And WE'RE BAAAAAAAAAAACK
Did you miss our recaps? We sure missed writing them! I was talking to Chriss how I don't see why I even pay money to get more TV channels because I only watch Netflix these days, but now I see the error of my ways: how else would I watch Ninja Warrior SE? That's worth paying for if nothing else is.
In season 2 it seems Kanal 5 has decided to up their game, in good and bad ways. The good, we'll get to, but the bad is that it's becoming even more similar to ANW. Like we needed that. Now we have five "regional" try-outs and then everyone will meet in the final. This episode is the Stockholm try-outs, followed by Stockholm stage 2 next week, unless I completely misheard. With five try-outs (Stckholm, Göteborg, Malmö, Umeå and Karlstad) that would result in ten episode of regional try-outs ... and then how many eps for the final?
It's too complicated - what's wrong with just going through all the stages at the same time? It's especially ridiculous since Sweden is a pretty tiny country - I can see why having people fly all over the US doesn't really work, but I'm pretty sure taking the obstacle course all over the country is way harder than just letting the competitors come to Stockholm.
But what do I know?
Here's Stockholm stage one, in front of Karlberg Castle. This is where we get to the good: stage 1 is WAY better than last year. Seeing this even my hubris has to take a step back to admit that I might not pass it easily. Possibly not at all. That thought barely occured to me when I watched season one, not until we got to the later stages. I'll post a longer post describing the stage, but for now let's take a look at how people did in the first ep:
There's meant to be 150 contestants, which means we saw about a fifth of them tonight. Of those, ten passed the course, and HALF of them made it to stage 2, because we still have that dumb rule about people not clearing the course making it to the next one so we can fill a certain number. Idk, I'd get that if there was a risk of no one making it past stage one, as sometimes happens in Sasuke, but I think ten would've been a respectable number of passes without consolation places being handed out. Oh well, we've talked about that before ...
First out there's Dana Star:
I don't mind the cockiness, but dude, you've got some way to go before you're reaching true ninja levels:
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| Gotta kiss myself I'm so pretty ... |
Of course, Dana seems aware of this, later saying:
"I think I'm 90% ninja."
Chriss screamed "EXCUSE YOU, WE ARE 150% NINJA" and I think if he had been 60 % units more ninja he might not have been the first (but certainly not last) victim of the Gummi Bridge. My consolation prize to him is that at least he had the best name of the first ep!
Our first clear of the evening is Askia Linder, who is describe by commentator Adam Alsing as a "looking like a mix between Groucho Marx and Borat". Sometimes I don't agree with Adam, but that description is hard to argue with. He looks a bit dorky here, but apparently he is nothing of the sort:
During lunch break as a bank man he likes to go to the skatepark and show the kids what's up. Gotta respect that.
We saw ten clears, and two of them are people we remember from last year. Henning Attlin, apparently know as the "guy with the wolf stare" (was that really his nickname last year? I feel I would remember), who quite obviously was eager to try the course again. He did not get the best time and while he tried to play it off I'm sure it pissed him off a little. It's gonna be interesting to see him channel that wolf-rage in second stage, for sure.
And of course, our favourite ninja Alexander Mars was back to defend the title!
And we got to see some footage of him taking on Sasuke 31 stage 1, which was awesoooooooooome since he was rudely cut from the Japanese broadcast. Or, well, not rudely, but you know ... we wanted to see him.
Adam then explains that he qualified for American Ninja Warrior where he "got through stage one and two" which is ........ not techincally a lie but also not the truth at all. Unless he was on the actual ANW, which I doubt, we're talking about ANW USA vs The World (in the footage he is wearing his green team Europe outfit), and he didn't pass stage one OR stage two there. He failed the Jumping Spider in stage one and the Crazy Cliffhanger (which wasn't really crazy???) in stage three and didn't get a single point for team Europe. :( Okay, so explaining the complicated rules of USA vs The World in a throwaway line was maybe a bit much, but why not just say he was choosen to compete for Team Europe in USA vs The World?
Anyway, Alexander Mars passed, so no worries there, but as we all know, no one is safe in Sasuke, and no one is safe in Ninja Warrior Sweden either.
Here are the ten guys who passed stage one in Stockholm:
And here are the five guys who made it by being the fastest, despite failing. The ... Fast 5. Haha!
So there you have it, the first episode, quickly summed up! Later this week I'll post a more in-depth post about the new stage one and the obstacles, and Chriss might give you some of our opinions on USA vs The World ... though possibly after we censor it for curse words there might not be much left to post.
Until then ... sayonara ninja lovers!
