Ok, so it might be a bit of a stretch to call American Gladiators a ‘legendary’ TV show, but if you were like me as a kid, you saw more than your fair share of the program.

Thanks to ESPN Classic, it’s been pretty easy to catch reruns of the original lately. That, and the huge campaign NBC put behind the new version, is why I was so interested to see Hulk Hogan and Layla Ali revamp my childhood favorite.

I tuned in last night for the first 15 minutes of the new American Gladiators and immediately noticed the show was not simply a contest of physical ability - it had morphed into a reality show, complete with in-depth contestant bios, cut scenes, poor voice-overs from the hosts and inconsistent shot editing. Not exactly what I was expecting.

I may be the only person who wanted it to be great. And, I may be the only person in America who was actually disappointed that it was not great.

I can’t imagine why NBC would want to take the show so seriously, but that was most definitely the problem. I don’t care why the contestants want to win 100,000 dollars - I just want hard tackles and little league quality sportsmanship.

The WGA and studios need to figure out something relatively soon, because if this is what they’re going to offer up as a replacement to quality programming, I’m going to take up needlepoint.

Filed under: Branding, Personal Opinions