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Reality Funny Business: Editing, Manipulation, Criticism, Controversies & Scandals

David T. Cole

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Kromm

Kromm

Wow.  Episode 1 of Season 4 (Ty and Charita) shows they're still doing the creative button pushing and passive-aggressive story shaping this show is so good (bad?) at.

 

Ty quitting is a shame, but notice the fiction that these two were the only people in that year, and were joined at the hip presentation-wise (when we never even saw them meet).  The truth of course is that the whole pack of people were there at their facility overlapping each other, and Ty being paired with Charita was just a presentation decision, and the public shaming of him at Charita's reveal just a shot back at him for well... wasting their time.

 

It's interesting that Chris for the first time talked about "the pressures of being on a TV show".  It's not the admission of people surrendering their lives and more specifically their images to the show that it could have been, but it's kind of a backdoor admission that what's on TV is at best hyper-reality and not reality.


By the way, for those who never noticed, JD Roth is a producer of this, JUST like he is of The Biggest Loser.  Given what we know of BL manipulation and practices, think about that (and why it would necessarily be any different here).

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auntie thesis

auntie thesis

Word to the max, Kromm.

 

I watched TBL for years and will probably watch it again this year. It's a sick addiction.

 

However, I know that all of these weight loss shows are staged, scripted and follow a plot. Every participant has story arcs that include an introduction, exposition, goals, conflict, climax and resolution. I know that they stage about 80-99% of everything that we see, that Chris and Heidi are likely just the faces of the empire, and that the participants are not personally chosen. They don't live with Chris and Heidi and their kids. They might stay in the same building or something, but Chris and Heidi are normal-ish people with 4 young kids, so I don't see them being able to take in several adults with emotional issues and food addictions into their home for months at a time. How would that be fair to them? Or their kids? It wouldn't be and honestly, they need to quit pretending that the show is anything but a legit piece of weight loss theatre targeted towards fakeality fanatics.

 

They probably won't though. It is turning into TBL lite and as time goes on, I expect increased amounts of shady fuckery ala TBL to keep the franchise afloat. This is on ABC, though, so I don't think they will go quite as far as NBC has in accommodating the crazy.

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AV8n

AV8n

The whole "sports marketing agent" thing with Ty was kinda suspicious to me.  I mean, they pretty much drug the guy through the mud listing all the stuff Chris supposedly found out by googling the guy's name.  I wonder how long it took him to file a slander lawsuit.  Of course, my conspiract theorist side makes me think the show had this agent reach out to Ty with this unbelievable promise just so they could yank it away later.

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auntie thesis

auntie thesis

The sports marketing guy was fishy. There was NO way that they were blindsided by his criminal history. Everyone gets background checked before appearing on camera. I suspect that they knew from the get-go that the guy was shady, but wanted to include a segment with him to pad out Ty's story.

 

Personally, I think that they should have cut Ty's segment completely. There wasn't anyone else that they were filming that could have taken up the ~30 min or so of Ty talking about baseball, mommy issues and crispies from the fried chicken box?

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k2p2

k2p2

(edited)

Oh, AV8n, I'm embarrassed that I didn't pick up on that knollish angle with Ty's "agent" myself. Now you've got me wondering about the audio-only conversation with Bad Dad from - heck, I can't even remember the kid's name - Kathie and her son's episode. It would be easy enough to use voice-over to amp up the drama, as well as to explain the weird "gun to my head" comment.

Edited by k2p2
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Kromm

Kromm

They don't live with Chris and Heidi and their kids. They might stay in the same building or something, but Chris and Heidi are normal-ish people with 4 young kids, so I don't see them being able to take in several adults with emotional issues and food addictions into their home for months at a time. How would that be fair to them? Or their kids? It wouldn't be and honestly, they need to quit pretending that the show is anything but a legit piece of weight loss theatre targeted towards fakeality fanatics.

In the earlier seasons this show was even worse with this.  They pretended that Chris lived in the houses of these people for 90 days each.    Which given that Season 1 & 2 had 8 episodes each, meant that Chris would have been spending 720 days a year away from home.  Yes, that's right.  Chris had a time machine and doubled back on the year and lived it twice.  Season 3 had 13 episodes, but it's the one where they instead started playing it off as the hamsters going to Chris' house.

