Gladiators

Gladiators was touted as the next big thing when it started in 1991. People said it was going to be big and become more popular than other forms of entertainment such as wrestling. It is now 2002 and Gladiators is a distant memory.

Gladiators was a repetitive and monotonous show which had an intriguing concept but fell short in many areas.

Ulrika Johnson and ex-footballer John Fashanu presented as each week, four contestants (two males, two females) would pit their wits against the Gladiators (such as Wolf and Shadow) in a series of games which were designed to push the contestants to their physical limits. Points from the games would convert into seconds to be used in the final game where the competitors would race each other over a huge assault course in order to try and win a place in the Grand Final.

The series hardly changed-they did bring in different games at times but it was quite boring and repetitive. The Gladiators themselves were not exactly high on charisma (with the exception of a couple) which didn't help the show. You never felt the Gladiators were real people when you watched the show-they were more like robots. You could watch one episode of this but if you watched any others, they were all identical to the one you watched. A few more interviews with the Gladiators and different games each week would have been the answer.

Gladiators has been off the air for awhile and is dead and buried. It ran it's course and I feel that the show did a lot of things wrong and didn't do anything really memorable. Not one I would recommend.

I was asked what show defined my teenage years, I thought of many, then remembered Gladiators.

Watching clips now, it's totally cheesy and way over the top, but at the time, it was the highlight of the week, a formula that worked incredibly well, before we were expected to sit through mind numbing so called talent shows. 2020, and we're still being fed vacuous talent shows. Why not try the Gladiators format.

It was fun, exciting, and wasn't afraid to show the body beautiful, incredible, athletic Amazonians, and chiseled, muscle bound Adonises. I met Hawk several years back, can remember just looking at him wondering how anyone could look like that. Did they run the show for too long? Yes, they probably did.

Ripping good fun, 9/10.

(Scottish accent) Gladiator Ready! Contestant Ready! Micheal you will go on my first whistle! David you will go on my second whistle!

I loved the gladiators I thought that this programme made classic British Saturday nights possible.

Where else can you see HUGE grown men in liatards running around an arena trying to hit each other with giant cotton buds. I mean the person who invented this programme is either crazy or a genius...Either way the government has probably captured him doing all weird experiments on his brain.

Gladiators definitely ROCKED me!

So, Gladiators, the hit of the early 1990s. An striking example of how strong physical fitness can be a benefit to you, or an excuse to watch grown men and women running around in tight lycra shorts?

Initially this was good - it was new and it was interesting and, well, it looked good. An excuse for cheap kicks though, watching beautiful women in lycra which might explain the ratings.

The show was slow though - it was really struggling to fill its 60min time slot in some places. There was far too much talking and not enough action - I mean really, six games in 52 minutes of programme, I ask you? Fun House (the UK version) was able to cram five events (three sixty second games, a go-kart race and a two minute fun-house dash) into the space of just 25mins.

And that show lasted longer than Gladiators!

Thre's only so much one can take of John Anderson going "Contender, rrrrrrrready?! Gladiators, rrrrready?! Threeeee, twoooooo, oneeee, *blow whistle*. Likewise, there's only so much one can take of The Wolfman running around breaking all the rules, getting told off and making Ulrika Jonson quake in her boots. And when they started getting other officials to start talking down the microphone to announce stuff such as "You completed the danger zone in 25.9 seconds which is under 30 seconds" it became obvious where the show was going to go in terms of target audience (and it was confirmed when they made Junior Gladiators as well).

The games got dafter and more unimaginative as the years went by and the powers that be decided to almost totally drop all the earlier games. There was only so many ways to see contestant and gladiator compete against each other and stay transmittable for Saturday Night television. Of course, they'd used them all up by about the third series so games after that were rehashed versions of what had gone before. So then of course there was no variety. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Would have been better I reckon if there wasn't so much talking! I personally wasn't really that interested in hearing what Diane from Somerset thought about bashing Phoenix's brains out with the pugal stick, nor was there any real point in getting John Anderson to ham the audience up with the previously quoted phrase before every event, a clear sign that the warm-up man wasn't doing his job properly. Gladiators had just about lost its way altogether by the time it finished its run and we'd lost all interest by then. More variety needed, take note for whoever decides to revive this in the future.

Gladiators was one of quite a few TV programmes that were perfect for Saturday night television in the UK.

Unfortunately, the 1990's are over, and the one surviving programme from this era - 'You've Been Framed' - is the one we all wish was axed before the others.

Jim Davidson's 'Big Break', followed by his 'Generation Game', with 'Noel's House Party', 'Bullseye', the excitement with the intro of the 'National Lottery' in 1994, along with 'Gladiators' were perfect for Saturday nights. They were rubbish at times, repetitive, yes... however the light, chicken Nugent entertainment was perfect for everyone to wind down to after a tough week.

In this era even 'Grandstand' was worth watching! However, looking at Saturday Night TV now is very depressing - on the odd night I'm in I struggle to find decent Saturday Night Entertainment, and often end up watching a DVD.

I'm not saying bring Gladiators back, but this formula was successful for drawing a wide audience.

The mid-1990's was the peak for Saturday night TV as a whole, at the moment it is on a rapid decline.