Given the success of that weekly two-hour reality behemoth, The Biggest Loser, NBC decided that what America needs is yet another 60 minutes. Jazzercise class, please welcome celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels.
The premise of Losing It With Jillian Michaels (Tuesdays, 8:00 ET, NBC, DISH 75) is that Michaels swoops into a family’s life, stays for five days, then returns in six to eight weeks to find everyone’s wasitlines significantly reduced. Then she flies off again, and everything is great!
Michaels isn’t a psychologist, but she plays one to her clients. At least she’s consistent: Michaels was overweight as a child, and her philosophy as a trainer is that unless the client comes to a realization of the emotional causes of obesity, any weight that’s lost will eventually reappear. “That’s the problem with gastric bypass,” she tells a cast member who lays on the floor crying. And then, of course, there’s the yelling (one daughter trundling her way around a stadium track gets a hearty “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT FEAR MEANS UNTIL I HAVE TO COME GET YOU!”)
Her (angry, angry) heart is in the right place. But… sheesh, man, these are some serious issues she’s tangling with here. Young widows, parents who have lost children, hoarders, unemployed single parents … this is heavy stuff. Online rumors suggest that dietitians, trainers, and most importantly licensed therapists are behind the scenes, but they aren’t acknowledged here– just the doctors who deliver pronouncements of doom to the families, then vanish.
What’s good about this series–other than the telegenic and likable Michaels herself–is that it retains the strong qualities of The Biggest Loser while toning down its more offputting aspects. There’s no 90 minutes of fake scales and voting drama, no laying out of Vegas buffetts before the obese, and far fewer awkward product placements.
This is not to say, however, that the show doesn’t have its own parade of Awkward: In the premiere, Michaels visits a family which is preparing for a wedding. When she re-vists at the ceremony, she’s plopped at the end of the aisle, where everyone stops for a little visit on the way to the altar. Okay, I like Jillian? But at my wedding, I’m blowin’ past her on my way down the aisle.
Losing It is long on tears and short on nutritional advice beyond “Throw out everything with high fructose corn syrup!” and “What the hell is hot pepper jelly?” But I’d far rather see Jillian Michaels in Uggs and sweats than yet another Bachelor contestant debut yet another bikini, and that makes Losing It at least a good bet for the cardio theater at the gym.