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auntie thesis

auntie thesis

(edited)

The fuckery was obvious in previous seasons IF you sat down and looked at the math from a logistical POV.

 

For example, the only way that Chris could have "lived" with the participants required that they live in close proximity to one another. This led to clumping of the participants (lots of people from CA, GA, FL, MI, WI, and NY/PA/NJ). I interpreted this as Chris was "living" with them in the sense that he probably saw them a few times a week for workouts and diet check-ins, maybe spent the night if they had a spare room, maybe did some family activities with them, etc. I believe that he was away from home for at least 6 months out of the year, but not all at once. Probably more like 1-2 weeks on the road, go home or work at ABC/Eyeworks in CA/AZ for 1-2 weeks, repeat for awhile, see private clients and shill products during off season.

 

That was the only way that made sense to me, fwiw. I remember seeing shots of the participants together for their boot camp weeks and some events scattered throughout the year too. So I always thought that they did initially start out together, but that maybe some of them weren't cleared to start right away or worked with other trainers initially and that the whole 90 day phase thing was a gimmick from the get-go. Or at least during seasons 2-3.

 

Season 3 had 13 episodes, but it's the one where they instead started playing it off as the hamsters going to Chris' house.

 

 

I remember that one girl, the one with the drug addicted twin and the really strange dad who was having a Taco Bell-gasm in the opening sequence of her episode. She was supposedly shipped off to do the first phase at AZ. That was early in the season, IIRC. Didn't the nurse go to AZ too? I remember the Grand Canyon trip but I can't remember if she stayed with Chris or not after that. I'm pretty sure that girl with the lesbian mom and adoption issues stayed with Chris and Heidi while she was training for the Crossfit Games. Eating disorder girl did too, I believe.

 

I can't remember if any of the guys from last season did, mostly because I wasn't really interested in any of them except the kid with one arm. This season has already shown us two immature guys who had no business being cast, imo. Kind of hoping the rest of this season is comprised of decent people who don't encourage me to chuck my remote at the TV.

Edited by auntie thesis
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AV8n

AV8n

Well, you can't put the "extreme" in Extreme Weight Loss without completely disrupting the space-time continuum!  Couple that with the remarkable ability to repeatedly impregnate the wife he'd never see, and Chris Powell becomes quite the superman.

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Kromm

Kromm

Yeah I remember in the initial run of episodes, they'd go as far as showing Chris' sleeping space in the house, and the initial 90 training montage usually included careful shots of Chris with bed head himself or something like that, waking up the Weight Loss Reality Hamster, or being in their kitchen talking meals, or some other thing that implied residency. It's debatable if he actually slept in people's spare rooms outside of what was needed to setup those shots, but I suppose it could indeed be him doing that a few key days a month with each participant then round robining between them.

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auntie thesis

auntie thesis

The thing that made me really suspicious about Chris actually living with these people was that not everyone was going to have a spare room. Nor would it always be feasible for Chris to stay with them for more than a few days without seriously throwing a wrench into their family lives. People who have spouses, kids and jobs aren't going to be around 24/7 for Chris to train and dick around with.

 

Granted, a lot of the people that were cast in previous seasons seemed to be in between jobs, in school, or had jobs that allowed them a lot more flexibility than the average joe (DJing, owner of a successful tech firm, photographer). So it may have been possible for people with more flexible arrangements to find time to work out with Chris, or go on 20 mile hikes, mountain climbs and Crossfit beach bonazas every once in awhile, but I called shenanigans on him living with the people to be anything other than bs.

 

Some of the people were living at home with their parents. Others were living in cramped apartments. One guy ended up being homeless after his initial 90 days and was living in his car + storage pod. Chris didn't know that guy's marriage was on the rocks. It should have been fairly fucking obvious that they were having issues if he were actually living with them for any length of time, I would think. I picked up on it after 5 minutes of screen time, for fuck's sake. The same could be said for the girl whose parents were supposedly sabotaging her by buying cereal and snacks for themselves and her sister and the massive blowout about that. If he had been living there, he would have known that the parents were buying crap all along. And why was it their problem anyway? They weren't trying to lose weight; their oldest daughter was.

 

After a few seasons, I think that most of the viewership figured out that Chris wasn't living with these people. If he was, then all of the ZOMG! moments during phase 2 were scripted as fuck, imo.

