Stunning results for ‘Biggest Losers’
Helen Phillips
The three-hour finale was the only thing padded about this season’s “Biggest Loser.” Wow, what results. Winner Helen (48 years old: awesome) weighed in at 117 pounds, down 54 percent from her start. Runner-up Mike lost 207 pounds and Tara shed 155. And perhaps most impressively, 64-year-old Jerry, who went home in the second week of the show, came back to pick up the at-home prize with a 177-pound loss.
The finale itself was about 2 hours too long, but with all the recaps and emotion, that would have been OK — EXCEPT that they still managed to run out of time (deliberately, it seemed) and announce the winner with just 30 seconds left. If we’ve invested all that time, don’t we at least deserve a reaction from the person taking home $250,000?
I’m glad you posted the same thing I intended to on a different forum. IMO, this show has jumped the shark for several reasons. First, in a typical 2 hour episode, at least half of that is padded with commercials. Half of the remaining time is nothing more than the host (which annoys me to no end) repeating herself before and after commercials. Between the commercials, the cheesy emotional moments, and the host’s nonsense, I can no longer watch this show. I did tune in at times last night to see the winner’s of this season, and agree completely with you that after 3 hours of padded flub, there was 30 seconds (if that) of the winner. This is a terribly produced show. It should be dropped to 1 hour per episode and tightened up siginificantly. But then again, I can see NBC milking this continually, because what else is there to watch on this network?
You should never watch this show live. I TiVo’d it and after FF thru the BS, I watched it in an hour. When I did stop to watch, I was ready to scream when Allison kept saying “Wow, Jerry, you are really old and you are still standing here, blah, blah, blah”. Anyways, congrats to everyone and as Mike and Ron said, they are all winners (except for David, you idiot and Joelle, you psycho). My Tara didn’t win, but these finalists were so likable that I didn’t care who won.
the best thing about the biggest loser is that the show is an escape from the stupid, ratings loving, simon and the american idol. there are a few things that could be adjusted to make it a more compact enjoyable show. all in all though it gives us a tuesday night entertaining evening!
Spot-on about the padding. When I saw the listing that the show went from 7-10, I knew I was safe watching “DWTS” and just flipping back-n-forth. I didn’t even bother to tape it.
Loved that Helen won. Was surprised that Tara finished where she did - it’s clear that being at home is more of a struggle for her and I wish her well as she continues. Mike is amazing and so inspirational. I really, really hope he and Ron can pass on to Max all that they learned since they had the advantage of being at the ranch for the whole season.
And I really, really hope the show gets new production ideas for next season as in be more concise and cut the filler, and bring back the hostess from before - this one is annoying!
What do you mean it was a struggle for Tara to be at home? So what if she didn’t win the money? She looks awesome. I don’t think you can say that she struggled, having lost 155 lbs total. If anything, Helen looks like she lost about 5 lbs too many. Good for Helen that she won, though, sounds like her family is going to need the money…