All-Star Cast Analysis: Season 4 and Champions

I got a little tied up with a few things outside of the blog. My apologies.

Here we sit, on the eve of a season I was never sure we would see. And as such I find myself returning to familiar territory. I have to say I'm surprised there are five contestants from Season 4. It seems like it would be difficult to do this (or any reality competition show) back to back. However like every season so far there are some highlights and low-lights, so let's take a look at who came back to the ranch.

Season 4

William Bethards
Not very excited for Mr. Hey Diddle Diddle, but we'll see if he can spend a little less time yapping and little more time hitting his mark.

Gabby Franco
An excellent choice and someone I am very excited to see some back. Gabby is rarely without a smile on her face and I think it would be awesome to see her go up against the best and come out the winner. 

Chee Kwan
His biggest downfalls seem to come with the obstacles that are incorporated into the challenges, rather than the shooting itself. If he can keeps his nerves in check when Colby throws a curveball, he should do just fine.

Gregory Littlejohn
My only question is: Who gets the friendship bandana this time around?

Kyle Sumpter
The guy who is so earnest it hurts. I can't really hold anything against Sumpter. He's a strong shooter, a great leader and genuinely a nice guy. But I do have trouble watching his one on one interviews.

I would rather see: Terry Vaughn, Dylan Fletcher and Tim Trefren. I think I've made my feelings about Vaughn pretty clear, so no need to be redundant. Fletcher I only started to like at the end, so I would have liked the chance to root for him from the start. Had Trefren not gone up against Chris Cheng in that elimination challenge I think he could have very easily made it to the individual portion of the contest. 

But wait there's more...

Since tomorrow is the premiere I'm going to double down on one other post I had planned but wasn't able to get to.

The one noticeable factor missing from the cast roster is the lack of champions. Iain Harrison, Chris Reed, Dustin Ellermann and Chris Cheng are nowhere to be found. I look at this two ways:

Glass half-full:
The promos already have shown the inclusion of Dustin and Chris during one of the challenges, so it isn't like they are going to be entirely absent from the proceedings. The argument can be made that these guys have already proven their talent as shooters and don't need go through it again. It also might look bad if one of the champions got knocked out early.

Glass half-empty:
This is an all-star season that is missing its four fiercest competitors. It's hard to claim being an all-star champion without beating at least one previous winner.

I wish I could tell you I have a good plan for posting tweets, recaps and analysis of each episode, but I still don't have cable. So if anyone knows someone at History Channel or Pilgrim Studios, ask them if they could send me screeners. I would really appreciate it. Otherwise I plan on getting up early Thursday and seeing what my streaming options are. Follow me on Twitter @cswiets for updates.

What are you most looking forward to in tomorrow's premiere? 

Top Shot Season Five: Mark Your Calendars

Premiering over a year after the last season finale, Top Shot Season Five is officially set to air on Wednesday, May 29 at 10/9 CT. Since I just found this news out myself (courtesy of Jamie Franks) I'm just going to provide a quick list of the contestants. Come back tomorrow evening when I'll start diving into what to expect from this all-star season.

Season 1
Kelly Bachand
Adam Benson
Chris Cerino
Blake Miguez
Peter Palma

Season 2
Jamie Franks
Joe Serafini
Brian Zins

Season 3
Alex Charvat
Phil Morden
Gary Quesenberry (YES!)

Season 4
William Bethards
Gabby Franco
Chee Kwan
Gregory Littlejohn
Kyle Sumpter

Follow me on Twitter: @cswiets

Top Shot All-Stars: Season 4 Picks

It's official. There will be a Season 5, and that season will (hopefully) feature the best of the last four seasons to see who is the ultimate Top Shot. At the beginning of Season 4, when this was still in the rumor stage, I posted who I would pick from the first three seasons to participate in an all-star challenge. Now that Season 4 has been completed, and we know for certain there will be an all-star season, I present my picks for who should come back.

Givens:
Chris Cheng - As with all my picks, this wouldn't be much to watch if we didn't have all four winners in the mix. This is probably going to be incredibly difficult to do, especially since a recent article with Season 3 winner Dustin Ellerman stated he would be busy this summer running his camp. Regardless, we got to have the Chenger, he battled his way through some incredibly talented contestants and came out on top.

Terry Vaughan - Forget the fact he didn't make it to the individual level, and that he was eliminated by Littlejohn, this guy has personality that makes the show come alive. Plus, if we get Iain Harrison, double the Brits is sure to equal double the fun.

Gabby Franco - You can't have an all-star season without the best female contestant in the show's history. Franco has already taken to her twitter account to start gathering support. Franco was an impressive contestant and had great chemistry with her teammates. I'd love to see how she fares against the best from the first three seasons.

Wild Card:
Tim Trefren/Chee Kwan -Bit of a cop-out here to pick two but I have good reasoning. Trefren was a master hunter and if he hadn;t gotten upset with Cheng and forced himself into that elimination challenge, I'm confident he would have made it at least to the indivdual stage of the compeition. That being said Chee was a skilled shooter, and putting him back in the house with Gabby is something I think most viewers could get behind.

There you have it. Put your picks in the comments, and hit up Colby on Twitter with who you would like to see come back for Season 5.

More thoughts on the all-star season to come, and I'll be picking up my Season 4 slack very soon.

Follow @cswiets

Top Shot Analysis: S4 E10 "SWAT Throwdown"

Here are some fun facts about 1995:

• Busiest hurricane season on record
• Denver International Airport opened
• Mississippi becomes the last state to ratify the 13th amendment (seriously)
• Salt Lake City selected to host the 2002 Winter Olympics
• The final original Calvin and Hobbes comic strip is published
• And most importantly, this was the last time Augie Malekovich had done any rappelling before this week's challenge.

Now, I have, already, unfortunately, admitted in the recap that I did not pay as close attention to this episode as I may have liked, but I persevere.

The Challenges
I think we are coming to an unfortunate realization as we head towards the conclusion of this season. The challenges this season have been a little lame. They don't look so bad on their own, and the shotgun episode will remain one of my all time favorites, but compared to previous seasons there just isn't as much imagination at play.

Take for instance the second team challenge, the traditional obstacle course. The contestants run under some barbed wire, then get into a ditch and start shooting. This is a steep decline from Season 1 which involved four different shooting stations with two different rifles going through four different sets of obstacles. Part of this could be blamed on the physically demanding Season 2, which took out a couple of contestants simply because their bodies couldn't handle it.

But think of what else has been missing from this season that has been a staple in season's past. There has been no challenges involving a zipline, an element involved in some form or another in each of the three previous seasons. There was also no carnival style shootout with a revolver and no upside down shooting.

Now is some of that gimmicky? Yes, certainly, but that's why I like the show, because it really does test these contestants under a wide range of conditions. (Even if they are not always practical)

Getting back to this week. The rappelling challenge was fine, but hyped up more than I think it deserved to be. My real issue was with the elimination challenge. First of all the Mossberg "Chainsaw" Shotgun is my least favorite weapon because it fails to live up to its own name. A chainsaw shotgun sounds like something out of a zombie video game, and I would expect it to be awesome. However, the only reason this thing is called "Chainsaw" is because of its handle on the barrel, which could possibly be the worst reason for naming something ever.

Also I want to compare this challenge to Season 3's similarly SWAT inspired episode which featured the Cornershot in the elimination challenge. I bring this up to illustrate how uninspired this challenge was. If I want to see contestants shooting at doors, I want to see them blowing them down, not nicking the side to enter the room. This challenge was so simplistic, open the door shoot the targets, repeat two times. While the Season 3 challenge just had shooters utilizing the Cornershot at a variety of stations, the fact they had to orient themselves at each one by using the camera added a great dimension of tension that this challenge seemed to lack.

