Hopefully I won't end up plagiarizing this blog, but I have to comment on this show. My first exposure to it was the linked blog, something that left me wondering when I would get a chance to check this show out myself, and the chance finally came up last night.
I have to say that my first impressions were less than overwhelming, it kept me watching but I didn't think I would bother looking for it again. The show is basically Mythbusters with a focus on the human body. If you read the other blog then you already know the basics, two warriors from different times and cultures meet on the battlefield, who will win? The one I saw last night was Spartans vs Ninjas so I'll speak from that perspective.
They take a couple of experts in the respective fields of their chosen warriors and have them demonstrate the major weapons and tactics of these people, for the show I saw they had an ex Green Beret and a history expert and a Ninjitsu master and a martial arts expert, each demonstrating the weapons and explaining the tactics. The weapons are demonstrated on ballistics gel dummies and sometimes pig carcasses; the test subjects are rigged with sensors for measuring stress and then examined by a medical expert to judge damage delivered. The data collected is fed into an Excel spreadsheet and from there put into a program that is designed to measure combat, they were very mysterious on this part so there is little speculation I can offer on it.
Throughout this they had the respective experts arguing about who would win and this kind of bugged me; let them state an opinion and be on with it, I don't care about muscle flexing and rhetoric. You could see the obvious ploys on trying to lead you one direction to the next in who would win, again this bugged me, I make my own decision based on the facts, so just present them and let me think. As I said, I wasn't thrilled at this point, although I could at least get some interest out of watching the history lesson on Sparta. At the end they did a simulation of the battle, and this is where I decided I loved the show.
It was great; you just didn't know who was going to win, mainly because if it was done like they claimed it should have been a true re-enactment. From the first time I saw the show I figured the Spartan would win, but when they started going at it the Ninja held his own and I started wondering, it would only take one poison dart to end it all. It turned out that the Ninja could piss the Spartan off and hurt him a bit, but in the end he couldn't stand up to the power and brute force. The Spartan wacked him around a bit with his shield and then impaled him on his sword. Like I said, it was more exciting than watching a real fight; really helps you understand why the Roman Circus was so powerful, it's compelling to watch it play out.
Tomorrow night, Tuesday April 28th at 11:00pm central time baby, we find out who'll win a Knight or a Pirate.
My money's on the Knight.
No comments:
Post a Comment