Dust off the cobwebs and unlock the safety, Top Shot is back. The All Star season kicked off last night to what I would call mixed results, but I'll get to that in my analysis post tomorrow.
The episode wasted no time getting to the shooting, bringing all the contestants onto the range where Colby laid down the new ground rules. No teams. No nomination range. Obstacles and weapons from past seasons will be combined into an unholy mismatch of new challenges. And there's a boat!
The first challenge found contestants crawling upside down along a length of rope while explosions were going off, and firing the SVT-40 at a target 125 yards down range. Then they moved on to climbing up a log and firing the LaRue Tactical Optimized Battle Rifle. This was followed by climbing under barbed wire with more explosions and shooting the FN FAL rifle from an unstable platform.
The eight fastest finishers would be safe. The bottom eight would face off to determine the bottom two up for elimination. Colby and some of the other competitors seemed to be really hammering home the idea that there would be less drama and more skill based competition this year. Tomorrow I'm going to delve into whether or not that's going to be a good thing.
Gary Quesenberry, my man, went first. It's never easy to be the person who has to set the pace in these kind of challenges. There's no benchmark, and there's no advantage of seeing where other people stumbled. Gary had a rough time and ended up with the slowest time. I'm not going to go through all sixteen contestants, but Kelly Bachand smoked the course with a time of one minute 26 seconds and won himself a pretty pair of binoculars.
The players safe were: Kelly, Alex Charvat, Blake Miguez, Chris Cerino, Jamie Franks, Joe Serafini, Peter Palma and Phil Morden.
The players facing elimination were: Gary, Greg Littlejohn, Gabby Franco, Chee Kwan, Kyle Sumpter, William Bethards, Brian Zins and Adam Benson. (Note all five Season 4 competitors ended up on the chopping block.)
There was a quick stop at what is apparently a new house on the same ranch (although I couldn't tell the difference) that was decked out with photos and weapons from previous seasons. It was perhaps the least amount of time the show has ever spent in the house.
The action then moved to the much hyped "Proving Ground" which was ultimately a little boring. The eight contestants in jeopardy have one shot with a Colt Peacemaker Revolver. The two furthest from the center of the bulls eye face each other in elimination.
If I was depressed after Gary went through his initial run, I was devastated to see he was going to the elimination challenge in the first episode. He was going up against Littlejohn and it was only as the show started to play clips from the last season that I remembered that Littlejohn was the runner up in Season 4 and had very nearly been the winner.
The weapon of choice for the season's first elimination challenge? The Milkor grenade launcher, a weapon that cost Littlejohn the title in Season 4, but one the Gary had never even laid hands on before. The Sawman made a triumphant return to get the guys in shape with the launcher and then it was off to one of the best elimination challenges ever.
Are the grenade launchers a little cheap in that it's kind of pandering to the audience? Sure. Do I mind? Not in the least. The great thing about the grenade launchers is everything about them makes it such a rich viewing experience. From the "thonk" sound it makes when fired, to the graceful trajectory of the projectile as it makes its way to the mark, to the massive explosion when it finds the target. Every time I expect to be hit by the blast sitting in my living room.
The twist this time is that the competitors had four targets to hit instead of the normal three. Gary started off strong but slowed down when the smoke obscured his field of vision allowing Littlejohn to catch up. But Gary kept his cool and was able to pull out the win when Littlejohn lost time for a reload.
The first two challenges may have been a bit of a drag in terms of pacing, but I have to say this elimination challenge had me on my feet shouting at the TV. I can't think of a better way to start the season than with grenade launchers and saying bye bye to Littlejohn.
There was a lot going on in this episode, so come back tomorrow when I break it all down and discuss what the kind of effect the new rules will have on the overall quality of the show.
Follow me on Twitter @cswiets.
Showing posts with label Gregory Littlejohn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gregory Littlejohn. Show all posts
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
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
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
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Top Shot Analysis: S4 E11 "Have Machine Gun Will Travel"
After I made several complaints about lackluster challenges last week, Top Shot bounced back, kind of. It is an episode that I sure left a lot of viewers with conflicted feelings, so call me Dr. Swietlik as I sort through the issues at hand.
The Challenges
I won't spend too much time talking about the individual challenge. I think we can all agree it was pretty good. A good weapon on a good course with a good twist. Not to mention it forced contestants to work on ammo conservation as well as hitting moving targets. I also liked that this challenge had grouped exploding targets; I could be wrong, but that might be a Top Shot first.
So let's talk elimination. How important is memory in a shooting challenge? Colby mentioned during his live tweet of this episode that the individual challenge wanted to discourage contestants from spraying and praying, and I believe a similar idea was at work here. By making the contestants focus on specific targets they had to make their shots count, especially if they didn't want any deductions on their scores.
(Quick thought, is it feasible to think that they could have shot all 30 targets in the time alotted? Because then they would have had the same score and it would have come down to who used fewer bullets.)
Like I said I'm conflicted about this challenge. I like the rope part, I'm always a fan of some good rope climbing, but memorization seemed a little gimmicky, even for this show. It was like someone just took a bunch of different ideas for a challenge and threw them in a blender.
The one thing I really liked about this challenge was the shaving cream target. How the hell has it taken four seasons for someone to think of that? I mean that was maybe my favorite part of the night because not only was the camera work cool, but you could see shaving cream on all the other targets too.
