Thursday, April 14, 2016

On The Air: American Grit (2016)

American Grit, Fox's newest reality series, can be best described as being a cross between CBS' Survivor, the WWE's on-again, off-again Tough Enough, and, staying on the wrestling tip, Steve Austin's CMT series, Broken Skull Challenge.

4 military veterans, including double amputee and former Dancing With The Stars contestant Noah Galloway, lead teams of 4 through 13 weeks of grueling, military-style challenges. The carrot dangled before the contestants? A cool million dollars.

Fronting the competition is WWE superstar and reality TV vet John Cena (Total Divas), who is host, narrator, announcer, and head cheerleader, and is credited as an executive producer. Talk about busy. No wonder he's in no hurry to return to action...!

Rather than try to explain this in detail, let's watch a sample clip:



And you thought boot camp was brutal. The opener included some footage from Tribute to the Troops from years past, to establish the link Cena has forged with our armed forces. The only part about this I don't dig is the unnecessary drama among the contestants. Can we do one of these shows without creating drama that doesn't exist?

Look at it this way. Once Cena hangs up the jean shorts and retires from WWE competition, he's got a future as a narrator or a game show host. We think.

Rating: B.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

i have came on your blog while searching american grit review and discussions. i love john cena and hence love his show .. "the american grit", i watched previous episodes and am now waiting for the next episode to be aired soon.

hobbyfan said...

Welcome to the party. What do you think?