ABC's Wipeout Review

A clip from ABC's Wipeout


The Background:

Wipeout is a recently new reality TV show on ABC. Every episode starts out with two dozen contestants who are all looking to win the grand prize of $50,000, but they must first conquer a set number of obstacles and only a handful will be able to compete for the money at the very end.

My Thoughts:

Although I enjoy watching out-of-shape Americans desperately trying to make a quick buck on reality gameshows, this show just doesn't beat some of its other competitors out there. I gotta say the two hosts and their side comments can be pretty funny at times and some of the contestants act like clowns and little girls, but I would much rather enjoy one of the other challenge based shows that are out there.

For starters, you can take a look at Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, MXC, that usually airs on SpikeTV. This show is very similar to Wipeout, but I do not believe the players are playing for any cash prizes, but I could be wrong. Anyway this show can have anywhere up to hundreds of contestants and the way the show lays it out has them split into two teams. The challengers and hosts are all Asian, and I'm sure MXC is just the American version with its own voice-overs and scoring. The show will stage something like the Computer Programming Team vs the Construction Worker Team, or anything random to that extent and the hosts will make funny side comments about the contestant's actions and "wipeouts" during the show just like in ABC's Wipeout. I find this show's obstacle course much more challenging and funnier than that of Wipeout's. If I had to sum it up any simpler, I would say Wipeout makes up all of their obstacles up last minute. If you look at the courses in Wipeout since the first episode that aired, not much has changed, maybe they put some foam on that slide in the last level or changed a jump in the first level, but all in all it's pretty much the same everytime and it gets relatively boring.

Another example of a show similar to these is Ninja Warrior that is shown on G4. This show unlike the two previous ones is not all about laughs and people getting dirty, but about physical fitness and glory. Although there is no cash prize at the end, the select winners, or those that successfully complete all three obstacle courses within the alloted time, will get their names published on a trophy or something of the like for being the only few that ever defeated the course. This show starts with over 100 contestants who will all go through the first obstacle course, but only a select few will actually complete it and move on. At the start of the second course there are usually five or six competitors who would have actually made it, and usually one or two get eliminated by the start of the third course. All in all, it's a great show to watch and see what people are truly capable of.

To sum it up, I would watch these other two shows over Wipeout any day. What do you guys think?