Tuesday night’s highwater of hilarity came not from watching various members of Congress shoot mental death rays at the backs of one another’s heads, but courtesy of NBC’s Biggest Loser (DISH 241, Tuesdays, 8 PM) Typically the episodes are a turgid two- hour wasteland of product placement and catching everyone up on the breathtaking! action! of various people standing on a fake scale while other various people look shocked and cry. “It's time for The Morbidly Obese Crying Hour!”—that’s what we excitedly say to one another when we tune in to The Biggest Loser in our house. Or, more accurately, DVR it and watch the whole shebang in about forty-five minutes.
Boy, am I glad I didn’t fast forward this: On Tuesday, America was presented with the bonus of toned people crying. Trainer switches are nothing new to this show; teams are split up, yanked about, forced to hawk Ziplock, and any number of other indignities. When the contestants are isolated from their families, comfort foods, and usual schedule, it’s to be expected that they’ll attach fiercely to one another. These people are working hard, and more than likely dealing with a lifetime of hangups and rejection at the same time. However, in the hyperbubble of reality television, unexpected changes suddenly translate as federal disasters, possibly warranting a Presidential helicopter fly-over.
This season’s team reorganization came with extra sodium and a Hefty bag of snotty Kleenex on the side. Trainer Bob Harper was apparently on his period when the episode was shot: He spotted his former team from afar, the string quartet in the background swelled, and he approached one of his former female teammates as though the two had just broken up a week before prom. And indeed, there hasn’t been this much rending of garments since Kelly dumped Zach for that charming statutory rapist Jeff.
Before long, two other contestants then joined the wake, and then… the montage. The montage of their... several weeks with one another, apparently passed chiefly by jumping up on boxes. They wept, and they montaged, Bob and his former team, and beat their breasts and demanded of God whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they had to stand out here on these gorgeous grounds with all meals and transportation paid for, heading into... quadruple bypass surgery? Being fed to wild wombats? Nay, several more weeks of training… across the hall from one another.
Under normal circumstances, it would have been hilarious. But on a day when there’s an awful lot of people out of work and tensions are rising across all sorts of borders, it was just… gross.
