Is 'Wipeout' the Best Show on Television?

If you haven’t seen ABC’s breakout hit Wipeout, then, well, I just feel sorry for you.

You may instead have been watching critically acclaimed, scripted dramas like Big Love, or award winning educational programming on Discovery or National Geographic. Hell, you may have been reading a book or spending quality time with loved ones. If so, you have been wasting your time.

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The premise of Wipeout is fiendishly simple: Everyday schlubs and schlubettes brave the “largest obstacle course in the world” – the last one standing wins $50,000. The course itself changes from week to week, but consistently features various moving apparatuses that don’t merely stand in the way of contestants, but actively seek out and pummel them before tossing them mercilessly into the icy water below. All this while sports broadcaster John Anderson and comedian John Henson deliver running, wise-ass commentary reminiscent of the two geezers from the old Muppet Show.

But a written description could never do justice to the genius of this show, which must be seen to be apprehended. Wipeout is gut-bustingly, laugh-out-loud funny. You will not believe some of the shots these poor bastards take to the head, stomach, and groin, risking humiliation and injury for our amusement. If you’re the squeamish sort, never fear: The course is said to be so padded that, no matter how brutal the wipeouts look on TV, there is virtually no chance for actual bodily harm. If true, that makes me feel a little better about the peals of Mr. Burns-like guffaws it draws out of me and a little less guilty about the warm fuzziness it brings to my otherwise exhausted and icy heart.

But I wonder: Some of these contestants get bent into all manner of shapes; shapes that were never meant to hold the human form. That they invariably get up, no matter how seemingly brutal their fall, to attack again the Big Balls, Fling Set, Crank Shaft, or whatever other obstacle lorded over them like a vindictive god is nothing short of a miracle – a hilarious, beautiful miracle.

So my advice is – enjoy Wipeout while you can. ‘Cause like Mom always told us, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Wipeout is too much fun and too popular (ten million viewers tuned in to one recent episode) to escape the notice of lawyers and “safety” cry babies at some point, and they’ll ruin it just as surely as they ruined junior high dodge ball.

Trust me – get there before they do.