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Kromm

Kromm

And of course, there's always this:  http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/366868-breaking-extreme-weight-loss-contestant-almost-died

 

Of course there's a lot of sour grapes there, unrealistic expectations, and a whole boatload of other psychological issues.  So this has to be dealt with through a filter of realizing that a human time bomb who started at an earth shattering 700+ pounds claiming his health issues had to do with the program is pretty eye rolley.

 

It's reading between the lines of his gripping, to the specific stuff he mentions about the production details and the like (for example, the show using dehydration techniques before weigh-ins) that's the actual relevant part.  Remember in the early episodes they were MUCH more hyperfocused on the weight loss milestones than in the recent ones.  I'd bet after this guy posted this in 2011, it eventually got noticed (I know a few media articles resulted) and I'm sure the show backed off stuff like this, but I actually do believe him that it probably did happen initially.  He also uses a plural when talking about stuff, and that supports the notion that these people saw each other through joint sessions and the like, rather than the image of them being isolated cases the show liked to promote back then.  The diet pill claim is one I'm on the fence about believing.  In terms of how often he saw Chris in person, he says "The fact is I maybe saw him 5 days last year and 95% percent of all communication was done through email and phone calls."

 

Arizona later got acknowledged in the show to the extent they made it a feature of the show (although insisting people lived WITH Chris), but here's how the whisteblower describes it early on (when the show didn't even acknowledge it existed)

 

 

They did set up a ranch and several of the contestants moved their for several months because they weren’t going to make their numbers. It was in Arizona, and you didn’t see that on the show because they wanted to tell you that we were able to do it on our own at home in our real environments.

 

He also (unsurprisingly) says he was recruited to the show and never wrote them the letter the show milks as the origin of all of this.  

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auntie thesis

auntie thesis

(edited)

I know that one of the participants from last season (adopted girl with the lesbian mom who worked at a ballet school, mentioned above) [ETA: her name was Jami. HERE's a link to the full episode on youtube.] had never heard of the show. She had tried out for TBL with her sister and that fell through. Some time later, the casting dept from EWL contacted them and asked them if they wanted to do the show together. Her sister couldn't or wouldn't do it, but she agreed to go through it. [ETA: Source for information above.]

 

There are a few weight loss/fat life bloggers who have been approached by EWL's casting dept too. One lady blogged about her experiences as a VIP passholder at the Atlanta audtions last spring. Another guy made it through both rounds of interviews and was rejected for some reason. They didn't let him know for like 2 months and even then, it was via last minute phone call. Pretty shitty, if you ask me.

 

EWL's entire reputation is built upon the idea that anyone can live the perfect life, achieve their dreams of fitness, thinness, relationship-having-ness, sports stardom, whatever. It doesn't matter if you are emotionally crippled, food addicted, closeted, in mountains of debt, or a just plain lazy, rude, babified, entitled prick. No, with Chris' magic, you will be everything you've ever dreamed of! EVAH!

 

On the subject of the Arizona ranch and all of that stuff, I believe it. I also believe that the reason for moving people to Anschutz in CO fo phase 1 is a replacement of sorts for the Arizona ranch. They are getting at least a few weeks of medical supervision during their time there and that is probably much more than what TBL contestants get. I keep all of the accusations against EWL in perspective after years of TBL viewing. It's the same TPTB on both shows, just different channels and less publicity in the case of EWL. Chris Powell was well-known before EWL, not an insta-trainer star like TBL trainers.

 

TBL gives its people diuretics. They practice extreme caloric restriction. They dehydrate, water load, use laxatives and all of that shit on TBL and have for years. They quit giving their people diet pills after the legal accusations leveled several seasons ago, but they still give them supplements and do all of the other stuff, including sweating them, overexercising them, and feeding them ~1000 kcal/day on some occasions.

 

I don't think that EWL would go that far...but then again, it's the same people running both shows. They have story boards and character arcs to adhere to. They can't afford to have a bunch of herp-derp timewasters like Ty and Nyla, so they have to make sure that the people they do have are going to be worthwhile.

 

EWL is supposed to be inspirational. They cast for sob stories and special flowers. You have to have a strong personality or a gripping story. You have to be willing to play their games. It doesn't hurt if you are a decent actor/actress or are good looking underneath of that excess tissue. They can't come out and say that though, or the majority of their Bachelorette/DWTS watching core will tune the fuck out. The show only works if <75% of the viewer base believes that people can change, that they can save themselves with the help of a knight in shining armor, and that a better life is just around the corner if you could just lose X lbs.

