All-Star Cast Analysis: Season 1

It's been a long off season, but it's time to get back to work. The premiere date is set for Wednesday, May 29. The cast has been announced, and Colby has returned to Twitter. The only question left is: What's going to happen? What exactly does the All-Star Season have in store? From the few promos I've watched, it certainly looks interesting, especially since everyone seems to be wearing green jerseys. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start simple by taking a look at the cast. Over the next couple of days I'll break down the cast by the season they hail from. I'll take a look at their strengths, weaknesses and overall likability. I'm still planning out where to go from there, but if you have any suggestions let me know. 

Season 1

Kelly Bachand
Of the whole crop of Season 1 contestants, Kelly is the person I am most excited to see get another shot in this competition. Now, if you've been following the intermittent posts I've been putting up since Season 4 ended, Kelly's involvement in the All-Star season shouldn't come as much of a shock. That being said, Kelly is an awesome competitor and skilled shooter. He has a likable personality that lends itself to the show's skill over strategy style of play. Kelly was also pretty young when he first came on the show, and it'll be interesting to see how he has matured.

Adam Benson
Eliminated in the same challenge as Kelly, Adam is on the older end of the contestant spectrum, and as he says in his video, the physicality of some of the challenges can throw off his game. That seems to be a recurring factor in Top Shot and one that can ultimately be more difficult than hitting the target.

Chris Cerino
It's true what they say, no one remembers second place. Season 1 is going back a ways for me to remember, and while my friend Tony helped me get a little refresher last year, I no longer have the luxury of watching old episodes on Netflix. The good thing is, with a runner-up in the mix, the show is definitely putting its best foot forward trying to get the cream of the crop to duke it out.

Blake Miguez
While I'm not necessarily excited to see Blake return, I'm not indifferent either. Blake was a strong competitor, finishing behind Kelly and Adam in Season 1. He returned in Season 2 as a expert to show off the 2011 Razorcat race gun, one of the coolest weapons to ever be featured on the show. After watching his video for Season 5, History really seems to be playing up the Louisiana angle to tap into its Swamp People audience, which is weird since I don't really remember that being emphasized during his first go around. 

Peter Palma
Peter has a very teddy bear-like quality to him, which makes him a bit of a mystery to me. At first glance he might seem a little soft, but the man is a marine and finished fourth in Season 1 going up against three very tough shooters. Look for him to be the wild card this season. I don't want to make any bets, but I could see him going pretty far.

I would rather see 
J.J. Racaza and Tara Paremba instead of Blake and Adam (no offense to those guys). I would also include Iain Harrison, but I'll get to him in another post. J.J. was a more memorable number three than Chris was as a number two, and the guy is simply an amazing shooter. Tara was never fairly eliminated from the contest, and I believe could very easily have made it into the top eight. 

What do you think? Are you happy with the Season 1 All-Stars, or is History missing someone who deserved a spot? Hit the comments and let me know. 

Going to be a busy weekend for me, so I won't make any promises about when I'm posting next. Come back and take a look on Sunday afternoon or follow me on Twitter @cswiets for the latest posts.

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

Through Colby's Glasses: One Year Later

Just over a year ago, I made my first post on this blog. I started this blog for a few reasons. Number one is because I love Top Shot. I still think it's one of the best reality-competition shows out there. Also, I felt that it was a show that doesn't get a lot of press because it isn't a huge hit, so maybe I could give it a little grassroots support. I didn't have any expectations for what this blog might become when I started. I didn't expect contestants to reach out to me on social media and comment on this blog. I didn't expect History Channel to start following me on Twitter. I won't claim this blog has burned up the internet in anyway, but as of this posting I'm just shy of 30,000 views. I don't think that's too shabby for some kid in Wisconsin with too much time on his hands.

Of course that success (and yeah I'm going to call it a success) wouldn't have been possible without the support I've received, so I wanted to take a minute to thank those who helped me out. 

First, Carol Vaughn, Terry Vaughn's wife. She was the first person connected to Top Shot to follow me on Twitter and to really share this blog. That leads me to my second thank-you, Terry Vaughn. This guy was awesome to talk with and he retweeted links and even mentioned me in a few Follow Fridays. 

I wanted to give a big thank you to Chris Cheng. Like Terry, he really promoted this blog over his own Twitter, and even gave me some advice when I was looking for a job after I graduated. That's a class act right there.

Thanks to Dylan Fletcher, who promoted this blog even when I was not saying the nicest things about him on it, and who ultimately proved that I had made the wrong assumptions about him. Also he posted some awesome insights in the comments of some my recaps that gave me a better understanding of how the show works behind the scenes. 

Tim Trefren and I also had some good back an forth on Twitter, so thank you to him. 

Season one competitor Kelly Bachand posted some comments while we wait for Season 5 to get underway. Hopefully, we will continue to hear from him once the season actually premieres, whenever that may be.