Now one of the reason's for this challenge (and other seemingly lackluster ones this season) may be the tight production schedule of the show. We have to remember that Season 3 and Season 4 were filmed back to back. This could put a pretty big strain not only on the budget of the show, but on the creative team that designs the challenges. So, if there is a Season 5, the challenge engineers will have had a nice long break to recharge their creative juices.
The Contestants
Did you ever think it would come to this? Because I certainly didn't. Greg Littlejohn has made it into the final four of the competition. I'm going to be very upset if he ends up winning this thing, and right now, I would put him and Chris Cheng in the final two.
Augie Malekovich finally got to shine a little in this episode. Augie has had some great moments this season, but none that have had any real impact on the game. That was, until this episode. His showed there was some unresolved tension between him and the rest of the red team. This is how the game should be played, especially at this stage of the competition. It's important to shake things up to keep the contestants on guard. Malekovich becoming a wild card is a great new strategy to implement at this stage of the game.
Think of it this way, anyone who is too out of control in the beginning of the season paints a target on their back. There needs to be a certain amount of line towing in those early stages to establish some camaraderie. However at this point, where the bottom three performers are already picked out, the wild card can shoot whoever they want without feeling guilty about it.
Plus it's always fun to see someone do something on this show just for the hell of it.
That's really all I have this week. Kyle's gone, I'm happy. Now if we could just solve this Littlejohn problem...
What did you think of the challenges? And who do you think will take it all in next week's finale?
Follow @cswiets
The Challenges
I won't spend too much time talking about the individual challenge. I think we can all agree it was pretty good. A good weapon on a good course with a good twist. Not to mention it forced contestants to work on ammo conservation as well as hitting moving targets. I also liked that this challenge had grouped exploding targets; I could be wrong, but that might be a Top Shot first.
So let's talk elimination. How important is memory in a shooting challenge? Colby mentioned during his live tweet of this episode that the individual challenge wanted to discourage contestants from spraying and praying, and I believe a similar idea was at work here. By making the contestants focus on specific targets they had to make their shots count, especially if they didn't want any deductions on their scores.
(Quick thought, is it feasible to think that they could have shot all 30 targets in the time alotted? Because then they would have had the same score and it would have come down to who used fewer bullets.)
Like I said I'm conflicted about this challenge. I like the rope part, I'm always a fan of some good rope climbing, but memorization seemed a little gimmicky, even for this show. It was like someone just took a bunch of different ideas for a challenge and threw them in a blender.
The one thing I really liked about this challenge was the shaving cream target. How the hell has it taken four seasons for someone to think of that? I mean that was maybe my favorite part of the night because not only was the camera work cool, but you could see shaving cream on all the other targets too.
Now one of the reason's for this challenge (and other seemingly lackluster ones this season) may be the tight production schedule of the show. We have to remember that Season 3 and Season 4 were filmed back to back. This could put a pretty big strain not only on the budget of the show, but on the creative team that designs the challenges. So, if there is a Season 5, the challenge engineers will have had a nice long break to recharge their creative juices.
The Contestants
Did you ever think it would come to this? Because I certainly didn't. Greg Littlejohn has made it into the final four of the competition. I'm going to be very upset if he ends up winning this thing, and right now, I would put him and Chris Cheng in the final two.
Augie Malekovich finally got to shine a little in this episode. Augie has had some great moments this season, but none that have had any real impact on the game. That was, until this episode. His showed there was some unresolved tension between him and the rest of the red team. This is how the game should be played, especially at this stage of the competition. It's important to shake things up to keep the contestants on guard. Malekovich becoming a wild card is a great new strategy to implement at this stage of the game.
Think of it this way, anyone who is too out of control in the beginning of the season paints a target on their back. There needs to be a certain amount of line towing in those early stages to establish some camaraderie. However at this point, where the bottom three performers are already picked out, the wild card can shoot whoever they want without feeling guilty about it.
Plus it's always fun to see someone do something on this show just for the hell of it.
That's really all I have this week. Kyle's gone, I'm happy. Now if we could just solve this Littlejohn problem...
What did you think of the challenges? And who do you think will take it all in next week's finale?
Follow @cswiets
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Top Shot Recap: S4 E11 "Have Machine Gun Will Travel"
Sorry if it seems like I'm slacking on my posting schedule here, but school keeps getting in the way.
Let's skip the pleasantries and dive right in.
On the practice range (nothing interesting happened in the opening two minutes, so I'm skipping straight to the shooting) Colby stood in front of the contestants with a big grin and big tarp. Under the tarp was a M1919 Browning machine gun, a classic weapon of WWII. It was a weapon that none of the contestants had shot before, though Greg Littlejohn had the advantage of previous experience with belt fed machine guns due to his time in the military. With the help and welcome return of Craig "The Sawman" Sawyer, the rest of the group worked on trying to figure out the gun and playing with the trigger without spending too much ammo.
At the challenge the contestants were faced with...nothing, just the bench, which meant they were in for a surprise. That was when an M2A1 Halftrack came barreling down the road with the Browning strapped to its back. Contestants would jump on the Halftrack and have the opportunity to shoot at 15 different targets as they went down the road. The catch, they only had 100 bullets. The top two shooters were safe while the bottom three were up for elimination.
Gary Shank was up first (and isn't he always?) and quickly found out how little time it takes to go through 100 bullets, hitting only four targets. Littlejohn was up next and his experience shined through, hitting eight out of the 15 and ending up with the best score of the night. He was followed by Kyle Sumpter who struggled, but did better than Shank, hitting five targets. Chris Cheng continued to show he had the ability to master anything Colby puts in his hands, hitting six targets, for the second best score of the night (spoiler alert if you can do the math and didn't watch last night). Augie Malekovich was last to go, and after a strong start lost his rhythm, tying Sumpter with five targets.
