Million Dollar Mile - General Discussion

[blackwing]

Premieres Wednesday, March 27.  LeBron James is executive producer and Tim Tebow is the host.

Official website: https://www.cbs.com/shows/million-dollar-mile/

The commercials make this show look like an amazing adrenaline rush.  I am excited for the premiere!

CBS has ordered Million Dollar Mile (working title), a 10-episode high-stakes competition series that challenges everyday athletes’ physical and mental toughness, from LeBron James and Maverick Carter’s Springhill Entertainment, Big Brother producer Fly on the Wall Entertainment and Warner Horizon Unscripted & Alternative Television.

In Million Dollar Mile (wt), the streets of a major city are shut down and the Million Dollar Mile course goes up. Per producers, in this unprecedented television event series, contestants will have the chance to win $1,000,000 every time they run the Million Dollar Mile. Standing in their way is the most challenging course ever designed and a group of elite athletes with one mission – stop the contestants from winning the money at all costs.

(from https://deadline.com/2018/08/cbs-orders-athlete-competition-series-lebron-james-big-brother-executive-producers-1202441625/)

Edited March 25, 2019 by blackwing

[ClareWalks]

As a Spartan race fan, I'm psyched. The Defenders are LEGIT. These are the folks that win full length races every week. They can easily sprint a mile with obstacles, and I will be surprised if anyone can win the money even with the two-minute head start.

Edited March 26, 2019 by ClareWalks

[Maverick]

 Seeing the commercials for this during Survivor...is it just me or does the set look like something from The Running Man?   

[Maverick]

 Ok, so there's no cheeky English host and apparently no one is going to die if they're too slow, so now I'm thinking this is American Gladiators Meets Black Lightning.  

[Taeolas]

I want to like this. I love obstacle show courses.... but damn the hosts and commentators are HORRIBLE. Tim Tebow does NOT have a host voice, and the commentators have no energy at all; especially since they'll be compared with ANW's Matt and Akbar. 

Shows like this need the hosts and commetators to provide energy, especially since the spectators are scattered unlike on ANW courses, and I'm just not feeling it. 😞

I'll keep watching for now, but it may not make it. 

[suebee12]

I like this so far. And boy, the defenders defend! What I was wondering was why the last guy chose to do the water obstacle first...yes, he was good at it but he was wet, really wet when he finished. Having to run in wet clothes is not fun or fast. He was totally exhausted and he said he was cramping...so why do this obstacle first?

[blackwing]

Loved the obstacles.  Such a joy to watch.  That Momentum obstacle looks super tough.

Absolute worst part of this show is Tim Tebow. He’s a terrible host.  Stupid, trite comments.  But above all, the voice!  I have never heard him speak before and I was surprised that he is what Jerry Seinfeld would call a High Talker.  It was disconcerting.  Such a big body with a surprisingly high pitched voice.   On top of that he just seemed so awkward.  He has the same things to say every time.  “Thanks for representing.”   I also hate how he pronounces appreciate as “uh-prish-she-ate”.

I did like the woman commentator.  She seemed lively and excited.  But the dude commentator was terrible.  So monotone.  He seemed like he came right from commentating on the golf course.

[Rickster]

This show, and that show The Rock had on NBC that ended last month show you how important Matt and Akbar are to the success of Ninja Warrior. Neither show have the energy of ANW. I did short of like this one, remains to be seen if it gets boring.

I did think it was silly to do the water obstacle anywhere but last. I also thought that like on the Momentum obstacle, the Defenders must have an a built in advantage from having run the course before. I wonder if they get to train on it.

[greyflannel]

At the beginning, I thought the contestants were choosing where to start ( they might have even said or implied that), but toward the end, I thought maybe the show was really picking the order. It makes more sense for the show to pick, otherwise we might be seeing the same couple of obstacles over and over when the contestants pick the easier(?) ones first and don't get through more than 1 or 2. I hope the contestants improve, I was thinking they would be getting much further than they have so far. I think Tebow is fine, for me the lack of excitement is coming from knowing during the first challenge that there's no way the contestant is getting anywhere near the top prize. 

