Ah, my mistake. Was Barclay in the top five women? I could get bonus points for being doubly wrong.
Yeah, she was because she completed the fourth obstacle. The 6th and 7th women fell on the fourth obstacle.
Okay, before I give my takes on the last night of S14 quallies…a bit of a clarification. When I mentioned the show’s homogeneity and how you can copy-paste last year’s whatever, I was not implying, in ANY way, shape, or form, that the show can’t get any worse. Of course it can. Gruesome fracture shown on screen from multiple angles, multiple insane asylum patients screaming directly in the camera, a Whitney Houston leitmotif, or a MAGA scumbag getting any attention whatsoever, just to name a few possibilities. What I never expected that it would continually find fresh new ways to be incredibly aggravating. I’m going to try to give you as accurate a synopsis as possible as to what I’m talking about, but given that I have trouble sitting through quallies lunacy once nowadays, there may be a few gaps. Consider yourself duly warned.
Oh, some info. Not a big surprise, but I am interested in the tacit admission that hitting the buzzer is now supposed to be this ultra super glorious achievement (yeah, major league 
). Funny how every time Eyes trumps up the number of buzzers this or that contestant hit, the issue of the ones compressed before this ludicrous bass-ackwards mindset went into place is never an issue. 
0:00 ANW is an international phenomenon! Ah…geez…all right, at this point not only am I convinced that a great many contestants are paid under the table, I’m going to be knocked flat if I ever learn that this is not the case. You’re asking jocks from around the world to train their butts off and shell out for travel and accommodations for a contest that gives them a few seconds of air time a year if they’re lucky and pays zilch? What do you think I am, an NFT investor? (May as well use that one while I still can. 
)
0:02 As the show pointed this out again, I’d like to set the record straight that, yes, I am well aware that in the last quallie NBC stacked an !!UNPRECEDENTED!! percentage of their best women in a field with an unimpressive male contingent.
Oh, and they’re keeping Despicaballs despite not having any more animations to run. It’s weird. Like going through the Captain Io attraction long after Michael Jackson had stopped being cool. I actually remember doing that.
0:03 I timed it. This show just burned off two minutes and ten seconds on a stupid Halloween costume, Eyes doing an absolutely abhorrent “I vant to suck your blaahhdd” accent, and some fans who brought goddam fricking fake vampire teeth for this one useless pathetic doomed schlub. Good gods, gymnastics! It was right there! 
0:12 And continuing our glorious tradition of absolutely no topical references allowed ever, Crocodile Dundee (1986)! 
0:25 All right, I’m going to say it right now…“I had a life-threatening condition but made a full recovery” does not qualify as an Acceptable Story IF IT HAPPENED A FREAKING LONG TIME AGO. David coping with long-term psychological trauma caused by childhood abuse, that works. Jessie Graff coming back from three serious injuries in the past year, that works. Not this. I know it hit you hard, I know you were really afraid for a while, but you got better! The story here should be 1. how you’re not going to let this close call dictate your entire life or 2. your newfound appreciation for modern medicine and your plans to materially support it in the future. Sheesh.
0:35 Oh, geez…see, that’s what I was talking about earlier. You know what this show’s response to the horrifying tidal wave of injuries of the past few years is? Turn it into a joke. Yep, there’s this banged-up contestant, and there are these four contestants with medical backgrounds holding a prop stretcher, and when he inevitably hurts himself again he freaking poses on the goddam flippin prop blood pressure. 
0:38 Lance Pekus with a follower or something! 
0:48 Going back to what I said about number of buzzers, here come the last two Everyseasoners, Brian Kretsch and David Campbell. Eyes proudly proclaims that there are “33 buzzers between them” (What, saying two numbers is just too much work for you now? ), and Campbell added another tonight. Anyway, here are the hard numbers, which has me wondering: Given how rare it is for anyone to compete at such a high level for as long as Moravsky or Campbell have, and given how much, much MUUUUUCH easier this contest was in the past (including the Season of Handing It To Drew Dreschel On A Platter, which is most definitely not happening again), there’s an excellent chance that once these superstars finally hang it up, no one is going to break the all time record. Ever. (There’s a small chance that someone like Kaden Lebsack will make tease at a run, but given that injury, fatigue, changing priorities, or, y’know, getting frustrated about not making enough money can strike at any time, it’s hard to see a serious challenge.) So given how much NBC loves to hype milestones…are they just not going to mention it ever again? I remind everyone how the network relentlessly pounded and pounded and pounded “six buzzers” before Geoff Britten made his run for the ages, and after he got it and got zippo null crap reward, they dropped it like it was an overpriced NFT (see previous note. 
).
0:50 Aw, geez. All right, here’s the deal. You want to worship some goddam invisible space unicorn and follow the dictates of 3,000 year old out-of-touch self-important clods and follow a bunch of moronic lifestyle guidelines that completely fly in the face of basic scientific realities about health, nutrition, and biology that most of us learn by age five…and in a society where you’re not required to do any of that…fine. It’s your life; you get to wreck it however you like. But don’t go around acting like you’re entitled to respect or admiration or even attention. I say that orthodox religion is a gigantic load of archaic, sanctimonious crap, and no amount of pious preaching is going to change my mind.
Oh, one more thing…
OKAY, TIME OUT - I’ll just come out and say it (as opposed to my usual sugarcoating and beating around the bush 
): If the league or governing body or committee says you have to dress a certain way, either dress that way or get lost. If they say you have to wear a sports bikini, you wear a sports bikini. If they say you have to wear a clown suit and rainbow wig, well, Entry of the Gladiators, bucko. There’s no inalienable right to compete in the Olympics or the Pan-American Games or the US Open on your terms. If you’re so hellbent on weightlifting in a skirt, you perfectly free to do so in your own home, with no fans, publicity, television, or official sanction.