I'm not really sure why, but the contestants keep having team meeting despite not being a team. There has been more team meeting footage this season than any other I would hazard to guess. It sounded like it was going to be Malekovich and Shank duking it out, but once again, things didn't go according to plan on the range.
Littlejohn hit Shank's target and all three remaining red team members hit Malekovich's. Then it was Malekovich's turn, and it turns out ole Augie had a little bone to pick with the red team. He decided he was going to hit Kyle's target because if he was going to go to elimination, he was going to throw a little chaos at the red team. So with a tie for the second contestant to go to elimination, Shank and Sumpter had to go to a shoot-off. Shank went first, hitting just below the bullseye to the left. Sumpter got up to shoot and clipped Shank's mark, but was just outside.
Sumpter and Malekovich would face off using the FN PS90 carbine. In perhaps the oddest twist of the season, this challenge was not so much focused on shooting as it was on memory....and rope climbing. Apparently this was a recreation of some kind of Marine exercise, but it was still a little odd (more on this tomorrow). Each contestant would have a box filled with ten items. They needed to open the box look at the items, close the box, climb across 20 feet of rope, then pick up the PS90 and shoot the 10 targets in their box without hitting the other twenty they were set amongst (I'll admit, that was pretty poorly worded). They had to to all of that in 75 seconds. They could go back as often as they wanted to look at the box, but with only 75 seconds, they would need to budget their time. This was a hard challenge to follow as it required the viewer to also memorize the items in the box to figure out who was winning. As it always is in Top Shot, points were awarded for proper hits, and points were deducted for decoy hits.
When the contest was over, Sumpter had clearly hit more objects than Malekovich but it all came down to the final count. Malekovich had hit five targets from his box, while Kyle had hit three. Malekovich hit only one decoy bringing his count down to four but securing the win. (Sumpter hit four decoys bringing his score down to negative one)
So one part of my prayers have been answered as Sumpter is sent packing and I can look forward to one Sumpter free episode this episode.
What did you think of last night's challenges? Are you glad that Papa Bear was sent back to his cave, or did you think he still had some fight left in him? Hit the comments and let me know.
Come back tomorrow for my analysis of tonight's episode.
Follow @cswiets
Let's skip the pleasantries and dive right in.
On the practice range (nothing interesting happened in the opening two minutes, so I'm skipping straight to the shooting) Colby stood in front of the contestants with a big grin and big tarp. Under the tarp was a M1919 Browning machine gun, a classic weapon of WWII. It was a weapon that none of the contestants had shot before, though Greg Littlejohn had the advantage of previous experience with belt fed machine guns due to his time in the military. With the help and welcome return of Craig "The Sawman" Sawyer, the rest of the group worked on trying to figure out the gun and playing with the trigger without spending too much ammo.
At the challenge the contestants were faced with...nothing, just the bench, which meant they were in for a surprise. That was when an M2A1 Halftrack came barreling down the road with the Browning strapped to its back. Contestants would jump on the Halftrack and have the opportunity to shoot at 15 different targets as they went down the road. The catch, they only had 100 bullets. The top two shooters were safe while the bottom three were up for elimination.
Gary Shank was up first (and isn't he always?) and quickly found out how little time it takes to go through 100 bullets, hitting only four targets. Littlejohn was up next and his experience shined through, hitting eight out of the 15 and ending up with the best score of the night. He was followed by Kyle Sumpter who struggled, but did better than Shank, hitting five targets. Chris Cheng continued to show he had the ability to master anything Colby puts in his hands, hitting six targets, for the second best score of the night (spoiler alert if you can do the math and didn't watch last night). Augie Malekovich was last to go, and after a strong start lost his rhythm, tying Sumpter with five targets.
I'm not really sure why, but the contestants keep having team meeting despite not being a team. There has been more team meeting footage this season than any other I would hazard to guess. It sounded like it was going to be Malekovich and Shank duking it out, but once again, things didn't go according to plan on the range.
Littlejohn hit Shank's target and all three remaining red team members hit Malekovich's. Then it was Malekovich's turn, and it turns out ole Augie had a little bone to pick with the red team. He decided he was going to hit Kyle's target because if he was going to go to elimination, he was going to throw a little chaos at the red team. So with a tie for the second contestant to go to elimination, Shank and Sumpter had to go to a shoot-off. Shank went first, hitting just below the bullseye to the left. Sumpter got up to shoot and clipped Shank's mark, but was just outside.
Sumpter and Malekovich would face off using the FN PS90 carbine. In perhaps the oddest twist of the season, this challenge was not so much focused on shooting as it was on memory....and rope climbing. Apparently this was a recreation of some kind of Marine exercise, but it was still a little odd (more on this tomorrow). Each contestant would have a box filled with ten items. They needed to open the box look at the items, close the box, climb across 20 feet of rope, then pick up the PS90 and shoot the 10 targets in their box without hitting the other twenty they were set amongst (I'll admit, that was pretty poorly worded). They had to to all of that in 75 seconds. They could go back as often as they wanted to look at the box, but with only 75 seconds, they would need to budget their time. This was a hard challenge to follow as it required the viewer to also memorize the items in the box to figure out who was winning. As it always is in Top Shot, points were awarded for proper hits, and points were deducted for decoy hits.
