So I’ve been following this season of The Biggest Loser.  I find the whole family relationship part intriguing… both in how they are learning to eat differently and work out as a team AND how they leave as a team when they fall short, end up “below the yellow line”, and are eliminated.  That is until last night…

One of the teams was a father/daughter combo of Jerry and Coleen.  Jerry is a police officer who started the show weighing 380 pounds.  He was considered to be the sickest contestant ever on the show with a slew of cholesterol medications and other medical problems that seemed to plague him thus far in the season.  For example last night, Jerry was taken to the hospital because of a potential blood clot in his leg.  Luckily he didn’t have any blood clots, but rather a torn hamstring from the workouts. 

So when they bring everyone together for the weigh in, it is announced that there will be a change in the elimination process.  Instead of two teams falling “below the yellow line”, it will only be one team.  Then instead of the other teams voting who gets eliminated, that team will have to choose which one of them goes home, while the other stays.  This is a change from the way previous eliminations this season have been done and changes the theme of this “families” version of The Biggest Loser.

So wtf?  Why the change, right?

Not surprisingly, Jerry and Coleen end up below the line with Coleen losing 7 pounds and Jerry gaining 2 pounds.  Of course, there’s alot of emotion, and Jerry ends up biting the bullet for his daughter and goes home even though he may well be the person there that needs it the most.

So I’ll be the one to say it… fix.  For whatever reason I find it VERY odd that they were able to single out and eliminate the one person with the greatest health risks out of the group.  Last week Jerry and Coleen escaped elimination because of their popularity with the other teams.  Obviously the show’s producers needed to cut down on their liability and altered the rules to target Jerry.  Why keep Coleen though?  Well they couldn’t depend on the other teams to vote them off, and they couldn’t just flat out eliminate the entire team because there is a need for drama, so they hedged their bet on a father’s love for his daughter… and they won.  This show’s reality factor has just been totally undermined by their obvious push to get Jerry off the show.

Oh… and I’m not alone in my thinking either.

So what do you think?  Just part of the game or the biggest fix is in?

On a happier note, there is a new episode of Cereal Wednesday up now!  Check out how Life Honey Grahams stands the test of milk.