PhantomStranger

Kacy is a victim of the courses getting more and more physically demanding at her size. They've had to make every obstacle much tougher for the elite competitors, which has put Kacy at a huge disadvantage.

PhantomStranger

Someone must have heard my complaints because last night's episode had tighter editing and less gimmicks during the two hours.

JimRochester

Even the short guys run in to trouble at some point. It becomes a tall persons sport.

I haven't even started this year because I was so disappointed in last year. It's like gambling. You know the odds are against you but the chance is there and just enough people win to keep you in the game. Making the course basically impossible and then the aforementioned crappy editing and fluff took me right out of the game.

PhantomStranger

I liked stage one more when there were few upper body obstacles and it was mostly about speed.

What I think they should do is stop guaranteeing every person that hits the buzzer in stage one moves on. The top 30 fastest times advance, period. They could go back to more flowing courses that don't require several pauses.

Team ninja warrior's first finals last night was bananas. A couple of big upsets and several very close finishes.

PhantomStranger

Team Ninja Warrior was great all season up until its final two races. With the margins between the elite ninjas vanishingly small, you saw everyone going for broke on every obstacle. Unfortunately, that led to two different female competitors ending up with nasty injuries where they couldn't complete the course. Thus wiping out any real drama in the finals.

Drew Drechel tore through the course like a monster. He's at the absolute peak of his ninja prime this year. I would be shocked if he doesn't win it all.

mphtrilogy

Finally caught up... Drew made it looks so easy.. now we know why he was saved for last..
I like the speed idea...

DWilson

Speaking for myself, it was a pretty amazing hour, particularly when they're throwing themselves at the challenges like bugs against a windshield.

SmackDaddy

I'm kind of losing interest since it has essentially become a "pro" sport. Also, there has to be a way to design the courses so that while challenging, they don't become the realm of just tall, lean competitors. If your short, or really big (muscular and heavy) you stand very little chance of getting far.

Noonan

Well Geoff Britten doesn't seem to be very tall and he was the first to reach and clear Stage 4. Issac certainly fits your description though.

JimRochester

Saw this the other night for the first time this season. Definitely kept the pace better than last year but once again one of the competitors that made it did while on commercial break which I don't understand.

We now have our own local ninja warrior gym. I agree that now that people can specifically train for it, it forces them to make the challenges tougher and tougher which in turn makes it appear impossible and so no tension builds.

B.A.

Yet they continue shoving her down the viewers throats. She is old news.

B.A.

Agreed. last year was very disappointing.

d2cheer

Same here; I told my gal as soon as I saw him this year that if I bet on anyone to win it would be him. I do think he goes all the way. OR Daniel Gil...

PhantomStranger

The guys with ninja gyms definitely have a leg up on the competition. Gil is definitely a top contender, I think he's a ninja trainer.

My only real complaint is that the obstacles are resembling gymnastics more and more. They can't install any obstacles that would automatically preclude women from beating them, so that limits height, power and jumping distances. So the courses have become endless climbing and hanging challenges. The courses also are getting more dangerous. Each year sees more and more injuries.

PhantomStranger

Surprised no one has brought up the one of the runner's wife's miraculous health recovery. You might remember her as the woman in the motorized wheelchair the past couple of years. She has some sort of mitochondrial disorder and now she is walking again on her own. It was one of the few human interest stories on the show that was truly tragic.

JimRochester

Inspiring story but they did that faux recreation of her getting up out of the wheel chair.

Bill Needle

Have to say I've pretty much lost interest in anything but the finals. Week after week of city qualifiers all look and play out identically, and with so many people who don't even complete the course going through there is little - if any - drama in the results. I already FF'd through most of the backstory stuff for several seasons now, so that leaves almost nothing of interest in the shows. I may start paying a little attention in the city finals, but truth be told I doubt I watch more than a handful of minutes before the national finals episodes.

A little success and notoriety for the show has triggered a massive dilution of the product to the point that most of the series is meaningless. Seriously, 16 broadcast hours of just city qualifiers? Who can actually stay interested in that much meaningless preliminary action especially considering one episode is virtually indistinguishable from another? After all of these hours and hours of episodes, what progress has been achieved aside from a handful of people with zero chance of completing a stage being washed out? So I continue to record the show but until I see the finals episodes have started I'll keep deleting without watching.

JimRochester

Welcome to this week's qualifier. We've made these obstacles just a little bit tougher. The floating steps are now 25 feet apart and greased up with cisco. Next comes the rope swing with razor blades embedded in the rope. To really keep competitors on their toes we have removed all the springs from the trampoline. The audience is now allowed to throw ninja stars at any point. They better get moving on the run to the warped wall because we now have a sniper zinging bullets within an inch of their noggin. If they do escape the bullets the wall is now 4 stories tall and is perfectly vertical. Good Luck competitors. While we were away we saw the best run of the night, here's a 20 second clip.

mphtrilogy

Ive been enjoying the season with my daughters, since we only discovered the show last year.. so we are not burned out yet....

d2cheer

Awesome episode last night. Jesse Graff is amazing and I really think that Drew Drechsel will win it this year. Daniel Gill could also be in the mix.

PhantomStranger

Drew is the best ninja in the world. It was funny to hear him say how he did it was by living in a gym all day. Most athletes won't admit that.

Drew and Jesse are so far ahead of their competition.

buckeyes8604

This week's episode was really great. Both Jessie and Drew are amazing. I agree that it's going to be either Drew or Daniel Gil getting the farthest in Vegas.

These City Finals courses are really hard. I feel like there should be a progression but Stage 1 in Vegas will have more finishers.

The only thing I wish they would change was when they award the Run of the Night. It's always obvious when they save it for the last person how far they're going to get.

PhantomStranger

What's happening to the Cowboy Ninja's wife is tragic. I don't remember the show covering her story before, beyond being his wife. Having seen them on the show over the years, her physical decline is shocking.

Bill Needle

Yeah that's a tough one.

Glad they are in the finals -- finally. 24 broadcast hours of qualifiers is ridiculous. But the episode last night was very entertaining.

Original Desmond

I can't believe how many top competitor runs they didn't show and still too many annoying fucking sob stories

This is american ninja warrior, a competitive athletic show, not "who has the most fucked up tragedy" show