Lastly, I would like to thank you for coming and reading this blog. When I started, I couldn't even find this blog in a Google search. Now it's the number one result when you search "top shot blog." I don't know when the next season is going to premiere, but I'll be ready to pick this up when it does. I still need to figure a few things out, like how I will watch it since I don't have cable, but I'm geared up nonetheless. 

I have some fun new ideas for the blog too. I recently did my first Storify which I think could be a fun way to do Top Tweets, and I might try and freshen up the layout a little for some more visual appeal. So thank you again to everyone who has shared this blog or just stopped by for a good read. There will be much more to come.

I thought I would leave you with a few stats from the first year of the blog. 

Top 5 Viewed Posts

1. Season 5 All-Stars: Cast Update

2. Top Shot Recap: S4E11 "Have Machine Gun Will Travel" 

3. Top Shot All-Stars: Season 4 Picks

4. Top 3: Theories on the "Proving Ground"

5. Top Tweets: Season 5 is Underway

Top 5 Search Terms

1. top shot season 5

2. top shot all stars

3. top shot all stars cast

4. top shot 2013

5. top shot season 5 start date

Top 5 Countries Reading This Blog

1. United States

2. United Kingdom

3. Canada

4. France

5. Germany

As always, leave your comments below, and follow me on Twitter @cswiets for the latest updates to this blog.

Top 3: Theories on the "Proving Ground"

Chris Cheng asks and I answer.

If you ever visit my other blog (which you should, it's not bad) you may know I do a semi-regular feature called "Top 3." I figured it would be a good fit here after Twitter blew up this afternoon (and by blew up I mean Chris Cheng and Dustin Ellerman tweeted about it) after this picture was posted online:

Still looking good Colby.

Now, this photo was originally posted by Season 1 competitor, Kelly Bachand. If you've been checking in with this blog regularly, you'll know Kelly recently posted comment on my Season 4 All-Star Picks post. All of which leads me to believe that we have pretty good confirmation of at least one contestant for Season 5.

This photo leaves a lot to speculate about. The language itself almost leads me to believe we might be in store for a very different season of Top Shot. I'm thinking radical format changes. It's a bold move, but one Top Shot needs to make if it wants to stay alive in the ratings.

(Sideshot: Here's a thing I don't understand, if a show like Duck Dynasty is beating a show like American Horror Story in the ratings, why isn't Top Shot doing better? I would think the audiences are similar.)

But as we need to wait another month or two (Or three? Or four? Seriously, History, gives us an air date) for Top Shot to return, I offer my top three guesses as to what the "Proving Ground" is.

1. A Brand New Format
The teaser above says there will be twelve episodes and three rounds. It doesn't specify whether those three rounds take place within each episode or over the course of the season. One guess would be that either the first third or the final third of the series will be dubbed the "Proving Ground." If it takes place in the first third of the series, imagine an elongated version of how teams were picked in Season 4. A single challenge where contestants play to stay and the losers are eliminated.

If it's in the final third of the season, I imagine a twist on what happens when the shooters don the green jerseys. Instead of continuing with a one-on-one elimination at the end of each episode, there would be a series of challenges where no one is eliminated. Each challenge has a points system which are tallied through the final challenge. The person sitting with the most points at the end of the final challenge takes the title.

2. A New Way of Doing Something Familiar
Consider this option a slight twist on the the normal elimination proceedings. The person with the most hits on their target still gets sent to elimination, but they get to choose who they get to face-off against. Hence the person sent to elimination gets to "prove" they belong in the competition. It wouldn't be radically different from the current elimination proceedings, but it might make for some interesting TV.
Sure, the voting on Top Shot has always been pretty easy to manipulate, but this way we could really get to see some personal vendettas among contestants get played out.

3. A Way to Bring Back Eliminated Contestants
This is my best guess, but the one I'm also hoping is not true. Survivor has used this tactic a few times (I think, when was the last time I watched Survivor? Oh yeah, when Colby was a contestant the first time around) and it works for that show because that game is all about manipulation and disturbing the status quo. On a show like Top Shot, though, it would feel cheap, not just for the players, but the audience as well. Top Shot contestants fight to be there every week. That title is earned through every challenge the contestants face, and watching someone get knocked out early, only to have the opportunity to jump back in towards the end, would feel undeserved.

I don't know about you, but I am excited. this is either going to ruin the show the completely or be an epic turning point that redefines the show.

Agree? Disagree? Share your theories on the "Proving Ground" in the comments.

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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

Tony's Take: Top Shot Season 1

I asked Tony to begin his journey by posting his thoughts on Season 1 of Top Shot. He decided to write a short novel instead.