1:01 And once again NBC misses the real story with these remote-corner-of-the-world profiles, i.e., how they react to being in a big city for the first time in their lives. It’s always “I don’t have video games, I don’t have superstores, I don’t have libraries, I don’t have IMAX theaters, I don’t have coffee shops, I don’t have yoga gyms, I don’t have tattoo parlors, I don’t have this, I don’t have that…” WELL, YOU DO NOW! WHAT’S IT LIKE? 
Do you hear me going on and on and on and on about that 128K computer I had as a child?
1:32 Izabella Adkins goes out on Warped Wall. Just a reminder that this still happens, even if it’s so inconsequential it has negative consequences by now.
And now Mady Howard, for which the profile is that she’s competing after she gave birth…six months ago? That’s it??? No seriously, that is the whole full, complete, start-to-finish profile. Sheesh, we’ve seen Lindsey Zimmerman and whatsherface and that other woman, this is not impressive! Maybe one week after giving birth would be, but not six whole dang months. And of course, what better way for this neophyte to experience this competition than to shove him right into a massive and extremely noisy crowd. I will mention how surprised I am at how his screaming directly into the camera was actually less irritating than all of the much older and presumably more mature perpetrators of this offense. In short, eat a diaper bag, everyone involved in this travesty. 
1:44 Alright, NBC, protip…for anything that is inherently tragic, such as a loved one committing suicide, you do not have to shove someone on screen choking up and fighting back tears to illustrate how tragic it is. Just stop it with all the goddam crass exploitation.
1:55 Man, there’s gotta be some way to see ANWJ3 without dealing with this Peacock nonsense. I’m starting to get the feeling that I’ve really missed out on something.
Whew. Not a clue what semis is going to be like, but I’m hoping the higher caliber of competition is going to make it less like…this.
The interview you linked earlier in your screed specifically said that they paid for travel/accommodations for the competitors (although I guess it didn’t go into depth about whether that includes people coming from Guam or the Bering Strait or what have you).
The Round Formerly Known As Siffies! Watching through it, I’ve noticed a certain…familiarity, if you will, about the whole setup and what is and isn’t allowed to happen. Let us proceed:
0:03 The obligatory leadoff sacrificial lamb. He’s a “content creator”, which tells you all you need to know right there. Actually makes it as far as #8, but wastes a lot time with “wacky” crap like 360 spins, which guarantees that Eyes and Bodge are never going to shut up about him.
0:09 I wonder how long it took NBC to do that stupid monitor faffery for the computer technician who went down on blipping #3.
0:11 Caramba, Espanol gratuitamente seguro que es molesto, no?
0:12 And Bodge casually mentions that if Cal Plohoros makes it through semis, his mom is going to buy him a car…gah…
OKAY, TIME OUT - Bullcrap. Total bullcrap. Yes, I’m a firm believer in tying rewards to results…in things that actually freaking matter. Graduating from college, getting a job, getting into a prestigious club, organizing a community service project, heck, giving emotional support to a sibling going through hard times, yes, those deserve rewards. Some stupid quasi-game show where, I remind everyone, misfortune can strike down even the best contestants, absolutely not. And it makes even less sense when going through depends…in EXTREMELY large part…in how strong the rest of the field is on that particular night, which is completely out the contestant’s control. Grant McCartney could tell you a little something about that. Bah. Parents suck at everything.
Wow, he just tossed this in completely out of the blue when Plohoros was already on #2. Hmm, I wonder what the chances are that this isn’t going to happen? I mean, the word “if” implies uncertainty, so there has to be the possibility that he’s going to fail, right?
0:23 Jordan Carr. 
Damn…all these painfully beautiful ANWJ3 contestants are just haunting me. (Plus I hear that Sienna Perez totally kicked butt.) I’ll hold out for maybe another year, but it’s looking more and more likely that I’m going to have to bite the entire ammo belt and shell out the damn however many bucks for that Peacock bullcrap. Oh, for the record, she competed as a 14-year-old and didn’t make it past prelims in what would be her only chance on that program, then competed as a 15-year-old this year and hit a quallies buzzer, the youngest woman ever to do so. Goes out on #5, which wasn’t quite enough, but she has her whole future ahead of her. Now that Taylor Amann is most likely finished, look to her to become NBC’s new smoking-hot glamor gal.
0:32 Hey, you know what would be awesome? If one of these lovey-dovey couples completely messed up on the course, and they got so mad that they broke up! 
Well, okay, it’d be terrible for them, but it means we get to have any damn surprise in semis whatsoever, so I think it’s a worthwhile tradeoff.
0:34 Now Najee Richardson is up, and given that all the Acceptable Story candidates were shown the door in quallies, they’re apparently trying to scrape up whatever then can with him. And it’s…his grandfather Byron Edwards protesting the Board of Education in 1967 for better schools. Which…oh my…inspired Albatross to do a kneel-down protest in the same city? That…that’s actually pretty cool! 
I mean, he’s doesn’t have half a ghost of a prayer of ever reaching the top echelon here, but he’s definitely worth my time. Good on him. 
0:44 Addy 
Herman. Refer to stuff I said about Carr.
0:59 Oh, look, Josiah Pippel is playing the piano to “improve his hand-eye coordination”, in a truly pathetic attempt to pretend that piano is not a completely bitter, joyless exercise perpetually miserable children are forced to do at gunpoint by berserk control freak parents. Is network television just forgetting Generation X ever freaking existed now??
Wait…”sometimes…you’ve…just…gotta…lick…the…stamp…and…SEND…IT”. Whatever.
1:11 Sophia Lavallee! 
1:24 Rachel Degutz. Who finished with the top women’s time. Don’t know much about here, but I guess I can’t ignore her now.
