Buddy Games - General Discussion

[Guest]

Quote

Six teams of four friends come together to they relive their glory days and compete in an assortment of absurd physical and mental challenges in the outdoors while bunking together in the same lake house.

Premieres Thursday September 14, 2023

[Gemma Violet]

Due to the lack of comments, I'm guessing not many people saw this show.  I have it on my DVR, but I'm not sure if I'm going to watch it.  Anybody see it?  Is it any good?  And lastly, did Josh D. blow his horn throughout?

[patty1h]

I'm halfway through the first episode and it seems like a Survivor/Big Brother hybrid spinoff - the difference is the teams know each other.  On this episode, they did one short challenge so far and then we were shown their living facilities - each team has their own very nice sleeping areas, with several common areas - a lot like Big Brother.  

What I didn't like is a preview of the show where two of teammates were beefing with each other in the downtime between challenges.  I don't give two shits about any of that drama - I've seen enough of that watching Survivor since the beginning - the whispering, backstabbing, fake friendships, gossip, etc.  I will be watching this only for the challenges and muting the filler crap.

Josh blew a horn 1-2 times in the half hour I've watched so far.  I couldn't say I'm a fan of his, but he is doing okay as the host.  Lots of energy and seems to be into it, not smarmy like Jeff Probst.  One negative:  too many talking head inserts from the teams.  Yeesh.

Edited September 15, 2023 by patty1h

[Silver-hyren]

It was very forgettable.  Easy to believe it was dreamed up by a bored guy with too much time on his hands.  Yes he blew the bugle a few times, but it wasn't that same two note phrase that have been using in every promo they've been running since July.

[eel2178]

1 hour ago, patty1h said:

Josh blew a horn 1-2 times in the half hour I've watched so far.  I couldn't say I'm a fan of his, but he is doing okay as the host. 

I've met him a couple of times 20+ years ago. He is the nicest guy in the world, or at least he was before he married Fergie.

[Guest]

Gettin' naked took longer that everything else except dragging a heavy bag?  Seriously?  Sigh.

Josh willing to run the course himself, including getting shocked, makes him more entertaining than other hosts.  Looking at you Probst and to a lesser degree TJ.

Blah Blah Blah Crycakes.

I like it so far in a "shrug - it's on" kinda way.

 

[patty1h]

I wasn't bashing Josh Duhamel - I know of him because he's a celebrity but I've only seen him in maybe one movie, so I can't say I'm a fan.  He seems cool but I don't go out of my way to seek him out.  He seems solid as the host of this show and he's nice to look at. 😊

I have already decided that there's not enough going on in this show for me to learn names or root for a specific team. This will be a time killer, nothing else. 

 

[eel2178]

57 minutes ago, CuriousParker said:

Josh willing to run the course himself, including getting shocked, makes him more entertaining than other hosts. 

I was thinking "Man, I hope they made sure none of these contestants have pacemakers!"

[Guest]

Just now, eel2178 said:

I was thinking "Man, I hope they made sure none of these contestants have pacemakers!"

I'm sure they had everybody sign waivers.  heh

[eel2178]

31 minutes ago, patty1h said:

and he's nice to look at. 😊

Which is how he spent 12 years on All My Children which is where I met him. They used to hold parties once a year for the fans to meet the cast and producers to talk about story lines. Susan Lucci even showed up a few times.

[susannot]

Like someone said, I watched it because it was on, but I liked it more than I expected to.  It did give me a nostalgic summer camp vibe.  I like Josh a lot as the host, and I liked the music choices, especially Springsteen's Glory Days.  The teams were fun and likeable especially the women who got naked.

ETA:  I just love the fact that Josh has allowed himself to go naturally gray.  He looks handsome and distinguished.  Hot gray-haired men are the new sex symbols.

Edited September 15, 2023 by susannot

[zoey1996]

I just finished the first episode. Pleasant enough way to pass an hour. As far as I can recall, I haven’t seen the host in anything.

Don’t really have preference for any team yet, but I did like Chicago’s Finest.

[KeithJ]

How on Earth did the naked team come in fourth?  Strip off your clothes and run.  They should have finished first by a mile.

[candall]

3 hours ago, susannot said:

Like someone said, I watched it because it was on, but I liked it more than I expected to.  It did give me a nostalgic summer camp vibe.  I like Josh a lot as the host, and I liked the music choices, especially Springsteen's Glory Days.  The teams were fun and likeable especially the women who got naked.

