Deadliest Warrior - The Most Brutal Show on Television!

Okay, so I'm kind of late catching up to the bandwagon (I didn't have cable for a long time until now), but If you're not watching Deadliest Warrior on Spike, either you have the same problem of not being able to watch it (which I can understand) or you have the even worse problem that you don't want to, which, in that case, you suck.

Deadliest Warrior has got to be the most visceral, brutal, and fucking awesome show to come around in a long time.  I just caught my first taste of all the bloody action tonight, when they pitted the Aztec Jaguar Warrior against the Zande Warrior of Africa against each other to find out who will tear victory from the other's grisly corpse (I won't spoil it for you if you didn't catch it.  I'll just say it was a great battle.)

If you don't know about Deadliest Warrior, the basic premise is that they pick two of the most brutal warriors in history (typically those that are pretty much equal, no Navy SEALs against Roman gladiators, here), peruse their arsenals, and put them to the test.  They base the criteria for superiorty on each weapon's overall effectiveness, usually by carving up, shooting, and all around destroying a lot of ballistics gel manequins.  They compare the results and go through "simulations" to determine which warrior is more effective and, therefore, most likely to kill the other.  Of course, instead of just tell you the results, they provide a dramatization of the two warriors in a battle to the death, which definitely brings the hour long slaughterfest to a satisfying climax.

Also, the weapons experts they get for each episode can't help but trash talk each other throughout the entire episode.  "Yeah, your warrior's weapons are okay, if you like being a weak little piece of shit.  My weapons are so hardcore, they will put your balls in a blender and fuck your dead grandmother."  I get the feeling they're encouraged to do this, which is annoying.

Is it completely accurate?  I wouldn't bet on it.  It's mostly about translating weapon and armor effectiveness into statistics and using said statistics to come to a conclusion.  Martial prowess of each of the fighters sometimes doesn't get a lot of scrutiny, but I can forgive that because that's not always something they can really measure, due to the fact that some of the fighting styles of these warriors have been long forgotten.  They did do episodes where they tested the effectiveness of Shaolin Kung Fu, as well as the Bushi arts of Samurai, but those are still  living martial arts, unlike the fighting style of an Aztec Warrior.  Even if the science isn't 100%, it's still great entertainment.

While the show is great, I do have some gripes about how they show it.  Granted, I don't really have anything better to do on Tuesday nights, for the moment, but they only show Deadliest Warrior two times a week: 9:00 (central time) and then at 10:00, immediately after the first showing.  Why?  I mean, it's a good thing to have a show repeat later in the week, but most networks actually wait some time before showing it again.  It's ridiculous.  (Update: Looks like they started showing reruns of past shows on Tuesdays before the new episode, to keep fans happy.  I think I also caught an episode this past weekend.)

If you happen to miss the show on TV (which I can totally see happening), you can watch it on the Deadliest Warrior website.  Problem is that you have to wait two weeks after it aired to see it.  Again, why?  But once the wait is over, you get the opportunity to watch it online, but only for a week.  If you happen to miss it a second time, once that week is over, you'll have to wait a whole month before they start showing it indefinitely.

Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?  I mean, I like a good amount of the programing on Spike TV.  I love this show, TNA Wrestling is great, hell, their website even shows videos from Cinemassacre.com, home of the Angry Video Game Nerd (though GameTrailers.com actually broadcasts that show, not Spike.com), but this is just retarded.

Fortunately, they do have all the episodes from season one online, underneath all the Aftermath videos where they just talk about the episode (which I don't really care about that much).  Also, you can pick up the entire first season on DVD, should you not even have the internet (DVD players are cheap and easy to get in this day).  That's probably for the best, because the website isn't all that user friendly.

But if watching some of the most brutal warriors on Earth isn't enough for you, you can look forward to getting in on the action.  Last year, Spike announced a fighting game based on the show, where you can play your favorite historical warrior and bring death throughout time (hopefully, it'll be a lot better than Time Killers).  It's supposedly being made by Pipeworks, the same guys that made the Godzilla fighting games for the Gamecube, XBOX, and PS2 (which I enjoyed).  I hope this will be equal parts brutal and awesome, though I don't know if I should be optimistic just yet.

If you're a big war buff, be sure not to miss next week's episode (if you can help it), as the Third Reich and the Viet Cong go against each other to see which American adversary of the past had the more effective soldier.

Remember, if the title of the show contains the word "warrior" (such as this show or the equally awesome Ninja Warrior), you better damn well watch it.

Kaiser out