German TV-channel RTL jumped on the bandwagon of Ninja Warrior (NW) with success last year. Now they tried their own thing with Big Bounce, clearly inspired by NW, but having the trampoline as the central apparatus for the whole course, where in NW trampolines are only one of many different kinds of devices. In my opinion this focus on a single type of equipment is the biggest flaw of Big Bounce, in comparison to NW.
But there are more flaws:
1. The show is not about beating the course. For the top athletes, the courses aren't even that difficult. It's all about who is the fastest. For me, the big fascination with NW is the question, whether someone can beat the course at all, to be impressed by the unbelievable strength and skill of the athletes. That's completing lacking in Big Bounce. And it's not even really about finding out, who is the best of the best, it's more about not making any mistake, because those are usually the deal breakers in terms of time. In the end, I felt a lot of luck was involved, because these small mistakes can happen to any of them.
2. Most obstacles in the show are completely uninteresting. Each of the courses usually only had one or two obstacles that really mattered, that determined the outcome of the race. The rest was filler.
3. The first five shows felt all the same, not enough change up in terms of obstacles. That's on top of the fact, that you only have variations of trampoline obstacles in the first place.
As for the positive:
1. Some obstacles are actually really interesting, and I would have loved to see them implemented in Ninja Warrior (for example the final obstacle is similar to the Spider Climb, only that the walls are trampolines, so you had to bounce your way up between the walls). I would also have liked it, if they would have made just a single really tough course with only obstacles of the interesting type, one harder than the one before, and made everything about if someone can beat it at all.
2. Overall a lot of good athletes.
Bottom line: It's ok for one season, but probably won't watch a second season.
