Gladiators

The main problem with reviving a program such as Gladiators is that people will always compare it to the original. This remake was not that bad, as you could see a lot of hard work and good effort was put into it, considering they had a smaller venue and less financing. It's a shame that this show was axed after only two seasons, as viewers were starting to bond with the new Gladiators, the number of events were increasing and the contestants were diverse and unique. Even though the gladiators themselves were very different from the originals, the show was still entertaining in its own unique way.

So after a absence of 8 Years Gladiators returns to our TV Screens. Produced by Shine Productions and screened on UK digital Channel SkyOne this has been one of the most anticipated TV revivals for years.

Sadly the return has been a Anti-Climax for Die Hard Viewers like myself and any new viewers that the show was wanting to bring in.

I don't know if this makes sense but its too different without being different enough from the original. The main problems are...

The Format - There is Very little "Event" action throughout the show with only 4 Games plus the Eliminator and far too many interviews. Yes its nice to get to know the contenders but the Glads are the stars of the show. Of course being on Sky there are 3 Ad breaks that cut a quarter of the running time off the show.

The Gladiators - There are very few "Personalities" in there so far. Saying that we are 11 weeks in at time of review and no one has shone through with the possible exception of SPARTAN. This is probably down to looks as well as ability. Some have tried like OBLIVION with his nasty guy act but sorry my friend. YOU Ain't NO WOLF MAN!

The Events - 8 Original, 1 new. One of the failings of the original show was a lack of decent new games, bringing a show back for the "21st Century" and simply adding water to a few is not exactly a massive improvement. New games were needed but sadly this did not happen.

The Venue - Although quoted as "The biggest Purpose built Set in UK Teevision history" its just too small. The whole thing looks very cramped and simply thrown together and things were put where they would fit. Again with the small venue the atmosphere just isn't there.

Having been at filming for the shows, i can say it was a lot better in person. I suppose as any live event would be. On screen the whole thing came as very rushed and sloppy. There were only 5 months between the revival being announced and the show being screened. A massive production like this needed more time and effort invested in it.

The viewing figures are dropping by the week with for example the show losing 700,000 viewers between Shows 1 and 3. No matter how Fans dress it up, it simply is not working.

Will we get Season 2 - Nothing is certain, but if we do changes we need changes, BIG CHANGES.

If anyone from Shine/Skyone is reading this, I'm free to act as a adviser!

So to sum up the whole show has been a very big let down. Having debated this on online forums with fellow fans, i was lambasted for "Comparing it to the Original" but its both hard and silly not to. After all, it was a revival. Just a very poor one!

How can I type ten lines on this load of rubbish?!?!? Or more to the point, how can I type ten lines on this load of rubbish?!?!? I am really going to struggle with this review! This should NEVER have been brought back! OK, so that's not quite true as I did want to see what was new about it after all of the hype that Sky had caused and created and I was so very, very disappointed! The games are the same, the only difference being that instead of hitting a crash mat when a contestant or gladiator the person now lands in a swimming pool. The eliminator is slightly different in that they have to swim a bit first to get to the cargo net and they have to run up the pyramid to get to the zip line. Other than that, no difference. Oh whoop-de-doo for that because that really adds to the 'excitement'. (Oh, and if you think I being serious in the previous sentence I wasn't, I was being sarcastic!). The costumes are less daring/much less daring and are boring/more boring to look at than they were in the nineties, almost as if they had been designed on the prudishness of the seventies or eighties. People are saying how bad John Fashanu was in the original Gladiators (personally, I thought he was better than Ulrika Jonsson, but there wasn't a lot in it!), well Ian wright should never present anything ever again as he is absolutely, infinitely worse than dire! With all of the hype and the fact that so much was made of the swimming pool I thought the program would be full of brand new games from start to finish instead of trying to fob us viewers off with 'old favourites' (emphasis on the old!) proving that they couldn't be bothered to sit down for five minutes and think of something new not just for above the pool but I'm sure they could also have thought about games to play in it too. I know I could!