 

Chris is a weight loss hero and the participants are nothing but an endless string of Mary Janes, Lois Lanes, Comissioner Gordons, and innocent bystanders and the like, just waiting to be saved.

Edited by auntie thesis
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Kromm

Kromm

I don't think that EWL would go that far...but then again, it's the same people running both shows.

Gasp!  You mean you don't trust this face!!!

 

YQsiBPi.jpg

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Kromm

Kromm

Reminds me of a NKOTB extra. Hahaha...

 

And no, I do not trust that face.

Yeah, and don't forget you're hearing that face's VOICE every time you hear a voiceover on either this show, or on Loser.  Roth's dulcet faux-sincere tones have been telling us about how "inspirational" these people are for years.

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Kromm

Kromm

(edited)

BTW: Watching the latest episode (with the kid, Josh, and his mom), while I DO believe the Room Service Bill fiasco really happened, I find myself wondering how rehearsed the scene with Chris and Heidi working out, then Heidi breaking into her rant about the kid was.  I mean hello.  It was just the two of them there... with their cameraman. Which is nonsense.  With all the time they put in on camera with the Weight Loss Hamsters, the LAST thing they'd have is a camera following them at other times.

 

Other suspicious nonsense, us seeing the kid eating at what appears to be The Powell Family Breakfast Nook, and then later the kid visiting Heidi in the Hospital after she has Powell: The Next Generation.  The breakfast nook thing is CLEARLY meant to go back to that lie that these people live in the Powell house.  When in fact if that is indeed their Breakfast Nook, I suspect the kid was just brought in for the filming that one morning (I seem to recall hearing there's like an Annex elsewhere on the same property with the gym and quarters for these people).  And I DO suppose its possible that the Weight Losers visited Heidi in the Hospital, but it certainly was manipulative of the show to give the sense it was like the kid had become an adjunct of their family, rather than that simply being a photo op.

 

Come to think of it, when the kid Josh makes the call to his Dad after he spontaneously gets upset at The Magical Skin Surgery Hosptial, THINK about the fact that WE get to hear the call.  Wow, that's magic!  Sure Josh is probably wearing a mike pack (they always are), but we're hearing THE ANSWERING MACHINE on the other end of the call too!  And then a moment later, after he finishes the call, Heidi "spontaneously" exclaims, "Josh, you're getting a text message from your Dad" (when, honestly, other than seeing the front of the phone light up, how would SHE know.  Then magically we get a Texted Novel from his Dad... okay at least a 60 second long read of several paragraphs, when it's only been in total about 20 seconds since Josh hung up from leaving his message.  Because apparently Josh's Dad is actually Clark Kent and can type Text replies at Superspeed (already it was suspicious that he was texting back instead of calling).  That WHOLE sequence was clearly a setup of the most emotionally crass type, and this show needs to go fuck itself for pulling this crap.  Especially since right on the heels of that we get, with swelling music over it, Josh talking about how he'd feared his previous attempt at reconciliation with his Dad (earlier in the show) was "fake" and "just for the cameras".  Ugh.  Again, fuck you hypocritical show.

 

As the forum fearless leader David T. Cole says at the top... Deceptivey!  Deceptivey, indeed.

Edited by Kromm
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auntie thesis

auntie thesis

RE: Suspicious Nonsense

 

  • Episode 1, Ty: All fuckery, all the time. This kid was poppin' 500 ft homers on a regular, yet he couldn't run the bases. How the hell was he playing baseball even at the high school level? His dad had a mountain of newspaper clippings and apparently this kid was a hotshot at the Little League level. Has he even played since then, other than hitting homers on the practice field and warming the bench during games? Maaaaybe playing in situations where the bases were loaded and they needed a few points. Most certainly not anything that would require him running in any capacity.
  • BUT WAIT...Chris' Fitnessaramus Spell enables this kid to run for like 10 minutes at 6 clip on the treadmill during his fight-or-flight workout. WTF?
  • Then there was the sleazy sports marketing guy who was a close family friend of Ty's and got a talking head. Later on, turns out that the guy is a fraud and everyone is all :-o . Like WTF-ever, show. They run multiple background checks on everyone who gets camera time just to avoid these sorts of situations. So I ain't buyin' it. The whole thing was a set up and if they hid that from Ty during phase 1, just to have a bombshell to drop on him during phase 2, then I can understand why he said "fuck this shit" and went back to Oklahoma. Somewhat, fwiw.
  • Charita and her Zumba classes. Total set up/Zumba promo. She was working as a nurse (didn't say what type of nurse) and somehow teaching a few Zumba classes is going to replace her salary? On what planet? She was able to quit her nursing job because she was receiving payments from the show and/or they were paying for groceries and other essentials during that time period. Or maybe her husband got a better job or a second job, enabling her to focus on her health. It wasn't because she was Zumba certified and teaching a few classes to replace that income. This show needs to be more honest in that regard and quit pretending that people with no history of fitness can just walk into well-paying jobs as fitness instructors or life coaches once they drop ~30% of their weight.

