All-Star Cast Analysis: Season 2

A normal season of Top Shot has sixteen contestants. I was hoping for this season that would mean four contestants from each season, but unfortunately that did not turn out to be the case. Seasons 1 and 4 are each represented with five contestants, while Seasons 2 and 3 each shore up three. This distribution could prove interesting when it comes to seeing where loyalties lie as numbers begin to dwindle. Today I'll walk through what to expect from the Season 2 contestants.

Season 2

Jamie Franks
Unjustly maligned by his fellow competitors in Season 2, it will be interesting to see how Franks fits into the dynamic of this all-star cast. His performance could go one of two ways based on the perception his new competition has of him. He will either gel with the rest of the cast, easing his stress and improving his performance, or his experience with elimination challenges will paint a target on his back to get him out early. Either way I expect to see a very different Jamie Franks than the one of Season 2.

Joe Serafini
Serafini has a laid back personality that embodies everything this show should be about. He just wants to come out and test his mettle through some shooting contests. Although, this personality though may lend itself better to team play than individual competition. Finishing fourth in Season 2 means he's no slouch when it comes to shooting, but this season leaves a lot of questions about how the lone wolf approach is going to affect contestants' mental games.

Brian Zins
Zins was put in a tough spot during the Season 2 finale. He had to sit by and watch as the person he believed he would be going up against in the final contest decided to change the game and let Chris Reed take his spot (more or less, I could debate what really happened in that challenge forever if I had to, but I'm going to try and stay focused on the present). Zins gets to wipe the slate clean and begin working his way up from the bottom again. Whether or not he has what it takes to get to reach the final stage again remains to be seen.

I would rather see: George Reinas and Jay Lim. Part of the issue with this all-star season is the lack of personality. This is a television show, and shows need characters. Not only were Jay and George great shots, they made the show fun to watch each week. Keep an eye on how this season is edited, and compare the personalities from the contestants' original season to the current one. 

Come back tomorrow for a look at who is showing up from Season 3. 

Tony's Take: Top Shot Season 2

Tony continues to work his way through Top Shot on Netflix, this time sharing his thoughts on Season 2.

What it is, yo?  I’d first like to wish the happiest of Mondays to TCG’s legions of readers around the globe.  Then I’d like to bring four hours of pain to your early-afternoon reading time. I’ve never been a believer in Monday being a hard day. Monday Night Raw is on Mondays. Monday Night Football is on Mondays. Domino’s has that sweet three-topping carryout deal for $8 on Mondays. On top of that it’s easy to carry on a conversation without giving a crap just by asking what that person did over their weekend. It’s the easiest day of the week in my book. However, since I started watching Season 4 of Top Shot I’ve noticed my left eye starts twitching and I interject nervous laughter and panic screams into conversation by about 3 p.m. on Mondays. I’ve got a Top Shot jones worse than Charles Barkley in Space Jam. I have to assume I’m not the only one who feels that way, so here’s hoping this post will calm your symptoms a little bit so you can be a functional member of society for another 24 hours.

Similar to my critically acclaimed Season 1 recap, this Season 2 recap just goes over my favorite contestants and what I viewed to be the key moments of the season.

My 3 Heroes

Jay Lim seemed to be the star of Season 2 immediately. On first impression everything about him made me want to cheer for him in this competition. The competitors all seemed to be elite military shooters (who ended up dominating the season… spoiler alert) or elite competitive shooters. Then in walks Jay Lim – golf instructor. It wasn’t until later on in the season that I realized he was also an Olympic qualifier as an archer. However, by that point he seemed to be already established as the underdog. This season essentially boiled down to military vs. civilians, and the perceived tension between Jay and George seemed to be the most tangible example of the chasm. It is very clear that Jay is an instructor, as he gave willing advice on nearly every weapon whenever his team was practicing. Unfortunately that seemed to rub people in the house the wrong way, leading to an exceptionally entertaining conversation between Jay and the Red Team’s Chris Reed (“You just tried to tell Gunny how to butter his toast”). It seemed like Jay was always on the chopping block for one reason or another, but he showed his versatility coming through time and time again. He ended up being the last civilian remaining amongst a cast filled with highly trained military members. I still haven’t seen Season 3 yet, but of Seasons 1, 2 and 4 Jay has to be the most intriguing (and polarizing) character of the bunch.  He was the face of Season 2, and even though he finished 7 out of 16, there is no way the season would have been as entertaining without him.