1:32 A waiweewuwwawei featuring violin music (geez, they’re not even trying to hide the Boomer suckupitude anymore ) and insipid tone-deaf zero-talent poetry recitation that does not sound any better than when I first learned of its existence…
1:34 …followed closely by Jay “Ooh” Lewis. Ever notice that for some nicknames Eyes and Bodge just say it once and are done with it, but with, say, Tiana Webberley, they repeat it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over like they’re freaking Mola Ram cultists? So it is with Ooh. Even better, he said that if he hit the buzzer, he’s going to publicly announce right then and there which college he’s chosen. Hmm, I wonder what the chances are that this isn’t going to happen? I mean, the word “if” implies uncertainty, so there has to be the possibility that he’s going to fail, right? 
1:46 Joe Moravsky. 
The John Elway of ANW, an otherworldly megastar who would’ve headed a transcendental dynasty if he wasn’t stuck in the pits of Hell for roughly 95% of his career. He has a record 28 buzzers (sorry, the link I gave is a bit outdated). He’s lost a half-step (came up just short on #9), but at the age of 33, he’s not going anywhere for a while yet. I’ll say it again: When he finally hangs it up, Eyes and Bodge won’t be able to about the record anymore because it’s never being broken.
Ooh takes the Safety Pass after a very narrow win over Pippel on the Power Tower. Man, after NvN got axed and ANWJ got locked in a vault, I didn’t think I’d ever see a sugar finish again. Going to naffies: 1. Ooh 2. Pippel 3. David 4. Luke Dillon 5. Matt D’Amico 6. Moravsky 7. Lucas Reale 8. Dave Cavanagh 9. Anthony Eardley 10. Albatross 11. Ryan Sanders 12. Bob Reese 13. Jeremy Warters 14. Cal Plohoros 15/W1. Abby Clark W2. Herman W3. Degutz.
This was definitely one of the semifinals of ANW! 
(Hey, may as well use that while I’m not yet completely sick of it.)
Highlight of the episode for me was Flip, long my favorite ninja, hitting a buzzer. I don’t think he’s good enough to win it all, but MAN do I want him to finally break his curse and make it to stage 3…
I normally enjoy reading your comments and opinions on the episodes, but I must say I did not enjoy reading this. She’s 15. If you must comment on contestants’ beauty, please focus on someone who’s not still child.
Geez. If you’re worried about me fixating on her, rest assured that there’s zero chance of that happening with someone I get to watch for a few minutes a year at the absolute most. Hell, Brent Steffensen is a legend and right now I barely remember he existed.
But fine. Her accomplishment stands on its own; I can appreciate her for that. And I promise to bring out the sparklers and noisemakers full force when Clubhouse shows up. All good now?
I think I now understand why this show is so incredibly fixated on the rural, small town, country, salt of the earth, sleep under the stars etc. etc. contestants. It’s because one of its most crucial demographics is fit, beefy-armed, sports-inclined powerhouses who don’t have anything better to do. Gone are the days where we’d see a goofball crash and burn on the #1 or #2 in quallies, give everyone a big laugh, take a bow, and go back to his day job. The level of competition is now so high that you have to be at a semipro level at minimum to get considered at all, much less get any airtime. That means dedicated gyms, hardnosed coaches, and lots of practice time…for an event for which the vast majority of participants still get jack bupkis. Any jock of that caliber who has literally any better option will take it. Heck, with college implementing NIL, the MLS becoming a surprising success story (I certainly as hell never thought it’d survive this long!), and women’s gymnastics hotter than ever, even avenues which were dead ends in the past now can pull in good money. Which means that anyone from a major city and/or sports mecca who got started in soccer, gymnastics, basketball, hockey, track, swimming etc. is very likely to stay there or switch to a different big name sport. Bottom line, if you want a nice big crop of ambitious young bucks who will give their heart and soul to a heavily contrived remake of a Japanese game show, you have to get the ones stuck in the boondocks with no major sports or arenas or video games or dance halls or malls or racetracks you get the picture.
Regarding semis itself…you may have noticed that there’s always been a problem with grossly uneven fields, with the result that making it to naffies owes a great deal to luck for numerous contestants. I think this, much like ANWJ, would benefit from seeding. The general principle is that the better you do, the easier the initial going is. With that in mind, I think a simple “serpentine” method, with the placements for each of the five quallies place in the same day, would work just fine. Here’s an idea of what I have in mind:
Semi 1: 5th, 6th, 15th, 16th, 25th, 26th
Semi 2: 4th, 7th, 14th, 17th, 24th, 27th
Semi 3: 3rd, 8th, 13th, 18th, 23rd, 28th
Semi 4: 2nd, 9th, 12th, 19th, 22nd, 29th
Semi 5: 1st, 10th, 11th, 20th, 21st, 30th
With the additional women being distributed in a similar fashion (or randomly; doesn’t matter too much). The problem now is that there are FOUR semis, and…well, how exactly do you divide ninety by four? I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s going to be left in the lurch here.
0:01 And this is what I’m talking about regarding the difficulty of this contest. I remember how Brent Steffensen made waves when he cleared Ultimate Cliffhanger for the first time ever. I’m looking at Hopscotch, which is a trickier version of that, and it’s the #5 in semis.
0:02 Jonah Bonner. In post #558 I gave tentative support of his singing. I no longer do. It’s not horrible, but it’s clear that he can’t be arsed to make an effort anymore.
And…we’re right to the second competitor without a commercial? 
Nothing special…has fun with his daughter, out on hopscotch…but the fact that NBC could spare the time should tell you that something is up.
0:16 I’m kind of on the fence regarding exactly how much of a horrific injustice it is that Isabella Atkins’ father is going to hog about 98% of the spotlight every freaking time she’s on the course. The reason is that NBC doesn’t keep doing it for their really good ladies (Clubhouse comes to mind), but given that she went out on Warped Wall, it’s definitely an uphill climb for her to ever break out.
