As The Biggest Loser keeps rolling along they keep adding new twists and turns designed to increase the drama. The game is now more designed to create conflict. They talk more and more about the game play. Ultimately, however, the show is pretty much exactly what it has always been which is good news for NBC, which has found a way to combine the appeal of reality television with America’s desire to learn how to slim down fast, and turned it into a steady source of popular programming.
The basic premise is the same as always. A group of obese people come on the show and are taught how to lose the extra weight that they are carrying. They struggle with rewards and consequence that are placed in front of them. There are also transformations. The contestants have gotten bigger every season. The contestants are losing more weight than ever before.
The audience watches everyone’s back story. When a viewer is watching they want to care about a person who is on the show. Drama is created when the viewers find out the history behind a person’s struggle with their body shape and why they are facing the problem now. That makes it hard not to root for everyone to succeed, which is the point. The appeal of the Biggest Loser is that the prize is mostly the right to be there as long as possible, and the audience watches to see who loses the weight rather than who wins the $250,000 grand prize and the show offers a chance to see what can happen when people receive intensive support in the weight-loss process, rather that an infomercial that promises to help a person learn what is the quickest way to lose weight in 2 weeks, and likely serves as an inspiration for viewers to get off the couch and try and start the process themselves.
There is a host for the show. Many people do not even realize who that person is. Most of the show is about other things and it is not a very big part that needs to be filled. They are remembered mostly for congratulating people on their weight loss and informing the eliminated contestant that they aren’t the biggest loser, but the question of who should get the job has always been somewhat controversial as one host looked like she would be a better fit on an infomercial about best way to lose weight with hypothyroidism because but she struggled with her weight, and was hardly as trim as the show’s trainers. In the end she was too large to host a show about weight loss.
There are many other important characters on the show. The story centers on the trainers and the contestants. For one season a trainer left when she was portrayed in a way that she did not like. The show got her to come back and she is still on the show. The contestants are worked very hard throughout the sow. There are some participants who are very close to giving it all up.
The prospect of hard work is not enough to scare people from applying for the show. The idea of finding a way to lose a large amount of weight in a short time is something that many people desire. People are attracted to the show because they are mesmerized by the concept of people working out and losing weight.
As long as people are attracted to it, the show will go on. Someone will always want to be on television for whatever reason they can and will be willing to do anything to be on the show. And if the stories are interesting, there will be viewers.