George Reinas was the contestant that appeared to get the short end of the stick when the show’s editing came into play. He is definitely the most outspoken contestant I’ve seen, and his willingness to put his opinions bluntly gave the show some talking heads that may have rubbed fans the wrong way. Despite George seemingly trying to play the role of the villain on the show it was apparent that he got along with most of the house members, and especially his teammates. For some weird reason I always am intrigued by the characters’ farewells to their teammates when they get eliminated from the show. The interaction between one member who just suffered a humbling blow to their ego and another member who is one step closer to victory is some real-life drama that is best left unscripted. While most characters shake hands softly and exchange two word pleasantries, George seemed to master the 5-second bear hug despite never having to even consider what life would be like after elimination. There was just something interesting about the sympathy he showed the other members of the household, and that finally shone through when he blew the shot to let Chris Reed stay alive in the competition. On top of that all, if you don’t think that hitting the first shot from 1,000 yards away is the most bad-ass thing caught on camera then you can shut up.

Chris Reed is everything right with the competition, and everything wrong with the show. There’s something inspiring about a guy winning when he seems like he just climbed out of a deer stand and wandered onto the show. There’s something heart-warming about the $100,000 prize going toward his daughter’s education. However, we never heard that Chris Reed required brain surgery not too long ago.  Even after hearing it I’m still a little hazy towards the details of his situation. That seems like a detail that might be important enough to mention sometime in the first 10 episodes. If the producers of the show knew Chris Reed won before the first episode aired, perhaps it’s a wise idea to involve his activities in the house in some aspect over the course of the season so the fans can start rooting for him before the last episode. I understood he was a calm, likable presence in the house but it wasn’t really until George threw away his chance at victory just so Chris would win that we realized how beloved Chris is. He was largely ignored during the season. This leads to the biggest problem I have with the show. When half the show is dedicated to the losing team’s process for choosing who they eliminate, the characters who are the early fan-favorites are inherently going to be eliminated within the first five episodes.  The same thing occurred during Season 4. The blue team seemed to have my favorite personalities, but after Terry and Dylan were eliminated I’m down to about two shooters who I’m cheering for to win just because the red team is such a mystery to me. I don’t know how to fix this problem, but I guess the point is that Chris Reed was an amazing contestant and Top Shot blew their ability to have him receive the most exposure.

3 Zany Moments That Made Me Wonder What The Hell’s Going On?

Tommy Gun: This moment wasn’t necessarily important in terms of the progress of the season. It was an early challenge between two contestants whom I never really believed had any chance at winning the competition. However the imagery of Athena holding that huge frickin’ gun was worth the price of admission. It was also something of a sad practice. There’s no way she could handle that thing. There’s no way I could handle that thing. This world class shooter looked like a child when shooting that ridiculous thing. I’ve cheered every season for the women to compete valiantly, but it’s challenges like this one that just make the competition seem to be unfairly skewed against women. The gun looked to be about half her size, and it was apparent that she’d be eliminated when she struggled to simply grip the gun. While it was extremely entertaining watching her spray all over the course and pray to precisely hit the target in a perfect line, it was also sort of painful to watch. It was apparent that for a female contestant to perform admirably in that challenge she’d have to be built like Chyna from Degeneration X in the 1990s. (second pro wrestling reference of the day. Note it!)

The Entirety of the Third Episode: I wouldn’t question a person’s toughness for dropping out or forfeiting based on injury for any sport. I especially wouldn’t do it when talking about people who can shoot a gun sufficiently. However, I was really confused when John quit the way that he did. He put his team at a huge disadvantage by walking away before the competition. I understand he wouldn’t be able to move the way History Channel wanted him to (which leads me to believe there was some outside pressure for him to formally quit rather than sabotage the competition), but if I’m in his shoes why not just talk with the team and basically plan on losing. He could have walked through the competition, and missed his shots in the elimination challenge to make sure he was the only red member eliminated. Instead he put a teammate at risk by quitting before, putting the team at a disadvantage.   The team would have certainly lost too if Jermaine didn’t do the most boneheaded thing I’ve seen in the show’s history.