ETA:  I just love the fact that Josh has allowed himself to go naturally gray.  He looks handsome and distinguished.  Hot gray-haired men are the new sex symbols.

Agree on all points.  High five.

I almost skipped it, because it looked stupid, but I was entertained and wound up getting a little bit invested in the various team themes.  "The Derby Girls" are my Buddy Game spirit animals.  I thought it was funny when one of them finished the naked race trying to cover her bits with her hands and the woman next to her was doing victory jumping jacks.

 

Mainly, it was good-natured and fun and the people all seem inclined to be nice to each other, so far.  I think those Pageant Queens may have a "villain" clause written into their contract.

I was struck by the difference between this show and the lead-in show, Challenge USA.  After watching the professional reality stars compete for ten minutes and gossip/strategize for the rest of the hour, Buddy Games was upbeat and refreshing.

 

P.S.  I'm sure the tall Philly guy cheated in the flag grab competition.  He kept his head tilted back so far, you could tell he was peeking out the bottom of his blindfold.  Then it was even more obvious when he darted forward and snatched the flag straight out of the Chicago cop's back pocket.  Hey!  No cheating in Buddy Games!  I'm keeping my eye on you, beanstalk.

[susannot]

I also have my eye on tall Philly guy!

[Guest]

The challenges weren’t anything special but I liked that everyone was having fun.

I think it could have benefited from something other than the standard CBS competitive reality show editing style. They need to embrace more of the quirkiness from Josh and the contestants rather than going for faux drama. 

2 hours ago, KeithJ said:

How on Earth did the naked team come in fourth?  Strip off your clothes and run.  They should have finished first by a mile.

Too much time convincing the reluctant members to strip and the bizarre decision to put their shoes back on. Plus the bowl of mac-n-cheese was not the big for four people. 

[candall]

LOL, it was kind of refreshing and amusing that teams could choose to choke down some funky mac 'n cheese or strip down and sprint off to the finish line while the team of Chicago cops broke out a sweat trying to budge their (VERY) heavy bag an inch at a time.

I assumed the trained Chicago professional cops would triumph in every task.  And I think they may have expected that as well.

 

You know, I'm looking forward to more Buddy Games.

[jabRI]

On 9/15/2023 at 7:56 PM, susannot said:

I just love the fact that Josh has allowed himself to go naturally gray.  He looks handsome and distinguished.  Hot gray-haired men are the new sex symbols.

And real forhead wrinkles, love it!  I remember him from All My Children too, and really liked him in Battle Creek.  Worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

[eel2178]

On 9/16/2023 at 3:04 PM, candall said:

 the team of Chicago cops broke out a sweat trying to budge their (VERY) heavy bag an inch at a time.

Aren't police taught how to do a fireman's carry?

It seemed to me that if they had all just hoisted the thing up onto their shoulders, they would have had better luck with it. (this suggestion is coming from someone who can't carry groceries in from the car without getting short of breath)

[candall]

They mentioned that the bag held the combined weight of all four people on the team.  

I guess they stuffed that duffel bag with gold bars.

[eel2178]

15 hours ago, candall said:

They mentioned that the bag held the combined weight of all four people on the team.  

I guess they stuffed that duffel bag with gold bars.

You're going to have to go a long way to convince me that these people are worth their weight in gold.

[ChiCricket]

I kind of liked it. It was nice to see contestants who didn't already complete on other shows. My husband even watched the whole thing with me, and he has the attention span of a goldfish (unless it's sports.)

 I put it on my DVR to record. YMMV😊

[Guest]

Why didn't you try and remove an entire team when you had the chance?  Poor Sportsmanship.  lol.

I can always do without nut shots.  Bawdy humor is not really my (nut)bag.

There were some good low stakes intensity moments.

This show has a similar vibe* to The Great British Bake Off.  It's reeling me in.  Damn it. 

*as similar as it can be with a money prize and Americans. heh

ETA:  After seeing the previews:  Oops, I spoke too soon re:  GBBO vibes.

[candall]

Uh oh.  Less competition this week, more interpersonal strategizing.

 

We already have the professional famewhore Challenge USA contestants losing their minds over alliances and strategy.  Not to mention the Big Brother hamsters and the starving unfortunates who are getting their bones broken as they Fight [each other] to Survive, making Thursday night extra grim in post-SAG/AFTRA apocalypse reality tv.