The Contestants
No big blow ups this week on the contestant front, drama was kept to a minimum now that Greg Littlejohn seems to be the only real ego left in the house, here are just a few snippets then:

Already hit on Malekovich's 1995 comment, so I'll skip that.

Chee Kwan Hat Watch: No hat this week as I mentioned in my recap, but he did get to wear a helmet, so that was fun.

Last week I mentioned how I was delighted that Kyle Sumpter was kept at bay for ten whole minutes before getting any screen time. Guess who didn't even need to wait ten seconds before having their voice heard this week?

Chris Cheng is pretty much this season's Dustin Ellerman, there I said it.

Finally, the one thing I did want to comment on a little was Kwan being sent home by Gary Shank. Tony and I were watching this and we both were rooting for Kwan to win. Nothing against Shank, but the show just has not done a good job familiarizing him with the audience. He and Augie are still a bit of a mystery to me. I still like Shank, and think he's certainly proved he has some serious skills; however, what I am trying to say is that while I did not want see either men leave -

[Quick break, why is it, whenever they have an even number of shooters, and an even number of contestants, that they never seem to try and distribute the vote evenly? I just don't get why they didn't put two bullets in each person's target, then go to a shoot off. This is really my roundabout way of saying I wish Littlejohn had gone home.]

- but I would have been less sad to see Shank go than I was to see Kwan go.

Final fun fact, while I was writing this post History Channel started following me on Twitter, which is either A) Good or B) Bad. If I get sued I'll let you know, unless they issue a cease and desist, in which case I won't. I'll take it as an endorsement(ish) for now.

Follow @cswiets

Top Shot Recap: S4 E10 "SWAT Throwdown"

Ok a few things before diving in here.
1. I am incredibly distracted at the moment, papers, tests, girlfriend, job hunting, and graduation are all culminating in a perfect storm, so I apologize in advance for being late and missing a few details (also I don't mean to make my problems your problems, so double apology there).
2. No Top Tweets again, but this time an explanation. Colby gave one tweet on Tuesday, informing his followers (the one problem with Twitter is how cult-y I have to sound when I refer to it) that he was not allowed to participate because of comments he made the previous week. I'm not precisely sure what could have gotten him into trouble, most of his tweets were simply about trying to help save the show and were in no way critical of History as far as I could tell.
3. I was very disappointed I was unable to do a Top Tweets because I had a very good title (Top Tweets Vol. 9: Last time I did this, it was 1995).

Anyway...
Chris Cheng nails up William Bethards target (did anyone else notice how they finally made the targets green for the contestants who make it to individual stage of the competition? Also, did I talk about this already?) and Greg Littlejohn talks about how he was surprised Cheng was able to take him down.

This week's theme was Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) and the individual challenge would feature the FN Five-seven pistol, which holds a twenty round clip. This would be the first challenge this season where contestants would have to holster the pistol. Much of the practice was spent working on drawing the pistol out of the holster smoothy and working on firing quickly without forsaking accuracy.

The challenge was the biggest this season in terms of staging (I am convinced they had their budget significantly reduced for this season just by looking at some rather simplistic challenges). Contestants would climb to the top of a faux three-story building and rappel down one level at a time. At each level there were two windows. Contestants would take the pistol out of the holster and fire at three jars down range. Once hitting all three they would re-holster the pistol, move to the next window, unholster and fire at another three targets. Once hitting all six targets on the level, the could proceed to the next one. The top three shooters who completed the challenge in the fastest time were safe, while the bottom three were up for nomination.

This week, as a special treat, I actually have the correct order and times for each contestant. Littlejohn went first, shooting his targets in 1 minute 32 seconds. He was followed by Chee Kwan (sans hat), who had a brief panic attack and tried to recover, shooting in 1 minute 42 seconds. Kyle Sumpter proved himself to be a skilled lawman, taking out his targets in 1 minute 21 seconds. Gary Shank was up next, falling between Kwan and Littlejohn at 1 minute 36 seconds. Cheng, who said in practice he had never used this weapon before, smoked the course in an astounding 1 minute 17 seconds (Bias much? Yes, yes I am). Augie Malekovich was the last to go, hitting his marks in a respectable 1 minute 23 seconds, and keeping him out of elimination.

A brief pow-wow at the house revealed that performance based Sumpter might be having a change of heart, telling Augie he would have a hard time shooting either of his fellow red team members. Kwan made it known that he was still looking for another opportunity to prove himself after having the worst time on the course.

At the nomination range Chee and Shank split the votes as Sumpter decided that, after talking with Chee, he would shoot his target.

The elimination challenge would carry on with the SWAT theme, and also be the second challenge this season to feature two different weapons in the same challenge: the Mossberg 500 "Chainsaw" Shotgun and the FN FS2000 rifle. At the practice range contestants also were made aware that for this challenge they would be outfitted with protective tactical gear.

The elimination challenge was a three stage course. Contestants would begin by using the Mossberg to breach a door, then take the FS2000 and shoot three targets. There were three doors to breach and three groups of targets to shoot at progressively farther distances. Shank took the charge and blasted through the course in an amazing 56 seconds. Kwan followed but did not have an aggressive start, and his failure to breach the final door on his first attempt left him the dust, completing the course in 1 minute 13 seconds.

Shank proves he is just as lethal with old guns as he is with modern ones, while Kwan goes off to the other side of the hill to (hopefully) find Gabby Franco...

What did you think of this week's episode? How much trouble do you think Colby is really in? And who do think will win now that we are down to the final five?

Fingers crossed that the analysis will be up Thursday afternoon, if not Friday for sure.

Follow @cswiets

Top Shot Analysis: S4 E9 "The Longest Shot"

This may very well have been the best opening episode for the individual competition in four seasons of Top Shot. There was so much crammed into this episode, but I want to keep it brief this week, because I'm pressed for time and unfortunately need to put my energies to use elsewhere today. Of course I say that now, but an hour from now I'll probably have another long winded post, so let's begin and see where this goes.

The Challenges
The long shots are always fun to watch. Season 2's thousand yard challenge is still a testament to how talented some of the shooters that have been on this show are. It is these contests that can also often make or break a contestant, those who can manipulate and utilize the scope succeed while those who can't suffer the consequences.

The camera work on this challenge was superb. The side angle shots were impressive and there were a few times when I thought for sure it was going to be a hit only to have the bullet zoom past the opposite side of the target. It also gave a real sense of just how far 1500 yards is and how long it takes a bullet to travel. I can only imagine what was going through the shooters heads as they waited to see either that puff of dirt signaling a miss or the intense explosion that followed a hit.

I loved having George and Kelly back, although it definitely seemed like Kelly was taking a backseat to George. Top Shot is great because it is one of the few reality shows where they can bring in past contestants and have it make sense with the rest of the structure of the show.

I have conflicted feelings about the automatic elimination of Gabby Franco. On the one hand, we all know that the second half of the competition takes less time than the first half (in terms of episodes), and that means contestants get shown the door quickly. On the other hand though, I have a hard time with the show not giving contestants a fighting chance in the competition. Yes, Franco was the worst with the Accuracy International, but she had been stellar everywhere else this season, and I think had she had the opportunity to go to an elimination challenge, she would have shot her way back out.

(Sidenote: Not to pat myself on the back, because I was sorry to see her go, but I did predict last week that Franco would not win the title.)