 

 

Other suspicious nonsense, us seeing the kid eating at what appears to be The Powell Family Breakfast Nook, and then later the kid visiting Heidi in the Hospital after she has Powell: The Next Generation.  The breakfast nook thing is CLEARLY meant to go back to that lie that these people live in the Powell house.  When in fact if that is indeed their Breakfast Nook, I suspect the kid was just brought in for the filming that one morning (I seem to recall hearing there's like an Annex elsewhere on the same property with the gym and quarters for these people).  And I DO suppose its possible that the Weight Losers visited Heidi in the Hospital, but it certainly was manipulative of the show to give the sense it was like the kid had become an adjunct of their family, rather than that simply being a photo op.

 

 

I have always thought that perhaps the Powells live on or near the AZ "ranch". Chris has said in the past (James from season 1 claims that it's all bs, but he was suing EWL and ABC at the time, so big grain of salt is taken with his say-so) that the participants do spend time with Chris, Heidi and their family. He never said how much or if it was actual family time or just quick visits. I am not going to say that it is all lies, but the reality is that Chris and Heidi are a couple with 4 young kids. They shouldn't be inviting these people into their homes to disturb their family lives. And they most likely don't. I think Chris learned his lessons after "helping" the guy from The 600lb Virgin special on TLC. That guy developed an unhealthy reliance on Chris and expected him to be there for him 24/7.

 

I feel safe in saying that a lot of the things are staged on the show. Chris and Josh McFloppintits running, the impromptu visit to the hospital, all of the "cooking" with Chris and Heidi segments, the ZOMG! moments where Chris and Heidi are working out and then she starts freaking about "Something's wrong with X! I think X is going to leave! We should confront X RIGHT NOW! GRRRRRR." All of it is poorly acted weight loss theatre.

 

I'm glad that they got rid of the loading dock scale of shame. Although, the replacement of the fakey-mcfake TBL-esque scale of doom isn't any better, imo.

 

I kind of miss the mega milestones of triumph though. No one has climbed a mountain, hiked the grand canyon, or pulled an airplane yet this season. The closest we got was Ty hitting some balls with some baseball player I'd never heard of and that was fairly fucking pointless since he quit the show not long after it happened. Then Charita met TGT, which was also fairly fucking anticlimatic since it wasn't really a milestone. They tried to do the whole mega milestone of triumph thing with her hike up the Rocky Mountain staircase or whatever the hell that was, but it was pretty boring to watch. Kathie and Josh never did anything physical that I can recall. Kathie's mega milestone of triumph was being attractive enough and fit enough to bone Ray. The closest Josh ever got was that fucked up phone call/text from his sperm donor. Was that really an achievement? Not in my book.

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auntie thesis

auntie thesis

(edited)

The TBL diet pill thing originally came to light several seasons ago. I can't recall what exactly they were given back then, or if specific information was even released.  It happened again last season, IIRC. Jillian's team was penalized with a 4lb disadvantage when this information came to light. All I remember is that it was some sort of caffeine supplement/pill. Probably her own brand of supplements, but that information has never been made public to my knowledge. You can read more it HERE and the author of the blog provides plenty of links and refs.

 

As far as EWL goes, James from season 1 says that he was given supplements to help him burn fat, diuretics to dehydrate him and detox/flushes before each weigh in. James sued EWL and ABC for his medical costs after his season, so I don't know if I believe everything that he says. Plus things may have changed since then, especially now that everyone is medically supervised at Anschutz (which is part of the University of Colorado) during phase 1.