When the contest was over, Sumpter had clearly hit more objects than Malekovich but it all came down to the final count. Malekovich had hit five targets from his box, while Kyle had hit three. Malekovich hit only one decoy bringing his count down to four but securing the win. (Sumpter hit four decoys bringing his score down to negative one)
So one part of my prayers have been answered as Sumpter is sent packing and I can look forward to one Sumpter free episode this episode.
What did you think of last night's challenges? Are you glad that Papa Bear was sent back to his cave, or did you think he still had some fight left in him? Hit the comments and let me know.
Come back tomorrow for my analysis of tonight's episode.
Follow @cswiets
Thursday, April 19, 2012
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
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
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
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
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
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
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.
Follow @cswiets
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.
Follow @cswiets
Friday, April 6, 2012
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
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
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Top Shot Recap: S4 E8 "The Mad Minute"
Speed.
It can make or break a Top Shot competition, and it's the subject of tonight's Word.
No, wait, that's the wrong show. Sorry, I'm still reeling from the outcome of last night's episode.
The show opened with William Bethards reentering the house and red team expressing their confusion over why blue decided to send him in the first place. They felt that despite Bethards performance in the trick shooting challenge, he was still one of the best shooters on blue team.
On the range Colby introduced the shooters to the Webley Mark VI revolver, and also introduced them to the day's expert, Season 1 winner Iain Harrison. It was difficult to gauge how each team was doing coming out of practice. Chris Cheng discussed practicing loading the revolver because it's mechanics were not the same as most revolvers. While many revolvers have the chamber pop out the side to enable a reload, the Webly has to be cracked open. The editing for this part of the episode was a little shaky because there weren't many close ups of the targets to show how close the shooters were to the mark.
The team challenge was a straight shoot-off, not much unlike this season's first team challenge. There were five rows of six jars. The first team to hit all thirty of their targets would win. While the challenge looked like a fairly simple stationary target, Colby and the Top Shot team threw the contestants a curve ball by putting the structures holding the targets on a track that moved at a good pace from right to left.
Chee Kwan finally got a chance to shoot when blue team decided to change up it's strategy and sit Gabby (a move to be discussed in the analysis). This marked the first time in four seasons that a female contestant has been benched. Kwan was anxious to get back to shooting going first for the red team against Terry Vaughan. While Vaughan was faster on the trigger, Kwan's slow and steady pace resulted in more targets hit. According to Kyle Sumpter, this was red team's strategy for the challenge, and it was one that paid off in the end. Mark this one down as another blowout by the red team who hit all 30 targets to blue team's 18.
The graphic that popped up on screen after the commercial break, broke down how each blue team shot during the challenge.Vaughan was the only blue team member to make it to the the third round of shooting going 6 for 18 on his run. Greg Littlejohn went 5 for 12, Bethards 4 for 12 and Augie Malekovich brought up the rear with 3 for 12.
The blue team meeting was mess with Vaughan being the only one owning up to their mistake, which some might argue wasn't the biggest mistake of the challenge. He rationalized that by not having a strong start he set the pace for the rest of the match. Littlejohn proved he wasn't paying that close attention to the match by claiming Malekovich had had the best day and Bethards had had the worst, when in reality Malekovich had had the worst and Littlejohn had the best. Malekovich took issue with how long it took Bethards to take his shots, especially since this challenge was supposed to focus on speed. (There are a disgusting amount of "had" 's in that paragraph, I apologize)
The episode then took a short detour to focus on the red team gloating over the win and how good they were as the team. Sumpter was doing most of the talking, taking pride in the fact that his team was not picking apart each others performances in the challenge, as he assumed blue team was. It was an odd route for the show to take, since they usually leave out what happens with the winning team while the losing team has their meeting.
At the elimination range it was Vaughan and Littlejohn once again heading to elimination with two votes each.
The practice session brought back Harrison, this time to instruct the competitors on another British weapon, the Lee-Enfield Mark III rifle. Littlejohn went first and Harrison showed of some truly amazing skills with his manipulation of the rifle.(Seriously, how good is that guy?) He showed Littlejohn and Vaughan the three different ways in which the could hold the rifle and work the bolt. The practice session looked pretty even, but Littlejohn seemed more comfortable coming out of it than Vaughan.
The challenge featured a special military twist. The competitors would have only one minute to take as many shots as possible at a target 200 yards down range, a challenge the British military reffer to as "the mad minute" (don't you love it when they say the title of the episode is in the episode?). Littlejohn went first, and, while inconsistent throughout his time with the weapon, managed to get six hits on the target. Vaughan was up next, and while he was able to get on target more quickly than Littlejohn, he struggled to get back on target after his first reload. That combined with a small struggle manipulating the bolt, kept Vaughan's score at six as well. This being Top Shot, the tie went to the man who had fired less shots, and once again, that man was Littlejohn.
There might be something ironic about the Brit getting beat by his own weapons, but I'm too upset to see it.
What did you think of last night's episode? Did the right man go home, or are you as upset as I am that Vaughan was sent packing? Or, third option, are you also like me, upset that Littlejohn keeps barely winning these elimination challenges?
Hit the comments and let me know. By the way, I changed the settings on commenting, so now pretty much anyone should be able to do comment without having to put in as much information as before.
Analysis is in progress, and believe me, there is a lot to analyze. Look for it tomorrow.
One more thing, Colby was not live tweeting last nights episode, so that is why there were no Top Tweets.
