It Ain't Bragging If You Back It Up - Battle of the Network Reality Stars, Episode 1 by atarus
Well, it's been a long time since I've done a review, so I'm definitely a bit rusty. However, let's get straight to the show. This is Battle of the Network Reality Stars, a modern-day take on the old 80s show, Battle of the Network Stars. The 80s show had real actors participate. This show has reality show contestants hoping to eke out their 16th minute of fame. Not that I mind, mind you. Because some of these reality stars I actually wanted to see again.
Mike Adam is the announcer for this show. His reporters down on the field will be Trishelle from the Real World, Bachelor Bob Guiney, and the great Omarosa from The Apprentice. (If you haven't had your Omarosa fix from The Surreal Life, you can see her here too! Joy!)
It's time to introduce the teams. For Dark Blue we have Bradford (The Apprentice 2), Richard Hatch (Survivor: Borneo), Ryan Starr (American Idol), Charla and Mirna (TAR5), Valerie (a show I can't remember), Burton (Survivor: Pearl Islands), and Mike "The Miz" (Real World). The Dark Blue team decides their captain via Rock, Paper Scissors between The Miz and Hatch. Mike wins, and Dark Blue is labelled "Team Miz."
For the Green team, we have Matt Gould (Joe Schmo), Sue Hawk (Survivor: Borneo), Dr. Will (Big Brother 2), Chip and Kim (TAR5), Nikki McKibbin (American Idol), Theo (Road Rules), and Brian (Average Joe). Theo states that "how can you not like Chip, he's like Winnie The Pooh." The Green Team decides to give "George Foreman" the team captainship, and Green is now known as Team Chip.
For Red, there is Will Wikle (Big Brother 5), Coral (Real World), Duncan (another show I didn't catch), Adam (Average Joe), Evan Mariott (Joe Millionaire), Rachel (The Swan), Melissa (Real World), and Heidi (The Apprentice). Coral is elected to be captain for the Red Team, because in the words of Evan, "she can't keep her mouth shut so she'll be good for ordering us around." Red Team is now Team Coral.
Finally, Light Blue consists of Brittany (American's Next Top Model), Mike Boogie (Big Brother 2), Jonathan and Victoria (TAR6), Wendy (Project: Runway), Gervase (Survivor: Borneo), Chris Russo (Apprentice 2), and Tina Fabulous (The Bachelor). Jonathan is his typical self, and gets vocal about wanting to be team captain. Mike Boogie says that Jonathan is "too headstrong." They instead go to a name draw out of a hat, and Gervase is the captain. Light Blue now equals Team Gervase.
So now the teams have to do strategy for the first three events. Those events are the obstacle course, the dunk tank, and the joust. For Green, Chip is his kindly ol' self, saying things like "Okay, now raise your hand if you think you are a 10 at the obstacle course." Theo says that Chip is a great team captain, and Dr. Will quips "If I were captain, I'd have the girls crying in five minutes." Over with Team Miz, Charla is adamant about doing the joust because of her size. (If you didn't see TAR5, Charla is a midget that packs a punch.) At first Hatch and The Miz don't like the idea, but after testing her out and seeing that she is, in fact, hard to hit over because of her low center of gravity, they let her do the joust. On Team Gervase, Boogie and Chris both take pot-shots at Jonathan, as Jonathan thinks he's the best at every event and thinks he should be in every one. Boogie calls Jonathan "the blowhard of the group."
It's time for the first event, the obstacle course! Team Coral goes up against Team Miz, and Team Gervase goes against Team Chip. In the Coral/Miz match-up, Coral's team cleans house, as their runners Will, Rachel, and Evan kick tail. But while The Miz puts in a hardy effort, Mirna loses a shoe and Bradford falls off the monkey bars. Ouch. We only get to see a recap of the Team Chip vs. Team Gervase round, but we see enough to know that Gervase, Mike Boogie, and Chris hand Team Chip's runners' tails to them.
So for the final match-up and 100 points, Team Gervase squares off against Team Coral. Team Gervase sends Victoria, Tina Fab, and Wendy vs. Coral's Melissa, Heidi, and Duncan. The announcer says that "he has to go with Team Coral, since Team Gervase used all their men in the first round." (But what about Jonathan, Mr. Announcer? *crickets chirp* Oh, yeah.) Anyway, the round starts and Victoria gets a sizeable lead on Melissa. But Heidi is a fast runner and catches up to Tina during the second leg. So it's a close race between Duncan and Wendy, and with a flying leap, Duncan jumps OVER the rope swing instead of swinging, and crosses the finish line first to win the first event for Team Coral.