And now they’re crowing about how Josh Levin Hit The Buzzer in every quallie, semis, and Stage 1. That is either going to become absolutely insufferable or blow up in their faces.
0:22 Oh, here he is n…
** SPLOOOOSHH **
Oooh! Nice effort, but out on #9 Dragonback! He definitely did enough to make it to Stage 1; the question now is, what’s the point? He’s never made it past Stage 2, which makes him a middling second-tierer at best. He has nothing now, and this is a “sport” where has-beens vanish with zero fanfare. Harsh. 
0:34 Yeah, I’d like to see someone point a deadly weapon at…No! No I wouldn’t! Chill, everyone! I do have some humanity!
0:35 See, Eyes said that Jeremiah Boyd relies on his mother to “keep him grounded”, and the profile is about making him do chores! Get it? Get it??? (Man, they really scrape bedrock for profiles in semis, don’t they?)
0:45 Evan Andrews, hailing from Butte, Montana, a town with no ninja gym, which is supposed to be this big shortcoming for some reason. He finishes. Keep that in mind.
0:57 David Campbell. Personally, I think being a pizza delivery driver at 47 is far more regrettable than having to take a stupid risk to get past #2.
0:58 Lance Pekus. Was never that great, his skills have been declining for some time, and now that the three-chances Mega Wall is history he’s never going to make another cent here. Nonetheless, he’s always been in the limelight, and NBC always has time for him. Why? CUE ACCEPTABLE STORY! See, he donated…wait, what was it again? [rewinds] Bah-ludd ste-hemm suh-ellz. Sheesh, I’d really appreciate an explanation as to how that’s any different from normal blood donation. While that’s absolutely an admirable gesture, it’s not on the level of permanently losing a vital organ such as a kidney. When a doctor prescribes diabetes medication, he’s saving a life, but he’s not making a big sacrifice or doing this great big heroic thing warranting a goddam leitmotif. (Did I mention how all the sappy leitmotifs continue to irritate the crap out of me? ) Anyway, that’s Overhyped Country Boy #2 for those of you keeping track. Bonus points, and by “points” I mean “urges to throw bricks at the TV”, for miking up his daughter, who shrieks “JAH WAAH GOO BAAH HAMMA WAVV BOO WUH YAVV GAAH YAH MAH BLARAGUBALBALGG WAGGA YAGGA DAH-DEE!!!” throughout the entire fricking hellspawned run.
1:09 Mady Howard. Oh, look, it’s that baby that definitely did not endure child abuse in quallies! He’s watching from home this time, which gives us a much better perspective of what he really thinks of his mother’s efforts…namely, perplexed indifference. Basically just stares straight ahead. He’s a goddam baby, what the hell were you expecting? His thoughts were probably along the lines of “When is she going to stop doing whatever this stupid time waster is and play with me?”
1:20 Josiah Singleton, Overhyped Country Boy #3. I’m not brooking “Country Boy Ninja”, of course, but I don’t yet know if he’s going to be important enough to be worth one of my substitute nicknames. He did finish second overall, so it definitely a possibility. I’m tentatively going with “Hee Haw” for now. 
1:32 I am really looking forward to Tiana “Tdium” Webberly’s skills regressing even further, to the point where she can’t even make it past quallies, thus reducing the number of times we’re forced to hear that goddam nickname to a tolerable level for the first time in her career.
1:56 Oh, look, when you try to make buzzers precious and rare, guess what happens! It’s Evan Andrews against Josiah Singleton for the totally unfair advantage. Given that Andrews was the sole finisher tonight…uh…dang. Unfortunately you do not have infinite time on the Power Tower, a lesson which hits Andrews hard when he falls behind early, whiffs on a rope grab, and never recovers. Now comes the pain for the announcers: The only way Singleton doesn’t completely run away with it is if he falls; either way it’s a blowout. Singleton avoids disaster, and despite easing up at the end gets the buzzer while Andrews still has a very long way to go.
Results: 1. Evan Andrews (only finisher and only 9-clearer) 2. Josiah Singleton 3. Josh Levin 4. Jeremiah Boyd 5. Caiden Madzelan 6. Church 7. Hunter Guerard 8. Kyle Soderman 9. Francisco Barajas 10. Grant Nguyen 11. Jonah Bonner 12. Anthony Porter 13. David Campbell 14/W1. Izabella Adkins 15. Ronald Washington W2. Casey Rothschild W3. Mady Howard
Y’all come back now, y’hear?
I was shocked that only 13 people got up the warped wall this week.
Something I meant to say last week that I really liked was when they did the combo profile of Lance Pekus and the teen who came to visit him, and then showed both runs back to back. Two runs with only a single profile? More please.
I mean, she finished in the top 15. Straight up qualified, no women’s division needed.
The problem with reality contests, as opposed a normal game show where there’s a que sera sera attitude toward “undesired” results and weird stuff is allowed to happen, is that too often the narratives end up fighting each other and hurting the overall product. If you asked, say, your average Jeopardy fan how many episodes a champion should reign, the response would most likely be “Should?” Some will falter in the next ep, some will last three or four, some will roll for more than two weeks. Even if the producers had a stake in getting it within a certain range, it would be an impossible tasks. There are so many moving parts, so many aspects and attributes that go into even a single episode of Jeopardy, that any attempt at manipulation is most likely doomed to fail. But never let it be said that reality TV will ever stop trying to game the system for no goddam reason, oh no!
