The Biggest Loser: I give you permission to hate me now

Posted by Dan October 9th, 2007 at 01:05pm In Guilty Pleasures Reality

We give people who watch certain shows a lot of shit.

And I’d say rightfully so, for the most part. If you really guffaw at Two and a Half Men (or the generic Everybody Loves Raymond-y standard sitcom), you probably just don’t know any better. But then I go ahead and confess that I fucking love The Biggest Loser and then you wonder why you read this blog and lend me any credibility at all.

So let’s break it down.

We’ve established that I love the competitive reality genre — Project Runway, Top Chef, the whole Bravo oeuvre. But, unfortunately, this love stretches to the competitive weight loss subgenre.

The Biggest Loser (and Celebrity Fit Club, that’s a whole other embarassment) is something I’m ashamed of loving. Actively ashamed. It’s not like sneaking a few minutes of E! News Daily with Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic. I mean, you’re not human if you don’t recharge every once in a while by catching a few minutes of Lohan rehab update. But The Biggest Loser has become a show I make a concerted effort to TiFaux.

In fact, my DVR inexplicably cut off during last week’s episode, causing me no end of distress (later, I found out that Patty got cut — serves her right for that team-sabotaging eating binge she went on the week before).

What do I love about The Biggest Loser? Let me explain it in a numbered list:

1. The closing shots when we find out how much weight the eliminated contestant has lost to this day.
2. Hot, hot tattooed trainer Bob.
3. The ridiculously long weigh-ins.
4. The ethically questionably temptation challenges.
5. Shots of people screaming on the elliptical.
6. The shameless product placement (the show has previously given away the “Jello Grand Prize,” making me think that every reality show should call their prize money the “Jello Grand Prize”).
7. The fact that they gave longtime host Caroline Rhea the boot in order to give the gig to a soap star Alison Sweeney, who looks exactly like her.
8. The huge gimmicks they use every season (last season had the 50 states challenge, this season there’s the renegade black team — I’d explain, but it’s totally not worth it).

There’s a lot to not like about the show, though. Like the weepy “what this experience means to me” segments and the fact that it’s totally fast-forwardable after the weigh-in.

This is really not a show I’m going to try to defend, but I’m definitely going to continue to watch.