The elimination challenge was equally fun. But let's talk about the new nomination tie-breaking rule for a minute. Finally, something that makes sense. I've said that in terms of reality TV, Top Shot is still fairly young, so it took a while for it to move beyond the simple pulling a name out of a hat trick that it has used for ties in previous seasons. This makes a sense. A simple challenge with a familiar weapon, one bullet, one target, and we still keep the show focused on accuracy as opposed to luck of the draw. In the words of Terry Vaughan, bloody brilliant.

Now the elimination challenge was smart because the contestants went from a bolt action, long range rifle to a shorter range lever action. The head to head challenge and fast paced shooting, in addition to the closer targets brought the contestants and viewers closer to the action.

The three ring targets were also really cool, and that opening shot with the black shirts demonstrating the challenge and the bullet flying in between the rings was awesome. That is what Top Shot is about.

I said it in the recap, and I will say it again, I have no idea how Chris Cheng won that challenge, but I am happy as hell that he did. Probably the tightest race of the season, but Bethards started out with such a strong lead that it was almost like, ok let's just wrap this up, Cheng is done, let's not draw it out. But the competition kept going and Bethards started to screw up, and that's what I love waiting for on Top Shot. No matter how close it seems, there is always that potential for a mistake, you can flick the safety on by accident, or the gun can jam, or you lose control of the lever action and fire more shots than you intend to. That's what makes this show exciting, and it's what makes Cheng's victory so rewarding. Not only did he come from behind, but he took out a guy who was being disrespectful to his fellow competitors and the contest itself.

The Contestants
Greg Littlejohn - I am scared to say, I might be turning the corner on him. I'm not a fan and I still don't really like him very much. However, my level of dislike is slowly wearing away. I'm not sure what it is, but his personality is certainly not coming on as strong as it was earlier this season, and it makes him a much more likable competitor.

Also congrats to the producers of Top Shot for going ten whole minutes before giving Kyle Sumpter any screen time. More of that would be welcome.

I loved the big wide grin the broke out on Augie Malekovich's face when Cheng shot Bethards' target. Augie is still a bit of a mystery to me, but these little bursts of personality are always welcome.

One more little item before getting to this week's hot button issue. I loved seeing Cheng get riled up in this episode. He's been portrayed as a pretty cool customer for most of the season, very calculated and level headed, which are all fine traits. But I love when those kind of contestants show they have a little fire in them. It's what turns them from being a likable contestant, to the one you want to root for.

Now, let's discuss the only other thing really worth discussing: Gabby Franco and Chee Kwan. Where did this come from and why could we not have been shown it sooner? It's so frustrating to be given this little side story only to have it be abruptly taken away by Franco's elimination. I know there has been a lot going on this season, but even if there had been a small taste of the progressing relationship between the two it would have made the emotional impact of this episode far greater.

Now you may be asking what is the difference between this relationship and the one I so derided earlier this season between Dylan Fletcher and Michelle Viscusi? The answer is given by Kwan, who said in his one-on-one that maybe "in a different time, in a different place" he could see having a relationship with Franco. That is man who is focused on the task at hand, he's there to shoot, and more importantly he is there to win.

There are only three episodes left and it's anyone's guess what's around the next bend.

Hit the comments and let me know your thoughts.

Follow @cswiets

Top Shot Recap: S4 E9 "The Longest Shot"

I learned two things while watching last night's episode of Top Shot:

1. It is very important that if you are watching the encore episode that airs at 11/10 central, that you do not change the channel to History until 10:01 p.m., otherwise you end up seeing who was eliminated and ruining the entire episode.

2. While it is fun to watch Top Shot with a large group of friends, they sometimes talk over the contestants, making it difficult to follow everything that happened.

I bring this up because this recap, at least as I am planning it right now in my head as I simultaneously write this line, may be a little bare-bones. Not to worry, all the important stuff is here, but it probably isn't as in depth as either of us would like.

We begin, as we always do, with the return of Littlejohn and the nailing of poor Terry Vaughan's plaque on the bulls eye board (it still stings...), this time, thankfully, sans friendship speech.

This was followed by the reveal of this season's hidden plotline, the unexpected, but I would not say unwelcome, flirtatious relationship between Chee Kwan and Gabby Franco. Most of the focus this season has focused on red as a team, so there hasn't been much room for individual plot points, as there was with the divided blue team. It was an odd choice to throw in at this point of the competition, but I'll talk more about that tomorrow.

At the practice range Colby kept the surprises coming. Not only were the contestants informed that they had made it into the individual portion of the competition, they also found out they would be going from British weapons, to serious long range rifles, namely the Accuracy International AX338. To top it off,  they would be helped by two of Top Shot's most famous riflemen, Season 1's Kelly Bachand, and Season 2's George Reinas. We also learned that Littlejohn and Reinas had been stationed in Iraq together for six months (fun facts are the best facts!). Franco seemed to have the best handle on the gun, shooting a tight row from the top of the target down to the bulls eye.

The first individual challenge would feature the longest shot in Top Shot history. Using the Accuracy International, contestants would fire at a thirty inch target, 1500 yards down range. It's a distance that is skewed by the cameras, until contestants started popping off shots. The wait between the trigger pull and seeing the dust cloud was excruciatingly long. Shooters would go up one by one; the shooter who took the longest amount of time to hit the target would be automatically eliminated, shooters 1-4 would be safe, and shooters 5-7 would be up for elimination.

It was a tough episode to gauge how well contestants were doing, the amount of time it took a shot to travel down range, coupled with the editing of the episode, pretty much made it impossible to know how a shooter did until Colby read off the time.

I won't go through who shot what exactly, you can watch that for yourself, if you haven't already, and just skip to the end. By the time it got down to the final three shooters, one thing was for certain, Chris Cheng was either going to be out of the contest or be up for elimination. Then Franco came up and lost whatever magic she had found on the range, taking well over two minutes to hit the target, and putting her at the bottom of the pile. Kwan was the final shooter, and as each contestant was asked to step away until it was their turn to shoot he had no idea where everyone else was in the challenge. He went up and took his shot, but in turn he eliminated Franco from the competition. There was an emotional goodbye between the two, with Kwan tearing up during his one-on-one.

With Franco gone, there was still a decision to make about who to nominate for elimination. The bottom three consisted of Cheng, Kyle Sumpter and William Bethards. It appeared as though Sumpter wanted to continue the team meeting strategy by deciding who would be in the challenge before the going to the nomination range. While he seemed pretty set on having himself and Cheng be in the elimination because they were the two worst shooters, Cheng wasn't convinced this was the best strategy.

The nomination range started out on an even keel with votes going to Cheng and Sumpter. Cheng then seemed to be feeling the influence of two his former teammates, namely Tim Trefren and Sumpter. Bethards made a few comments on the range that rubbed Cheng the wrong way, much in the same way his own comments had rubbed Trefren the wrong way. And much like Sumpter, who threw his teammates a curveball when he decided not to vote for Kwan to go up against Cheng in the atlatl challenge, Cheng decided he was going to throw his own curveball by voting for Bethards. Cheng was in with three votes, but his competitor was tied between Sumpter and Bethards with two votes apiece. This season implemented a new tie-breaking strategy. Instead of drawing a bullet out of an ammo box, the tied competitors would take aim at a target, the closest shot to the bulls eye would be safe from elimination. Bethards went first, and Mr. Hey Diddle Diddle couldn't quite hit the middle, shooting just above and to the right of the bulls eye, leaving just enough room for Sumpter to sneak in and stay out of the elimination challenge.