 

We do know that past participants have starved themselves (one armed kid from last season, girl who developed bulemia during phases 2 and 3, and didn't get skin surgery as a result, probably some others that I am forgetting). I don't really know what to say about the show's methods. It is unhealthy and abnormal to drop half your body weight in a year. There probably isn't a doctor on this earth besides the infamous Dr. Hair of TBL-land that would advise that someone do so.

 

I also know that the numbers on the scale are likely to be fuckery. Waterloading and dehydrating are common techniques used by boxers and wrestlers to make weight. TBL has employed these tactics for years and many of its hardcore viewers (of which I used to be one) caught onto their use of such techniques. I have every reason to suspect that EWL employs similar tactics to make the numbers better for tv. Also, many of the contestants on EWL have already started losing weight prior to being cast. The numbers on the screen are likely to be their higher application weight numbers and not their current weight numbers, imo.

 

I will still watch EWL. I like the stories, I like Chris, and it occasionally includes eye candy and travel porn. Plus it has no competition, since the only other show I am following at the moment is "Chopped" and "Face Off" isn't airing yet.

Edited by auntie thesis
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k2p2

k2p2

I truly want to believe that EWL does not engage in the weigh-in shenanigans that TBL is known for. There's no reason to, really, since the weigh-ins are infrequent and non-competitive. If they miss they goal by a pound, Chris gets to act sad. If they beat the goal by a pound, Chris gets to act happy. Either way, tomorrow is another day, they set a new goal, and the show goes on.

 

No doubt, there is plenty of manufactured drama in every episode, but I feel like the awareness of disordered eating is real, and the attempts to address and correct it are sincere. That also makes me think that it is unlikely they would push a contestant to use something like water pills.

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Kromm

Kromm

I truly want to believe that EWL does not engage in the weigh-in shenanigans that TBL is known for. There's no reason to, really, since the weigh-ins are infrequent and non-competitive. If they miss they goal by a pound, Chris gets to act sad. If they beat the goal by a pound, Chris gets to act happy. Either way, tomorrow is another day, they set a new goal, and the show goes on.

 

No doubt, there is plenty of manufactured drama in every episode, but I feel like the awareness of disordered eating is real, and the attempts to address and correct it are sincere. That also makes me think that it is unlikely they would push a contestant to use something like water pills.

I'd give that more credence/consideration if it wasn't the VERY same people doing both shows, if despite a clear case of legalitus/sour grapes that at least a few of James Garrison's claims didn't match up somewhat to things people from Loser have said, and that the other kinds of Fuckery weren't SO damn extensive on the show. I mean there's manufactured drama, and then there's manipulation and direct untruths.  The letters, for example, are direct untruths.  Something like Josh's absent Dad text messaging him a long reply SECONDS after we see Josh freak out and leave a voicemail is manipulation (at best, they were expecting Josh to freak out and had that Text waiting for when he did--at worst the whole thing was fiction beginning to end).  Plain old manufactured drama would be most of the rest of the show--but it doesn't stop with that.  Does that mean all the stuff about diet pills and waterloading happens?  No.  Especially in the seasons since the light got shined on the show that such might be happening.  But it makes it feel possible that it DID happen at one point--the fact that the kinds of Fuckery they CAN still get away with seem to happen so much.  If they did it in the first place it wasn't to meet a competitive goal against another person, sure, but they certainly seemed to like to milk drama out of people smashing those goals.  4 (on-camera, at least) weigh ins doesn't seem like much, admittedly, so the consequences of mucking with them doesn't FEEL as bad as potentially doing so a dozen times, like on Loser, but I still think they had possible motive to do so. A competition of a person against themselves is still a competition, and still a source of "TV Drama!"

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auntie thesis

auntie thesis

Plain old manufactured drama would be most of the rest of the show--but it doesn't stop with that.  Does that mean all the stuff about diet pills and waterloading happens?  No.  Especially in the seasons since the light got shined on the show that such might be happening.  But it makes it feel possible that it DID happen at one point--the fact that the kinds of Fuckery they CAN still get away with seem to happen so much.  If they did it in the first place it wasn't to meet a competitive goal against another person, sure, but they certainly seemed to like to milk drama out of people smashing those goals.  4 (on-camera, at least) weigh ins doesn't seem like much, admittedly, so the consequences of mucking with them doesn't FEEL as bad as potentially doing so a dozen times, like on Loser, but I still think they had possible motive to do so. A competition of a person against themselves is still a competition, and still a source of "TV Drama!"

