American Ninja Warrior

I'm not going to lie, this week's episode actually might have had more (major) downfalls than buzzers. I was a little surprised that the Diving Boards gave people so much trouble, but they were also in the OKC city course. I think it's a little unfair that some people got to see it/try it before they might have faced in it Vegas. It probably doesn't mean too much in the long run, but this has happened before, and frankly, I think all the obstacles in Vegas should be exclusive to Vegas, at least for that particular year. Spin Your Wheels also looked difficult especially in comparison to their previous 2nd obstacles. They also didn't change the course quite as much as I thought, I think. I usually expect them to drastically change the Stages of Mt. Midoriyama. I think we see that more in Stage 2 and Stage 3, though. I think Stage 1 can be kind of boring, despite all the upsets we still see. Don't get me wrong, I do like it, and they have managed to keep Stage 1 fu...

Obviously, we have a lot to talk about regarding the competitors, but let's start off with the course. Cincinnati was definitely easier than Baltimore and Tacoma, and I'm not just saying that because we had female finishers. I firmly believe that Jessie Graff could have hit a buzzer if she was in Cincinnati, and it would have been more unlikely that Jesse Labreck and Michelle Warnky would if they were in either of the previous two cities. However, it still would have been interesting to see them on Angry Birds. Women might have actually had a better chance because they're lighter. But, I guess we'll never know. Overall, I still think Tacoma was the hardest city finals course. I know 22 people fell on Angry Birds last week in Baltimore, and it would have been unlikely that we would have seen a finisher even if a handful of people passed Angry Birds due to Cane Lane. However, since no one reached the 9th obstacle, I am not completely taking Cane Lane into consideration ...

I know I'm thinking what everybody else is thinking: What happened last night? Let's talk about the course itself. Despite the fact that Baltimore had no finishers like Tacoma, I still think Tacoma had a more difficult course. This is mostly because there was only 1 obstacle that eliminated people (Angry Birds) while Tacoma had 2 or 3 which posed problems. I still think it's absolutely ridiculous that a Qualifying obstacle dominated the Finals course like in Tacoma. It is extremely unfortunate that one obstacle killed people's runs (or seasons), so it's not like this was a particularly exciting course to watch people run, either. I'd say that Tacoma was more challenging overall for the athletes, but Tacoma was also a little more interesting to watch because it would be exciting when some people would pass obstacles. Angry Birds kind of killed the night. I kind of had an issue with the Qualifying half because I wasn't crazy about Dangerous Curves. It didn...

Okay, unlike the previous three cities' courses, I have major beef with Tacoma's. First, the Lightning Bolts. For Qualifying, they were fine. It is a challenging obstacle which dropped a lot of athletes in Qualifying, BUT this week was the City Finals, and yet so many athletes still found their end on the Lightning Bolts! This does not make a good City Finals, period. When we do not get to see the back half of the course, there is not as much excitement or worth in the episode. I mean, how many people even made it past? The Lightning Bolts are so technical, so to begin with, they are not rookie-friendly. This in itself makes Tacoma's course more difficult than the other cities. Again, for Qualifying, it isn't nearly as bad; however, for the City Finals, in addition to the Monkey Bars and the Northwest Passage, it was too much. The Lightning Bolts and the Monkey Bars together are way too technical and precision based. Atlanta had Up for Grabs which is not nearly as diffi...

All right, to get started let's touch on the obstacle course. As a running theme with this season, I don't have much to say. I like the new Snap Back obstacle. It is very fitting with the previous two cities. Leaps of Faith and Fallout in L.A. and Atlanta, respectively, had very similar vibes as Snap Back: they are all focused on grip strength and soft catches/landings. Leaps of Faith was a blind, backward catch and Fallout had the weird, inverted catch for the first half (sorry, bad description) and the turning boards for the second. I still would not put them all at the same difficulty level, but they all matched pretty well. Based on the glimpse of Tacoma, though, it looks kind of like they are going to break this pattern with the Monkey Bar things. (We've seen them before, I just don't remember the technical name off the top of my head.) I also thought this was a sure-fire way to make someone bleed. We've seen a few bleeders this season from people banging their...