 

Can't you Buddy Gamers just stick with s'mores and bug juice and big puffy clobber sticks?

.

[Guest]

This episode was fine. Nothing that hate about it but also nothing to really capture my attention. I still wish they would lean more into the quirkiness of Duhamel and the summer camp setting rather than trying to be hype up the interpersonal drama. 

It feels like Duhamel is trying to camp it up put the editing isn’t going there with him. 

13 hours ago, CuriousParker said:

Why didn't you try and remove an entire team when you had the chance?

I would have done the same thing. Why try and remove a team that is already circling the drain when you can put a strong team one step closer to elimination. My favorite part of the episode was that the strategy actually paid off. 

[Guest]

Voting for who gets the curveball is lame.  I want challenges.

Picking team matches is not much of a sabotage.

The Pageant Queens are imploding.  From the start, I was pretty sure they would be portrayed as typical frenemies.  The first 2 episodes gave me hope but here we are.

Hey Josh, if you want to see adults take silly tasks very seriously, watch TaskMaster (UK).  

Is anybody surprised by who went home?  Not me!

The bickering, mean-spirits, and general assholery, just took all the fun out of this show.

[candall]

On 9/28/2023 at 8:01 PM, CuriousParker said:

...

The bickering, mean-spirits, and general assholery, just took all the fun out of this show.

 

I don't know, I thought the meltdown of the Pageant Queen team was interesting.  We knew from the start that "Pageant Queens" were likely to be cast as the villains.  But I thought it would be more cartoonish and this felt more or less unscripted. 

That one woman, Devi--who later said she'd been the one to bring the team together and had been the bestie to each of the others--unilaterally decided to go out and implement a strategy, i.e. forming alliances with other teams.  And then, blammo, the other three were not at all okay with that.

It wasn't the worst strategy in the world, and you could see how shocked she was when the other three united in their disapproval.  "Wait a minute, what?  But I'm the Queen Bee of the Queens!  They just NOW voted me Prom Queen!"  I thought it was somewhat poignant when she reflected that she'd never been in the outsider position before--that was some decent self-awareness you don't often catch in reality television.

 

The other thing you don't often see is the loser stomping away muttering "Fuck you all, I am NEVER speaking to any of you again, no way, no how, I hope you all drown in that three-foot deep pond."

Mmm, yeah!  Speak out your feelings, sister.  😛

[Gemma Violet]

So tonight the Pride team alienated the Derby team and the Pageant team.  I know that the Pride team was not transparent about what was going on, but . . .  it's a game.  It's like Big Brother, Survivor, etc.  You have to be two-faced or you won't win the money.  Derby and Pageant to me came off as whiny babies.  And we have some more whining to look forward to next week.

[jabRI]

10 hours ago, Gemma Violet said:

but . . .  it's a game

Exactly.  They are supposed to forfeit a huge prize for a one week friendship??

[leocadia]

I liked the karmic justice of the Pagaent Queens going out at the hand of Team Pride.  I thought they were all pretty nasty to Devi when she tried to make an alliance with Team Pride.  I bet if she were still there, TP would have saved them instead of Philly.

Obviously, we only see what they choose to show us, but they were all a little too gleeful about Devi being gone.  It looked to me like Lauren just wanted to be HBIC and Devi was getting all the attention.

[eel2178]

18 hours ago, Gemma Violet said:

 it's a game.  It's like Big Brother, Survivor, etc

Did anyone know this was based on a fictional movie?

I did one of my CBS viewer surveys today, and I was surprised when it asked me if I had seen the movie. I had no idea there was a movie.

Josh Duhmel that would have at least been mentioned on the show.

[Gemma Violet]

27 minutes ago, eel2178 said:

Did anyone know this was based on a fictional movie?

I stumbled upon that info a few days ago.  I had no idea either.

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, eel2178 said:

Josh Duhmel that would have at least been mentioned on the show.

He mentioned that he based two movies on  his tradition with his friends in the first episode. 

[zoey1996]

Buddy Games reminds me a little of Indian Summer, an underrated (IMHO) flim about reunited friends who had met at a summer camp in Algonquin in Canada.

[ChiCricket]

I enjoyed the game with the big ball and the wearable bubble suits...mainly because I already own two of those bubble suits.