You’ll recall that last week there was only one finisher. That’s what happens when you make semis an arm-crushing death march. That’s what also happens when you don’t have a top-heavy field on that one particular individual specific discrete totally-not-the-same-roster-as-the-other-three-semis-at-all week. Wasn’t there this talk about how buzzers were supposed to be ultra-precious and finishing was Supposed To Matter? But wait, ultra-precious, but not _mega-omega-gonzo-hyper-booyah-_ultra-precious. Which led, predictably, to the decision to overcompensate and stack this field with the cream of the crop. Now Eyes and Bodge will no doubt bleat to the heavens about how there were FIVE FINISHERS!!, right up to the point where lots of finishers becomes a bad thing again and they just have to cross their fingers because there’s only one semi left. And around and around and back and forth it goes.
I sometimes wonder what they’re going to do about naffies being triumph-or-perish and everyone being on the exact same playing field and time still kinda-sorta mattering somewhat. There has to come a time when they tried to be patient, dammit, but they can’t tolerate this inexcusable oversight for another second.
I’ll be watching.
0:23 Nathan Green, who you’ll recall was on the winning side of that pukeworthy “twin trophy challenge” in quallies. Huh…all right, I’ll admit that it’s more a worked shoot than anything and that they’re not actually incredibly bitter rivals and they’re hamming it up so NBC will give them the time of day. I still think that the clown show antics go way too far (particularly dumping on participation trophies), and I am not looking forward to seeing this exact same irritating farce every goddam year, which you KNOW is going to happen. Clubhouse and Doghouse’s fourth-rate sitcom antics are bad enough, thank you.
0:33 Kyle Schulze is deaf, which is an obvious advantage as he doesn’t have to listen to all the moronic chanting AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA 
[does search] I could swear I already did this joke…
0:38 Roo Yori. I dunno, man…saving animals, helping the environment, promoting vegetarianism (or just healthier eating in general), something broad and wide-reaching, that might be worth dedicating your life to. But putting all your energy toward saving one very specific species that is not the least bit rare or endangered strikes me as a waste of energy. It’s a nice cause for a teenager, but I really think you should’ve started thinking bigger by now. Oh, and for no particular reason: My THIRD favorite Baha Men Song!
0:45 Kaden “Hundred” Lebsack. 
I’m starting to think that being matched against Blake Feero in the prelims of ANWJ2 was a gross injustice…to Feero. What’s there to even say at this point? He combined the bar-bending power of prime Daniel Gil with the clockwork efficiency of prime Brian Arnold. That is a scary combination, and I remind everyone that he hasn’t even hit his physical peak yet. He seems to get bigger and bigger with every event. Didn’t quite have the top time, but I’m telling you, as long as he’s in the game, it’s going to be a battle for anyone else to claim the lance. Believe it.
0:57 Jackson Twait. Protip: Some things look just plain disturbing when blown up to 50X size, and that freaking cat’s head is about six of them. Yeesh.
1:20 Jamie Rahn. The profile makes it look like the green hair and costume is an everyday thing. If you know anything about otaku culture, you know this is a bad sign. Also, since when is “It took a long time to have a baby” an Acceptable Story? (It totally was! They had the leitmotif and everything!) Never mind overpopulation, where’s the evidence that Rahn and wife are prepared to raise a baby? We already went through this with Drew Dreschel; don’t be telling me I should just aww and clap and not ask any questions. Also, given how many garish and obnoxious family members NBC is already fricking miking up for each one of his runs, I fail to see how adding one with full scream-blue-murder-for-absolutely-no-reason is a good thing.
1:38 Clubhouse! 
Fresh off her Women’s Championship! Having a bit of trouble on #3…
** SPLOOOOSHH **
Aw, crap. This means she’s going to miss Stage 1 for the first time ever. We’ve seen it so many times. The first sign of decline is going from “rock solid” to “occasional stumble”, and then the stumbles get a little more frequent, then a little more, than a little more. It’s going to be tough to watch.
1:50 And speaking of screaming blue murder for absolutely no reason… And of course Levi Enright won the Power Tower (with a sugar finish, no less) and has the Safety Pass, which all but guarantees that we’re going to have to listen to this freakshow for two more weeks. Can’t hardly wait.
Advancers: 1. Insufferable banshee spaz 2. Jackson Twait 3. R.J. Roman 4. Kaden Lebsack 5. Cam Baumgartner 6. Mike Silenzi 7. Jason Kotzin 8. Ethan “Lemming” Swanson 9. Jamie Rahn 10. Drew Nester 11. Derrick Pavoni 12. Chris Behrends 13. Michael Bougher 14. Enzo DeFerrari Wilson 15. Max Feinberg W1. Karen Potts W2. Megan Rowe W3. Maggie Owen
Doghouse did his best but came up just short of the top 15, so neither of the current power couple will be in Vegas. Potts was definitely a surprise tonight, making it all the way to #8, and overall the youngsters dominated. It hasn’t quite reached full steam yet, but the old-timey purge is definitely underway.
I mentioned something way back in post 558 of how we see a completely different cast every week. That doesn’t seem to be the case this year, as I noticed at least three highly schticky contestants I remember from quallies. I’m absolutely certain that NBC simply found stories they liked, or at least didn’t dislike, and latched onto them. Probably not their first option, but they pretty much had to since they didn’t have anything better in the semis contestant pool.
And that there’s the other dealie. In the past, the siffies fields skewed much stronger than quallies for obvious reasons, but with as many as 180 qualifiers and courses which were extremely easy by modern standards, there was plenty of room for less-than-terrific jocks to sneak in, with inversely terrific stories. Now, with a meager 75 qualifiers (and a few add-on women) getting through a frankly brutal course, they’re all going to be powerful and capable and driven, meaning virtually no Acceptable Stories (and I really noticed this over the past three weeks), so when NBC finds anything that might be good for heartstrings or demographics, they’re going to ride it hard. In the past quallies was glurge city, siffies was the awkward no-man’s-land, and naffies was all about hardcore competition with an occasional human interest take here and there, but now it seems that the naffies paradigm now belongs to semis, which means that naffies is going to become even more hardcore. Not sure if that’s an improvement per se, but it should be…intriguing. (That could be good! )
Also: Way…way…way…way too much chanting. 
