Deadliest Warrior

I've watched the first 2 episodes 1. Gladiator vs Apache Warrior and 2. Viking vs Samurai and was very impressed. The show uses a lot of the high tech data devices like Sports Science and goes as in-depth as possible in the shows time slot. It uses multiple factors in deciding who would win the fights. That range from distance to weapons used. The use of modern day experts in the cultures make for great trash talking. Other fights to look forward to include Spartans, ninja's and pirates. If your interested in the history of warriors throughout time and can believe in the science deciding the winner then this show is a must watch.

When I first saw the preview to this show a while back, I thought to myself, "I blame the whole PIRATE VS NINJA Internet Meme" for creating this bizarre show.

So, I watched the pilot, which was "Apache vs. Gladiator" and overall, I am biting my cheek right now because I recall watching something similar to this on Discovery Channel a few years back called "Animal Face Off" where "battle data" is taken from the contenders and put in a computer simulation. I actually, have an episode of that show titled "Hippo vs. Bull Shark" and the result of that fight still annoys me, but still I can't stop laughing about it. Another show, that similar that show is currently airing is "Jurassic Fight Club."

Anyway, "Deadliest Warrior" has a similar to motif to "Animal Face Off" and "Jurassic Fight Club", but instead of wild animals or dinosaurs, this show uses types of warriors.

I'm not sure if I should classify this as something in the realm of shows like "Human Weapon", "Fight Quest", "Weapon Masters", "Deadliest Art", "XMA: Extreme Martial Arts" or "Fight Science."

Overall, this show is pretty decent for all the corniness the show offers. It will irritate you, but at the same time make you laugh; thus pulling you as the viewer to watch the show for what its worth despite knowing how stupid it will eventually become as time goes on. But you just can't help yourself.

Man, I can just see something like "Deadliest Monster Face Off" in the future and it will feature stuff like "Mummy vs. Zombie vs. Werewolf vs. Vampire" or something bizarre like that.

I must first say about this series that the premise is outstanding, and one that has crossed my mind on numerous occasions. What would happen if a medieval knight met up with a samurai? Who would be victorious in battle?

The show then attempts to determine whom is the better warrior amongst two different kinds in history - in many cases two warriors that are separated by many centuries. The arms and armors available to these warriors are demonstrated, both in their lethal potential or in their stopping power in the case of armor. The demonstrations are fascinating, including weapons experts that strike or fire their weapons at ballistics gel encased, and presumably reproduction skeletons. A physician or medical specialist then examines the footage, or the dummy in some cases, and describes the type of trauma inflicted. At the end, we get a well choreographed fight between two re-enactors dressed in costume to simulate the potential outcome of such a contest, as well as a statistics model that determines the winner in 1,000 contests. I like this concept because despite the advantages a particular warrior might possess over another, the randomness of combat will ensure that even the presumably better warrior will lose at least a percentage of the time.

The problems with the show are many, however, and seriously challenge the credibility of the participants. As others have pointed out, a warrior is more than the sum of his weapons and armor, which the show spends the most amount of time demonstrating. I think the premise could be dropped and have the show focus on weapons demonstrations only. Although the mindset, culture, tactics, and goals of each warrior are mentioned, these descriptions are brief and superficial. In addition,the hypothetical combats displayed are all duels. Most of the warriors portrayed would rarely, if ever, be faced with a duel situation, instead fighting in a unit of many soldiers/warriors. The worst part for me has to be the banter or trash talk between the weapons experts representing each respective warrior. It reminds me of a WWE matchup or a pre-boxing/MMA trash session instead of a presumably serious and/or scientific look at a hypothetical combat situation.

At any rate, I do enjoy the show because it has many good aspects. But the flaws do not make for "must-see" TV. If they would focus a little more on the tactics, drop the banter, and perhaps consider tactical unit combat instead of duels, I believe the show would be much improved. The producers are obviously trying to cater to a younger, action thirsty crowd, perhaps in an effort to make history more interesting. I applaud this rationale if nothing else, but the more discriminating viewers with a desire for logical and factual history, such as myself, are often left wanting.

