Team Spartan ... it's a bit meh.

 

I've been waiting for this show for weeks... and I have to say, I was a bit disappointed with the execution.  It's clear that there's not a huge budget for this show, which is fine, but I feel like it's kind of been slapped together to take advantage of the rising popularity of American Ninja Warrior instead of being created and developed as a project of love.

The concept of this appeals to me way more than Ninja Warrior... the two Tough Mudders that I ran in, I got this overwhelming euphoric feeling of companionship, both with my team and with random Mudders out there.  I've got a good jump on me, and so I'd often heave my 10 strong team over the walls, and then run and jump and pull myself up and over.  On one of the last walls I no longer had the strength to pull myself up, I was exhausted, and then suddenly I was pushed over my persons unknown. It was incredible.  That helpful mudder got no praise or thanks, just helped me when I really needed it.

With Team Spartan, I really wanted to watch teams bond and perform together, against obstacles that no person could accomplish by themselves.  That's exactly what I got, but I dunno, the whole thing seemed a bit pokey.  The little background motivation pieces followed the same formula as American Ninja Warrior, and a whole heap of other competitive television shows, but I kinda didn't want my heart-strings tugged at yet again.  In this first episode, I loved the background piece on American Dream, it wasn't sappy, it was just some random people that found each other and have now become really good friends.

I think my main problem was that the editing was really odd to me, and the camerawork felt almost amateurish.

The format of the show was 3 teams run the course.  Another 3 teams run the course.  The winner of those two heats, plus the fastest runner up then compete to get an eventual winner.  That winner then competes in the finals to win $250,000.

In this first episode, we came in after one heat had already been run, we got a confusing background rundown on maybe two of the teams, and then we're off.  It seemed like some teams got assigned an Obstacle Course Champion, and maybe some didn't... it wasn't obvious.

The commentary was almost similar to the wacky UK Ninja Warrior, MXC or Wipeout. I'm really not a fan of that style where the commentary team are laughing about people getting accidentally smacked in the face.

I want Team Spartan to have the same feel/camera quality as American Grit, I'd like a brief overview of all the teams at the start, maybe highlighting fitness accomplishments. I don't want any sob stories.  I think I'd prefer a mini-map detailing where the teams are in relation to each other. I loved that in this first episode it all came down to the last obstacle, the Slip Wall, it looked easyish on the first run, and then devastatingly hard on the 2nd run. 

I just want the show to be everything it says in the photo at the top of this post.