Seriously, I’d probably find the Temple of Doom a much more pleasant environment than an ANW crowd.
Finally, I’d like to do something I honestly never thought I’d have any desire to do again…a prediction! : As you’re all fully aware of now, there’s been a powerful youth movement in the show over the past few years. Some of it, of course, was due to the influence of ANWJ and the subsequent reduction of the age limit in the regular contest to 15, but simply the fact that every course is so demanding and requires so much dedication that anyone not in peak physical form doesn’t stand a chance. It’s similar to what happened in golf, where courses have gotten so long that oldtimers who never built the muscle for 330-yard drives simply can’t keep up anymore. There is one big unresolved issue, however: What happens when these kids to go college? Teenagers live in their parents’ house, their needs are taken care of, and their schedules are set out for them. If they say “I wanna do ninja!”, as long as the folks are cool with it, nothing’s going to stop them. Once they step into the world of adult education, they have to set their own schedules, they have to take care of at least some of their needs, and they have to learn how to make and manage money. I’m not really hip on how NIL is going to work, but I’m pretty certain that weirdo fringe sports aren’t getting anything…the cheerleaders, the 43-man squamishers, the quadballers, the robotfighters, what have you. So there will be a lot of pressure for these young athletes to get into a “real” sport like basketball or lacrosse or soccer, and a gap of four years (or more!) will leave them far too out of practice for further ANWs, if they got considered at all. So, the way I see it, one of two things will happen:
- If ninja gets NIL privileges, this effectively makes ANW a young person’s game permanently and puts popular oldtimers like Joe Moravsky out to pasture. Much like gymnastics, jocks will have to start very young to have any chance of success, and the biggest stars will be in the college ranks.
- If ninja doesn’t get NIL privileges, this will create multiple distinct factions, separated by when they got started and how much money they can expect to make. There will be plenty of rivalries between them, as well as debates about who’s the best of each group. Oldtimers like Moravsky will hang around, but they’ll find it increasingly tough to stay relevant in the new, bigger order.
All this been-there-done-that-ing means that I don’t really have a whole lot this week.
0:03 Last week NBC made the breakthrough programming decision of showing the first runner of the night complete the course (and a 10-obstacler, at that), which was so vastly monumental that I’m telling you about it only one week late. Tonight’s leadoff, Katie Bone, continues this trend of being marginally less predictable than usual, making it all the way to #8, which is guaranteed to take one of the top 3 spots. And she has type 1 diabetes. NBC always has to this weird balancing act with these medical conditions, about how it’s supposed to be this huge handicap…but it’s not this huge handicap, look how far she went, so if YOU have that condition and can’t…but it is a huge handicap, which is why it’s so special that she made it that far, but it’s not, but it is…you get the picture. Personally, my concern is how she’s going to do once she no longer gets infinite time, but given that Stages 1 and 2 have been on the slippery slope to that for some time, I can’t write her off just yet.
0:22 Christopher “Wide Load” Harding Jones, who still steadfastly refuses to explain what the hell his malapropistic catchphrase means, repeatedly got his loose hair in his face, had an entire cheerleading camp’s worth of chanting during the run, plus he screamed directly into the camera multiple times and got a leitmotif. And he was out there freaking forever and finished. Sheesh, I never even thought the words “ANW Irritation Bingo” before this episode, and he just nailed the grand prize.
0:44 Tristan Wyman! Our reminder that there are some people on the planet who consider “Christmas all year” something other than an endless horrifying dystopian nightmare!
0:46 Donovan Metoyer! Who’s wearing a 3-piece suit! Which he does every time he’s on the course, therefore it is not the tiniest bit noteworthy! Something Eyes and Bodge have an unfortunate tendency to forget! Next time maybe lead with the “suits he’s worn over the years” bit, eh? On a related note, wearing a suit does not mean you’re “classy”…sheesh, so many counterexamples during the Trump Administration alone…so I’m going with “Overdressed”, a nice complement to Mike Wright’s “Underdressed”. If it works, it works!
1:08 Hey, Isabella Wakeham! If you credit your faith for your successes, you also have to blame your faith for your failures! Of which there will be very many over the course of your career! How does it go, as long as there are dumb stupid ignorant kids in math class who think prayer does jack bupkis, there will always be lots of blathering of stupid useless meaningless crap in school! Grrr…flippin’ religious fanatics on my reality TV… 
1:19 Isaiah Thomas! Nope, still no mention of the NBA hall of famer! In an effort to correct that oversight, I’m giving him the nickname “Not That”, which will also serve as a replacement for that dumb meaningless nickname he inevitably got saddled with.
1:32 Bars. Refer to post #779. Still an inspiration. Fiancee’s name is Tee Jackson, BTW.
1:56 All right, enough leftovers, let’s get to the only thing that really matters tonight, the Power Tower. In the #1 spot is Austin Gray…and, yeah, he’s off the blackout list because after two runners-up I can’t ignore him now. He easily had the best result, 4:15.75 to Nate Hansen’s 5:10.84, and looked relaxed out there. He’s always been among the elite, but somehow when the chips are down there’s always seems to be someone better. One oh-so-close would’ve been hard enough, but two has to be torturous. Now, with young superstars like Kaden Lebsack rapidly taking over the sport, his window could be closing pretty soon. You can bet that he’ll be really gunning for this Safety Pass and hoping that it’ll finally give him the edge to put him over the top.