Bethards and Cheng were introduced to the Henry rifle...not much else to say really except more George and Kelly, woo!

The elimination challenge featured five targets placed at progressively farther distances down range.  Each target had two metal rings and a center bulls eye. Using the Henry rifle, Cheng and Bethards would have to hit all three rings on each target before moving onto the next one, however they could hit the rings of the individual target in any order. Bethards got out to an early lead that he hung onto to for most of the challenge, with Cheng trying desperately to keep pace next to him. But then... something happened, and I'm not quite sure how to describe it because I don't really understand it. By all accounts, Bethards was going to run away with this challenge, but then he had trouble with the mechanics of the weapon, unintentionally shooting of  two shots while he worked the lever of the rifle. This small error seemed enough to let Cheng regain his footing and tie up the challenge. In the end, a hard fought victory was handed over to Cheng, and Bethards was sent packing.

What did you think of last night's episode? How would you feel about a Top Shot style dating show where instead of roses, the bachelor or bachelorette shot the targets of the suitors they wanted to send home? Glad  Bethards went home, or would you have rather seen Mr. Van Helsing get staked?

Come back tomorrow for my breakdown of "The Longest Shot" where we'll have some fun with the Kwan Franco flirtation.

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Predicting the Winner: Part 2 - The Personality Factor

Two weeks ago I wrote a post about predicting the winner of this season of Top Shot. It is this topic I would like to revisit now that the competition has entered the individual portion, and my favorite contestant of this season has exited. Perhaps than this post would really be better titled as "Predicting My New Favorite Contestant" although I suppose that would put most of the pressure on you, so we re-title again, "Me Telling You My New Favorite Contestant." And while this may seem very simple, I assure you that I will walk through each contestant, and my thought process, diligently.

The problem I have right now is who to root for. I had one blue team member and one red team member I got behind pretty early in the season. Terry Vaughan pretty much had my support from the moment I read his bio and found out he was British. This was only reinforced when I watched him on the show and interacted with him and his wife through Twitter. Tim Trefren I also liked almost immediately based on his unique shooting background as a big game hunter. That, in addition to his likable personality, and ability to be a strong team player, drew me to him. Then, there was even a third person in the mix, in the form of Dylan Fletcher. While I started the season disliking Fletcher on almost the same level as Greg Littlejohn (though not quite), his personality won me over in "Trick Shot Shoot Off."I was willing to throw my support behind him if he could beat Bethards in elimination because it would have proved he could go toe-to-toe with some of the strongest shooters of this competition.

Alas, one by one, my favorites were taken down. It is also slightly ironic that each was there own worst enemy with Trefren calling out Chris Cheng, Fletcher calling out Bethards, and Vaughan nominating himself for elimination. So who am I left with?

My overriding problem with the remaining contestants is their personalities. Look at the past three champions: Iain Harrison, strong shooter, charming British Guy; Chris Reed, strong shooter, charming southern guy; Dustin Ellerman, strong shooter, excitable, charming camp counselor. These three share several things in common, they were either the contestants viewers wanted to see win, or they were the contestants that viewers did not have a problem with winning. They got along with most of the other people in the house, and balanced a feeling of joy of simply being there with the seriousness of wanting to win the competition.

I am not saying there are not personalities in left in the house, there certainly are, but there might not be any left that match attribute listed above. I'm going to get little Chris Cheng-y on you know and list off the remaining contestants flaws.

William Bethards has certainly shown he has the skills to take this competition. However his personality has rubbed contestants (and some viewers) the wrong way. This is the tough compromise with Top Shot. At what point do viewers sacrifice the integrity of the competition by rooting for personalities rather than skills? Let me again use Season 3 contestant Jake Zweig as an example. There is no denying that  Zweig was a lethal contestant. His ability to perform in competitions was outstanding, but his personality and nerves forced him out of the competition. If he had won the competition, would he have been a champion viewers could get behind? Previous winners have strong fan followings, it's the reason viewers and contestants get excited when the champions come back as experts. If one of the more, for lack of a better term, villainous characters wins, what kind of reaction will that get from the ? This isn't Survivor where there might be some sort of sick satisfaction for a villain taking the top prize. This show is about sportsmanship and respect, and having a winner who doesn't hold these values during their time on the show, hurts the show.

Chris Cheng, Chee Kwan and Gary Shank are all fine shooters, but are also all a little bland. Not to say they aren't nice guys, or good teammates. They are very calculated shooters and their one on one interviews reflect that. They are missing that thing that makes them pop, and maybe that is more of a fault of the editing of the show than anything else.

Gabby Franco has been a fun presence of the show. In terms of personality she has one of the stronger one's of the remaining contestants. However, and I hate to say this, but I do not think she will win. This is not to say I would not be happy to see her win, I think it would be awesome for her to be the first female winner of Top Shot, but I just don't think she will. I wish I had better reasoning than that, but I usually trust my gut, and this is what my gut is telling me.

I can't say much about Littlejohn that hasn't already been said. Fans seems pretty displeased by his presence on the show (just look at some of the comments on the Top Shot Facebook page). At this point it is verging more on the mean side, especially because he really isn't that bad of a guy, it's simply that his actions come off the wrong way. That, coupled with his troublesome nerves, make him not long for this competition.

Augie Malekovich is probably the biggest question marks this season. While he has had a few standout moments this season, he hasn't gotten the same kind of screen time as the rest of the contestants. He has been overshadowed by his fellow teammates, and this has made him a bit of a mystery. If he hangs around for a few more episodes that may change, and we may get a better idea of what kind of person Malekovich is.

Not to beat a dead horse, but Kyle Sumpter rubs me the wrong way. I can't quite put my finger on it but something about his personality comes off as disingenuous. In addition, I think there are shooters with more skill than him remaining in this competition and it is only a matter of time before his luck runs out. And without a team to hold him in high regard, I wouldn't be surprised if that time was sooner rather than later.

So, who am I rooting for? For now, I'm going with Chris Cheng. Cheng is a beast in competitions, and while he may have made a misstep here or there, I think he has embodied the qualities of the past three winners the most of any of the remaining contestants. The personality problem will work itself out as the field of contestants continues to whittle down.

Who do you think will take the competition? More importantly, who do you want to win? Hit the comments and let me know.

That will be it for the weekend. I'm up in Door County, Wis. for the Easter holiday and will be spending the next few days playing golf in balmy 50 degree weather. Have a Happy Easter everyone.

Follow @cswiets

Top Shot Analysis: "Trick Shot Shoot Off"

Another roller coaster episode leaves blue team a man down as the contestants enter into what will most likely be the final team challenge of the season.

While last week focused on the implosion of the red team, this week saw blue team relapse into its self-destructive pattern.

For the third week in a row the meat of this episode was not in the challenges, but in the team interactions. Let's get the challenges out of the way first.

The Challenges
While trick shot challenges are always fun, this one was a bit of a snooze for me. The shots were challenging yes, but not terribly exciting to watch. Terry Vaughan's errant final shot on the soda bottles was probably the coolest, which is not to slight any of the other competitors, but in terms of pure entertainment value, that was the best.

I like that teams were forced to pick who would shoot what, because it adds an extra dimension of strategy, but it may have been better if there had been one more gun to throw into the mix. And is it just me or did this challenge just feel wrong without a revolver in the mix?

The elimination challenge again was fine, but it just emphasized what has been a fairly static season so far. What I mean to say is moving targets have not been the factor they seemed to be in season's past. The challenges just seemed too straightforward in this episode, although I did like that the William Bethards and Dylan Fletcher had to master two different pistols for this challenge.