(They were about $130.00 each when I bought them in 2019... I must been out of my grandkid loving mind at the time)🙄

Now I have a new idea for my grandkids to use them with. A game would be much better than just running at the other person full speed. It got kind of violent.

  Now I just need an exercise ball. So watching Buddy Games wasn't an entire waste of my time, plus I'm just really enjoying watching it. 

Edited October 7, 2023 by ChiCricket

[zoey1996]

I enjoyed this episode. Glad Derby decided to stay and just sent one home. Also happy Chicago survived. 
That beverage looked vile.

[candall]

I thought it was very classy when the Derbies were talking about all going home together.  Especially compared to the Pageants, who continued to gloat about having kicked out their "friend" Devi through the entire next episode, right up until karma kicked their collective ass.

 

But I was glad that Josh persuaded the Derby Girls team to stay.  Still my favorites.   😍

 

Sidenote:  That one Derby, Rachel, reminds me of Megan Rapinoe.

[KeithJ]

Chicago’s Finest sucks.  First the fake rock paper scissors and then putting Melissa in the box after she said she was afraid of snakes.  There was zero reason to put her in the box except to be mean, there was no advantage to it.  

[Guest]

On 10/5/2023 at 7:24 PM, Gemma Violet said:

So tonight the Pride team alienated the Derby team and the Pageant team.  I know that the Pride team was not transparent about what was going on, but . . .  it's a game.  It's like Big Brother, Survivor, etc.  You have to be two-faced or you won't win the money.  Derby and Pageant to me came off as whiny babies.  And we have some more whining to look forward to next week.

I’m behind so I just watched this one. I had the opposite reaction. Derby and Pageant only got pissed when they compared notes and realized Pride was blowing smoke up both their asses. I’m a big believer in “it’s a game” but that goes with owning your strategy which Pride didn’t do. Bekah’s commented about being disappointed in the Derby and Pageant’s poor sportsmanship was more of a whinny baby moment to me. I was with them right until then. 

[KeithJ]

Biden is speaking tonight at 7pm Central.  As of now, it doesn't look like Fox is airing it but ABC, NBC, and CBS are. Xfinity only has him scheduled for 15 minutes though so everything tonight may be delayed.

[zoey1996]

I'll have to catch up. I recorded Buddy Games, and thought I tacked on extra time, but it didn't record the last few minutes.

[Gemma Violet]

I don't have Paramount Plus, but I caught the last few minutes at cbs.com.

[zoey1996]

Got to finish using CBS On Demand, but had to watch the whole thing, no fast forwarding the 40 minutes I'd already seen.

Happy with the outcome. I am cheering for Chicago's Finest, but I think I'll be happy whoever wins.

[KeithJ]

Chicago’s Finest got all bent out of shape about the other teams critiquing their pours for the bong?  That’s sad.

I didn’t think the sabotage was really all that bad.  Adding an additional s’more or two would have been a better sabotage.

[Lurk]

2 minutes ago, KeithJ said:

Chicago’s Finest got all bent out of shape about the other teams critiquing their pours for the bong?  That’s sad.

I didn’t think the sabotage was really all that bad.  Adding an additional s’more or two would have been a better sabotage.

I've never drank anything like that before. So what was wrong about the way he was pouring it? It goes in the funnel, down the hose, into the person's mouth?

 

[KeithJ]

20 minutes ago, Lurk said:

I've never drank anything like that before. So what was wrong about the way he was pouring it? It goes in the funnel, down the hose, into the person's mouth?

 

You're supposed to pour slowly along the funnel sides.  Chicago was just pouring it straight down the hole.

[KeithJ]

Shockingly Chicago and Pride made it into the final along with Team OK.  I've pretty much given up on this season but hopefully Team OK can pull out the win.

[docmatt]

I've really enjoyed this. I hope it gets a second season. The thing that makes it stand out is they didn't feel the need to have a villain. Even the pageant queens weren't terrible. 

I definitely have a favorite team, but I won't be mad about anyone, they all seem like good people

[zoey1996]

I was cheering for Chicago's Finest, but Team OK earned the winl It was a fun show, and I also think a second season would be good,

[LakeGal]

I was happy Team Pride did not win.  It bothered me that they never really had to compete.  They were always saved by Chicago's Finest.  I was happy with the result since Team Pride did not make the final 2.