MATTHEW McNUTT

I enjoyed last night’s episode of The Biggest Loser.  It was a pivotal weigh in, and it showed in the trainers: the stakes?  A season five sweep of the finale.  Season four was the first year only one trainer had contestants represented in the final four, and last night answered the question of whether or not the same would be true for this season’s blue team (not to be a pessimist, but I would find it highly unlikely that black team has a shot at this this year).  Not to be doubtful of a reality show’s intentions, but I do think it’s somewhat suspect that blue team’s “reward” was a boys trip to Vegas with no trainer.  Bob had a right to be upset about it … if nothing else, the changes in air pressure when traveling on an airplane can cause the body to retain a couple extra pounds of water weight.

When it was all said and done, blue lost the weigh in and Mark took the hit for it.  His willingness to be voted off spoke a lot for him.  He bit the bullet for the sake of the team and really put the team ahead of himself and his brother.  Think about it; even if Dan and Roger voted the same, and Mark and Jay both voted against Roger … if it went to a tie there was no way the black team was going to vote off anyone other than Roger.  So all Mark had to do was hold out for an hour and Roger would be gone, which in all honesty, would have pretty much guaranteed that at least one of, if not both, Mark and Jay would have made the final four.  And with Roger out of the picture, there would be a good chance one of them would get the $$$.  So at the end of the day, I was pretty impressed with Mark’s selflessness and his focus on the weight loss, not the game.  It was better for Roger to be at the Ranch than him, so he did it.  A lot of garbage has been said about Mark online over the last couple months, and it’s not entirely fair.  His portrayal on the show hasn’t been what he had hoped, but I guess that’s to be expected.  JD Roth, the executive producer for the show was pretty upfront about it with us before our season began filming; he told us they don’t create fiction for the show (riiiight), they just exagerate truth.  So good stuff looks great and bad stuff looks horrible.  Makes for great TV, but it’s left a trail of broken people from over the years from all the different reality shows that have destroyed someone’s image for the sake of ratings.

But enough already!  I gotta say, that farewell was pretty emotional!  I actually teared up during it, which is pretty unusual for me when watching a reality show!  The only time it’s really happened in the past is during season three, and that’s only because it was my friends on the screen!  Powerful stuff!