The Contestants
To begin, I want to examine William Bethards, Mr. Hey Diddle Diddle. The practice session was rough for blue team, but there is one thing I don't understand that goes beyond his boastfulness. This is a shooting competition show, which is to say, contestants are there to shoot. We are always shown how jealous contestants are of those who are sent to elimination and get to shoot really cool weapons. The point I am trying to make is that if I was sent there to shoot, I would want to be shooting every weapon they put in front of me, regardless of whether I had shot it before, or if I was going to end up shooting it in the team challenge or not. The contestants always say this is a once in a lifetime experience, so why wouldn't Bethards want to take full advantage of it?

People are going to boast about their skill, and no, it isn't ever really a good idea to tell the expert how good of a shot you are, but what we are seeing, especially in the last two episodes, is how emotion is starting to creep into this contest. It's been there before, Greg Littlejohn came right out and said he didn't like Colin Gallagher, but last week and this week we have really seen it come into play and effect eliminations.

Where Bethards goes from here is hard to say, the guy can shoot no doubt, but if he makes it through to the individual portion of the contest, I'll be curious to see how (or if) he meshes with the remaining red team members.

Switching over from Bethards to his opponent in the elimination challenge, Dylan Fletcher, I have to admit, the guy won me over in the end. I've been hardest on Fletcher and his pal Littlejohn in these posts, but I can admit when I'm wrong. I made a lot of jokes about Fletcher, calling him Gun Fauxeri earlier in the season, but that's not really who he is, he's Uncle Joey from Full House, and I don't mean that in a bad way. (To complete the analogy, Littlejohn is Danny Tanner, Vaughan is Uncle Jessie, Kyle Supter is Michelle, Chee Kwan is Stephanie, and Gabby Franco is D.J.) He's just a guy trying to diffuse a tense situation by using a goofy voice, and mostly I think he was just trying to have some fun. I wish he could have stuck around for a few more episodes, but alas he left too soon.

Checking in on red team the most exciting thing to happen was Chee Kwan's new hat. Apparently Papa Bear told him to stop jacking his swag. (I wish that conversation was real) More importantly though, Kwan was pumped because he was finally going to get his chance to prove himself to his teammates...except his teammates proved themselves to him first, and Bethards proved that a gentle breeze can take down a big man with a gun. I hate to say it, but I do not want Kwan to win this competition, and it's terrible because it's through no fault of his own. Kwan simply has not participated in enough challenges this season to make me comfortable with the idea of him claiming the top prize. Blue team sat him for two challenges, and his own team's success, and blue team's failures inadvertently sat him for the trick shot challenge. You could see the frustration on his face when Colby told him he didn't even need to shoot this time around. It's a problem I brought up earlier with the B.A.R. challenge, contestants need to be able to participate in challenges. This is the ideal, but in reality this is likely too difficult to see happen.

We got to view a different side of Terry Vaughan this week. Vaughan finally started to get angry with his teammates. The guy has laughed off most of his frustration this season, so it was refreshing to see him start to get steamed up over Bethards' attitude.

Finally, who edited that episode, and how much is Greg Littlejohn paying them? Now, I know it's not fair to take it out on him, but man, how did last night turn into the Littlejohn show? He was almost the only blue team member featured in the one-on-one's during the team challenge. I mean somebody else on blue team had to have had something to say. Step your game up History.

What do you think? Did anyone else have a change of heart about Fletcher? Did I miss anything on my Full House analogy? And will Kwan have another new hat next week?

Follow me on Twitter @cswiets

Top Shot Recap: S4 E7 "Trick Shot Shoot Off"

Trick shooting makes its triumphant return to Top Shot, but as the contestants continue to dwindle, the tensions in the house continue to rise.

This week kicked off with blue team surprised that Chris Cheng had outed Tim Trefren in the elimination challenge, before everyone headed off to practice.

The Remington M1911 pistol and the Volquartsen Rutger 10/22 rifle were this week's featured weapons, but the real treat was Colby revealing that this would be the trick shot challenge.

Red team got to practice first and seemed pretty confident coming out that they would have a good chance at winning this challenge. Then in comes the blue team, who were starting to tire of William Bethards constant boasting of his skills. Despite coming off of two wins, blue team was a mess during their practice session. Their pistol shooting was fine, but Bethards insisted that he would be shooting pistols in the challenge, and it was therefore pointless to practice with the rifle. This rubbed his teammates the wrong way, especially when they all struggled to get a handle on the rifle. Bethards finally relented and showed he had the skills to back up his talk by nailing the targets with the rifle.

However, when blue team went back to the house to strategize for the challenge, Bethards boasting in practice became a point of contention for the rest of his teammates. Terry Vaughan called him out for not being a team player, while Bethards argued back that the rest of his teammates had backed down from the rifle because they couldn't handle it.

With five shooters, the challenge featured five different stations. At the first station, contestants would have three chances with the Remington to shoot a bowling pin straight back between two pins on either side of it. Each clean hit was worth a point. Chris Cheng continued his strong run this season, going three for three on his run. Augie Malekovich hit two for three on his turn, putting blue behind from the get-go.

The second station featured a similar set up, except this time the contestant had to hit the lead pin and knock it back into one, or both of the pins on either side of it. Each knock down was worth a point. Kyle Sumpter went two for three for red, while Greg Littlejohn only managed to hit on one of his attempts.

The third station featured three soda bottles with openers rigged to their caps. Using the Volquartsen rifle, contestants had three chances to open the bottle; each clean hit was worth a point. Terry Vaughan went first for blue, missing on his first shot, nailing the second, and demolishing the bottle in spectacular fashion on his third. Gabby Franco shot for red, and after missing her first two shots, nailed the third.

The fourth station brought back the Remington pistol. Down range there were two buckets placed ontop of each other. The contestant would have to shoot the bottom bucket first, which would then launch the second bucket in the air. Contestants would only score a point if they hit the bucket in midair; again three chances worth one point apiece. Gary Shank made it look easy, going three-for-three on his run. Dylan Fletcher showed how truly difficult this challenge was though, bringing up a goose egg on his turn.

The final station featured four gumballs placed atop golf tees, sitting 75 feet downrange. Contestants would use the Volquartsen rifle to hit the targets, but each gumball was worth three points. Bethards took up the rifle at the request of his teammates, but only managed to hit one target. With red team still in the lead at that point, there was no point in Chee Kwan shooting.

Blue team went back to the house, and Fletcher nominated himself before the team even got started talking. However, he also pulled a Tim Trefren by calling out who he wanted to shoot against, which was Bethards. The rest of the team seemed ok with this, and that's how it went down on the range, but not without incident.
While most contestants pick up the gun and focus on hitting their target (because no one wants to be the contestant who misses on the nomination range), Bethards took the shot one handed, and drilled the center of Fletcher's target, a stunt that didn't help his standing among the rest of his teammates.

At the elimination practice they found out they would be shooting two more kinds of pistols: the SIG Sauer P229 and the Browning Buck Mark. From the practice, it was pretty clear that Bethards was going in with the advantage, but Fletcher's practice wasn't bad, and it's always hard to say what will happen in a elimination challenge.

What happened was more bowling pins, this time ten of them, set up like at a bowling alley but on four descending tiers. The contestants wouldn't simply be shooting the pins though. Each pin had had the top sawed off, and placed back on top. Using the Browning, contestants would first shoot the tops off of all of their pins. Once they did that they would switch to the SIG and hit the bottoms. Each hit was worth a point, but no points would be awarded if they hit the bottoms first. They had two minutes to complete the challenge.

