 years old! By the time Eyes shuts up about it, he’ll be 20! :smack: He does a phenomenal job, getting as far as the start of Cane Lane, but time will tell whether this is a portent of a great career or a brief high he’ll never achieve again.

1:18 3WA: Nate “Dimbulb” Burkhalter (Iron Summit), Casey Suchocki (Ultimate Cliffhanger), and Kevin “Wingman” Carbone (Cane Lane). What the…a full waiweewuwwawei now? That makes eight total, already over a third of the competitors here tonight. Sheesh.

1:19 Mathis “Cougar” Owhadi, whose thing is now apparently that EVERYONE has to repeat his Designated Nickname (not “Cougar”, obviously) over and over and over and over and over, endlessly, constantly. I’m making terrific progress here! :rolleyes: Out on Ultimate Cliffhanger.

1:27 Our last (mercifully) 3WA of the night, Karson Voiles, going out at Cane Lane. Oh, and Bodge…get help. Just…get…help. :eek::rolleyes: In all, 42.86% of tonight’s Stage 3 field was bumrushed.

1:28 Adam Rayl, who is really muscular. And went upside-down that one time, which a surefire way to get that clip played over and over and over and over for years. He didn’t quite make it, coming a roll-up short on Cane Lane, but there’s definite future potential here. Whether that translates to more tragic near-misses or his moment of triumph where he gets screwed out of a million because he was a bit slower up the rope but has some killer footage for his upcoming ninja gym remains to be seen. :rolleyes:

1:39 The second to last competitor, Josh Salinas, who…makes a bad jump on Grip and Tip and goes straight down! Mark it down, folks: out of 86 naffies competitors, he was the only one with a no-result in any stage. That’s…pretty wild.

1:40 Closing it out is a man who knows a lot about closing things out, Daniel “Dag” Gil. Who, let’s not beat around the bush, totally conquers the course. :wink: You’ll recall that he completed two legs of the trifecta but just wasn’t able to keep up with Cougar in the Safety Pass match. That means that he was under the gun from start to finish, and he handled the undoubtedly enormous pressure brilliantly. If he beats Dreschel, who needed a Safety Pass to make it here, how sweet justice would that be? There’s already been talk of the dreaded “asterisk”, a.k.a. the dreaded “incredibly pathetic snivelling whine from utterly impotent fans whom the record holder in question would not urinate on if they were on fire”, and nothing would make me gladder right now than for Dag to erase all doubt, cement his spot in history, and get a cool approximately six hundred grand after taxes to boot.

1:53 Dag’s Stage 3 run was a shade faster, so he gets to pick 1st or 2nd; he picks 2nd. Dreschel takes his place at the bottom of the rope. From a normal standing start it’s a simple 80’ climb to the top with a 30 second time limit. The timer counts down. He’s off…and…

…that was pretty. :slight_smile: Hit the buzzer with 2.54 left. Man, he really had the look of a competitor who sacrificed way, way, way too much of his life for this, as he revealed last week! :smiley:

1:56 Oh, wow, “screaming their hearts out”, what a stunning revelation, Eyes. :rolleyes: Maybe it’ll be…gasp!..directly into the camera as well! :mad: Haaaahhh…anyway, the literal last man standing, Dag, is ready to take his shot at the ultimate steal. He looks intense. All right, here we go. And it’s a fast start! Dag is setting a terrific pace! Halfway up, he’s still charging! And…and…

…uh oh. We saw this in the Safety Pass match. He simply can’t keep up such a blistering pace the whole way. And sure enough, he slows down. He’s only at the 70’ mark by the time the buzzer sounds.

So Dag, one of the greatest athletes this…

…and there’s that freaking leitmotif again. :mad::mad: [Deletes recording forever.]

…contest has ever had completes the season of his life and walks away with jack squat. Meanwhile, Total Victory goes to quite possibly the biggest blank-slate tabula rasa cipher reality TV has ever had. NBC bent over backwards to get the result they wanted with the winner they wanted, and they got it. Good triumphs over evil, love conquers all, Yukari is on our side, ad victor spolarum, etc. What was once a fun, screwball event based on one Japan’s most thrilling amateur athletic competitions has congealed into a perfectly scripted melodrama where nothing a micron off center is ever permitted.

Am I angry? Disappointed? Bitter? Betrayed? Meh. What-freaking-ever. Like I said before, that’s the natural endpoint for reality TV. I can’t get angry at this any more than I could over gravity. It is what it is.

Ah well. Time to find something else to waste hours writing about. Don’t really think it’s going to be the Titan Games, but what the heck, it’s worth a shot.

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I can’t parse most of (any of?) your rage, but particularly regarding Gil not winning money. Gil didn’t complete stage 4, and someone went further than him. What prize money should he have won?

I also find your bitter disappointment and betrayal to be bizarre and nonsensical. What lietmotif were you banging on about? Who was the unspeakable monster that went first? Wasn’t it Ryan Stratis? Did he steal your girlfriend or something? What’s wrong with Stratis? And seriously, “glorifying self-mutilation”? Maybe a med check is in order, because that reaction was about four orders of magnitude more severe than is warranted.