Follow @cswiets
It can make or break a Top Shot competition, and it's the subject of tonight's Word.
No, wait, that's the wrong show. Sorry, I'm still reeling from the outcome of last night's episode.
The show opened with William Bethards reentering the house and red team expressing their confusion over why blue decided to send him in the first place. They felt that despite Bethards performance in the trick shooting challenge, he was still one of the best shooters on blue team.
On the range Colby introduced the shooters to the Webley Mark VI revolver, and also introduced them to the day's expert, Season 1 winner Iain Harrison. It was difficult to gauge how each team was doing coming out of practice. Chris Cheng discussed practicing loading the revolver because it's mechanics were not the same as most revolvers. While many revolvers have the chamber pop out the side to enable a reload, the Webly has to be cracked open. The editing for this part of the episode was a little shaky because there weren't many close ups of the targets to show how close the shooters were to the mark.
The team challenge was a straight shoot-off, not much unlike this season's first team challenge. There were five rows of six jars. The first team to hit all thirty of their targets would win. While the challenge looked like a fairly simple stationary target, Colby and the Top Shot team threw the contestants a curve ball by putting the structures holding the targets on a track that moved at a good pace from right to left.
Chee Kwan finally got a chance to shoot when blue team decided to change up it's strategy and sit Gabby (a move to be discussed in the analysis). This marked the first time in four seasons that a female contestant has been benched. Kwan was anxious to get back to shooting going first for the red team against Terry Vaughan. While Vaughan was faster on the trigger, Kwan's slow and steady pace resulted in more targets hit. According to Kyle Sumpter, this was red team's strategy for the challenge, and it was one that paid off in the end. Mark this one down as another blowout by the red team who hit all 30 targets to blue team's 18.
The graphic that popped up on screen after the commercial break, broke down how each blue team shot during the challenge.Vaughan was the only blue team member to make it to the the third round of shooting going 6 for 18 on his run. Greg Littlejohn went 5 for 12, Bethards 4 for 12 and Augie Malekovich brought up the rear with 3 for 12.
The blue team meeting was mess with Vaughan being the only one owning up to their mistake, which some might argue wasn't the biggest mistake of the challenge. He rationalized that by not having a strong start he set the pace for the rest of the match. Littlejohn proved he wasn't paying that close attention to the match by claiming Malekovich had had the best day and Bethards had had the worst, when in reality Malekovich had had the worst and Littlejohn had the best. Malekovich took issue with how long it took Bethards to take his shots, especially since this challenge was supposed to focus on speed. (There are a disgusting amount of "had" 's in that paragraph, I apologize)
The episode then took a short detour to focus on the red team gloating over the win and how good they were as the team. Sumpter was doing most of the talking, taking pride in the fact that his team was not picking apart each others performances in the challenge, as he assumed blue team was. It was an odd route for the show to take, since they usually leave out what happens with the winning team while the losing team has their meeting.
At the elimination range it was Vaughan and Littlejohn once again heading to elimination with two votes each.
The practice session brought back Harrison, this time to instruct the competitors on another British weapon, the Lee-Enfield Mark III rifle. Littlejohn went first and Harrison showed of some truly amazing skills with his manipulation of the rifle.(Seriously, how good is that guy?) He showed Littlejohn and Vaughan the three different ways in which the could hold the rifle and work the bolt. The practice session looked pretty even, but Littlejohn seemed more comfortable coming out of it than Vaughan.
The challenge featured a special military twist. The competitors would have only one minute to take as many shots as possible at a target 200 yards down range, a challenge the British military reffer to as "the mad minute" (don't you love it when they say the title of the episode is in the episode?). Littlejohn went first, and, while inconsistent throughout his time with the weapon, managed to get six hits on the target. Vaughan was up next, and while he was able to get on target more quickly than Littlejohn, he struggled to get back on target after his first reload. That combined with a small struggle manipulating the bolt, kept Vaughan's score at six as well. This being Top Shot, the tie went to the man who had fired less shots, and once again, that man was Littlejohn.
There might be something ironic about the Brit getting beat by his own weapons, but I'm too upset to see it.
What did you think of last night's episode? Did the right man go home, or are you as upset as I am that Vaughan was sent packing? Or, third option, are you also like me, upset that Littlejohn keeps barely winning these elimination challenges?
Hit the comments and let me know. By the way, I changed the settings on commenting, so now pretty much anyone should be able to do comment without having to put in as much information as before.
Analysis is in progress, and believe me, there is a lot to analyze. Look for it tomorrow.
One more thing, Colby was not live tweeting last nights episode, so that is why there were no Top Tweets.
Follow @cswiets
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
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
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
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
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Top Shot Analysis: S4 E5 "Swing into Action"
The fifth episode of the fourth season offered a lot of good (lack of bandanas) and a few things that weren't so great (an episode title lacking alliteration, I would have gone with "Flintlock Frenzy").
Let's dive right in shall we? I have jobs to apply for (p.s. if anyone wants to hire me, I graduate in May, resume available upon request).
The Challenges
I have to hand it to Colby on that misdirect for the team challenge. I can only imagine what the contestants were thinking the challenge would be like after he gave them all that Revolutionary War background.
The Kentucky flintlock also featured one of the most complicated loading mechanisms ever seen on Top Shot. The surprising thing about the team challenge was that while the practice led me to believe that once again the challenge would all come down to how well team's could load the weapon, that didn't turn out to be the case.