If any wish for a superior show with similarities to DW, check out an earlier History Channel series called "Conquest" with Peter Woodward. The latter is more mature, yet still with some light hearted moments. It covers nearly every criticism I have for DW and then some (see my review).

EDIT: I had not seen Season 3 prior to this original review, and S3 does cover some of my criticisms for the first two Seasons. The banter here has been toned down substantially and the combats all consist of units fighting each other. The warrior's mindsets, values, and motivations are explored with the addition of Richard Machowicz. I also liked the addition of the "X Factors" as well, or somewhat intangible characteristics such as mental health or physical fitness which could positively or negatively impact a side's performance. Overall the changes added a more serious and scientific component to the show that was a substantial improvement IMO.

There are still a few problems that I saw, particularly with the tendency to match two opponents who were not a very good matchup to begin with. Hannibal and Genghis Khan was a good example, as they were separated by nearly 1,400 years and Khan's armor and weapons technology was far superior. Same could be said of William the Conqueror and Joan of Arc. It was a little silly to see a unit of five men firing a heavy artillery piece at each other as well. The elite modern soldiers did not have weapons that they most likely would have carried. I am particularly thinking about the Rangers/North Korea and Gurkha/French Foreign Legion in that all these soldiers would have probably carried hand grenades and a pistol of some kind. Roosevelt/Lawrence of Arabia or even Washington/Napolean would have probably had pistols as well. Oddly enough, only Pancho Villa/Crazy Horse were depicted carrying pistols.

In general, the format changes in S3 were an improvement and I enjoyed it quite a bit more than the previous seasons.

Explaining the premise of this show to someone is truly humiliating. I'd rather just not bring it up. For those who don't know, it's a "who would win" contest where they choose warriors from history who never had a chance to fight. Often times these warriors are separated by centuries or even millenia, but they try to make the matchups as fair as possible.

It's a fun show to watch. Certainly the best part of the show is watching the weapon experts at work. The horseback archery from Attila vs Alexander, the blademaster from William Wallace vs Shaka Zulu, and the quickdraw and trick shooting from Jesse James vs Al Capone come to mind as some of my favorite moments.

Unfortunately, it's got a lot of problems. They are very, very loose with historical accuracy, and often they do an awful job of picking weapons - especially with the modern day warriors. They rarely test armor and almost never test shields - only the Spartan and the Viking had a real shield test. The outcome is decided by a simulator which runs on magic, and the decisions are questionable at best.

The choreographed fights are hit or miss. Some are thrilling, like Apache vs Gladiator, but some are downright stupid, like Roman Centurion vs Rajput Warrior, where the Roman throws his shield aside for no reason halfway through. They also rarely, if ever, show actions in the choreographed fights that match up with the tests or results.

This is definitely "turn your brain off", guts, gore, and splodin'-style entertainment. Actually, who am I kidding? You already knew if you were going to watch this show when you read the synopsis. You are either the right audience, or you aren't.

Don't get me wrong. This ranks up there with my other low brow comedy shows on Spike like "1,000 ways to die." It's great for something to relax to, and watching people get splattered makes it all the more fun. But accurate it is not.

Their firearms knowledge is ludicrous. For example, on the Yakuza vs. Mafia episode they stated the Yakuza used the Walther P-38 pistol. Yet the graphics they showed were of a P-08 Luger. These are two totally, totally different looking pistols designed close to half a century apart. They had the IRA carrying a Boer War period .455 Webley revolver and they touted its reliability over a Makarov. I own both. There is no comparison between the Makarov and the Webley. You can't hit the broad side of a barn with a Webley.

They do not test uniformly. In the Yakuza vs. Mafia episode, the Mafia had six machine gun targets they had to hit with the Thompson. The Yakuza only had four they had to hit with a Sten. That gave the Sten an easier score. Worse still, they used completely different ways of testing the Russian hand grenade and the US hand grenade. Why not do something logical - put three pig carcases up in an enclosed room and see how each grenade does? It's a uniform test? I shouldn't expect too much from Spike. It's unabashedly guy TV, and I like that. But they could do a lot better job with a little more care.