It’s fine that you love Gil and hate Drechsel, but these conspiracy theories are getting a bit nuts.

630

The announcement was, NBC renewed The Titan Games for Season 2.

As for Daniel Gil…

Reportedly, he had only 30 minutes between stages 3 and 4, while Drew had closer to 90

Also, Matt and Akbar made it sound like that if both of them would have completed Stage 4, only the winner would be an “American Ninja Warrior.”

631

Drew was on Ellen DeGeneres receiving his million dollar check.

632

They tried to be a bit clever about it, by showing a clip of someone whose face we couldn’t see climbing the rope. That person was wearing a red shirt… causing many to speculate that Adam Rayl would make it to stage 4.

(I believe that it was actually Jake Murray testing stage 4 in a red shirt).
But yeah, why on earth did they decide to spoil that there would be a million dollar winner? Such a weird decision.

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Going back to look now, that comment was removed and nobody has explained what the controversy was, except it was offered that the controversy happened in stage 3 and they definitely wouldn’t be broadcasting it. Maybe the OP in that thread will get updated to add it eventually.

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I wonder if that was a strategic move by Drew? They run stage three in order of their times on stage two. Drew could have realized that going just fast enough to finish in time would put him early in the Stage Three runs and thus gain him extra, potentially important recovery time before Stage Four.

Clever strategy, if so.

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ANW was re-run Friday night on NBC so I did get to see Daniel Gill’s stage 3 run (impressive, seemed more than 1 sec faster than DD’s)

Brian

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I’m not enraged. I’m bored. Just as bored as I am of Hell’s Kitchen, America’s Got Talent, Wipeout, and anything by that hack Bear Grylls. (So You Think You Can Dance should be on the list as well, but I’m keeping it in “avoid like it’s radioactive” territory as long as that hellspawned banshee Mary Murphy is on board). Just like those others, ANW has gotten so prepackaged, canned, filed-off, sterilized, neat, tidy, and bite-sized that I’m not sure what’s even the point of watching anymore. I want my competitions, even vaguely sports-like amateur nites, to be organic. When the heavy favorite falls flat on his face, or the lifetime underachiever finds inspiration, or the “challenging” obstacle turns out to be completely broken, or the first runner of the night ends up taking the #1 spot wire to wire, I want to see it, start to finish, in real time, as it happened, unedited, unfiltered, and uncensored. A small amount of The Reality TV is acceptable. A total takeover just drains the life out of it. And I can guarantee you that I won’t even have anything to say about season 12 because it’s just going to be the same old gripes, the same old side-eyes, the same old nagging little doubts. May as well start another Simpsons thread.

Leitmotif = musical bit associated with a certain person. That little fanfare for Odie in Garfield and Friends was a good example, and some video games are full of them (every main enemy in Touhou has her own theme song; a few have more than one). Sometimes they can be really good. When it’s some sappy movie-of-the-week tripe, it is never good. I have way too much goddam horrible music in my life as it is, I don’t need any on my freaking sportsesque program. Not offensive, just supremely irritating. (For the record, I felt exactly the same way about Hank Williams Jr. on Monday Night Football.)

I don’t find Ryan Stratis objectionable in the same way as, say, Eric Middleton. (He’s loud, but since he doesn’t position his mouth two inches in front of the goddam camera, it’s usually tolerable.) What I absolutely cannot brook is the…endless…insufferable…beard bet. Remember how it all but took over Stage 2 last year? And you know what, as hideous as that experience was, I would’ve been perfectly willing to put it behind, let the water flow under the bridge, live in the here and now. Except HE DID IT AGAIN THIS YEAR! And when he, blech, won, he bragged about it! Look, when Bodge says “fee fai fo fum” eight times every time Jon Alexis Jr. is on the course or Alyssa Beird has to pretend a goddam apple is anything other than a patronizing token that will not meaningfully benefit her life in any way or Drew Dreschel gets hideous godawful unlistenable music played during his profile, I don’t hold it against them. Outside forces caused that. They had no choice in the matter. Wasting airtime and building up an obscene level of hype for a stupid, cheesy, pointless personal bet is ENTIRELY on Stratis’ head. He wanted it, he did it, no one else. (Oh, and Brett Sims, who is just an unbelievable moron for allowing himself to get dragged through the mud like this again, but that’s another issue.) Is it as offensive as constantly begging for everyone else to give up their body parts while making zero sacrifice himself? No. Is it super irritating? Oh yeah. For the last time: I do not mention that man’s name on this thread again until He. Does. Something. Else. Hula, skydiving, shakerboarding, running onstage at the Emmy Awards, capoeira, slash fanfiction, South Park episode reviews, something!

What exactly do you call ripping off one’s own skin if not self-mutilation? And, more importantly, what do you call showing repeated close-ups of it if not unbelievably disturbing?