The first obstacle was the challenge itself. It was painful to see Chee Kwan hit that platform time after time, I couldn't help but think this guy had a deprived childhood.
Top Shot is supposed to be fun and this challenge certainly fulfilled that aspect of the show, at least at the beginning. The fun quickly faded from both teams, first as Kwan failed to cross to the other platform, and then when Littlejohn couldn't take his shot.
I think that disappointed me most though, was the lack of dropped ball jokes that were made. There was such a rich opportunity for humor here that either the contestants didn't take advantage of, or the producers decided to edit out. Either way it is a shame.
The elimination challenge was also a little disappointing. I know Top Shot likes to contrast old and modern, but seeing two pistol elimination challenges in a row was a little boring. However, Top Shot makes up for that in how they form the challenges. I was excited to see that it would be up to Trefren and Keyes to keep pace with the moving window to shoot their targets.
I have to admit that I wasn't too upset to see Keyes go, I had a feeling that he had kind of been coasting on his team's success the past couple of weeks. That is why it is almost better for teams not to get on a winning streak. Sure, that team may end up with more members, but they also hang onto the weak members of their team. As we saw this week, this can lead to the critical shooters being forced to sit out and puts pressure on the weaker ones to deliver.
The Contestants
I'm going to abandon the contestant formula this week and speak solely about the teams. No character really stuck out, and there really isn't any point in harping on Littlejohn again.
Top Team: Red
Despite their failures in the team challenge, red is still proving to be the team that knows how to play this game, and how to play it well. I give big props to Gary Shank for his coaching ability in this challenge. His calm and steady instruction kept his team on point throughout the challenge, and with a weapon that had so many steps to go through before actually firing it, his instruction proved vital to keeping this contest close. He possesses a special talent of giving instruction without letting frustration seep into his tone. In addition red team had all three of their biggest failures step up to the plate for elimination. It had to be a tough choice for red team in who to send this week, and while I'm a big fan of Trefren (who I think Kwan accurately described as the "heart" of the read team), I think it was the right choice to send him this week.
Not-So-Top Team: Blue
While blue team won this challenge, they are far from being the cohesive whole they need to be to make it to the individual stage of this contest. Let's disregard Littlejohn's freeze up for the moment and look at the other four members of the blue team. While red team had Gary Shank shouting every loading instruction to every member of his team who picked up the flintlock, blue team never picked up this strategy. The only thing they thought to do was to try and keep themselves calm by telling Littlejohn to keep calm. It took Littlejohn picking up and setting down the pistol three times to reset himself before Augie finally asked him if he had fully-cocked the pistol. Blue team is going to have to amp their support of each other if they are going to make it through the next challenge.
What do you think? How did the teams stack up to you? Hit the comments and let me know.
No post tomorrow as I'm off to visit the exotic locale of Sheboygan, Wis. I'll be back Friday with a surprise post.
Stay up to date by following me on Twitter @csiwets
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Top Shot Analysis: S4 E4 "Crossbow Crossfire"
There was a lot happening both on and off the range in this week's episode. The contestants stepped away from guns to try their hand at crossbows and blue team looked like they were going to take a step away from being petty to actually work as a team, only to trick everyone, including themselves.
There is a fair amount to talk about with this episode, but I just want to start with a question.
Is anyone else really starting to dig this season?
Perhaps it's because I'm blogging this season, or perhaps it's because I've been able to interact with some of the contestants thanks to Twitter, but as the season wears on, I just find a bigger grin on my face with each passing episode. Who would have thought there would be more to stay tuned in for after we were treated to grenade launchers in the second episode? But this season continues to impress with compelling contestants, thrilling challenges, and exciting weapons.
Anyway onto the episode.
The Challenges
I have to say I was glad to see the BowTech StrykeZone 350 crossbow in this episode. Now, I'll never tire of guns, exploding targets, or contestants with ridiculous looking earguards (seriously though, safety first) but the thing I like about Top Shot is that it has always been about more than being able to shoot a gun. I like when they bring in the primitive weapons, but I love when they bring in modern day versions of ancient weapons. If History Channel was once the channel where "History comes alive" (that was there slogan once, right?) it is certainly demonstrated when Top Shot brings in these modern day incarnations.
I was surprised to see that the contestants practiced on a stationary target and were then put into a challenge with a rotating one. Usually the contestants practice with a simple moving target to get the feel for how to shoot the weapon at a moving target, and are then faced with more complex moving target in the actual challenge. However there were a lot of comparisons being made between shooting a rifle and shooting the crossbow, so if there was an understanding that the contestants had basic rifle skills, this may explain the reason behind this decision.
The challenges this season continue to impress with their complex staging that continues to emphasize the importance of team strategy as well as team shooting. This challenge posed the question of whether to send your better shooters out early and get out to an early lead, or save them for when they had an opportunity to score more points.
The initial 3-0 lead blue team took had me questioning red teams strategy, but while blue team kept repeating the mantra "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" red team seemed to be the ones taking it to heart. Red team is continuing to perhaps be one of the most cohesive teams in Top Shot history, without being obnoxious about it.
The elimination challenge looked surprisingly difficult. Now, I'm not saying other elimination challenges are easy, but I think I would have gotten incredibly frustrated trying to nail that tiny balloon at the top of the pendulum. The nice thing about this challenge is it continued to demonstrate the importance of consistency in these challenges. Anyone can get a lucky run going, but if a shooter perseveres and finds a pace that works for them, they can always catch up and make things interesting.