The challenge started off fairly tight, with Fletcher keeping pace with Bethards up to five hits, and both contestants losing a pin to an errant shot. However, Bethards pulled away and finished the rest of his run clean with a total of 18 points. Since contestants had two minutes to complete the challenge and time had not run out on the clock, Fletcher still had a chance to come back and tie, but another errant shot hit the bottom of a pin, and sent him packing.

Hey diddle diddle is still in the building, but have his showboating ways painted a target on his back? What do you think of Bethards newest portrayal as the cockiest guy in the room? Hit the comments and let me know.

I'll be breaking down all the good stuff tomorrow in my analysis of this episode.

Follow me on Twitter @cswiets

Top Tweets Vol. 7: In which Chee gets a new hat and still doesn't get to shoot

Another solid episode of Top Shot, and while I can't wait to dig into what went down, I'm going to restrain myself, and stick with tweets for now, because it's late, I'm tired and like many of you I need to get up and work tomorrow morning (not to mention the fact I'm writing in a serious run-on).


Tweets this week took a pretty sharp downwards turn from last week, but here's what I was able to muster up:

• Colby continues to hint at an all-star season, but at this point I would settle for any guarantee that Top Shot is going to be back for a fifth season.

• There are some parts of the show Colby doesn't see until the episodes airs, like the contestants practice sessions with the experts.

• He's feeling Chee Kwan's pain of being robbed out of participating in challenges. The guy hasn't had the chance to shoot in three out of seven team challenges.

• The scope on the Volquartsen Ruger 10/22 rifle is a Trijicon 3X9.

That's it for this week's edition. Colby blamed part of the problem on being at the ranch (I can't figure out if he means his ranch or the ranch where they shoot the show) and having a bad internet connection.

There is a lot to discuss with this episode. My recap will be up sometime tomorrow afternoon, my analysis will follow on Thursday, Friday is still up in the air, and Saturday will be another Talkin' 'bout, but I'm not sure who it will feature yet. Suggestions are always welcome.

Stay up to date with my latest posts by following me on Twitter @cswiets

Predicting the Top Shot

Personally, I feel a little silly to make predictions about things that have already happened. 


Over the weekend the Top Shot Facebook page posed the question about who viewers thought was going to win the entire competition. Right now the show is at the half way point in terms of episodes, although not in terms of the actual competition.

With over 80 people responding,  the results are somewhat surprising. Now, I don't have exact numbers, because some people responded with more than one person they were rooting for, but here is a rough idea. 


Gabby Franco is by far the front runner of fan support, which I found surprising and encouraging. Franco hasn't really gotten as much screen time as some of her fellow red team members, which often can make or break the fan support. However, Top Shot viewers are not your average television viewer. They pay attention, and when people consistently perform, like Franco has been, they begin to garner a following. In addition people really seem anxious to have a female contestant win the whole thing.

Chee Kwan is in second, which again I find a little surprising because the guy has been sat for two out of six team challenges. I was talking to my friend Tony about this. He surmised that both red and blue know Chee can shoot, which is why he has had to ride the pine, but also why he has been kept out of eliminations. It's this idea that apparently fans are aware of as well.

Sitting in the middle of the pack are Chris Cheng, Augie Malekovich, and Terry Vaughan, which seems about right. I guess I'm a little surprised Vaughan and Cheng aren't sitting a little higher since both seem to have developed strong fan followings on Twitter and Facebook.

The dark horse this season seems to be William Bethards. I've been thinking Bethards has been flying under his team's radar this season and that it is eventually going to catch up with him. However, my opinion changed when I saw this video Bethards posted on his Twitter account last night.

The guy has some serious skill this competition has failed to emphasize. I'll be curious to see what happens tonight.

The only contestant to receive no votes was Dylan Fletcher. Now, I've made my feelings about Fletcher pretty clear, at least in terms of how he is, but that doesn't mean the guy can't shoot. He been a consistent shooter for blue, and has gotten a fair amount of screen time to help build up a fan base. I've criticized Fletcher for his enthusiasm to be in elimination challenges, but maybe I've been too hard on Fletcher. Maybe what he's saying isn't all that different from what Kwan was saying last week, he just wants a chance to prove himself.

The bottom line is this show isn't American Idol and it doesn't happen live. The contestant don't need to the fans to like them to keep them in the competition. 

Tune in tonight to see what happens. History has been touting that one of teams fall apart during the challenge, any guesses on who it will be? Will blue relapse to their losing ways, or will red continue to struggle after losing the heart of their team, Tim Trefren?

Top Tweets will be up later, recap tomorrow, and analysis on Friday.

Follow me on Twitter @cswiets

Top Shot Analysis: S4 E6 "Blast from the Past"

[Note: Blue team member, Dylan Fletcher was kind enough to provide some extra insight into this week's episode, specifically what was left on the editing room floor. However, I try and write both recaps and the analysis strictly from what is shown in each episode, and as I wrote this before Fletcher offered his comments, I decided not to change anything. I do highly recommend going back to my recap of "Blast for the Past"  and reading the comments he left if you want a better idea of what happened in the episode.]

Believe it or not we are already halfway through this season, and my what a season it has been. We've had crazy weapons, some crazy challenges, and some slightly crazy contestant behavior.

Enter "Blast from the Past" which only could have been better if a past contestant had shown up to really hammer home the title. I want to spend a little time on the challenges, because the bulk of this episode dealt with the contestants, whose actions, for once, were actually intriguing, instead of oddly fascinating.

The Challenges
One of the complaints I read on the internet the other night was that while the weapons were fun, the challenges were a bit of a snooze. I would have to agree with this for the most part. Neither one featured any fast paced shooting, instead relying on the tension of the back and forth nature of the challenges to hold the audience attention. This was something that worked better on the bag gun challenge than the atlatl.(Also, question, is it atl-atl? Or at-latl?)

My other major gripe with the bag gun challenge is that if the contestants are shooting a big, loud gun, I want them to be hitting a big loud target. I just wasn't getting the same excitement seeing the aluminum shells make a hole in the target board that I would have had there been a large explosion when they hit their mark. 

The atlatl was a fun primitive weapon to have featured. The slo-mo featured during the practice and challenge was amazing because the flex on those darts was ridiculous. I have to say though I would have much preferred to see the atlatl in a team challenge rather than the individual, you know there would have been some frustrated contestants. And (again not to harp but I can't resist) can you imagine how funny it would have been to see Greg Littlejohn standing in his throwing pose making those crazy faces, while his team agonizes behind him? Would have been priceless.

I also want to discuss team strategy in this challenge for a second, because I'm not really sure what blue team was thinking on this challenge. If we are talking in terms of pure stature of the contestants, blue team is made up of a lot of big guys. Red team is made up of four small guys, Gabby Franco, and Tim Trefren. Trefren was the only big guy on the team, so why sit Chee Kwan? This is a challenge with a cannon, what possible advantage could Kwan have given his team by participating? When red team fumbled with adjusting the cannon during one of their shots because no one was on the back to lift, it was Trefren who hustled back to do it. Now it doesn't really matter because blue team won anyway, but think how much harder would this challenge have been for red if they hadn't had Trefren to help with the heavy lifting. Sitting contestants isn't going to be an issue after the next few episodes, but after Tim was sent home, red better hope there aren't any more team challenges that require heavy lifting.