 

 

It's all about the fakeality drama.

 

Do they fake the weigh ins on EWL? Probably. I don't buy for a minute that these people can lose 100+ lbs in 3 months. Either they fake the time frames reported (Phases vary in length) or they fudge the numbers at the weigh ins. There may or may not be obvious fuckery going on. Is it fuckery to report an initial number that is much higher than their actual weight at the time of the first weigh in? Yes, but it's enough of a gray area that TPTB don't feel bad about doing it.

 

EWL still has to make money and maintain ratings. Failures like Ty have to be exception and not the rule. Every season has 1 or 2 "lemons" that either can't or won't lose weight. Sometimes due to health reasons, other times it's personal failings that do them in. This season we had a quitter in the first episode. So that leaves 1-2 spots open for lemons. We'll see where that goes. They invest too much in these people to let them slide by.

 

Do they waterload and use diet pills and all of that? Probably. If not, then they manipulate calories and overexercise. Normal people with jobs, family and other obligations can't exercise for 4-6 hours a day. This was discussed in another season with that biracial guy Jonathan (?), the one who pulled the airplane. Chris wanted him to work out for 4-6 hours a day, but he was struggling to find time due to his work schedule and having a wife and two young kids. There was a blowout of sorts and he didn't reach his phase 2 goal. Wah wah wah...

 

It's the same people running both shows. The only difference is the networks and the overall goals of each show. EWL is supposed to have an inspirational, feel good, fat camp vibe with a kind trainer and celebrity cameos. The participants are swans emerging from the depths of fat ugliness. TBL is straight up blood, sweat, puke, piss and tears weight loss boot camp theatre with a heavy dose of fakeality fuckery and an equal part of competive cutthroatness. EWL is a show that most people would be okay watching with their kids; TBL hasn't been that show in quite some time due to the trainers attitudes and the Real World-esque caliber of the recent seasons contestants.

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zxy556575

zxy556575

From the linked article above:

 

"Extreme Weight Loss remains a steady performer for ABC. The series is enjoying its strongest cycle in two seasons, ranking behind America's Got Talent in its two-hour Tuesday time slot."

 

Well sure, but ... how many of us actually watch the whole shebang? I don't think I'm that much of an outlier, and the entire 2 hours takes me maybe 25 minutes to get through.

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auntie thesis

auntie thesis

DVR'd epis still count towards ratings. I suspect most of us watch via DVR, fast forward through 30%-75% of the show, and go on with our lives. Some of us watch online as well, which sucks since you have to watch the ads in the ABC app. Such is life.

 

Tuesday nights are slow anyway. AGT is fine, but EWL's main competition is probably Chopped on the Food Network. :-/

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editorgrrl

editorgrrl

Some shenanigans from the back end of Season 4:

 

S04.E13: Jeff and Juliana

During the fakey "stakeout" showing Chris in the car on the phone, one shot he was in a sedan and the same "shot" he is in an SUV.  Continuity people, It's a THING!

 

What I enjoy most about the show is Heidi's baby bump showing up, disappearing, showing up in another episode, then receding.

 

 

S04.E11: Kenny and Christy

Did anyone notice when Heidi was "helping Christy pack to return to Colorado" that they weren't actually in the same room and it was filmed a different times.  Christy was arguing with the production team not Heidi.

 

Interesting background info from Skeletor's daughter about last night's ep:

 

http://heidipowell.net/8699/extreme-weight-loss/

 

Makes sense now that Kenny didn't have to climb stairs or whatever to prove he wanted it.

 

The link in that last quote is to Heidi's blog, where she says that:

Kenny was originally not chosen by us. He went as far as he could go in the casting process, and was flat out denied…and totally heartbroken. He begged us for the plan…for the roadmap to his success, so we gave it to him. ON HIS OWN, Kenny started the journey. Week after week, we watched from afar as he did this for HIM, not for the show…asking for our guidance occasionally.

 

As luck would have it, a spot opened up for Kenny. We KNEW he deserved this opportunity more than anyone in the world. Not a day went by after we chose him that he didn’t prove he was deserving of the opportunity.

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