Jermaine’s gaffe really deserves its own paragraph. I’ve done a lot of really dumb things in my life. I’m not going to claim to be intelligent. I just don’t understand how Jermaine could have done it twice in a matter of minutes. Jermaine was supposed to wait with the gun after hitting the target in order for his teammates to take the gun from him and go to the next station.  Instead he ran off with the gun himself. He couldn’t hear his teammates yelling at him to come back, so he wasted what seemed to be 20 seconds just running with the gun on his own. That would be understandable if he didn’t do it again 5 minutes later. My memory is a little hazy, but if I recall correctly he wasn’t even involved in the action the second time it happened. One of the stupidest sports moments in NFL history is when Jim Marshall returned a fumble to the wrong endzone for a safety for the other team. Jermaine made a mistake of similar magnitude the first time around, but the second time would have been like if Jim Marshall ran off the sidelines to intercept a pass and return it to the wrong endzone in the next quarter. He wasted near a minute of time total, and considering the competition came down to the wire at the end there is almost no doubt the blue team would have won without that mistake. It would have changed the course of the show. Blue team would have been up seven contestants to five, which means the blue team would have had to rattle off five straight victories in order to have the same resulting individual competitors. Because Jermaine was one of the stronger shooters in the competition, it seems unlikely that the red team would have achieved that. In an alternate universe Jay Lim may well have been the most unlikely winner of Top Shot ever, and the only difference could have been Jermaine’s critical error on this episode

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GEORGE PULLED THE SHOT: This was the most shocking moment of the entire series to me. I don’t even know what to say about it anymore, so I’ll just keep it short. I knew George was a good guy, but I’d have never thought he would do something that drastic. He was the strongest shooter all season and with his long distance skill he had a very clear advantage when it got to the final seven-station challenge. Instead he chose to just punt it so Chris would win. Bravo to George for making a huge decision based on what he thought was right, but it seemed insane at the time and the shock still hasn’t worn off.

Season 2 was my favorite so far, and I left out a lot of really good action and really good contestants. In the time it took to read this blog post you probably could have just watched the entire season on Netflix. Oh well, some people require words to learn I guess. I don’t really know any concluding sentiments to end this post with, so I’m just going to stop typing and hope it’s sufficient.

And so it is, follow Tony on Twitter @thREALtonybader

Friday Surprise: Taking a Look at Top Guns

I've started to establish (what I hope is) a pretty good posting schedule, but schedules are boring, especially if I'm posting the same thing each week. So each Friday I'll try and shake things up a little bit by posting something a little outside the box. Last week I mapped out what an All-Star season of Top Shot might look like. This week, I'm taking a look at the H2 spin-off series, Top Guns.

See how they put a bullet in the "U" so you know it's really about guns?

Top Guns is not so much a competition show as is it an exhibition show. Think (British) Top Gear where they go around and just drive cars. Instead of hitting the road, Colby, an expert and a marksman hit the range and test out a variety of weapons, all with a similar theme.

I originally considered making Top Guns a part of my regular recapping duties, however the show doesn't add much to understanding Top Shot beyond the weapons, not that that is a bad thing. What it does though, is make Top Guns a very casual show, perhaps the most casual show in reality TV currently on the air. This doesn't mean Top Guns isn't exciting, or boring, in fact it's quite interesting. On Top Shot Colby can only give the contestants (and in turn the audience) a bare-bones description and background of the weapon. Top Guns goes deeper giving a more fleshed out history of the weapon, accompanied with footage of the weapon in practical use, not just on the range.

For this post I caught up with the first three episodes of the series and there were few things that stuck out to me right away. The first was that there was no direct mention of this show's connection to Top Shot until episode three,  which featured Season 2 contestants Chris Reed and Jay Lim. However, the first two episodes both featured experts regularly featured on the show, and past contestants as the featured marksmen. Now, this is a separate show, but I was surprised that they didn't even mention it in the opening dialogue of the first episode that this was an offshoot of Top Shot.

The next thing is how loose this show feels. Sure, there is a basic structure to the program. First Colby introduces the three guns being tested then brings out the expert, and finally the marksman. Then he sends them to the range to test the guns one at a time. After testing each one, Colby gets a turn firing off a few rounds, before each shooter chooses a weapon, and they have a "friendly shoot-off."But from there it has a much less scripted feel than Top Shot.

On Top Shot the contestants are told exactly what to do, but on Top Guns, when the expert and the marksman are sent to the range, they have some freedom to play around. Top Guns clearly has a lower budget than Top Shot, there are no exploding targets and you can often see where entry points have been taped over on a target rather than replacing it. This is bare-bones shooting. Paper targets at varying distances. Again, this isn't a bad thing, the show has a very calm pace to it. No one's running around or rushing to see what the thing they need to do next is. The past contestants seem to enjoy themselves more here with the weight of competing off their shoulders.