The Contestants
I'm going to again skip the Top and Not-so-Top shots this week. Blue team had pretty limited screen time this week, which I guess is one of the disadvantages of winning a challenge, but I'm sure they are okay with it. I'm also going avoid Top and Not-Top teams, because the real discussion lies with the red team.

As I've said repeatedly, I've been impressed with how even the teams have been this season. Minus the shotgun challenge, there haven't been any real blow outs, and the accuracy with the Bag Gun just showed how talented this season's contestants are. But more than that I've been impressed with the respect the two teams have shown each other. Clearly there is a divide between them, which is bound to happen when you are forced to live in the same house as the people you are competing with, but no one has really been shown getting into each other's faces. Plus despite the early clique problem on blue and the little tiff between Trefren and Cheng (which I am about to get to) the infighting among team's this season has been pretty minimal. It's a testament to what separates this show from anything else on TV to have these contestants act with civility and respect, instead of trash-talking and back-stabbing.

With that said let's get into the meat of this episode which was the whirlwind elimination process red team went through. As I pointed out in my recap, red team decided they needed to do elimination based on past performance, a decision I agree with, even if it isn't entirely fair. If anyone had completely missed the target this would have been easy, but everyone hit and helped walk it in to give red team a fighting chance in this challenge.

So where do you begin when placed in a situation like this, where you have to take the cumulative performances of the competition to make a decision? I wonder what would have happened had Kwan spoken up before Cheng decided to go on his rundown of successes and failures of his teammates? I suspect there might have been two very different people in the elimination challenge.

Regarding Cheng, I honestly believe the guy was trying to be fair, but he made three huge missteps in going about it. First, never put yourself in that position in Top Shot, even if you are on good terms with your teammates, setting up a situation where you list off people's flaws is never going to end well. Second, he didn't leave any room for discussion (at least from what the cameras showed). After losing a team challenge there has to be discussion, not just one person talking, because that person talking is then more or less screwed. Third and final, Cheng went through his exemplary record this season, which was pretty much the nail in the coffin. yeah the guy has performed well, but if you can't criticize yourself, don't put yourself in the position to criticize others.

Now, regarding Trefren. I have to say that leg shaking made me pretty nervous. I was surprised at how upset Trefren was, and how obstinate he was in going after Cheng. Gary Shank I think had the best perspective on this, placing blame of Cheng for putting himself in that position, and Trefren for perhaps overreacting a little to Cheng's comments.

The problem is that two people had to go to elimination, and it wasn't going to be easy, as proved by what happened on the elimination range. Red team (and blue for the most part) has been consistently open with who they were voting for and then sticking to that decision at the range. Then along comes Kyle Sumpter.

Sumpter is red team's leader, and is always looking out for the team. Did he make the right call by switching the vote to Trefren? Maybe. I have to think that Trefren would put the team needs ahead of his own vendetta if Cheng had come back from elimination against Kwan. At the same time there was a problem with an easy and simple solution, and Sumpter decided to take it.

The look on Kwan and Cheng's faces when he hit Trefren's target was just awesome, I mean the camera just seemed to linger on them and their "What?" expressions forever. I think Kwan did have a point though when he said he needed to prove his worth to the team, and if they had simply gone back to the previous challenge, where Kwan failed with the rope, and Trefren failed to hit his shot with the flintlock, that might have been the simplest solution.

I was sad to see Trefren go, he and Terry Vaughan have been my favorites this season. We'll just have to wait and see what happens next week when the traditional exhibition shoot-off takes place.

What did you think of last night's episode? We you as surprised as I was about Sumpter's switch up? And why do you think blue team sat Kwan? hit the comments and let me know.

Friday Surprise coming tomorrow and a new edition of Talkin' 'bout on Saturday (promise).

Stay up to date with the latest posts by following me on Twitter: @cswiets

Top Shot Recap: S4 E6 "Blast from the Past"

Last night's episode was one for the books, big guns and big twists combined for a hell of a treat.

The time back at the house was limited as Tim Trefren nailed up Iggy Keyes' target without too much of a speech, because, well, he isn't a member of the blue team (or Kyle Sumpter). Then it was off to the range, where the team's found out they would be shooting the behemoth 3.2'' Bag Gun, a cannon used in in the Spanish-American war.

Blue team practiced first and walked through the steps involved in loading the weapon, which are complicated, to say the least. While blue team walked through the prep, the red team walked through the firing, which included a 4.3 lb. aluminum shell. If I thought it was hard in past week's to see which team had an advantage after the practice, this week was practically impossible.

This week's challenge was a straight-forward closest to the bullseye shoot-off. Team's would trade off shots, each team member would have a chance to aim the cannon with the help of their teammates and fire a shot, everyone of course, but Chee Kwan. For reason's unexplained, blue decided to sit Kwan for the challenge, and unlike week's past where red team members have coached their teammates from the sidelines, there wasn't much for Kwan to help with since each team member had a specific responsibility.

The shots started out wide, with both teams hitting the target board, but none of the rings on their first fires. But then they started to dial it in, inching closer to the center mark. In the end, it was one of the closest finishes of the season with red team hitting 7.65 inches outside the center, and blue team winning the challenge with a hit at 7.5 inches outside the center.

This led to a very tense meeting among the red team. Nobody completely botched their shot. The early shooters may have been off the mark, but the later shooters had the advantage of dialing in their shot based on their other teammates' shots. It was decided they would have to decide based on past performance, which is always dicey on Top Shot. Chris Cheng took it upon himself to refresh people's memories as to their successes and failures in the past challenges, but as he talked, the camera focused in on the twitching leg of Tim Trefren.

When Cheng finished his run through, Trefren called him out for criticizing everyone but himself, and, despite having just been sent to elimination after the last challenge, Trefren said he wanted to go toe-to-toe with Cheng to settle their dispute. Chee Kwan chimed in that he was frustrated after sitting out two challenges, and wanted to prove his worth to his teammates by going to elimination with Cheng. This was met by general consensus by the rest of the team, except Trefren, but he was going to vote for Cheng regardless, so it didn't really matter.

But then they went to the range, and my confidence in the red team's resolution to vote for Cheng and Kwan was so strong that I half expected them to simply tell Colby who they were nominating and not even bother with the shooting. However, this is Top Shot, and on Top Shot, there's shooting. The first two votes went to Cheng and Kwan, but then it was Sumpter's, ole Papa Bear himself, turn to shoot.

And he voted for Tim Trefren.

Sumpter is all about keeping red team together despite their losses. He viewed the riff between Cheng and Trefren as a threat to the red team's ability to perform effectively. The rest of red team seemed to agree as it was Cheng and Trefen who ultimately ended up in elimination.

At the practice they discovered they would be shooting the atlatl, a primitive spear-chucking weapon that has been around for over 3,000 years. It was a weapon Trefren had some experience with with his hunting background, but one Cheng had never even seen before. Both struggled in practice with Trefren overpowering his shots and Cheng grounding them into the dust.

The elimination challenge featured three targets at progressively further distances and increasing point values. The challenge started out tight but after Cheng opened up his lead to 20 points, Trefren realized that even with his two remaining darts he wouldn't be able to catchup, and the challenge was over.

Trefren goes home and the team's even out for the first time since week three.

There are only two more episodes before we get to the green jerseys, and next week it's my favorite time of the year as trick shooting returns.

Check back tomorrow for my full analysis this episode where I really dig into the Trefren and Cheng debacle.

Stay up to date with my latest posts by following me on Twitter: @cswiets

Top Shot Recap: S4 E5 "Swing Into Action"

This week's episode toned down the drama (a bit) but kept the stakes high in the competition.

