Huh. I wasn’t sure I’d even be covering the Family Championship. It’s the usual dilemma: I want to say stuff about it, but I don’t feel like making the effort to say stuff about it. Having seen the whole exercise from start to finish, it all seems very familiar, very unremarkable, very…skippable.
Ah well. 
Now that Ninja vs. Ninja and USA vs. The World are history, this is pretty much the only team competition game in town. I’ll just cover the things I can be arsed to point out and call it a season.
0:00 And right away I have issues. The intro guy (don’t know who; he didn’t sound like Eyes or Bodge) cheerfully opens with how ANW has always been about families. 
Seriously. Lessee…I remember Chris and Brian Wilczewski, Rob Moravsky stunk up the joint on TNW a couple times, Brent Steffensen hooking up with Kacy Catanzaro was a pretty big deal…and that’s it. It’s pretty obvious that this wasn’t simply something NBC thought was a cool idea, there was a reason they wanted a FAMILY CHAMPIONSHIP, but it’s still a bit startling how blatant this new “We’ve always been at war with Childlessia!” attitude is. I don’t think it’s entirely lingering fallout from Drew Dreschel (who thankfully was caught before he could do any real damage) or the new youth movement, either. It comes across mostly like a PR stunt, a way to convince the rubes that this is still an everyman’s game and you don’t have to be scared off by unstoppable superpowered death machines like Kaden Lebsack. “See, see? Not-great guys can still have a place here! You could be one of them! Please don’t leave us!”
0:02 There are 10 teams of 3 taking 2 obstacles each of a 6-obstacler, which they’ll run twice (no one can run the same leg twice), plus a 4-team Power Tower at the end. Given how (relatively) brisk quallies courses are, especially taking away the fatigue factor, you’d think 2 hours would be sufficient to fit everything in, if a little tight. But of course they gotta have profiles, and they gotta have interviews, and they gotta have a couple big weepfests, which means…oh yeah…the inaugural Family Championship has…oh yes…waiweewuwwaweis. 
(This crap is just out of control now…) On top of being really insulting to the shafted contestants, it’s annoying to see the producers clumsily try to cover up their incredibly blatant machinations. Take tonight’s initial offering, for example, the Lewises. They’re here because one of them is an old football colleague of Bodge. That’s it. They’re hopeless. Cannon fodder. Meat on the table. They get 2 points out of a possible 6 in the first round, which Eyes calls a “promising start”. 
Given that this was the lowest score in the first round, naturally they’d go first in the second so as not to risk getting mathematically eliminated early and their run being completely meaningless, right? That only makes common sense, right? Guess what, they got a waiweewuwwawei…after 3 teams had already gone. (And got totally skunked, but that’s neither here nor there.) Yeah, wasn’t born yesterday, pal. See, given that Bodge already hyped up this team so much despite the fact that it couldn’t compete, it wouldn’t do to have them go first and have their night ended right then and there, for the obvious reason that the viewers would completely stop thinking about them. So the producers drag it out, tease, make it look like they have a puncher’s chance when anyone who’s not blind can see that they don’t. I’m amazed as you are that I’ve wasted this many keystrokes on them. 
0:06 The Webers. Dad’s pretty strong. 4 points.
0:12 3WA, the Johnstons. (Y’know what, nowadays I think the main purpose of a 3WA isn’t to save time, it’s to reduce the time spent on the boring actual run so they can focus on the important things like crowd shots and hugging and weeping and shouting nonsense. 
) I got nuthin’. 4 points.
0:13 The Chois. The big story tonight is Jimmy Choi, who has Parkinson’s, and it’s getting worse, so this might possibly potentially maybe be the last time you ever see him on national television, I guess, sorta, kinda. Of course he nails both his obstacles proving that it doesn’t matter if blah blah blah you’ve heard it a billion times by now. 4 points.
0:23 3WA, the Auers. Puntastic. And Josh is still known for one article of clothing and absolutely nothing else. 
