Gladiators is the greatest thing on television right now

I have nothing reflective or insightful to say, I just really fuckin love the Gladiators reboot.

BBC/Guy Levy

When I was a child, my brother and I would watch Gladiators on a Saturday night, but only if we were at our cousin’s house, due to the early 90s affliction of many rural Irish children known as ‘not having The Channels’. Gladiators was BIG, it was FLASHY, it was bombastic and exciting. The Gladiators were CHARACTERS, the contenders were plucky underdogs and Jet was the most beautiful woman in the world. To this day I still think one of the most impressive physical feats a person can do is the no-hands cartwheel, purely because that was what Jet did when she’d make her big entrance. Jet! What a woman. I’ve just googled her and unsurprisingly she’s still gorgeous. And married her wife last year! Jet!! Just give me a chance!

Jet! (Source)

When BBC started teasing a new series with a screen that showed the iconic G logo above the words ‘Coming Soon’, I gasped “DID YOU SEE THAT?!” at my boyfriend, then rewound it to show him. Luckily, Aengus was just as invested as I was in the return of Gladiators.

The day the first episode of the new series aired, we came home from the pub with a few pints on board, watched it, loved it and as the credits rolled I declared it the greatest thing on television. The following Saturday, we settled in to watch the next heat, and I was quite aware that the pints may have turbo-charged my previous enjoyment, but guess what! It actually IS the greatest thing on television!

It is pretty much exactly as it used to be, complete with huge foam fingers in the crowd, chanting ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ when a contender is felled, the ELIMINATOR and the rogues’ gallery of beefy Gladiators ready to rugby tackle the contenders to the ground. It is a DELIGHT. The only fault I have with this iteration is that I wish the hosting duo was a male/female pairing like the original. I adore Bradley Walsh but his son Barney just isn’t giving, as they say. I would have loved to have seen a female presenter on the mic, and Bradley has enough charm to bounce off anyone. Ulrika could have just come back!

It does tickle me that the kids in the crowd are holding up signs for their favourite Gladiators when all of these episodes would have been filmed months ago before anyone had any idea who Bionic or Fire or Steel were. Presumably they were handed a board and some markers and told “one of them is called Electro, so draw some lightning bolts, alright?”

The intros for individual Gladiators are a thing of beauty, everyone has their own little logo on their shiny spandex gear and a signature move they do when they enter the arena. It is HIGH CAMP and I LOVE IT. It’s like meeting the new cast of Love Island but they’re here to kick your head in. I had dearly hoped that one of them would be willing to take on the mantle of the bad guy in the great tradition of Wolf, and was not disappointed. In this era of relentless social media, I worried that being a TV villain would be more hassle than it was worth for an early evening knockabout show like this, but Viper immediately delivered. He was shaping up to be my favourite male Gladiator with all his overwrought snarling at the camera and purposely acting the bollocks, collecting warnings and disqualifications from the ref, even in the first episode. He’s also admirably committing to a bit where he never speaks, just growls into the mic and yeets it to the ground. But over the last few weeks, another has risen to snatch the spiky crown of Bad Gladiator. Legend has cornered the market on being a smug, arrogant pretty-boy and he is incredibly entertaining to watch. He riles up the crowd with the sort of energy one usually reserves for winding up small children. His intro move ends with him making a kissy-face at the camera. He routinely takes the mic from Bradley and declares how brilliant he is and I am absolutely living for it. He’s a big villainous ham and at this point I shriek in delight whenever he turns up. (I am FUN to watch television with.)

The female Gladiators are all gorgeous and also totally fucking JACKED in a very satisfying way. While I saw the female Gladiators of the 90s as superheroes, (I even made up my own one, she was called Graffiti) there was a slightly grim ‘something for the dads’ attitude towards them at the time, whereas these women could all easily kill a man with their thighs. Dynamite looks like a cheerleader who could bench press her entire squad. Fury looks like Florence Pugh and comes at contenders like a human cannonball. Diamond is a six-foot bombshell who could crush you in a headlock. (Diamond please crush me in a headlock.)

There’s something so lovely and wholesome about the whole thing (despite me just asking a Gladiator to put me in a headlock), and the inclusion in this series is done with real warmth and ease. Athena is the first ever South Asian Gladiator, Fury wears a cochlear implant, female contenders have fondly shouted out their wives or girlfriends in the audience and one affable contender joked that he crashed out of an event because the Gladiator he was up against was so good-looking that he got distracted. There’s even an Irish contender to cheer for as gas bitch Marie-Louise made it through the quarter finals. We’re getting into the semi finals this weekend and I for one will continue to be seated for one of the best shows on television. I’m going to be bereft when its over. But there’s always Nitro’s slick dance moves to cheer me up.

---

Other television that I’m currently bet into: The Great Pottery Throwdown final is this Sunday and I can’t wait to see Belfast woman Donna run away with it. She’s an incredible artist and potter and they genuinely could have given her Potter of the Week every episode only it would probably get a bit embarrassing. If you’re not watching it yet, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Siobhán McSweeny is a rascally host absolutely brimming with divilment, kiln technician Rose is a deadpanning delight and Keith Brymer Jones is the greatest reality competition judge of all time. A man who wields the Bucket of Doom but can also routinely be moved to tears by a teapot, either because of its impeccable construction or just because he knows the potter tried their best?? I would die for him.