Who wants to be a Superhero?

I saw a commercial for this and found the concept interesting. A reality show that people try to become Superheros. 6 episodes with 11 contestants fighting to become the one super hero, 2 contestants are eliminated each episode. I really don’t like the reality show genre, but the superhero twist I thought would be neat.

After watching episode 1 I thought the show really had some promise. The first test came in the form of a spy Rotiart which spelled backwards is traitor. He had on a hidden camera and mic and recorded the contestants getting to know each other. Up for the first elimination was Levity for wanting to make money off his character, Creature because she was a big flirt and Iron Enforcer because he talked about killing people. Levity ended up being eliminated. The fans boys were crying fowl since Levity was the ‘gay superhero’ and that Stan Lee had something against that community.

The big challenge in the first episode was a timed race, but it had a twist. The real challenge was to stop and help a little girl in need. Feedback, Iron Enforcer, Monkey Woman, Ty Veculus, Nitro G and Creature all run right past the little girl. Fat Momma, Major Victory, Cell Phone Girl and Lemuria help the little girl. Up for elimination was Monkey Woman, The Iron Enforcer (2nd time) and Nitro G. Nitro G got kicked from the show for changing into his costume in plain site along with running past the young girl.

The second episode starts out good but toward the end some cracks start to show. The challenge is setup as a little old lady has locked herself out of her house. The contestants have to climb over her back fence and go through her backdoor to let her in. The catch is there are 2 guard dogs in her back yard. The contestants put on protective suits to protect them from the dogs and their task is to just to touch the back door. If the contestants wanted to give up they just need say uncle and the dogs would stop their attack.
TyVeculus does this in 16 seconds becoming the fastest to do so. Major Victory accomplishes the challenge in 17 seconds. Feedback accomplishes it in 33 seconds. Monkey Woman the only female to accomplish the feat takes 9 minutes and 42 seconds to do so. Her determination in this challenge really impressed me.
The other contestants failed. Cell Phone Girl in 4 seconds, Creature in 12 seconds, Fat Momma in 18 seconds, Lumeria in 19 seconds and Iron Enforcer in 23 seconds. Iron Enforcer giving up so close to the door was surprising, he was almost there and just gave up, just strange.
Up for the next elimination were Cell Phone Girl for giving up fast because of a headache, Iron Enforcer (3rd time) being the strongest yet giving up so close to the door, Creature (2nd time) because she was laughing the whole time and Lumeria because she got pretty far but allowed the dogs to drag her back. Cell Phone Girl gets eliminated for having a headache and giving up quickly at 4 seconds. My choice would have been Iron Enforcer since this was the 3rd time he was up for elimination.

So next the contestants that are leftover are given costume makeovers. This is where it starts to get a bit strange. Every costume for every contestant looks great except Ty Veculus. His costume was a serious downgrade to his original one. This had to be done on purpose to cause some conflict and it put Ty Veculus in a bad spot. Do you tell the guy who can eliminate you that you don’t like his choice for your costume or do you just try to deal with it? After showing his new costume to the other contestants Ty Veculus goes back and tells Stan he doesn’t like it and goes back to his original costume. So time for another elimination. Ty Veculus is picked for ‘lying’ to Stan saying he liked the costume, then telling him he didn’t. Feedback is picked because he made a joke referring to Ty Veculus’s costume and Iron Enforcer (4th time) is picked because Stan just doesn’t like how his costume makeover went. Iron Enforcer gets the boot (finally) in the elimination. The way the makeover thing with Ty Veculus was done bothered me. It seemed to be too scripted with trying to cause conflict.
As the episode ends we see Iron Enforcer walking down the street (which looked very much like a closed set) all pissed. A TV sitting on some trashcans suddenly turns on and Stan tells Iron Enforcer that he would make a great super villain. Some cheesy special effects later Iron Enforcer emerges from a van masked as the dark enforcer. An interesting twist I thought, the contestants were going to have a masked super villain to deal with, but as we will see that does not happen.

Episode 3 starts off with the contestants being introduced to their new foe, the Dark Enforcer who promptly takes off his mask to show them who he really is which disappointed me. What’s the point of the mask if he is just going to take it off?

The first challenge was to order and pickup lunch from a local restaurant and show Stan what type of lunch a superhero would eat. In actuality the challenge was to pick up the lunch and stay in character and not divulge their true identities. This all supposedly setup by Dark Enforcer which kept on calling Stan ‘boss’ which was also strange. Only Fat Momma and Feedback passed this challenge. Monkey Woman, Creature, Major Victory and Ty Veculus all failed. Monkey Woman was eliminated for not only revealing her real identity without being asked, but also because she ‘lied’ at the audition saying she was a real estate agent when in reality she was an actress. The sad part about this is that over half of the contestants were actors and if I could find out about this rather easily couldn’t the show do the same? At this point I became really cynical about the reality in the show it just seem too scripted and I find it very hard to believe that the show did not know who were actors.

The bad acting showed through in the next challenge. Each contestant needed to finger someone who they think should be eliminated. Creature went first nominating herself, which I thought was sincere since up to that point she really didn’t show much in the superhero department. Major Victory, Feedback and Lemuria followed suit each saying they should be the one sent home, it all looked fake to me. Ty Veculus nominates Lemuria not liking her attitude. Fat Momma at first refuses to nominate someone finally nominates Feedback because he is taking the contest too seriously and might ’snap’ under pressure. Apparently this challenge was about self sacrifice and up for elimination were Fat Momma and Ty Veculus (2nd time). Ty Veculus gets the boot saying his motives for nominating Lemuria were not noble while Fat Momma was supposedly trying to ’save’ Feedback from himself. The sad tear jerking goodbyes start and get worse with each elimination, and all of them seem very fake to me. At the end of the episode Fat Momma is not happy and threatens to see all the heroes eliminated as a ‘payback’ for TyVeculus. As if it was the other contestants fault he left.