I would take this opportunity to harp on Littlejohn for his inability to hit his final target and allow Gallagher to catch up with him, but that was a visibly difficult shot to make. We know that elimination challenges are filmed over the course of the day with practice in the morning and the challenge in the afternoon. In this episode it was clear to see the sun was setting and the shadows at the top of the wall were obscuring that final balloon for Littlejohn. That's already a difficult shot to make with the low clearance and small target size, and the poor lighting only added to the difficulty.
The design of these challenges and the contestants skill level have kept these challenges close and exciting to watch this season.
The Contestants
I want to talk in broader terms for minute before getting into specific contestants. As I wrote above, red team is cruising this season, they have three out of four wins and are only down one team member. They have a group with diverse backgrounds, and their overall teamwork is astounding.
However, contrast this with blue team. A team that has become sorely divided. I wanted to dig into blue team a little here, but the more I thought about the more sympathetic I became. The audience gets a week digest everything that has happened between episodes. It is easy to think that these guys should be able to turn themselves around the next time we tune into the show. But that isn't how it really works is it? These guys are on a tight schedule, which doesn't allow them a lot of time to work on team building. Last season we saw a completely different blue team, one that won the first challenge and wanted to keep winning. They did those crazy practices in the backyard of the house, which were laughable, but even the members of the team who thought they were silly, admitted they were good for building team unity. And they were right.
This season of Top Shot has shown just how critical focus is to this game, and just how a far a team can fall when they don't have it. Going back to my initial point I can only imagine how hard it is for a team to try and wash their hands of the bad feelings left over from a loss and try and turn their attitudes around in just three days (or less). Vaughan can give all the speeches he wants (and props to him for doing what needed to be done) and his team can nod along and agree with him as much as they want, but if they don't actually commit to what he's trying to preach, they are going to continue to struggle in this competition.
Now for this week's Top and Not-so-Top Shots.
Not-so-Top Shots:
Gregory Littlejohn, Mr. Friendship bracelet himself. The thing about Littlejohn is, I'm starting to come around to him. Not in a, "This guy is pretty cool" way, but more in a "I'm am completely fascinated by this guy" way. Littlejohn is, for better or worse, becoming this season's standout character. Season 2 had the irritable coaching of Jay Lim, which quickly faded when he had no one else to coach. Season 3 had the irritable coaching and mind games of Jake Zweig. Littlejohn is neither of these things. He isn't someone who is trying to dominate the way his team is run, and he isn't someone who is sullying the unspoken honor of this competition through manipulation (unless he is, in which case, he's a genius). He's simply a guy who likes to have his friends around him. I have a theory that every reality show has a character that is representative of the kid no one wanted to play with during grade school. On Jersey Shore, it's The Situation. On Deadliest Catch, it's Captain Keith. I think Littlejohn is Top Shot's version of this character. These people suddenly find themselves forced into social situations, and it overwhelms them. It can go two ways, the person pushes the people they are surrounded by away (The Situation) or they bring them uncomfortably close (Littlejohn). Colby has tweeted his own confusion as to Littlejohn's ability to put this tremendous amount of weight on relationships with people he has know for less than two weeks. It was also evident by Colby's dazed expression over what has become know as the "friendship bracelet ceremony". He just couldn't seem to understand how Littlejohn and Gallagher had become so close, and Gallagher seemed to be right there with Colby.
Back tracking a little, Littlejohn is also have a clear problem with nerves in this competition, and his inability to knock an arrow allowed the red team to regain their composure and lead themselves to a win. From the preview of next week's episode, this doesn't look like a problem that is going away anytime soon, but Littlejohn might.
Oh, and how about his closing comment about how that blue team better realize that they shouldn't send him to elimination if they don't want to send someone else home? HELLO? LITTLEJOHN? If your team is headed to elimination, someone is going home regardless if they nominate you or not. C'mon man.
I'm also going to throw up Gun Fauxeri for again saying he wanted to be in the elimination challenge. No you don't.
Top Shots:
Augie Malekovich finally started to speak up in this episode. I was beginning to forget this guy was here. He gets marks for expressing the confusion I think most of us were feeling during the bracelet ceremony. He also had the line of the night with his "31 year-old man giving a 36 year-old man a friendship bracelet" outrage.
Also speaking up this episode, Iggy Keyes and Gary Shank. Keyes is starting to finally look more comfortable in front of the camera, while Shank, like Augie, was a guy I had all but forgotten about. I hope we continue to see a little more from all three of these guys as the season continues.
That's it for this analysis. Let me know your thoughts on friendship bracelets and the like in the comments.
Come back tomorrow for the Friday Surprise addressing a question Colby raised on Twitter during this weeks episode.
Follow me on Twitter @cswiets
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
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!
Follow me on Twitter @cswiets
*A cheap shot, but I couldn't resist.
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!
Follow me on Twitter @cswiets
*A cheap shot, but I couldn't resist.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Top Shot Analysis: S4 E3 "Shotgun Showdown"
"Shotgun Showdown" may be the best episode of the season so far, which I know isn't saying a lot three episodes into the season. This episode gave us some amazing weapons, some cool challenges, and a little bit more insight into how the contestants are playing this game.
Once again, I'll break it down by challenges and contestants, and this week there's plenty to talk about in both categories.
The Challenges
This week's team challenge (dubbed "Double Tap Challenge" thank you Wikipedia) featured two kinds of shotguns, firing two kinds of ammunition. The Benelli M4, one mean looking gun, and the Benelli Vinci, a gun that looks as beautiful as it sounds. (Seriously, I'm not the kind of person who calls inanimate objects sexy, but that gun was damn sexy.)