Standings after round 1: Team Coral - 100, Team Gervase - 75, Team Miz - 50, Team Chip - 25
In post-round interviews, Red Team congratulates Duncan Nutter, who is the hero of the round. Meanwhile, talking to who knows who, Jonathan says that he was the "strategist" of the team and planned out how the obstacle course would go, and deserves some credit. Yes Jonathan, we know.
It's time for the second event! Dunk Tank! Before the round starts, we are treated to trash talk as Jonathan really wants to dunk Richard, and Richard wants to get Coral since she can't swim. And The Miz tells Bachelor Bob that if he gets dunked, he's peeing in the dunk tank. Way to be a sport, Miz.
For Team Coral, Adam goes first and chooses to dunk Ryan Starr. Or at least he tries to. He misses twice and glances the target once, so he gets 1 point for Team Coral. Next up is Victoria for Team Gervase. Omarosa interviews Jonathan and Victoria. Jonathan tells Omarosa that "the cameras don't lie, but the editing does." That's right Jonathan. And this time you're being edited to be a dork. Sorry. Anyway, Victoria chooses to dunk Coral. Now let me tell you something. I watched the Real World season that Coral was on, and I've seen several of the MTV competitions that she's competed on. And for some reason, a big part of Coral somehow had slipped by me. She has HUGE knockers. The things are ginormous. Ahem. Anyway, Victoria manages to dunk Coral twice, and scores six points for Team Gervase.
Then Brian is up for Team Chip. Brian also chooses Coral because "all the guys wanted to see her top off." Hatch comments from the sideline saying that Coral was a popular choice because of "her two best friends." Nice to know I wasn't the only guy that noticed. Brian then proceeds to knock Coral in twice as well, scoring six points. Dr. Will states that Brian was a "ringer" because he played baseball in the past. Then Burton steps up for Team Miz, chooses Mike Boogie, and knocks him in once.
For the Dunk Tank round two, Coral tries to get revenge on Victoria, but misses all three times and her team only gets 1 point total. Chris chooses Brian, and he whiffs three times as well, leaving Team Gervase with 6 points. Matt "Joe Schmo" Gould chooses the Miz. He leaves some funny commentary, saying that "The Miz took his shirt off and showed off his six-pack. So I had to take off my own shirt. Who knows, maybe I'll woo the women with my twelve-pack." The Miz taunts Joe Schmo mercileslly, but Matt gets the last laugh as on the third ball, he dunks Miz.
So Team Chip leads with 9 points. Bradford for Team Miz has to hit all three to win and two to tie. He chooses Tina Fabulous to dunk. He misses his first shot, but hits the second. The third throw he misses just high and Team Chip is victorious!
Standings After Round Two: Team Gervase: 150, Team Chip: 125, Team Coral: 125, Team Miz: 100
After event commentary comes from Brian, who says that he thinks that the dunk tank water is "the original water from the 80s show." We are then treated to a look back at the original 80s contestants through Austin Scarlett from Project Runway. The best females from the old show are Linda Carter and Farrah Fawcett, and the males were Tom Selleck and Scott Baio, according to him. Or her. I couldn't really tell if it was a he or she. Eep.
The final event is the joust. The winning team gets 125 points instead of 100, and the overall winning team gets to keep their team intact and a paid vacation to some casino. Everybody seems happy about that. We are again treated to some pre-event trash talking, and the best line of the episode goes to Gervase, who tells another team "I'm running through your team like diarrhea! In Mexico!"
For this event, Team Gervase and Team Chip square off again, and Team Miz goes against Team Coral again. The first bout is Sue Hawk vs. Victoria (she's been in every event! Warrior woman?) and Victoria nails Sue into the water. The second round is Joe Schmo vs. Chris Russo, and Russo tops Schmo, sending Team Gervase into the finals.
By the way, in case you're interested in the corny commentary that the announcer is giving off (you shouldn't be), here's a gem of a comment that he makes. "Joe Schmo was duped on national TV, but he got dunked here!" ....Yeah. You like my recap better and you know it. Moving on!