Episode 4 starts with the remaining contestants doing good deeds on the street. Creature encouraging people to pick up their litter, Major Victory escorting ladies across the street, Fat Momma challenging a parking enforcement officer who himself was parked illegally, Feedback stopping some jay walkers and Lemuria yelling at a trucker to use his turn signal.
The Dark Enforcer reappears again without his mask, said he ‘found’ friends or family of the contestants that had some bad things to say about them. Creature has littered, Feedback is a slob, Fat Momma hasn’t always been comfortable with her weight, Major Victory was a stripper which was already known and Lemuria has used her sex appeal to flirt with guys.
After these 2 challenges was time for another elimination. Major Victory for essentially taking off his cap, according to Stan this was something that super heros never do, which is untrue. His past as a stripper that was already known played into this some. Creature (3rd time) for littering and also jaywalking in the first episode and Fat Momma (2nd time) for not always living by same values she preached. Accepting your body for what it is and being ok with it. Creature got booted which I agreed with. She really never showed her ’super hero’ powers. She seemed to be more concerned with socializing with the male contestants.

The second challenge consisted of interacting with ‘convicted felons’. The first shot was of a guard holding a M-16. ughh sooo fake. The contestants had to talk to the ‘inmates’ and complete secret tasks. Lemuria’s was up first with her task being to sit on an inmates lap for 10 seconds. Female inmate played by Dot Jones acted quite pissed when conversing with Lemuria and she failed. Lemuria needed to have better interpersonal skill with her, although I’m not sure what she could have said to allow her to sit on the actor, ooops I mean convicts lap. Fat Momma was up next having to brush Dot Jones hair out of her face 3 times. They said she was successful, but I don’t think so. Touching hair on the side of her head, to me doesn’t accomplish the goal, but they counted it. Major Victory had to massage the back of an actor convict 3 times, which he was able to do. Feedback also accomplished his mission of getting 3 hugs out of the convict.
Elimination time again and Major Victory (2nd time) gets called for removing his cap and gloves during the challenge. Stan makes a big deal about how super heroes never take any part of their costumes off, which is untrue. This talking to while a picture of Stripperella hangs behind Stan’s head. Lemuria gets called for failing at the challenge and then gets eliminated. Since actors were used as ‘convicts’ it is too easy to manipulate the outcome to get someone eliminated. I think it was a bad challenge. By this point the show really bugs me. I watch the last two episodes just to find out the winner.

Episode 5 we are down to 3 contestants Major Victory, Fat Momma and Feedback. The 3 went to an elementary school to talk to a classroom of kids. Each one had to talk to the children about their origins, powers and messages. The kids voted for their favorite one with Fat Momma winning that vote.
The next challenge involved finding Dark Enforcer who was somewhere in the Universal Stuidios City Walk shopping center before he could ‘wreak havoc’. The contestants were to finding him as quickly as possible. They were given some clues along the way. First they had to find a woman with an anklet tattoo from her they got a clue and a bottle of lotion. The clue was to find a 200 pound man with a diamond in his ear and rub lotion on his belly to reveal the next clue. Next find a woman with a ‘fancy’ purse who had $33.50. The clue received from her was that Dark Enforcer was located at the big ball. Major Victory finishes the fastest at 15 minutes 25 seconds. Feedback was next at 15 minutes and 40 seconds. Fat Momma finished last and her time was not displayed, I am guessing intentionally. We will never known exactly how long she did take, but Stan mentioned she took nearly 40 minutes longer than the other two which puts her around 55 minutes. Yeah apparently not in any rush Fat Momma took her time asking for and taking fries, chicken fingers and a candle apple from various people and even stopping for a massage.
Time for another elimination and all 3 were up. Fat Momma (3rd Time), Major Victory (3rd Time) and Feedback (2nd time). Even with winning the last challenge Major Victory is eliminated. At this point I’d be really pissed if I still had cared about the show as many of the fan boys still did. Fat Momma should have been eliminated. I really don’t care how much the kids liked her. She while ’staying in character’ which involved taking food from people obviously blew off the challenge. Stopping for a massage? Come freakin on! Major Victory was eliminated because he became a ‘parody of a superhero’. While there is some truth in that it is not necessarily bad or wrong. Do I want a superhero that might act a little goofy to come save me or do I want someone that will get there 40 minutes later delayed by eating other peoples food and stopping for a massage. It’s a no brainier. Either the show was trying to be politically correct or was trying to keep a certain audience demographic for the last episode.

So last episode, episode 6, thank god. Stan wants to see how the last two, Feedback and Fat Momma look on the big screen. They learn some stunt fighting and did some trampoline work which Feedback was obviously better because of his fitness level or really lack of fitness on Fat Mommas part. She balked at the actual flying part of the session, but did some green screen shooting like Feedback so they could create the movie trailers for each one.
So the last elimination takes place at Universal Studios City Walk in front of a sometimes cheering sometimes disinterested crowd. Each one had their trailer shown and Stan picked Feedback to be the ‘next super hero’. He gets a movie on scifi, a comic and I think a vacation. The sad part of this is at the time he didn’t know if he really won, since this was prerecorded several times with several people winning so the word wouldn’t get out on who won before the show was broadcasted. Very much bush league, they should have shown the last part of the episode live instead of having multiple shots with multiple winners all acting.

There are plans for a 2nd season of the show, but I will be passing. What started with so much promise turned to crap with the obvious acting, scripting and all the other things that made this so called reality show more unreal and fake then it had to be.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 4th, 2006 at 6:15 pm and is filed under SciFi, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.