Once again, I'll break it down by challenges and contestants, and this week there's plenty to talk about in both categories.
The Challenges
This week's team challenge (dubbed "Double Tap Challenge" thank you Wikipedia) featured two kinds of shotguns, firing two kinds of ammunition. The Benelli M4, one mean looking gun, and the Benelli Vinci, a gun that looks as beautiful as it sounds. (Seriously, I'm not the kind of person who calls inanimate objects sexy, but that gun was damn sexy.)
Top Shot continues to experiment with how to do challenges, which is keeping things fresh this season. I don't think we've seen a challenge set up quite the way this one was.
I loved the two step process of this challenge and the fact contestants only scored points for the clay targets. It added a lot of tension to the challenge knowing that the moving target had to be hit before any points could be score. This wasn't too much of a problem for the red team who demonstrated incredible rhythm in this challenge, but blue team could not get it together, missing critical shots on the moving and clay targets.
I was initially worried the time limit on this challenge might prevent contestants in the back of the line the opportunity to shoot both weapons. I didn't want to see an issue like the one we ran into last week where Iggy didn't get a chance to even participate in the challenge. However, this didn't turn out to be a problem and, again with red team, we were able to see the speed at which this challenge could be executed. On the other hand, with blue team, we could see how detrimental taking your time with this challenge could be to your overall score.
This challenge also demonstrated that last weeks shouting chaos on blue team at the end of the team challenge was just the tip of the iceberg. We saw the complete collapse of this team not only in the house, but on the practice range, and most importantly in the team challenge. I've never heard a team be so quiet out of what seemed to be genre disinterest, rather than intense focus, in a challenge.
The elimination challenge ("Horse Race"), as I mentioned in my recap, had the feel of a carnival game. I wish I understood physics more to understand how they came up with a challenge where shooting they target could actually hurt the contestants progress. This challenge was all about precision, specifically timing your shots. The timing aspect is a skill heavily emphasized in this episode, and one that displayed the proficiency of the shooters. While Viscusi panicked and started firing off rounds willy-nilly, Vaughan was able to find a slow and steady pace to rock the wheel down the track and stay in the competition.
The Contestants
As the number of contestants slowly starts to dwindle, we are starting to see more of how each one is playing the game. Gregory Littlejohn started the episode showing how fractured the blue team had become over the course of two challenges. The nomination discussion between the blue teams members was particularly revealing.
Now I don't intend for this part of the blog to become repetitive, but at this point in the show there are still too many contestants to give fair screen time to. I'll do my best to keep my thoughts fresh.
So once again I'll break down my Top and Not-so-Top Shots from this episode.
Not-so-Top Shots:
Michelle Viscusi proved that not only could she not handle the Benelli, but also that her vocabulary did not extend beyond the phrase "kick ass". Part of blame could be placed on how the show is edited (which in my opinion was spectacular for this episode), but she must not have said to much else if that was all they showed.
Gregory Littlejohn broke down and continued his slide to the bottom of my favorite shooters list. Not only did he show his disregard for the integrity of this competition by telling the rest of his team he would not vote for his friends (a claim Colby openly mocked on Twitter during the episode), but he also broke down discussing his decision to vote for Vaughan, even though Vaughan was ALREADY VOTED INTO THE DAMN CHALLENGE! (again, props to the editors for drawing this out, because it was hilarious) However, I will give credit where credit is due to Littlejohn for responding to the red teams wish of"good luck" with a brief "Thanks." He saved his entire team from looking like complete dicks.
I'd mention Gun Fauxeri again, but there isn't much new I can say, the guy is just too cocky to be likable.
On to the good, although I should take this point to mention the contestants for the most part didn't really do anything to win me over or tick me off, so I apologize if this section is a little shorter than usual.
Top Shots:
Let's start with the welcome return of Season 2 winner Chris Reed. Granted this is kind of a cheat since he isn't a constant but from his joking with Colby, to his instruction on the Benelli, to his congratulatory talk with red team after their win, he was a welcome presence on the show.
I'm also starting to come around on Kyle Sumpter. He has a slightly robotic personality that reminds me of Mitt Romney, but he's proving himself to be a strong team leader.
While I don't mean for this to become a Terry Vaughan cheering section, I can't fail to mention him once again. This week he continued to display his levelheadedness when discussing his teams complicated dynamics. In addition he demonstrated his ability to overcome his weaknesses by mastering the Nova and pulling out a win in the elimination challenge.
Sideshots
Just few stray observations I wanted to comment on quickly, mostly involving the fashion being displayed in this week's episode.
Is this the first time the women are wearing different style polos than the men? I always thought all the contestants wore polos with buttons, but Viscusi and Franco were both wearing buttonless ones that just had a shallow-V.
Why was everyone wearing bandanas on their wrists? I can't imagine it helps with shooting, but who knows? Colby commented on Twitter that they were friendship bracelets, but contestants on both teams were wearing them. I'll be curious to see if they pop up next week.
The other thing about Kyle Sumpter that is winning me over? Those sweet hats he and Chee Kwan are wearing during the practice sessions. Love it.
That's it for "Shotgun Showdown," next week we move away from firearms and into crossbows.
Come back tomorrow for my surprise mystery post dealing with one aspect of this season of Top Shot I have overlooked.
Follow me on Twitter @cswiets
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