And they’re off. Gray has better agility through the stair section and takes the early lead. On to the ropes…and Hansen whiffs on the grab! And again! Gray looks leisurely through the baby-hang-climb thing, then calmly makes his way through the cliff bars. Just…
** FLOOOOFFF **
HE FELL! HE FELL! HE FELL! Had three bars to go and just plain lost it! And the new rule is once you go down, your run is over. Now Hansen has the rarest of luxuries on the Power Tower, all the goddam time in the world. He still needs to finish (if both go down, presumably neither gets the Safety Pass)…and it takes him a LONG time, 1:28 by my count…but with his calm strength, it’s never in doubt.
Damn. 
I mean, good on Hansen for not giving up and conquering two challenging courses, but I pity Gray. Blow after blow after blow. To give so much and continue to get nothing back has to be just crushing at this point.
Advancers: 1. Austin Gray 2. Nate Hansen 3. Not That 4. Owen Dyer 5. Lorin Ball 6. Wide Load 7. Vance “Jackpot” Walker 8. Kevin “Wingman” Carbone 9. Ethan Bartnicki 10. Overdressed 11. Tyler Yamauchi 12. Jacob Arnstein 13/W1. Katie Bone 14. Zack Eichenstein 15. Jody Avila W2. Isabella Wakeham W3. Bars
(Seriously never thought I’d be using “** FLOOOOFFF **” again. There’s a reason I save those things! )
Stage 1 was what Stage 1 is. Lots of marginal qualifiers getting a cold bath (literally), lots of third-tier wannabes finding themselves in way over their heads (literally), oldtimers feeling their age, kids growing up real fast, and of course the poor, naïve home course builders who never thought to make a descending-rope pillar or a blind rope swing. I really get the feeling that a lot of these jocks just plain aren’t up to the challenge…they can get passing marks when it’s da faddes da fasses, but as soon the Buzzer Or Bust part begins, they’re doomed. The saddest part, of course, is that a lot of hopefuls who were completely honest with themselves about their prospects and just wanted some national TV exposure made it all the way to Stage 1…an impressive feat in itself…without getting one second of airtime (or some blink-and-you-missed-it waiweewuwwawei). On American Idol or America’s Got Talent, once you’ve made it to the big dance, you’ve earned the right to people’s attention. Maybe you get bumrushed or cut down later in the show, but for those precious 2-3 minutes each night, the world belongs to you. On ANW, who gets time and how much is pick and choose, and after all these years I can’t even tell you how NBC chooses. I’m surprised we’re not hearing more gripes about this, to be honest.
Due to his wife testing positive, Joe Moravsky is out of the competition. On one hand, he won’t get to fail to get within ten miles of taking the lance. On the other hand, his fans won’t get to see him fail to get within ten miles of taking the lance. So it’s a wash.
On a more positive note, the Raiderettes looked like cheerleaders and not construction workers with pom poms, which I was highly grateful for.
And once again, the thing to really watch in the near future is competitors who started ninja in high school when they enter college. We’ve had collegiate ninjas before (and that one team event nobody ever wants to talk about ), but never ones with past experience. There was no NIL then, so these were all dedicated purists used to playing their hearts out for honor and the love of the game. Now we have ninjas who competed for cold hard cash at a very young age, a fair number of them winning it, and they have the chance to continue making money in college…but for the right sports. Does the next Jessie Graff decide she’d rather be the next Serena Williams? Does a lithe acrobat’s skill with laches convince him to go for the gold in gymnastics instead? Will there be lobbying to make obstacle course racing a nationally recognized sport? Some big implications here.
0:13 Derrick Pavoni: “Not bringing home the dough this year.” ‘Cause he’s a pizzamaker, get it, ha ha ha ha. I wouldn’t make note of this except for the “this year” part, which implies that he thinks he eventually will cash in, which demonstrates that he has outrageous delusions of grandeur and is not worth anyone’s time.
0:15 Remember when time was a huge deal on Stage 1 and we had numerous contestants time out or come very close to it? No, seriously, which season was it, because it’s so goddam long ago I sure as hell don’t remember. This year’s time limit is freaking two minutes and fifty seconds, and throughout tonight it was downright draining waiting for someone, anyone, to get to anything close to time trouble. (Eyes regularly shrieking about how this or that contestant “needs to hurry up!” only made the experience that more unpleasant. ) Two, count ‘em, two contestants lost out to time tonight. Hell, the one that got hung up on Warped Wall didn’t! So it really says something that Jody Avila was so painfully slow on the course that he ended up way short of the buzzer. That’s really something. Like…uh…a draw in football.
0:29 Josiah Singleton is taking a Safety Pass to Stage 2, and that sound you just heard is the smashed rubble of the lancer aspirations of at least ten contestants falling into a sinkhole. 
0:47 Addy Herman. She was one of the strongest girls in ANWJ (which admittedly isn’t saying much), making the playoffs both seasons she competed with an overall 5-3 record. A lengthy struggle on Warped Wall ended her hopes, but she put in a fine showing, one worthy of not getting dumped into waiweewuwwaweiland. You know what, I think at some point we’re going to have to give up hoping for a new Clubhouse and just measure the top ladies by how far they get in Stage 1. There’s more to life than buzzers.
0:56 All right…someone explain to me under exactly what circumstances an NBC reality TV viewer should give one solitary femtocrap who this “Rikko-shay” guy is?
1:07 Three old guys feel a little older. The hardest one was David Campbell, whom Eyes helpfully informs us is the last contestants who’s been on every season and is a dismal 1 for 7 on Stage 1. Make it 1 for 8, as he ran out of gas in the latter half and had to give up the last task. It’s now painfully clear that he’s hit his ceiling, and he’s not getting any younger. How long will he go on? I have to imagine he’s a favorite of NBC and can keep going for as long as he likes, but I really hope he stops before he reaches his breaking point. At his age, no telling what’s going to break.