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Howdy Doo TCG readers!  In this installment of “Tony kills time between Tuesdays” I’ll be sharing my thoughts from Season 1 of the show.  If you’re looking for a thorough recap for each episode, I apologize in advance for ruining your Friday.  That’s not what you’re getting.  I don’t even think I’m going to mention the names of each contestant.  Luckily for you, the bios are still up on History’s website.  If you have Netflix, I’d be mowing through this season.  Seriously, it’s like exercise.  There’s time for it, no matter how busy you claim to be.  What are you doing still reading this?  Go watch the season.  It was more entertaining than I’ll ever be.

Instead of a show by show run-down I’m just going to give major recognition to the guys (and potentially lady… read on to find out) who I cheered for the hardest.

My 3 Heroes

Kelly Bachand stood out right away as a guy I was going to attach my skis to.  Who is this kid?  A 22 year old college student?  What am I?  I’m something similar!  The major difference between us is that I can’t shoot feathers off a peacock from the other side of town, but screw it I’ll overlook that because that’s just how we roll here at TCG headquarters.  The first episode Kelly was thrown to the lions in a rifle competition (his specialty).  His red team lost and the only people who competed for the team were Mike Seeklander and Andre Robinson.  Mike was billed as being one of his team’s best shooters, but his underwhelming performance sent him to the elimination challenge against Kelly.  I’ll give the red team the benefit of the doubt here because Andre didn’t perform poorly, Mike wanted to face Kelly (respectfully viewing him as the best rifle competitor) and it is only natural to make the youngest competitor prove his worth to the team.  However, after Kelly absolutely smoked Mike (I spit at your crosswinds!) that should have been it.  He should have been considered a worthy competitor just like everybody else.  Unfortunately, he was immediately treated like a child by Bill (parenthetical sidenote: I have to believe the editing had a lot to do with the portrayal of Kelly as a mild-mannered, thoughtful, well-spoken young man.  He apparently told an insurmountable insult to Bill off-camera, and Pete mentioned Kelly has talked himself into more eliminations than anyone.  So the question of the season to me: Was Kelly actually a jerk?) and sent to elimination two more times despite being one of the most consistent performers with every weapon on the red team.  He was met with another elimination scenario when he and Blake were the final two in the first green-jersey competition.  There was just something endearing about a mild-mannered kid knocking off all these world-class giants, then going home and reading a book.  By the end of his run I couldn’t tell if I was cheering for him or simply living vicariously through him.  Whatever magical thing it was that he did, good job by you Kelly.

Blake Miguez was another immediate favorite of mine.  The unfortunate subplot with the red team losing almost every week was that we got to know the red team’s members a lot better than the blue team’s.  For example, did you know Blake is also an attorney and has experience as the executive of an offshore marine transportation company?  This is something I did not learn in the nine weeks he was in the competition, but I learned it from reading a one-paragraph bio online.  There were several reasons why Blake was one of my favorites.  The most obvious reason being his nickname “The Blazin Cajun.”  The other reason is basically every moment of the infamous “Rat Fink” episode.  The entire blue team is scheming in a bedroom, but what were Blake and J.J. doing?  Playing darts and lifting weights like champions.  That was just an awesome moment, and I can’t explain why I found it as funny as I did.  When Blake and Kelly were going head to head in the Shortest Fuse competition, I was legitimately stunned and a little bit hurt that Blake was eliminated.  I was really looking forward to Blake at least getting some more airtime in the later episodes, but he just never made it.  Like all great artists Blake left us right when the world was excited to see him unleash some pistol magic on the world.  Cheers Blake, we hardly knew ye.

J.J. Racaza was the third guy I found myself cheering for every episode.  Searching for a trend, I apparently love young competitors who have impressive competition resumes.  I normally love an underdog, and J.J. seemed to be the most feared competitor from week 1.  However, J.J. also provided a lot more to the show than just great shooting.  He had the coolest name out of all the competitors in the three seasons I’ve watched (Racaza?  Awesome.  Also I just found out his real first name is Simon.  I don’t know where the “J.J.” comes from, but I always appreciate when people go by unexplainable initials).  Secondly, I just liked his attitude.  Other competitors might have thought he was the guy to beat, but he never really gave off that impression.  He just seemed like he was happy to be there, even though he was clearly there to win it all.  As seen with Kelly, I really enjoyed how J.J. was able to pick anything up and immediately be one of the best with it.  Longbow?  No problem.  Throwing knives?  Enjoy the elimination challenge red team.  I also grouped him in with Blake as the guys that seemed to be the most fun to be around.  Yes, this is entirely related to the 4 second clip where they’re just having a good time outside while the blue team tries to stab them both in the back.  Needless to say, I was pretty giddy when he and Blake were experts for Season 2’s pistol shooting contest.