[CrazyDog]

I enjoyed this, all in all. The course was interesting and I love the neon look. But it's hard to see how the contestants will get far with the defenders having apparently practiced on the course. But it's a good summer show until ANW comes back.

[UncleChuck]

The runners and defenders are assisted by a counter-balance system as they ascend the rope up that building, but the defenders have all really, REALLY flown up that rope.  I wonder if the counter-balancing system might be tweaked a bit in the defender's favor?

[ClareWalks]

8 minutes ago, UncleChuck said:

The runners and defenders are assisted by a counter-balance system as they ascend the rope up that building, but the defenders have all really, REALLY flown up that rope.  I wonder if the counter-balancing system might be tweaked a bit in the defender's favor?

It's possible but my guess is they are just that good. There are several rope-based Spartan obstacles that these folks would all be experts at.

[Rickster]

3 hours ago, UncleChuck said:

The runners and defenders are assisted by a counter-balance system as they ascend the rope up that building, but the defenders have all really, REALLY flown up that rope.  I wonder if the counter-balancing system might be tweaked a bit in the defender's favor?

This is a game show, and fairness on game shows is pretty closely monitored. I’d guess the producers would be in a lot of trouble if there were undisclosed tweaking of any parts of the competition.

[Wandering Snark]

Wow, Tebow is a horrible choice for host. He was brutal. I hope he settles in...

I thought it was interesting overall but I too was surprised how few of the stages the runners made it through. I thought 3-4 would be the average. If one becomes the average distance made they have greatly misjudged something. Either the racers aren't good enough or the defenders are too good/should have been given more than just two minutes to absorb.

It's distinctly less interesting when you hear "So after the first challenge our racer is heading for the wall to keep his $10,000!"

I mean "Maybe $25,000 And Significantly Less Than a Mile" is not exacttly how they planned/promised it to us.

Edited March 30, 2019 by Wandering Snark

[SVNBob]

On 3/29/2019 at 7:00 PM, greyflannel said:

At the beginning, I thought the contestants were choosing where to start ( they might have even said or implied that), but toward the end, I thought maybe the show was really picking the order. It makes more sense for the show to pick, otherwise we might be seeing the same couple of obstacles over and over when the contestants pick the easier(?) ones first and don't get through more than 1 or 2.

The show can pick the order even if the contestants do pick their own starting points.  They can edit together runs from different recording sessions (barring repeating Defenders), showcasing as many different obstacles in an episode as possible.  That's what it felt like they did in this first one, where they showed us 6 unique obstacles with only 1 repeat, and that was because it was the first pick for one runner and the second for the other.

They also put together a nice subset of possible outcomes for a run.  We saw two different defeats; one on an obstacle and one at the start/finish line.  And while the two wins were similar, they were different enough to make for some contrast.  The only things we weren't shown are:

• someone making it to the 3rd obstacle and banking the $50K
• someone completing all 5 obstacles, but failing on the $1M challenge
• someone completing the entire course and winning the $1M

Yes, they tried to tease those things in previews at the end of the episode, but those could have been staged for said previews and not be actual events from the recording.

I'm happy I watched the first episode, but I'm out.  While the production itself seems high-quality, there's no spark to the action.  It's probably because the live audience is so removed from most of it.  In Sasuke and the international Ninja Warrior spin-offs, the audience is right there on the sidelines for the entire course.  Here, they were all at the start/finish and that was it.  The obstacles were run without anyone present.  Which kinda damped the whole thing, and made the stakes feel lessened.

And I'm kinda sick of the American TV insistence on the "sob story" for competitors in shows like this (or indeed in any televised sporting event.)  Introducing the Defenders and their qualifications is fine, since they're regulars.  But the contestants are one-and-dones.  We don't need to know their inspirations or "why" they're running the course...it's for the money.  Besides, that's what the color commentator is for.  Cut all the contestant's stories, and there would have been time for another runner in the episode.