1:13 I’m kinda split on Bob Reese. On one hand, I find constant the showboating on this show incredibly tiresome and the contestants who do it even more so. On the other hand, this is a tacit acknowledgement that he’s never going to accomplish anything meaningful on ANW, so he’s going to do something that’s going to garner ATTENTION, ATTENTION, ATTENTION and have Bodge go wooooaatttttt and become vastly better known than the typical Stage 1 sacrificial lamb. The split, incidentally, is if that makes him revolting twice over or makes him revolting but NBC equally revolting for going along with it.
1:21 Bars with…the only no-result of the night , followed by a 4-out by Megan Rowe and…a finish by Owen Dyer. I know NBC doesn’t push Battle-of-the-Sexes in the regular contest, but this is a harsh look.
1:24 Austin Gray. One of those impossible-to-hate inspirations whom you desperately want something, anything to go right for. First four not a problem. Now it’s on to the big twirly pole. This is a tricky one, requiring a keen sense of timing. He’s looking at the dismount. Feet hit the landing area but he can’t get them on top. Second pass, low, kicks the side, nothing doing. With no other option, he surrenders the rope and climbs the pole, then tries to jump to the landing area. An impressive leap…HE’S…off to the side.
Zuri Hall interviews him and…day-um. Usually when you see a favorite kill his run with an inopportune mistake, he’s like “DANGIT, I thought this was going to be my year! I can’t believe I screwed that up! Haaahh!”, all fired up and angry and fuming. Gray looks and sounds crushed. He tries to crack a smile and show appreciation for Hall trying to comfort him, but you can tell that there’s no energy behind it at all. I saw this exact same thing with Jake Murray last season, that “What the hell am I doing with my life?” stare and how he could barely find the energy to say anything. Damn, this is hard to watch.
And capping this off because I’m exhausted. Safety Pass means we’ll have to hear that endless droning chanting for Nate Hansen freaking twice, Hundred got 3WA’d because who the frag can keep track anymore, Overdressed demonstrates an uncanny ability to stay dry, and I find RJ Roman bit cheesy but he remains silent when he hits a buzzer so I’m glad he finished. And David something something something.
I disagree. I felt like time was a factor in a bunch of the fails from night one.
I remember that, and that was brutal. Was Jake even on this season? Has he been on any seasons since that?
Fortunately I missed the pain of the Austin Gray interview because I fast forward through everything except the runs. I watch two or three profiles per episode, tops. I also fast forward through the initial 8-minute course introduction. I can get through a full episode in about an hour.
100%. If time weren’t an issue people could rest for 30 seconds between obstacles, have plenty of time to mentally prep for the jumping spider, not have to go for “High Road”, etc. Just because not a ton of people literally time out doesn’t mean the time limit isn’t relevant (and isn’t set approximately to the right length).
He was not on this season, although that was only one season ago.
I mean, I don’t think he shows up each year thinking “ok, THIS is the year I’m going to achieve total victory and win $1M”. I think doing Ninja is what he loves, and as long as he’s good at it, why wouldn’t he do it? And getting (a) to stage 1 and (b) almost to the end of stage 1 means he is damn good at it, even if he’s not at the absolutely elite level.
The interesting question to me is… are any of the 5+year veterans still within spitting distance of elite? Or are we destined to have a battle between teens and the early-20s types, with teens likely coming out on top? Can Najee or Flip or Ethan Swanson make a deep run this year? (Josh Levin is probably the best hope if we count him as an experienced vet.)
And are the new crop of teen girls actually better than Flex? Really seemed like Flex falling was just a fluke, but…
Oh I forgot what I wanted to say about David Campbell: I feel like he is the new Sam Sann. As far as I’m concerned, they are both always welcome.
It’s a good question though about whether any 5+ year vets are truly elite anymore or if it’s all just teenagers now. I’m trying to brush it off with some killer vets to prove the point, but I’m kind of coming up blank.
Out of curiosity I googled Jessie Graff completes stage 1 because that’s definitely on YouTube, and it was a few years ago. The time for stage 1 then was 2:20.
The course is more time-consuming today, however. Jessie only had to swing over toward the warped wall, there was no spinning. I also want to say that this week’s second obstacle was more time-consuming than the propeller bar, but I have completely forgotten what the second obstacle was this week.
I feel like it’s calculated based on the total of each individual obstacle, ignoring the high road. Which feels right to me. (Ignoring high road when calculating the time limit.)
Oh, come on. If you looked at semis results, you’d see that times are way down from past seasons, even with all the armbreakers. I still remember Kacy Catanzaro needing nine minutes to clear a not especially difficult Dallas City Finals, and twelve minutes or more was not uncommon. The standard is just so much higher now. So if you’re going to tell me that the reason so many of these athletes fail is that they’re so horribly harried by the incredibly microscopic 2:50 on a course that has maybe a third as much upper body work as semis, I’d like to hear it from them, thank you very much. How is it that we saw at least three of them completely flub High Road and then just casually soar through Fly Hooks and saunter up the net? And for the record, I thought that even 2:20 was a tad excessive.
I mean, the fact remains that Stage 1 is going to have heavy attrition no matter what. I really don’t see the benefit of having a course that’s a beast at 2:50 as opposed to a course that’s a beast at 1:50. Especially when you consider that even though the field is fifteen contestants smaller, a massive chunk of them still get thrown into waiweewuwwaweiland, including multiple finishers. Ye gods.
Re. David Campbell: It’s like finishing 5th in the Olympics. The first time, he can feel great. The second time, he can take pride in accomplishing what few other have. But when it happens again and again, it’s like, ugh, am I ever going to win a medal? Now if he’s okay with this, fine; if he’s just chasing a record, nothing wrong with that. I just don’t want him to get hurt, physically or mentally. And somehow he’s never struck me as the type of competitor who’s just glad to make the playoffs. (If he’s said otherwise, feel free to enlighten me! )
Not sure the relevance of this. City finals runs are never timed.