Gladiators: Season 3

[Joe Mello]

[quote name=\'Brig Bother\' post=\'193391\' date=\'Aug 5 2008, 05:25 AM\']
Ha, this was the most amusing bit, seeing how long they were prepared to extend the title sequence every time a new gladiator arrived. I think it got to about twenty minutes before they gave up and just did a sting.[/quote]
I half-expected it to return for the finale, seeing as they would probably have a few extra minutes to kill, but they just decided to fuse the last two episodes together.

In an American TV landscape where your opening titles are lucky to last 30 seconds, AG had two sequences and they lasted an entire freaking segment.

[tpirfan28]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'193361\' date=\'Aug 4 2008, 10:10 PM\']
Oh, I'm sorry! The answer we were going for was "shiatcan Hogan." That's "shiatcan Hogan." Thanks for playing, though, did you have a good time?
[/quote]
Well played!

Shiatcan Van Earl Wright too, and we've got something.  Ali is "decent".

Oh, and cut the overdramatic crap.  Trim that away and it's much more tolerable.

/but not the spashies
//or the slashies

[colonial]

Is a season 3 for NBC even a guarantee?  I know the Peacock announced its intentions to air a third season in summer 2009, but ratings have been pretty poor this time around (only hit 2.0 in the demo once, total viewers have averaged between 4.84 and 5.64 million), even for summer standards.

If I'm NBC, I'd just cut my losses and repackage this show for weekly syndication for Fall 2009.

JD

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'colonial\' post=\'193416\' date=\'Aug 5 2008, 10:30 AM\']
Is a season 3 for NBC even a guarantee?  I know the Peacock announced its intentions to air a third season in summer 2009, but ratings have been pretty poor this time around (only hit 2.0 in the demo once, total viewers have averaged between 4.84 and 5.64 million), even for summer standards.

If I'm NBC, I'd just cut my losses and repackage this show for weekly syndication for Fall 2009.
[/quote]

Same here--and send "Nashville Star" back to USA and take "Last Comic Standing" out of its misery, as well.  As a prime time network series, "Gladiators" was nothing more than a few weeks of a season thing.

(The Magical Elves people have to be enjoying the fact that the first season of "LCS" after Peter Engel kicked them out got really bad ratings.)

[Mr. Armadillo]

The Olympics-shortened format ain't exactly doing LCS favors either.

Last week...the final eight gave their final performance...and immediately afterward were told whether or not they were eliminated the PREVIOUS week?  Come on.

Not to mention the entire tease of them trying to fill however-long-the-show was with eight acts...and then only letting America vote for five of them.

Oh, right, where were we, Gladiators?  Hmm...how about not trying to introduce seventeen thousand new events in one season.  If you're not going to get to the only one that anyone cares about until the final three weeks, who cares?  

That said...yeah, the scoring needs to be tweaked.  One point per second, at the VERY least, please.  And Powerball is woefully weak in that department...2-3 or 3-5 would make a little more sense.  (Rocketball I'll let slide, since at least one contender racked up 12 in it.)

Other than that...um, moar Crush please?  :-)

(I have to say though, I did get a perverse pleasure out of seeing that virtually every single time it was played, SkyTrack got edited out.)

/Heh...I actually managed to not use 'Crush' and 'perverse pleasure' in the same sentence!
//Oh wait....

[weaklink75]

From a Gladiators forum board that I read, it's looking like they are leaning toward doing S3, but they need to rework the budget before it's official (the 18-49's are decent for a summer show)- this probably means fewer Gladiators and maybe they cut a host-please let it be Hulk- a big thing will be if Ben Silverman survives the fall season first..we won't hear anything for a while most likely- If they go ahead, they probably won't tape til November or December at the earliest...

(and for the Crush fans- Gina Carano will be fighting on CBS October 4th, and she has a part in the new Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 videogame coming out in October as well...loved the cartwheel celebration into the water BTW)

[Jeremy Nelson]

As far as our version goes, I would hope that it would turn into more of a sports show than a WWE type show. One of the small things I liked about the original version was when they showed the gladiator's stats for the event they competed in. That, combined with other small things like the telestrator and the decent commentary, made it feel like I was watching something somewhat sporty.

Something that would be cool (but they'll never add) is an on screen score line , like what you see on NBC's hockey and football games. If NBC orders a third season for '09, they should pimp the series' 20th Anniversary. Hard. Do what the UK Gladiators did and have original gladiators playing against the new gladiators. Since Adamle is already working for an NBC owned station, there's no conflict of interest to bring him back for a show or even a segment.

This past season, they made a mistake that many up and coming businesses make: they grew too fast. They added too many gladiators and events for people to keep up with.

Well, it could be worse. Here's the Australian version of Atlasphere. The announcer sounds like he's announcing a monster truck rally, and after the game, the referee actually hands out red cards. I'm all for letting the characters advertise their personalities, but don't tie it in to the proceedings like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PtWKpYWYY0

[tpirfan28]

Cutting a host...I'll bet a digital Benjamin it's Ali since she's pregnant.

And the vid is a point-and-shoot, but the glad's actions definitely deserved a penalty.

And I would never be the ref in THAT version....

[MikeK]

[quote name=\'weaklink75\' post=\'193431\' date=\'Aug 5 2008, 03:14 PM\'](and for the Crush fans- Gina Carano will be fighting on CBS October 4th, and she has a part in the new Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 videogame coming out in October as well...loved the cartwheel celebration into the water BTW)[/quote]
Carano also has several cards in the recently released Americana II card series from Donruss, the follow-up to the series which had Woolery, Eubanks, Martindale, and Peter Marshall cards.  Carano signed about 1000 autographs for the series--400 for swatch cards, 492 plain cards, and 100 "cut" autographs.  For more traditional game show fans, Regis Philbin and Vicki Lawrence are in Americana II.