Iain Harrison would have made the list if I expanded it to four.  Yes, it is almost entirely because he’s British on a show overwhelmed by Americans.  Okay, he’s a really likeable guy as well, but being British definitely adds bonus points.  Unfortunately Iain couldn’t beat out the other three gents on my list.  Cheer up though Iain, you’ve got $100,000 and a Top Shot trophy that nobody else has from that season.  Did you get a trophy?  I don’t remember a trophy.  I have to assume there’s a trophy though.  If there wasn’t you can take 50 bucks from your winnings and go to a trophy manufacturing person and build your own Top Shot trophy and customize it with your design and make it the perfect size to fit your mantle… Do you have a mantle?

3 Zany Moments That Made Me Wonder "What The Hell’s Going On During This Episode?"

Rat Fink: This was the most confused I’ve been in a while.  I’ve already mentioned that my three favorite contestants were three guys who directly or indirectly pushed the action in this episode.  First of all, is it common language to use the phrase “Rat Fink?”  I know that if I was upset I wouldn’t be that creative in my insults.  I’d probably have just used a bunch of words that are apparently going to get edited out of this segment.  Nouns, adjectives, maybe even an adverb or two.  But I wouldn’t have come up with “Rat Fink.”

Second of all, Adam, is that really the way things were in the Marines?  Like would you be planning which of your buddies to stab in the back because you were worried they’d get the position that you, and three others wanted?  It’s a legitimate question, I’ve never been in the military.  I like to believe it’s a little bit different, just as I like to believe that Caleb telling J.J. and Blake that others were plotting against them was a lot more courageous than what Adam did… even if Caleb was only in the coast guard.  So many things about Adam’s actions in this episode befuddled me.  I understand scheming against strong competition, but why bring up military experience in the talking head?  And why write out messages on the pool table?  And is “Act your size” really the comeback you’re going to go with when somebody says you’re being immature?  Has the whole world gone mad, or is it just me?  Whatever the case, I really enjoyed this episode.  It was the turning point for me where I started cheering a lot more vehemently for J.J. and Blake.

Ex-Wife: What the hell did Kelly say?  What was the context of “Was she really that bad?”  Was she really that bad?  When Bill started hating Kelly I was very legitimately confused by it.  It led me to believe that Bill would hate me if I was a contestant.  Then I realized I didn’t do anything wrong, and I got mad at Bill for hating me even though he’s never met me.  Then I remembered he probably doesn’t hate me, and I’m not actually Kelly even though I’m living through him.  This was just a strange episode.  I couldn’t tell if the anger was really that palpable between the two, or if it was just manufactured to spice the show up a little bit.  They even edited out the farewell handshake between these two, so that means it was either water under the bridge, or they got into a fistfight and had to be separated while Kelly was yelling crude obscenities at Bill.  We may never know.  I do believe a blurb on the last episode claimed Kelly had been a guest on Bill’s radio show after the season, so they must have cleared the air.  Then again, I didn’t hear that episode of the radio show, so Bill might have invited Kelly on to yell angrily at him.  I’m ready to move on if you are.

Iain Nearly Eliminated Himself?:  A forgotten about story early on in the season was Iain volunteering to go to the elimination challenge against Jim in the first challenge the Blue Team lost.  The season was four episodes in, so Iain was a known commodity as an excellent shooter, and the blue team seemed to have no problem with what they were doing, despite ragging on the red team for eliminating their best shooter the first week.  Luckily Iain had a perfect run in the elimination challenge, and Jim got unlucky with two swinging plates that were seemingly swinging in unison.  Jim hit both plates and got eliminated, but he shot the plate he was aiming for.  If he’d have had a luckier draw, he would have forced a tiebreaker which either man could have won.  I didn’t believe at the time Iain had done anything to merit going to the elimination round, and I didn’t feel the blue team explained their strategy.  They simply made it sound like Iain wanted more practice.  Obviously you win the Top Shot competition by beating the other 15 competitors, but there isn’t a shooter in the world who could eliminate every member in every event, and I think the contestants have to be smart enough to know that.  I was confused, and still find it interesting.  The closest Iain came to being eliminated was by being the first member of his team eliminated.  It could have changed the tide of the entire show, and perhaps swung a little more power to the red team.  Alas, here we are and Iain is $100,000 richer than I am, so I probably shouldn’t question his strategy. 

That’s pretty much it for me.  I’d be remiss not to mention my hopes that Tara is recovering wonderfully from the tragic loss of her father.  I was going to mention it above in the polarizing moments of the season, but I’m too corny of a writer to make any long condolences sound sincere.  So I’ll tiptoe around a sensitive area while just saying I’m a big fan of Tara Poremba as a shooter and a person.

I’ll be back soon with my thoughts on Season 2, so start watching that season immediately after you finish Season 1. 

Godspeed fellow Top Shot fans.  Godspeed.

Follow Tony on Twitter @thREALtonybader