Not much to talk about at the house before the episode really kicked off this time around, except that the contestant seem to be adding their own personal touch to nailing the targets to the wall this season. Each target has an accompanying memento. After assuring everyone that Colin Gallagher left with "his head held high" Gregory Littlejohn placed a shell from the Smith & Wesson M&P 40 on the target.

On the practice range, Colby informed the contestants they would be getting a blast from the past in the form of the Kentucky flintlock pistol, a weapon used throughout the Revolutionary War. Red team got to practice first and had the advantage of Gary Shank, who had previous experience with black powder weapons. Tim Trefren, whose main experience is with rifles, had a little trouble getting a handle on the flintlock.

Blue team also had a few troubles when they came up to give it a try. Littlejohn had trouble figuring out the trigger, which both teams commented on being incredibly stiff. William Bethards also had difficulty aiming the flintlock, and had his ball fall out on one occasion.

The contestants were thrown for a loop in the team challenge, as Colby left out one important detail when explaining the background of the the Kentucky flintlock, namely it's use by pirates.

The teams were set up on two platforms. One at a time each team member would swing across a gap on a rope to another platform. They would then have to load the flintlock and fire it at a jug filled with sand. If a contestant failed to reach the other platform, they would have to drop down, climb back up the platform and try again until they were able to reach the other side. First team to hit all five targets would win.

Blue team decided to take out the leadership on red by sitting Kyle Sumpter and Shank, but much like last week when they sat Trefren, Shank was still able to be a strong supporting player by coaching his teammates through the challenge. However red team got to a rough start when Chee Kwan failed to make it onto the platform and had to start over.

Meanwhile, blue team got off to solid start nailing their first three targets. Then they stumbled when Littlejohn stepped up to the stage. Littlejohn froze up, with a look of anguish not only on his face, but on those of his teammates. Red team looked to take advantage of the hold up they had been anticipating, but Iggy Keyes missed his target, as did Tim Trefren, and Keyes also missed on his second time around. Littlejohn, finally got his shot off and hit his target. Blue team finished up and took advantage of the lost time red team just couldn't make up, going five for five to win the challenge.

Back at the house red team members Keyes, Kwan, and Trefren all offered themselves up for elimination. Keyes and Trefren for being the only members to miss their shot, and Kwan for setting the setting the tone for what turned out to be a jumbled performance by the red team. At the elimination range though, red team seemed to settle on voting for poor shooting performance, rather than someone's ability to swing on a rope, nominating Trefren and Keyes to duke it out.

At the practice they found they would be shooting a much more modern pistol, the Heckler & Koch USP Tactical. Trefren was visibly concerned at having to shoot another pistol, but Keyes seemed more than happy to take up the challenge. However during the practice, which featured them shooting through a small circular window, there didn't seem to be a great advantage to either contestant.

The challenge featured the contestants shooting through a moving window. However, in a Top Shot twist, the contestants would not be on a moving platform, they would have to move along with the window as it went down the course.

In a rare moment on Top Shot, both contestants went through the course and hit the same amount of targets using the same amount of rounds (more on this aspect in the analysis). Trefren and Keyes both hit only eight out of twenty targets. However on the second go around, Trefren smoked the course, hitting eighteen out of twenty targets, while Keyes once again only managed to hit eight.

Iggy shuffled his way out of the competition, and the teams now stand at 6-5.

What did you think of last night's episode? Hit the comments and let me know.

Stay tuned for my analysis as there is a lot I want to discuss about this episode.

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Top Shot Recap: S4 E4 "Crossbow Crossfire"

Where to being on this one? This season of Top Shot continues to get progressively better as the contestants get progressively stranger. It is episodes like this that make me wish I didn't separate my recaps from my analysis, but that serves a purpose, namely keeping my thoughts straight. So unfortunately, I won't be commenting (too much) on a lot of drama in this episode until tomorrow. For now, let's take a look at what went down in "Crossbow Crossfire"

The episode started with Terry Vaughan nailing Michelle Viscusi's target to the wall and Gregory Littlejohn wrapping it in one of his friendship bandanas. This was quickly followed by, what my mother likes to call, a Come-to-Jesus led by Vaughan. The fracture in the blue team runs a lot deeper than what the cameras have been showing, and despite Vaughan's encouraging and level-headed words of wisdom that his teammates needed to pull themselves together, it seemed that blue team was destined to once again struggle through the team challenge.

On the range the contestants found they would be shooting a modern version of an ancient weapon, the BowTech StrykeZone 350 crossbow. (A weapon that proved as difficult to say as it was to shoot for the blue team*) The key to StrykeZone was the reload, something expert Chris Brackett took extra care instructing the contestants on. There was no clear advantage during the practice, but there was a slight edge for the red team since Tim Trefren's experience as a big game guide made him familiar with the weapon.

However, Trefren quickly learned the danger of touting one's experience on Top Shot, as he found himself benched by the blue team for the team challenge. The challenge featured contestants going head to head shooting at a rotating target. The number of targets would increase in each round. The first contestants would have one target each, the second, two and so forth through six contestants. Each target was worth a point, but when a contestant hit all of their targets the round was over, and their opponent would have to cease shooting.

The red team found themselves in quick hole after the first two rounds, down three to nothing. However, slowly but surely, they crawled back and made this challenge into a real contest. Blue began to make some critical errors with Vaughan hitting the same target twice and Littlejohn freezing up knocking his first arrow. While Trefren could not participate in the challenge, he was quite a vocal presence, coaching his teammates through the challenge. That coaching, combined with the smooth shooting of Chee Kwan and Chris Cheng, led red team to their second consecutive win and sent blue team back to the nomination range.

At the house, it was Colin Gallagher who fell on the sword this week, calling himself out for his poor performance. Littlejohn reluctantly offered himself up as well, but commented that he felt Vaughan should have spoken up more about his performance. On the range Gun Fauxeri made a bit of a fool of himself by hitting the outside ring of Gallagher's target. In the end it was Colin and Littlejohn who were headed to elimination.

They discovered they would be shooting the Smith & Wesson M&P40, a favorite among law enforcement. Top Shot featured its first ever female expert, Julie Golob, to help Littlejohn and Gallagher. Again, during practice, neither contestant seemed to hold an advantage over the other, both struggling to hit a moving target from a stationary position.

The elimination challenge marked this season's first appearance by balloon targets. Each contestant was faced with a large wall that had a triangle cut out of the center of it. Going head to head the contestants had to shoot a small target on the left or right of the triangle, releasing a pendulum with ten balloon targets (big targets on the bottom, small ones on top). Each time the pendulum swung it would get stuck on the opposite side and the contestant would have to hit the small target on the corresponding side to release it again. The objective was simple, first contestant to shoot all their balloon targets would win.

After an even start Littlejohn began to pull away with it, the score at one point being 9-4 in favor of Littlejohn. However, nerves (and shadows, more on that tomorrow) once again proved to be Littlejohn's weakness, and Gallagher managed to catch up and make it an even match at 9-9. This didn't last long though, as Littlejohn managed to hit his final target and pull out a win.

Gallagher was sent packing, but not without a parting friendship bandanna from Littlejohn, who seemed to like Gallagher a whole lot more once he knew he wasn't going to be around him anymore.

Phew! Writing that was kind of like holding your breath for a very long time. Those are facts, come back tomorrow for the opinions, because we're going to have some fun.

Next week: Pirates!

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*A cheap shot, but I couldn't resist.