[colonial]

AG is a bloated show altogether -- too many Gladiators, too many events, too many hosts.

Dumping Hulk Hogan should be the top priority -- he's a PR liability due to his personal and potential financial problems (from divorce proceedings and potential civil damages to John Graziano's family).  Get rid of Van Earl Wright as well, and pair Laila Ali with someone with sports PBP experience -- I could see Matt Vasgersian working well in this format (probably not available due to Fox Sports commitments).  Have Ali/PBP provide commentary during the events.

Reduce the number of events per show, and make sure that all events air -- no "highlights" of events that didn't make it to air.

Reduce the number of Gladiators -- NBC's AG Web site lists SEVENTEEN Gladiators.  Cut the number down to 8-10, with an equal number of male and female Gladiators.

I'd also move tapings from the L.A. Sports Arena, which probably costs a fortune to rent, and move it to, say, Universal Studios.  

JD

[clemon79]

Actually, I'm not sure why everyone seems to want to keep Ali around, either. Her only redeeming feature is that she's less annoying than Hogan, but she's not any more talented than he is either.

The thing about moving to a small facility: I don't want it to dick with the quality of the games. If they're gonna insist on keeping that swimming pool (and you know they will, everybody likes splashies!), would a move to Universal necessitate the re-shrinking of Hang Tough? Or would it force the Atlasphere field to a) shrink or b) be removed entirely?

[Jeremy Nelson]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'193442\' date=\'Aug 5 2008, 03:13 PM\']
The thing about moving to a small facility: I don't want it to dick with the quality of the games. If they're gonna insist on keeping that swimming pool (and you know they will, everybody likes splashies!), would a move to Universal necessitate the re-shrinking of Hang Tough? Or would it force the Atlasphere field to a) shrink or b) be removed entirely?
[/quote]
If they move to a smaller venue, say goodbye to Atlasphere and say hello to Season 1 of Hang Tough and Assault. Any shrinkage in field size, and you automatically dick with the quality of those two, at least.

Atlasphere would be a complete and utter traffic jam (more than it is already), and a waste of time if put on a smaller field. Unless of course, they put it in the pool as a sudden death event...now THAT's good TV.

[Joe Mello]

[quote name=\'colonial\' post=\'193440\' date=\'Aug 5 2008, 03:52 PM\']
I'd also move tapings from the L.A. Sports Arena, which probably costs a fortune to rent, and move it to, say, Universal Studios.[/quote]
A quick look of upcoming events in the Sports Arena makes me think that the owners of the would want to keep AG there.  I would also see no reason for NBC to want to move, especially if the Pyramid and Wall are still going to be permanent set fixtures.  The arena is a little narrow for Atlasphere, but it seems to keep all the other events at a nice size and doesn't look like a storage warehouse like the studio did.

If I had to cut events, I would remove Hit and Run, Vertigo, Earthquake, and Skytrack.  That leaves us with 12 events, which is fine (since about 9 are going to be used per match).

In terms of hosts, I keep remember that Dan "Nitro" Clark is Associate Producer and would probably be good for a quick fix if you wanted to dump both Hogan and Ali.

[Speedy G]

1) Tell NBC to make their mind up.  60 minutes makes them cut events out completely, 120 minutes stretched everything to death, and even with 90 minute shows, some flowed well, others started and ended slow.

2) I don't want to be the guy who says "bring back Adamle and Csonka, damnit" but... bring back Adamle and Csonka, damnit!  Or at the very least, get a competent play-by-play guy and a competent interviewer.  At best, they're currently batting about 0.5 out of 3, only because Laila had a few moments where her personality escaped the NBC edit machine.

3) They've spent two seasons making everything bigger and more intense.  How about spending a season ironing out the fine details?  Perhaps some work that makes it seem like they didn't just show up, throw the Pyramid in one corner, fill up the pool, load in the pyrotechnics, and start taping?

[TLEberle]

[quote name=\'Joe Mello\' post=\'193388\' date=\'Aug 4 2008, 10:46 PM\']In terms of stuff that's still cuttable, you'd be able to fit one extra event in safely (cut out all the spoilery stuff and you might have a round of Powerball right there).  The other I'm not so sure; I like the occasional interview and enough shenanigans so the Gladiators can show off their character.[/quote]There's a difference between "character" and "caricature." On the old version, the Gladiators were the tough enforcers. They didn't rely on "acting" in a certain way, because they had a job to do and that was it. The drama was in the contender/Gladiator conflict, and ultimately in the Eliminatior. AG'08 manufactures that drama in their ham-fisted way and it sucks. Get rid of the "What are you gonna do to HIM? And what're YOU gonna do to HIM?" bit, as well as the stat-sheet cutaways (rather than fonting up the height-weight-girth-allergies) thing while preparing for battle, and you can easily get more actual content.

[quote name=\'Brig Bother\' post=\'193391\' date=\'Aug 5 2008, 02:25 AM\']Failing that, making them 2 and 5 has worked quite well in the UK one, it makes the middle bucket properly worth a risk.[/quote]This is interesting. For all the extra effort and risk you have to undertake to turn an outer bucket score into an inner bucket score, here in the states the delta hasn't been all that much. Two or five is neat.