Recently in Television Category

Tuesday night I caught an episode of Cha$e, a new series on Sci-Fi.

The end result . . . eh, ok I guess. Something new, something different.

In a nutshell, Cha$e is a reality series in which a group of runners ( contestants ) are placed into an environment like a warehouse district or a theme park and must evade capture from a group of Hunters in while completing a number of tasks in order to win the grand prize up to $50K. Along the way it is possible to find additional prizes of $1000.

They aren't hunted and killed ( which might actually make the series more eventful ), rather the Hunters must chase and tag them - in which case the Runner is eliminated from the competition.

Along the way, when they complete certain tasks, they are rewarded with special devices that may help them elude capture. For example, they may get a "deflector" which will instantly repel one of the Hunters should they come too close to getting tagged or invisibility glasses which make the Runners invisible to the Hunters.

Of course part of the strategy comes in the form of humorous behavior by the contestants as they attempt to elude the Hunters or sacrifice other players. Still, this really doesn't do much for me. While I can't quite put my finger on it, I can't help but feel the show needs something else.

What do you think it needs? Or is it just fine the way it is?

The concept is simple: I have one week to attempt to learn what is usually learned over 5-20 years. I either crash and burn -- or survive by the skin of my teeth -- in a final test (trial by fire) each time.

That's it. It's really that simple. And you, readers and television viewers, can make this show become a series according to Tim Ferriss on his blog.

Personally, I think a show like this would be quite interesting. The first episode takes place in Tokyo where Tim attempts to learn an ancient form of Japanese horseback archery. From the description:

full gallop, no hands, no safety gear, with wooden poles lining the track on either side of the horse. Please don't do this at home.

I think it's safe to assume there's a risk of danger involved. Watch the clip below ( or at YouTube ) and then tune in Tonight at 10 PM CST to the History Channel and watch the full episode.

I'm not sure how many people might have been caught off guard by the fact that Spike TV played two new episodes of The Ultimate Fighter last night back-to-back. All of the semi-finals fights are now finished. I wasn't aware they were going to do this - that is until I checked to make sure the episode I expected was set to be recorded and I noticed that both episodes were scheduled on the same night.

Regardless of the fact that this is contrary to what normally happens, the episodes will most certainly be replayed again before the finale which is is scheduled for December 13th.

I had predicted that Marshall would win over Bader and Nover over Roop.

I had hoped that my predictions would prove to be correct, but Eliot let me down. I don't hold this against him, but I do wish he would have shown a little more heart. While I can't know what it is like to take on a light heavyweight with Bader's wrestling experience, I expected the fight to go to the ground and Eliot would be able to pull off some kind of submission.

On the other hand, Nover came out fighting like Roop had insulted his mother right before the fight. That match was pretty freakin' awesome. I had doubts about Nover managing that kimura when I saw him going for it, but once he had it I was surprised it took Roop that long to tap. Awesome fight and pretty much what I expected.

So far I'm 1 for 1.

Like I said, some people may not have known that the seond helping of semi-finals was broadcast directly after the first. Krzysztof Soszynski faced off with Vinny and Junie fought Efrain. It was kind of up in the air if Junie was going to fight at all. Junie was going off on one of his hillbilly angst mental tirades and threw a coffee cup at Shane Primm. Afterwards he got up and took a couple swings at the guy. Dana was called in, he put it up to a vote by the other guys who decided it was better to kick his ass and send him home packing instead of allow him to go home and talk a bunch of trash about how "it could have been."

A few weeks back I already made a few predictions about these fights. And as I expected, Vinny made pretty short work of Krzysztof with an arm-bar.

As for the lightweights . . . Efrain made Junie look like the punk he is. He showed considerably more skill and ability than Junie could deal with as I thought he would. He threw off Junie's timing, he got in his head and Junie lost to Efrain due to a choke in the second round. As expected, in humiliation he left the octagon pouting like a little two-year-old. On camera he had to insult Efrain with comments like, "If Efrain can beat me I shouldn't be in the UFC."

So that makes me 3 and 1. My predictions for the finals are:

Magalhaes and Escudero as the champs.

Bader will not be able to handle Vinny the way he did Eliot. Bader did virtually nothing once he had Eliot on the ground. He wasn't successful at pulling off any ground-and-pound, he obviously didn't have any submissions to use and instead of trying to knock out Eliot, he opted for what he knew - takedowns. Vinny, who has an arsenal of submissions and the skill to use them quickly and efficiently, will use this to his advantage and submit Bader.

The fight between Nover and Escudero is the tough one here. Both of these guys have shown good hand skills and an ability to take it to the ground and get submissions. So with these two it could be pure luck - whoever gets the best punch in at the right time. Or, it could come down to who has the most heart and conditioning. Personally, I'm going to pick Escudero based on his fighting record and say that his 10-0 record is going to give him the experience factor versus Nover's 5-0-1 record.

Who are your picks?