This Saturday, I went to see a taping of the new American Gladiators. I'm not sure whether the rules of the board allow me to reveal things such as what the set looks like and which events will be played, so I won't mention any specifics here. I will say that I saw or heard reference to six classic events and one new event, and there very well could be more events than that in the rotation.
Overall, it's definitely in the spirit of the original -- now that I think about it, if the show had run continuously, what I saw may very well have been the natural evolution of it. I can tell that there will be a lot of work done in post-production -- with the exception of the gameplay, everything was subject to stopdowns and reshooting. (At one point in the day, after a large audience had been loaded in, we all had to sit and wait for over two and a half hours while they finished setting up, practicing, and blocking an event.)
I'm happiest to report that the same spirit of sportsmanship is still present -- they didn't try to play up fake rivalries or make everybody act mad at one another. The gladiators still brag, of course, but if a contender defeats a gladiator, the gladiator will usually offer them their congratulations. And even though they're competing against one another, most of the contenders have respect for one another. (I saw one or two exceptions, but they wound up looking kind of bad, so maybe they'll be edited out.)
While the rules and presentation have been tweaked a little in some of the classic events, they're all instantly recognizable. Not everyone will like the changes (I suspect the biggest complaints will be about the hosting and the editing, unless they have a really good editor), but it's still American Gladiators.
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Scott "my gladiator name would be Twig" Robinson
