With Sunday night's premiere consisting of the first two episodes, the first showing of "American Gladiators" at its normal time is technically the third of the season. Last night's episode was exhilarating, but it brought up more growing pains the show is having.

Last night, a large man named Jeff that went by the nickname "Big Country" faced off against Adonis. I mentioned Adonis’ story in the preview; he was the first in his family to graduate from college and is an engineer at Boeing. He has also let the mythical status of his name go to his ego because he was talking trash all night, including a few subversive jabs at his fellow contestant.

Jeff, on the other hand, liked to compare every single event to something he used to do on the farm – apparently wrestling pigs helped him take down Militia in the Earthquake event. The competition came down to the Eliminator, with Jeff getting a huge lead before being stopped by the inclined treadmill – the one thing that has stopped competitors cold thus far. At the end, both men were sucking wind at the bottom of the treadmill, both attempting to conquer it before falling back down to the bottom. Finally, Adonis got hold of the rope and pulled himself up the treadmill and to victory.

We've yet see Siren (second from left) or Hellga (furthest on the right) that much outside of Gauntlet.

On the women’s side, Christie Phillips was a spunky karate instructor that, unfortunately for her, couldn’t physically match her spirit. She was dominated in the entire competition by Siene Silva, a power lifting champ and gymnastics instructor who listed "arm wrestling" as one of her sports in her mini-bio. Siene had a six-second head start in the Eliminator and never looked back, even running up the inclined treadmill in one attempt. The post-event interview was almost over by the time Christie finished behind her.

Let’s discuss the nuances with the new format. First off, there is a third, unnamed announcer who does the play-by-play for every event. It’s a good idea because Hulk Hogan or Laila Ali would have been horrible for the job. The voice belongs to Van Earl Wright, an accomplished announcer. It’s obvious he was never in the arena and his comments were recorded afterwards and dubbed into the show. It was an unfortunate decision, as live announcers usually feed off the energy of the event and the surrounding crowd. Wright tries his best, but he can’t emote like an announcer actually there would be able to.

Also, where did the time penalties go in the Eliminator? There are two back-to-back sections that could end up with the contestant failing and falling down to the mat: a column that competitors must hold on to as it rolls down an incline (taken straight from "Ninja Warrior"), and the classic hand bike. In either example, a falling contestant can simply get up and run to the next obstacle. In the classic "American Gladiators," he or she would have been held by the umpire for five seconds before being allowed to move on. Either the penalty doesn’t exist, which is stupid as it gives someone a reason not to finish the hand bike and simply give up and perhaps improve their time; or NBC has cut away from the penalty enforcement and never mentioned it, which does fit the values they have shown so far in their production quality.

Next week is the last time we’ll be introduced to new competitors who will attempt to break into the quarterfinals and square off in the next round of the tournament. The tournament field is decided by Eliminator times, and with two contests sporting marks over three minutes, it's still wide open. We were teased with what looked like one of the contestants breaking a leg during next week's show. "American Gladiators" can be seen on Mondays at 8 pm EST on NBC.

Recap By Casey "Squints" Johnson
Starpulse staff writer