I take it that you’re under the assumption that I’m perfectly fine with the show’s utter lack of a sensible prize structure. (Which, come to think of of it, is more like Recurring Gripe #4. Sorry, after 11 seasons the lines tend to get a little blurred.) Let’s just say that I’m resigned to the fact that there will never be anything remotely close to proper compensation for these athletes. I know that’s how the show works. It’s still ridiculous, and it’d be just as ridiculous if Gil had won the million. I just got the feeling that Gil was due for something good to come his way, and it’s just sad that it’s never going to happen on this show.

And just so we’re clear, I’m not begrudging Dreschel anything…he worked his butt off, he kept his head up through the difficult times, he lives clean and stays out of trouble, he deserved it as much as anyone else. (And the trifecta! That was pretty awesome, wasn’t it? :D) But the hype he got in Stages 2 and 3 was way overboard, and no one deserves to get saddled with obnoxious elevator music the way he did. It’s just the way NBC presented the man that I had more than enough by the time he hit that final buzzer.

Conspiracy theories? What do I need conspiracy theories for? The hype, the relentless editing, the giving away of the ending before naffies even began? I wish it were all hidden in the shadows. Then maybe I could ignore it.

That Don Guy - Just checked out The Titan Games on the NBC site. Season 2 is accepting applicants until December 6, so it’s going to be while yet. I didn’t become a huge fan in the first season, but I think this one has promise, mainly because Dwayne Johnson actually seems to like honest results and isn’t trying to fill a whole bunch of narratives. Will, of course, resuscitate the old thread once the new season gets going.

637

Can’t stand Daniel Gill and his stupid Mona Lisa hair. So, I’m happy! :smiley:

638

2nd season of American Ninja Warrior Junior confirmed for February. Quick sneak preview on americanninjawarriornation.com. The Univeral Kids page on YouTube has a bunch of videos, but no news so far.

There’s been no talk of another head-to-head event for the grownups, the last one of which concluded in June of '18, so I have to assume that one is history and Generation Whichever has completely taken over match play competition. The cynic in me says that it’s because the powers that be were tired of seeing so much sport in the team events…all the blowouts, all the collapses, all the crushed narratives, all the women who *can’t hold on to a freaking swinging pendulum and make a freaking jump to a platform with a net, HOW HARD IS THIS YOU USELESS INCOMPETENT…*ahem…and if they’re going with handpicked tykes, there are fewer X-factors and gray areas to derail the stories. But the realist in me…okay, it’s going with “you don’t worry about them developing problematic qualities because you’ll never see any of them again anyway”.

Given how far off the deep end the other ANW events have gone, this is probably the best it’ll ever be. I enjoyed commenting on the first contest a lot and I’ll definitely be here for this. More info as soon as I get it.

639

Heads up! USA vs. The World 6 coming at you fast and furious…well, furious, anyway…this Sunday, January 26, starting late, check local listings per usual. I have Monday off, so I’ll chime in with my usual disinterested recap that day. As you may know, we’ve taken 3 of these things to Europe’s 2, with Australia being the “not good enough” squad, Latin American being the “day late and a dollar short” contingent, and Japan/Asia being the “where the hell did they find these bums” embarrassments.

I’ll be tuning in mainly to see if we can finally live up to our potential and start running away with this, eventually reaching a point where the rest of the world is so demoralized that they can’t convince anyone to compete anymore, and we can finally be rid of this obnoxious farce. I do not exaggerate when I say that the only reason this has not been an utter whitewash is because of one man…Sean McColl. He was the hero of 1, sparking an incredible 8-point comeback with two astounding clutch saves in round 6, then coming back from a devastating blunder in round 9 to beat Travis Rose in the ultimate climb, and he iced 4 by outclimbing the powerful Sean Bryan. We had the Europeans dead to rights both times until he stepped up. Well, you saw what happened the moment he left: Goose. Egg. And our competitors just keep getting better. This year we’re bringing Drew Dreschel, Daniel Gil, Karsten Williams, Jesse Labreck, Adam Rayl, and Michael Torres. Any squad where Karsten Williams is the weak link, you know it’s going to be damn tough to beat. Here’s hoping Russia or wherever can at least scrape up one point.

ANWJ 2 will be up and running on February 22. The big news is that are wildcards, which, until Universal Kids actually learns the goddam first thing about seeding, will be a regrettable necessity. More news as soon as I get some previews on the cable box.

640

Looks like Bryson Klein is the new Sean McColl. Besting one guy could be considered a lucky run. But besting every single American he’s competed against, two of which had already run the course before? Completing stage 2 25 seconds faster than Daniel Gil? Completing stage 4 faster than Drew Dreschel? I’m beyond impressed.

A lot of the European competitors looked like they could have kicked some ass if they had had more exposure to the obstacles beforehand, the way Americans do. It made it less fun to watch, as I didn’t get the impression that the American team was nearly as athletically superior as the scoreboard indicated.