The choice of marksman so far has been interesting. The first episode featured Mike Seeklander, the first contestant ever eliminated from Top Shot. It may seem like an odd choice, but they don't just pick random people to compete on Top Shot. Even the contestants who are eliminated early have come from impressive backgrounds to get them into the competition. However, Seeklander was bested by Colby in the shoot-off, so maybe this guy just doesn't perform too well in front of a camera. The second episode featured the return of Season 2's Jamie Franks, someone I mentioned last week as a choice for an all-star season of Top Shot. Franks made it to the individual part of Season 2, and seemed to be enjoying himself a lot more without George Reinas around, especially when Colby completely missed the paper shooting his automatic in the shootoff. As a I mentioned Jay Lim showed up for episode 3 to work with Chris Reed. I warmed up to Lim right around the time he was eliminated in Season 2, and it was nice to see him come back.

The marksman and the expert put the gun through its courses, shooting them from varying positions, or trying to recreate how it was used during the height of its popularity. Now mind you, this isn't like Deadliest Warrior on Spike. As I wrote earlier this week, Top Shot, and now Top Guns, have never been shows that promote gun violence. They aren't looking to see how much damage these guns would do when used on a person. Instead they work through the mechanics of the gun, what makes it unique, and what makes it effective. They take about what kind of materials its made out of and how it was engineered. Truth be told, this might be a show more in line with History's original programming mission than many of the other shows it currently airs. It's surprisingly educational and informative.

Despite a veiled connection to Top Shot, the show is clearly being filmed at the same time as Season 4. Each episode has featured the same expert that was featured on that week's episode of Top Shot, and they are shooting one or more weapons that were featured on that week's episode of Top Shot as well. It was at this point I began to wonder about History's strategy in airing these episodes. Top Shot airs on Tuesdays at 10/9 C p.m. and Top Guns airs the next day. Now, I don't have H2, so I've been watching Top Guns episodes on Hulu, but I have to think that going straight from Top Shot to Top Guns is a bit of a let down, simply because there is a steep drop-off in the excitement level. I think it would make more sense if Top Guns aired the day before Top Shot to amp up anticipation for that weeks competition. There are three guns featured each week, but in the first two episodes only one gun came from Top Shot. In the third episode, featuring shotguns, all three were Benellis featured on "Shotgun Showdown." Airing before Top Shot would leave the audience guessing as to what weapon would be featured in the actual competition, because if there is one thing Top Guns is missing, its any semblance of dramatic tension.

The show brings in top shooters, so you know that even if they struggle a little with a weapon, they are going to be able to hone it in. Colby is the only real question mark, being an experienced shooter, but not in a competitive sense. He might not shoot well with a weapon, but since there isn't anything really at stake except bragging rights, there isn't much to worry about.

However that doesn't mean the show isn't enjoyable. It's almost deathly formulaic, but featuring new weapons and new shooters in each episode helps hold off the monotony. Even the final challenge isn't always a straight shoot-off. The first two episodes pitted the guns and shooters against each other to find who could be most accurate with what weapon. The shooters then counted up points based on their shots on the target. However in the third episode, the shooters decided to exhibit their prowess with each shotgun. Jay Lim used the Vinci and shot all four clay targets (two thrown, two launched). Chris Reed took the M4 and shot five water jugs at 25 yards, and nailed one at 75. Colby went 7/8 shooting plates with the Nova.

It's clear Top Guns is still a show trying to find its legs. It still is working on trying to find what works and what doesn't. Take for example the first episode, where marksman Mike Seeklander gave a grade to each rifle he shot. Now whether this was something he did on his own or something he was instructed to do by a producer remains to be seen, but the grading system has not shown up in the two subsequent episodes.  Nor should it, to a casual viewer like myself who doesn't know much about weapons, a letter grade on M14 Carbine doesn't mean much.

Overall, Top Guns isn't a necessary companion to Top Shot, but fans of the show will like this supplementary spinoff. The promise of more past contestants and more chance to see Colby shooting are enough to keep it entertaining.

What do you think? Is this show a solid companion or a pale imitation of Top Shot? Hit the comments and let me know your thoughts.

Come back tomorrow for another "Talkin' 'bout" post.

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