Physical: 100: Underground

October 22, 2024 7:38 AM - Season 2 (Full Season)

Second season with the same premise as the season one: 100 competitors, all known for their well-developed physical attributes and physique, go head-to-head in various individual and team challenges, or 'quests' of strength, balance, agility, endurance, willpower and strategy.
posted by autopilot (1 comment total)

And I'm going to rehash my comment from season one: please scale the challenges to the mass of the competitors! Things that they are merely hard for a 150kg weightlifter with a steroid jacked body are impossible for a 50kg track and field athlete. The one event that was scaled to 40% of body mass occurs after all of the women have been eliminated. To quote Don Pepino in the season one thread: I want them to redo the entire thing but switch up the order of the competitions to weed out the musclebound gym behemoths and favor my preferred body type, namely the "muscles from actual real life superheroing like being a firefighter or a mountain rescuer" people.

The team events could also use far more cooperation between different skills (like some agility as well as brute strength) and the "turn on your team mates" episode would have been more interesting if alliances between different teams was possible rather than just a "each of you have to pull this giant thing really far". Also, I'm not a fan of the "grab the ball and turn turtle for five minutes" challenge that shows up again this year. It's not as compelling on the different arenas as they try to hype it up to be.

Final thought -- the trash talking was less respectful this year, possibly due to having more muscle-bros and fewer professional athletes. One of the parts that I really enjoyed in season one was how all of the competitors spoke so highly of each other and what an honor it is to challenge them even if they lose, and less about how much they were going to beat them because they are the absolute bestest best at being the best.
posted by autopilot at 7:52 AM on October 22