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.

Two men and two women compete against same sex gladiators in a series of physical challenges. Points are awarded for different levels of achievements in each game. At the end of the show points are converted to time, with the most points giving one contestant a head start over an assault course (The Gauntlet), the winner in each sex went through to the next round of shows leading to the grand final.

Once this was an original idea - game shows with real physical competition! Real people facing off against larger than life Gladiators. This allowed the competition to be intense and exciting, allowed for the Gladiators to be characters and over react to everything - treating every game like it was the World Cup Final! For a while it worked, we forgot that the Gladiators were steroid pumped and really lacked character, and we forgot that the games were a bit daft and were pretty much the same every week. As a bit of Saturday night entertainment it was up against the unbeatable (at the time!) Noel's House Party and actually did pretty well. And of course we all pretended that we watched it for the competition and not to see beautiful women, sweating in small shorts!

However as the years went on the presenters became less capable, the Gladiators were revealed as basically pantomime dames with muscles and the games became either tired (due to endless repetition) or silly (as they searched for new ideas). Now (2002) the idea of fighting as a game show has been done so many times (with paintball, with robots etc) that it no longer has a novelty value.

Overall it was OK at the start but quickly became camp and uninteresting - how many times can you watch Wolf shouting at a referee before being ejected from the game with an air of daftness. Gone and forgotten!

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.

When this series was first advertised back in 1992, I honestly didn't know what to think. It looked like a bunch of oiled up men and women wrestling and pushing their chests out.

However my mind was changed after watching the first episode. It was something I had never seen the likes of before. Action, entertainment, funny, sad and so much more. Gladiators was everything a Saturday Night TV show should be and it remained this Way for 8 seasons! Gladiators came and went, some good some bad some already famous in their own right. All in all over the 8 years the show had a total of 34 Glads (I would list them all and show what a geek I am, but I don't want to bore you all!). Quite a big turnover for any show, but it was good to see new faces, this was dismissed by some fans but I though it was a good thing! At its peak in 1995, this is a show that was pulling in 15 million viewers, those of you who keep a eye on viewing figures will know thats unheard off these days. It was massive not only in the UK, but overseas with several countries making their own versions (Australia, South Africa and Finland to name a few). As well as this the UK series had many spin offs including 2 International Series, 2 Ashes Series, 2 Springbok Series and 4 Train to Win series (Junior Version). This obviously shows how big it was at one time! However the shows downfall in my view, and a few others I have talked to started in 1997 when things started to get a bit sloppy. Poor new events, to many new Glads, same events week in week out, as much as it pains me to say this about a show i adore it was getting stale. However 1998 was the clincher and the nail in the coffin. It was obviously decided a change was needed and some new factors were borough in, 3 new events instead of only 1 like the past few years, new costumes for the Glads, new behind the scenes footage etc but this was hated by the majority of fans and didn't work whatsoever! This was simply the end.

The problem was the changes were left too late to make a impact, after 6 years, the die hard fans had become used to things being a certain way, the changes were seen as a act of desperation and too little too late.

For those of you still interested in the show, it hasn't gone away! The show and us die hard fans are still around! There is a very active online site and forum as well as replays on UK Digital Channel Challenge TV every weeknight and weekends! I have been asked several times should the show come back! My answer has always been and still is NO! Sadly TV has moved on and it wouldn't fit in anymore. Lets leave this show as a classic fond memory. Thats what it deserves!

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.