The ninth season of The Biggest Loser got underway Tuesday night (Jan. 5), and judging from the contestants, the 2010 season is going to be huge.
The contestants certainly are - they're the heaviest lot in the show's history, led by the show's heaviest contestant ever, Mike Ventrella, who weighed in at 526 pounds.
Once again this 9th season, the contestants will compete as couples, but there's only one husband-and-wife pair out of the 11 teams that started. There's John and James Crutchfield, the twins whose combined weight added up to 969 pounds - nearly half a ton. There's Ashley Johnston, the 27-year-old younger half of a mother-daughter team and the show's heaviest female contestant ever - 374 pounds at initial weigh-in. The thinnest female contestant is Ashley's mom, 51-year-old, 218-pound Sherry; the thinnest male, 38-year-old Lance Morgan, half of the one married couple, who weighed in at 365 pounds.
The show has always relied on a healthy dose of boot-camp-style hazing and ritual humiliation to propel its drama and its contestants, but this year, the producers took the shaming one step further by having the contestants weigh in not at the "Biggest Loser" ranch but in their hometowns, in public, before family and friends.
And the first episode wasted no time in setting a grueling pace for the contestants: once at the ranch, the teams must pedal stationary bikes for a combined 26.2 miles. After being told they would be immediately eliminated, the two slowest teams in the challenge received a surprise as they left the ranch: they will return in 30 days, and the team that lost the most weight at home during that time will rejoin the competitors at the ranch.
At the end of the episode, the heavier of the twins - 485-pound James Crutchfield - was voted off the ranch by his fellow contestants, but James vowed to continue competing, hoping to match the performance of hthe Season 7 twins who won the home and ranch competitions. (Contestants eliminated from the show continue a weight loss program at home and are eligible for a prize at season end.)
The "scarlet letter" quality of the debut episode will no doubt set the tone for the installments to come, guaranteeing that viewers will feel pity, guilt, awe and morbid curiosity all at the same time.
Written by Sandy Smith
For HULIQ.com
Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.
