The Biggest Loser

I love the Biggest Loser. Love it. Even the US version, with Sammy ‘my twin brother Eric is now on Supernatural and I’m stuck on Days’ Brady. But nowhere near as much as I love the homegrown edition. I’ve never missed a series. I remember A..J…Rochester…and …her…amazing…hosting…skills, before she defected to Excess Baggage. I cry in the first episode and the last, and so many times in between. I know I’m being emotionally manipulated by contrived editing, sonorous voiceovers and poor scripting. But sometimes I just have to admit – in what I promise will not be the last poor food analogies – that TBL is like a big cylinder of sour cream and onion Pringles: I’ve popped, and now I can’t stop.

Imagine my excitement when the new season – Biggest Loser Singles – started on Monday night. While initially disappointed that TBL franchise hasn’t taken advantage of the occasion by releasing a new line of low fat processed cheese slices, I was immediately hooked. Who knew that the four trainers had spent the off season as adjunct professors at Biggest Loser University, producing such high quality research findings as ‘Australians are amongst the fattest people in the world.’ Call the NHMRC and get these people fellowships IMMEDIATELY. From there it was action stations as our research team moved into fieldwork. We swiftly cross to Tiffany, cruising in the white Barbievan to round up the four poor souls who will be dazzled in the dojang. Michelle was onto it too, jogging into a pizza shop to – as ‘busy hands’ Margie smartly observed – ‘not buy pizza’. Next minute, Bridges was in the highlands of Tasmania, to save Lydia from what seemed destined to be a life spent dressing like her horse. Shannon, too, was all over it, from pub to – well, pub – rounding up his ‘stallions’. And Commando – well, frankly, who gives a crap what he does, just keep that man on my screen.

So far, pretty standard TBL practice. Except for the subtle motif that the four scholars have cunningly woven into their interrogation of – excuse me, introduction to – this year’s contestants.

Love.

Or, more to the point, how shit life is without it and what a pitiful excuse for a life you have,  dragging yourself along the ground by your lips each day, just trying to survive this suffocating loneliness. No wonder you eat, your life is so empty.

Oh, that’s unfair of me. They didn’t say the last bit. Just.

Let’s hope that once the mandatory and humiliating shots of contestants in their underwear, camera panning slowly over bum cracks and gunts (yes, it’s a word – look it up), this show will stop seeking to psychologically scar each and every one of these people and focus on what it has ostensibly brought them to Camp BL to do.

Make us feel better while we eat our dinner in front of the tv. Sorry. Change their lives.

I’ll be watching every day, and will be charting a number of important BL statistics. These include:

Soul-o-scope sightings: Shannon not only has a BMW, seven surfboards, and a baby on the way. He has an amazing capacity to look into the soul of contestants. I’ll be keeping track of how many times he avails himself of this Patricia Arquettian gift.

Dojang: For the first half of last series I thought this was Korean for toothpaste plus whitener. But no, apparently it is some sacred training space comprising Ikea room dividers and an Ab Circle Pro. Attention will be paid to this and all other references to martial arts, including ‘my ninjas’, ‘my warriors’, and ‘I have a poster of Lauren Burns on my toilet door.’

Commando: I’ll just pay attention to whatever he’s doing. I just may not be able to type while he’s doing it.

No crying in the gym: this, and other motivating Michellisms, including ‘suck it up’, ‘get over yourself’, and ‘build a me and get over it’, will be closely monitored. As will eyeball circumference.

K-Fed: how many contestants can he knock up while losing weight/going into cardiac arrest? Another show, sure, but who cares?

So, bring on BL2012. And please, FloMo, call your lawyers. No one needs to hear those credits for the next three months.

MC