Wipeout (2021)

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Not to be confused with WipEout series of futuristic racing games.

Wipeout (2021)
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Genre: Reality competition Game show Comedy Running Time: 60 minutes (with commercials) Country: United States Release Date: April 1, 2021 – present Network(s): TBS Created by: Matt Kunitz Scott Larsen Distributed by: Banijay Group Starring: John Cena Nicole Byer Camille Kostek Seasons: 1 Episodes: 20 Previous show: Wipeout (2008)

The 2021 reboot of the reality competition Wipeout first aired on TBS on April 1, 2021. Despite a considerable drop in ratings along with poor critical reception during its first season’s run, it was still renewed for a second.

Premise

Co-hosts John Cena and Nicole Byer narrate contestants completing obstacle courses over water, and interviewer Camille Kostek finds out more about the people on the show.

Why It Should be Wiped Out by TBS

1. Previous co-hosts John Anderson and John Henson, along with interviewers Jill Wagner and Vanessa Lachey, were replaced in the reboot.
2. Cena and Byer have no chemistry together whatsoever, as opposed to Anderson and Henson’s great on-screen collaboration in the original series.
3. Cena and Byer talk a lot more about themselves than the contestants on the show, which easily gets quite aggravating.
4. The commentary is far more raunchy, with Cena and Byer making countless sexual references that come off more as “edgy if you’re thirteen” and "hip with the kids" than truly grown-up.
   • An infamous example is the p**** shape drawn over two of the signature big balls in the first episode.
   • Even the episode titles don't tie away, as one of the episodes uses "OMFG!" in its title.
5. Cena and Byer’s commentary also sounds extremely scripted, and they try too hard to be hip with the youngsters.
6. The quality of the editing has deteriorated significantly to the point that it seems more like a series of short clips on autoplay than an hour-long show.
7. The contestants, who do not make the qualifier round, are not shown at all, not even in the montages.
8. All the contestants are in pairs in the reboot season, which does not work well in episodes that are not theme-based.
9. The competition has been reduced from having two middle rounds in between the qualifier and the final Wipeout Zone to only one, much longer course, which notably slows the show’s pace down at a point when an episode should still be relatively fast-paced.
10. Like in the last season of the original run, finalists do not have to get through the Wipeout Zone in its entirety to make it to the end, resulting in the end of these episodes being much less compelling and suspenseful than those of the earlier ones.
11. The prize money has been toned down from the original, being reduced from $50,000 to just $25,000 for each member of the team, and the bonus for hitting Smallsy during the qualifier has also been halved from $500 to $250.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The signature big balls and Smallsy are still in the qualifier round.
2. The contestants making the qualifier still get introduced and nicknamed.

Reception

The 2021 version of Wipeout has received mostly negative reviews from both fans and professional critics. It has a 4.2/10 on IMDb and an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes. Reality Blurred’s Andy Denhart calls it “such a failure it even squanders Nicole Byer and John Cena” and sarcastically claims: “Congratulations, Wipeout: You’ve made [them] boring.”

Trivia

• In the fall of 2020, it was reported that a contestant had died after collapsing when he finished an obstacle course. Toward the end of January 2021, the coroner of Los Angeles County identified him as 38-year old Michael Paredes and concluded that he had a heart attack.

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