Biggest Loser Produces Big Drama

I am currently suffering from an unhealthy addiction to Tuesday Evening's screenings of 'The Biggest Loser'. The 02/12/08' episode didn't disappoint. Watching people who are fatter and more unhealthy than the rest of us is a guilty pleasure for most I suspect. Sort of like watching an accident in reverse. You begin with the accident, which in this case are numerous large individuals who have let themselves go in quite spectacular fashion, some hitting 400 pounds plus at times. From here we can assuage our guilt by sitting back on our comfy couches, eating our barbecue Pringles and rejoicing in the fact that (hopefully) as messed up as our lives may be that at least we aren't morbidly obese. From here-on-in we can reconcile our morbid curiosity by watching the contestants getting gradually slimmer and fitter thanks to the two excellent coaches 'Jill' & 'Bob' who are referred to in these youthfully abbreviated name-tags to give them a more buddy-buddy feel.

This episode 02-12-08' started in commendably soap-operatic fashion. 'Jackie' the rough-house mother of 'Dan' had been voted off the previous week. Much was made both last week and this about 'Mark' and 'Jay' having sworn on their children's lives that they wouldn't vote her off in that last episode. This was somewhat unfair as it was Jackie who proposed this unhealthy oath and deserved to go for trying to push such a nasty promise on the others. Her son 'Dan' bemoaned her loss like the dutiful son he is. After about 5 minutes of him generally griping about how unfair it was that his Mother was so summarily dismissed by the ever-conniving duo 'Mark' and 'Jay' he came to the realization after a talk with his trainer 'Bob' under a suitably enlightening tree, that he had no other alternative but to settle his differences with the team and continue his trek for glory. Being a fairly strong contender for the title with one of the highest percentage weight gains it was certainly a prudent move.

In an exciting weigh-in finale with various man-boobs and thunder-thighs on show (why do the men have to continually take their shirts off by the way) the black team went against the odds and won by a single solitary pound leading to much teariness and jubilation on their astonished faces.. More tears were to come when 'Jay' who lost only 4 pounds in the final weigh in of the evening, thus messing up the Blue teams master plan blubbed his apologies to his team. 'Dan' looked completely bemused/lost and probably assumed he was next in line to follow his mother out of the door. A door by the way that is much easier for him to get through nowadays. However it was 'Trent' the largest member of the team who had been suffering a lot of leg problems of late who decided to take one for the team and sacrificed himself on Blue teams alter for the betterment of the team. More tears and man-hugs were to follow with this revelation and again in the elimination room. Love and manly-devotion was announced by all. Pride, long-standing affirmations of faith in all things Trent were proclaimed along with a general sense of relief that no-one had to feel too bad about voting anyone else off.

'Jill' took the nemesis-tic road less traveled by inviting in (at no-one's request) her Mother, a fairly benign nose-jobbed Psychiatrist who managed to dredge up each member of the black teams most dire personal history again, for the betterment?! of the team. From child abuse to dead Daddy's, self-doubt and marital woes reasons abounded to explain the fatty tissue that found it's way onto the contestants various bodily particles. Paul and Kelly's unnervingly awkward weekly conversations poses the question of whether it's more important for Paul to lose weight or get over Kelly 1st, seemingly one without the other is still going to leave him a troubled-man.

Some fairly uninspired contests including one where the contestants held what weight they'd lost during the show between two team-members over a chilly looking lake. 'Allison Sweeney' the host definitely looks more at home nowadays after a shaky start to the series and even went so far as to give a running commentary on the water-torture contest like some bizarre race-horse announcer much to the annoyance of 'Mark' who nearly fell in the drink early on almost at the urging of Allison's enthusiastic banter.

Back at home 'Trent' a man of some 400 plus pounds when he started was shown as he is now, weighing in the low 300's and looking more like someone who isn't going to drop dead if he has to run up a flight of stairs. It was good to see someone more interested in getting healthy than just trying to lose pounds to win the grand prize.