It's time for Team Miz's "secret weapon," as Hatch puts it. Charla the little woman goes up against Rachel, the newly-made woman from The Swan. While the team's assessment was right in that Charla was impossible to knock over, what they forgot is that she needs to be able to knock over the other person. Their bout ends in a draw, after 5 minutes of pounding. Then it's Richard vs. Average Joe Adam. And the big man from Survivor takes out Mr. Average. Ryan Starr is up against Melissa, and a quick interview by giggly Trishelle gives away that Ryan thinks that Evan, The Miz, and Burton are all hot. Like we weren't expecting those answers. Anyway, Ryan knocks Melissa in, and Team Miz joins Team Gervase in the finals.
In the consolation round, Team Chip beats Team Coral, as Heidi gives up and jumps off the platform instead of actually jousting.
But the main event is between Team Miz and Team Gervase. And fitting enough, The Miz and Gervase go head-to-head in the first match. The two athletes battle each other, but Miz knocks Gervase off balance first. However, Gervase falls over and ends up pulling the Miz into the water, while he stays hanging on. But since the rules state you can only use the jousting pole, The Miz gets the point. Second round is Brittany vs. Valerie .... Brittany simply gets a foothold and pushes Valerie in. The final round is Jonathan vs. Bradford. Jonathan is excited because "Bradford is a guy I might actually be able to beat." The announcer states that Jonathan has been bragging, but "it ain't bragging if you back it up." And Jonathan backs it up by knocking Bradford in and winning the competition for Team Gervase. Bradford gets a dig in at Jonathan after the competition, saying that Victoria wears the pants in that relationship and Jonathan "borrows a skirt whenever he can."
All the teams head back and sit in bleachers, where Mike Adam announces the twist. Team Gervase had the most points, so they are safe. But the other three teams have to vote a person out of their team. For Team Chip, Kim does a noble thing and says that she should step out, since her and Chip are from the same house. Dr. Will tells them that he played in a game where he had to lie and backstab to get to the top, and he hardly ever meets somebody as genuine as those two. He speaks the truth. For Team Coral, Heidi says that she's fine with leaving since she gave up in the last joust match. She says that she's used to The Apprentice and business deals, not fighting. For Team Miz, everybody is bummed, but Hatch and Miz give advice on voting out people and how it's just part of the game. They decide to do a secret ballot vote, and it turns out that Charla is the one to be voted out. Charla is hurt because she feels like Ryan betrayed her. Ryan says that Charla is "the nicest person in the whole world" but it was all about having the best team.
The groups reconvene, and each group states who is going home. When Miz states that they've chosen Charla, the other teams make a very disappointed moan. But after Charla, Kim, and Heidi are standing, Mr. Announcer drops another bomb: the voted out people aren't going home yet. He has three cards in front of him, one for each color. The voted out people will pick each card and go to the team that the color represents. Charla picks first, and ends up on Team Coral. Kim picks second and ends up back with her husband on Team Chip. Dr. Will says that "she's genuine, she sacrificed herself, and good things happen to good people." By process of elimination, Heidi goes to Team Miz, who says that she doesn't like Team Miz for what they did to Charla, that her heart is with her red team, and Go Charla!
Mike Adam tells them that next time, though, team members will be voted off for real. Ooooooh, interesting. And we are given shots of the season to come, and it really seems like there's gonna be a lot of drama coming. (And who'd have thunk, it seems like Sue Hawk gets right in the middle of it.)
I must say I found this show to be highly entertaining. I loved being able to see both Wills from Big Brother back in action, as well as the big ol' teddy bear that is Chip. Hatch, The Miz, Gervase, and Coral's best friends were also very welcome on my TV set. I even found myself loving the lovable Charla, even though I didn't like her and Mirna in TAR5. Maybe it's because she's being portrayed as an individual in this show, and not paired with her Phil-hunting sister. If I was a betting man, I would say that Team Gervase will win the whole thing, because aside from Jonathan's loud mouth, they have the best team harmony....I foresee the other teams getting real ugly real quick. Well, maybe not Team Coral....I see her getting ugly with the other teams real quick. Ha. Anyway, if anybody else caught this, please drop me a line at atarus33@yahoo.com and tell me what you think. And if you didn't catch it, I highly recommend you do. Bravo Channel, Wednesdays at 9 PM EST. See you next week!
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