[UncleChuck]

7 hours ago, SVNBob said:

And I'm kinda sick of the American TV insistence on the "sob story" for competitors in shows like this (or indeed in any televised sporting event.)   ...the contestants are one-and-dones.  We don't need to know their inspirations or "why" they're running the course...it's for the money.  Besides, that's what the color commentator is for.

Or, in my case--that's what my DVR and Fast Forward is for.

[Giuseppe]

Man, I thought this was really boring for such a cool concept. If the defenders can make up the time that quickly, there's not much hope of any of the contestants ever making it past the 2nd or 3rd obstacle. And I couldn't figure out the spacing of the obstacles...are they all equidistant from the exit wall? I think I would've liked to have seen a map or something (the "map" they kept showing looked more like a chart) so we could gauge some sort of relative distance. I dunno...something was just missing. I'll see how I feel after watching the next episode but I'm not impressed so far.

Quote

In Sasuke and the international Ninja Warrior spin-offs, the audience is right there on the sidelines for the entire course.  Here, they were all at the start/finish and that was it.  The obstacles were run without anyone present.  Which kinda damped the whole thing, and made the stakes feel lessened.

Yeah, that's probably at least partly what I felt was missing.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Giuseppe

[Taeolas]

The graphic they show I think is basically a city block map of where each obstacle is, and the route they have to follow, so they have to go that quarter mile or whatever it is between each one. That does mean that the obstacles do have a bit of an order to them; you want to do the ones next to your current one or else you'll have to run further. 

Of course the ad-monkeys ruined the final run, with the Planet Fitness commercial celebrating the guy being the first to reach 5 challenges, while the show was still on him just beating the 3rd one. The defender did eventually beat him; but part of me does keep wondering if a male defender would have caught up to him faster. Still she kept nibbling into his lead, but if he hadn't fallen off the wall, he would probably have finished the 5th one before her. 

The Guaranteed 50k for 3 challenges I think is the carrot to encourage people to go forward. If you still have a minute lead after the second challenge, then you might as well go for the 3rd one. It all depends on if you feel you can do that challenge (whatever it is) better than the rope climb basically. 

Tebow didn't annoy me quite as much this time as the first ep, but I'm still not really feeling this show. Feels like there is a lot of filler and dead air to fill with the mandatory runs between stages. 

[ClareWalks]

The last guy (Deshaun?) was a beast, but I think going for Deep Water Solo was a big mistake. Part of what makes this show interesting to me is how quickly the contestants have to calculate risk and reward. I loved how much fun he was having, though, he was psyched to win 50K. I was glad to see that Hunter McIntyre wasn't as huge of a douche as he usually is (he is a TURBO DOUCHE, you guys, like famously so in the OCR world, haha).

[Wandering Snark]

Oh so bored... as I said before if the average runner makes it through one obstacle this is really just the $10,000 1/5 of a mile... which doesn't have the same pop to it. Either they made the challenges too slanted towards the pros and/or they made that 2 minute 'advantage' for the runners far too short. It would seem that many of these defenders could have made up a 5 minute deficit going into the third challenge or so. Yeah someone put together a cool basis for a show but blew it when coming up with the setup and rules. I mean did they test this thing? And who else did they consider/test out as host?

[SnideAsides]

It's been dumped from the schedule. NCIS rerun next week, then a new season of The Amazing Race (aka Million Dollar Circumnavigation) CBS were originally holding over until Survivor finished.

The remaining episodes will be burned off on Saturday nights starting in May.

[Wandering Snark]

Oh I am not surprised... because half way through the last episode I thought "I wonder if this show is going to even make it to next week..." What a sad performance after all the hype they put into it.

[blackwing]

I enjoyed seeing the new obstacles but I don't think the runners get enough lead time.  Yes, there's a million dollars at stake but it's really anticlimactic to watch them do one obstacle and then clock out.  I would have each stage up until the 3rd stage be guaranteed money, that at least encourages the runners to keep going.