4 points.
0:25 The Heinrichses. Big daughter Annabella was in ANWJ2 (briefly). Shark enthusiasts. Strong girls! 6 points! 
0:36 3WA…oh, hey, it’s Underdressed! Never thought I’d see “synchronized pants ripping” on this show. 3 points.
0:37 The Beckstrands, led, naturally, by Kai, who finished either 3rd or 4th in ANWJ2 (I was well into “waiting for it to be over so I could get back to Lone Wolf” mode at that point). Oh, look, they have mohawks a mere two decades after everyone stopped giving a damn! 
Naturally the profile says jack bupkis about his 3rd/4th because NBC didn’t get clearance from the Flying Warped Wall Monster to acknowledge the existence of a junior event tonight. They’re powerhouses. 6 points.
0:47 The O’dells. Amanda, you may remember if you did a search on this thread, defies the prevailing image of a lunch lady, which apparently counts as a Proto-Acceptable Story now. (What the frack does “Purpose Over Podium” mean? 
) 4 points.
0:56 The Zimmermans. Sandy, of course, is the FMETHB, which I’m abbreviating because I’m sick and tired of hearing about it. Little disappointed Lindsey didn’t make…ah…“the cut”. (Oh, and thanks for all the uncanny-valley face cutouts, that’s just what this night needed. 
) 4 points.
Gah. Let’s just skip ahead a bit…
1:37 Beckstrands and Zimmermans on top with 10 and Heinrichses and Auers with 9, top four advancing to the Power Tower, with only the Chois to go. If they clear either 5 or 6 obstacles NBC is going to need some kind of tiebreaker (which no one’s mentioned all night) to decide who gets left in the cold. Naturally I’m rooting for this to happen because it’ll be the first even remotely interesting thing that’s happened this entire tepid humdrum vanilla rah-rah contest.
Father Jimmy Choi is going first, remarkably youthful-looking cousin Minkay Yu is second, and spunky 13-year-old daughter Karina Choi has the anchor. Keep that in mind.
1:38 Jimmy does the ascending step-slash-rope swing with no difficulty, then struggles on the bar-platform-bar-whatever but makes it. Man, isn’t only having to do two obstacles the greatest? Minkay then runs through the big rotatey wheels; takes a fall, but stays alive. Now the sideways snowboard hopalong, and…not a prayer.
1:39 Karina has a few really close calls but gets through the shaky hang planks. Now…aw, geez. Yeah, that’s just how they planned it, a small teenage girl face with the big, unforgiving wall with the weight of a freaking galaxy on her shoulders. The real hell of it is, if this was the 12-foot junior wall, she would’ve nailed it easily. As it is, she came up a hair short, and this will forever be known as the failure which ended Jimmy Choi’s ninja career. You know what, if I’m him, I delay retirement by one event just so she doesn’t have to take any crap for that. What were these people THINKING?? 
1:48 Zimmermans show poor course sense and get absolutely obliterated by the Auers, then the Heinrichses get an early lead but their two girls get completely steamrolled by the Beckstrands’ two boys (I hate to see this happen, I really do. 
). When you have athletes of widely varying abilities, you tend to get mismatches, who knew.
1:58 Auers win yay good night drive home safely.
I wouldn’t say this was a bad event, or an unpleasant event. But it wasn’t a good event either. It was just…an event. Don’t know how else to put it.
Hey, y’know what would make this better? If it were BIGGER. That’s all it really needs. To be this grand, wild, multi-day spectacle like NvN. With dozens of contestants and a plethora of obstacles and matchups. (I’d feel the same way about the Women’s Championship if only they could find enough women.)
) to the main show was almost certainly done for one reason: eliminate the curbstomps. By having the athletes prove themselves before putting them in the arena, that gives a much better chance of a real contest. It’s not foolproof (as we’ve seen on the Power Tower many times), but it’s the best shot we have.
