Of all the shows on TV at the moment, perhaps the one with the most undeservedly exciting name is American Ninja Warrior (SBS). The sheer amount of brazen promise contained in that title is a sure-fire set up for massive disappointment. It’s title overkill, like an Avenger that’s gone one word too far and has now wandered into the realm of the uncool. Iron Samurai Man, The Incredible British Hulk, Thor Person: you’re off the team! You too, Black Widow Spider.
Far from being a battle between a bunch of stealthy, nimble assassins – which I think we can all agree would be the best thing ever and why has no one made this – American Ninja Warrior is actually about a giant flashing obstacle course someone built for athletes to routinely injure themselves on. They should have called it Twisted Ankle Mecca Fortress.
An episode typically begins with a little bit of info about each hopeless contestant, presumably so we’re emotionally invested in whoever it is that’s about to bounce off a lamp post and careen into a pond. We’re told these are some of “the most talented sports athletes in history”. Eat that Usain Bolt. Until you’ve fallen off a dangling rope, or walked up the underneath of some stairs using only your hands, you’re a nothing! Also: “sport athlete”? Who missed the English class on tautology?
The show’s obstacle course itself is a sight to behold, a padded monstrosity bringing together flashing lights, jets of smoke and bits of random scaffolding, like an arts-science project cobbled together by Optimus Prime. In fact, it’s so visually noisy thatwatching it makes you feel like you’ve accidently ended up at arave on a building site.
Worse still, after 40 minutes of watching parkour enthusiasts and yoga instructors bruising their ribs in this psychotropic industrial nightmare, turns out we’re still only halfway through the episode. The most recent instalment was a staggering hour and 20 minutes of repetitive calamity.
This would be OK if the course changed a bit, or if there were some (any) kind of progression, but instead a relentless mill of contestants hurtle towards obstacles, fall, fail, and then get replaced by someone new and optimistic who obviously hasn’t watched the show before and therefore thinks they can make it.
If any of them make it to the end of the course, they win the chance to take on the daunting and rarely conquered Midoriyama – which is Japanese for “green mountain”. As with anything in this show, don’t be fooled by the name. This isn’t some charming Miyazaki-esque mount, infested with cute anime spirits that bear the American ninjas away in a cat bus. It’s just more scaffolding that’s been possessed by the garish spirit of Las Vegas, with a button at the top that wins you a prize (presumably an escape from this cyclical hell).
Should anything I’ve said somehow tempt you to actually check out this overlong footage of people masochistically running around in a playground built by Terminators, then prepare yourselves for your own series of obstacles: the astonishing 10 ad breaks to get through on SBS’s On Demand service.
Perhaps SBS is being kind here, trying to break up the monotony by giving you something more interesting to watch, but for any catch-up service this seems like overkill. The proportions were so balanced, in fact, I became convinced I was watching a shopping channel interspersed with footage of some bizarre future war where humanity is losing the fight against static objects. Abort!
