Skip to content
Gladiators (2024): Can you feel the power? Not really.
2024 seems to be the year for remakes, as ITV have both Jeopardy! and Wheel Of Fortune, and now the BBC have brought back an old ITV gameshow, which ran from 1992 to New Year’s Day 2000, then had a brief return on Sky One from May 2008 to October 2009, so clearly wasn’t loved by the public so much at that point.
Talking of recycling, if there’s one presenter who gets far too much work, it’s Bradley Walsh. He’s fine on The Chase – although I’ve had enough of him pretending he knows the hometown of EVERY contestant like the back of his hand, but why stop there? Cash Trapped, Blankety Blank, and the awful road-trip on ITV, with his son, Barney, and if nepotism wasn’t enough, then to cap it all, they give it a painfully unfunny title to mirror that of a certain Netflix drama with ‘Breaking Dad‘. Ooh, my aching sides(!)
The spawn of the omnipotent also turns up here, and has as much personality as a wet dishrag.
Time is spent taking forever to introduce each contestant with a backstory – two at a time. I skipped through the intros, and on to the first round, Duel. Obviously, no spoilers as to who wins or loses, so I’ll just give some of the basics. Duel has each player… duelling… with a Gladiator on top of high podiums. Who will win and who will get their arse handed to them?
Quite frankly, I just skipped through all the guff and got straight to the… ahem… action.
Contestant Kerry has an unfortunate disease known as tattoo-sleeveitis. It seems to affect both men and women of a certain age, when they feel like they have nothing else to contribute to the world, and must shout out by having a load of rubbish spread all over a limb.
The contestants’ next task if Collision, where each contender must simply run along a a platform back and forth, scoring points into a net at each end, while Gladiators swing across to bash into you to knock you off.
Next up is Ring, where each contender has to make it through a circle to touch the ring in the centre of the arena, but you can guess what will be trying to stop them getting there, before they have to run the Gauntlet, and get from A to B, going through…. youknowwho.
Hang Tough sees each contender having to get from one platform to the other. Easy, right? Well, not really, as you must swing across on rings hanging down from the ceiling, and I know my arms would quickly get tired.
Finally, the last round is The Eliminator, an exhausting assault course that pull every limb out of their respective sockets, climbing nets, using a zip-wire and finally, the Travelator.
Of the female big Gs, while Diamond could happily snap me six ways from Sunday, East Asian Electro could snap me the full dozen, and I’d say “Thankyou!”
Elsewhere, Sabre looks like a young Sharon Stone, and angry female Gladiator Fury is the UK’s first ever deaf Gladiator, while the first in the US was Siren.
Meanwhile, not all Gladiators will play fair, though, but if they don’t, is that allowed?
Don’t expect to see all the contenders in the opener, though, since it’s just two men and two women, and they’ll be whittled down as they progress through the shows. For me, one episode is more than enough, so don’t expect to see me watching this on subsequent Saturdays.
Gladiators (2024) begins on Saturday at tonight on BBC1 at 5.50pm, and is unlikely to be able to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. Once broadcast, each episode will be on the BBC iPlayer.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.