On 4/4/2019 at 12:55 PM, ClareWalks said:

The last guy (Deshaun?) was a beast, but I think going for Deep Water Solo was a big mistake. Part of what makes this show interesting to me is how quickly the contestants have to calculate risk and reward. I loved how much fun he was having, though, he was psyched to win 50K. I was glad to see that Hunter McIntyre wasn't as huge of a douche as he usually is (he is a TURBO DOUCHE, you guys, like famously so in the OCR world, haha).

Dashon was fantastic, I liked his energy.  I tend to think that anyone who attempts either of the water obstacles we have seen (Deep Water Solo and Windy Wall) is doomed to fail.  Their hands will be wet and even if they make it through, their body will be wet and cold as we saw last week.

Hunter McIntyre is the one that said something about how his best asset is that he is incredibly good looking, right?  Yeah, douche.  I did like that he did seem to be encouraging that lithe dancer in a nice kind of way, however.

16 hours ago, SnideAsides said:

It's been dumped from the schedule. NCIS rerun next week, then a new season of The Amazing Race (aka Million Dollar Circumnavigation) CBS were originally holding over until Survivor finished.

The remaining episodes will be burned off on Saturday nights starting in May.

Ah that's too bad.  Sorry to hear it.  I think this concept is fantastic, but I do think their choice of host was terrible.  Tim Tebow is just all around bad.  Doesn't have a voice or a presence for hosting.  The show would have been much better off if LeBron himself had been the host.  I bet more people would have tuned in.  I guess I'll just make the most of the remaining episodes in May.

[ClareWalks]

13 minutes ago, blackwing said:

 I tend to think that anyone who attempts either of the water obstacles we have seen (Deep Water Solo and Windy Wall) is doomed to fail.  Their hands will be wet and even if they make it through, their body will be wet and cold as we saw last week.

Definitely. Perhaps they figure the defenders will have the same handicap but they should remember that the defenders are very accustomed to doing grip obstacles while soaking wet (and covered in slippery mud). 

[Taeolas]

Well once the eps are done, it's over. But thinking on the energy level of the show, there was one relatively easy way they could have done it.

Rent 1 or 2 double decker buses, or maybe a 'convertable bus' (Do those exist?); basically an open top bus and load a dozen spectators on it. Then the bus could either be driven (safely) alongside the contestant to each challenge or the bus could take a short cut to the next challenge and spectators would be there waiting to cheer the contestant and/or defender on. 

If you have 2 vehicles, one could follow the Contestant and one could follow the Defender. 

[seacliffsal]

I'm not surprised that they cancelled/pulled this.  Even during the first episode it felt like something was lacking and several posters nailed it-not enough chance to get a million dollars.  It was also deceptive in that someone had to get to all of the obstacles and back in order to be able to compete for the million dollar prize; so a separate challenge once the challenge circuit had been completed.

The defenders had a huge advantage in their familiarity with the course-they knew how to best attack each challenge.  The challengers had to figure out how to best meet each obstacle while running it for the first time.  So, unbalanced advantage for the defenders from the get-go. 

For all of the hype, this show disappeared very quietly.

[Zella]

I just caught the last half of the one of the episodes by chance and had to come here to see if anyone else agreed on how bad Tebow was as a host. 

[Quilt Fairy]

On 7/6/2019 at 8:41 PM, Zella said:

I just caught the last half of the one of the episodes by chance and had to come here to see if anyone else agreed on how bad Tebow was as a host. 

I just came across it while channel surfing and the first thing I thought was "Why did they pick this guy as host?  Shouldn't the host have some type of personality? And also wear better clothes?" 

So, yes. 

[spaceytraci1208]

I watched the last couple episodes, and it's a cool concept, just not executed well. As already mentioned, Tebow isn't a good host. Beyond that, it also seems like the contestants are set up to fail. Even if they didn't have a Terminator chasing after them, isn't it like a quarter mile between each obstacle?? All you hear is these poor folks breathing heavily as they make their way to the next obstacle (or exit to try and get out winning something)

Edited July 14, 2019 by spaceytraci1208

[ClareWalks]

Big takeaway this episode: Isaiah Vidal is an asshole.