Review: Last Man Standing
- Article 13 of 13
- Off the Telly, August 2007
It would be very easy to be cynical about Last Man Standing. The BBC has had, embedded in its DNA almost since its first day of transmission, a mission to educate and inform the nation's youth. Time was, you could stick Muffin the Mule on for an hour a day and that would be enough. But with hot and cold running X-boxes now in every house, it's becoming harder and harder to convince kids that they really want to be learning stuff while they watch the telly.
Page 1 | Page 2 | All 2 Pages
Yet for all this cynicism, Last Man Standing is actually a surprisingly touching and endearing show. Anyone expecting a bunch of arrogant jocks would be sorely disappointed by our personable contestants. While the Americans do have the edge in the confidence stakes over the more self-effacing Brits, everyone involved turns out to be a really nice guy who regards the whole thing as a privilege, wants to learn as much as possible about the native culture, and keeps the trash-talking to a minimum. They're touched by the generosity of the people they stay with - one of the Mexicans gives up his house and sleeps outside so that the contestants have somewhere to stay. They're surprisingly sensitive, with Jason, the BMX champion, getting deeply upset by the tree burning and eco-system devastation practised by the Mongolians, for example. There's true bravery displayed: the nearly-toeless Rajko marches out onto the Trobriand cricket field, against doctor's orders, to win the game for the villagers, who are playing for their honour against a nearby village and are trailing badly, in an ending that would have looked implausible in a movie - even Richard, the cricketer and previous favourite who was winning until that point, has to admit you can't argue with heroism and one villager goes on to name her child after Rajko, such is the esteem he's brought to the village. They even take time out to help others who fall behind.
And when the contest proves to be a dead heat, with three of the athletes having won two events each, they generously cast a ballot to decide among themselves who deserves the crown and unanimously declare Jason overall winner because of his attitude and self-development.
It's interesting to compare the show with the other “anthropology agro” series currently doing the rounds: Human Weapon, over on the US History Channel. In this, a pro-wrestler/American footballer and a mixed martial arts champion travel the world to traditional martial arts hotspots like Japan and the Philippines, as well as lesser-known areas such as Israel and Greece, where they learn about the culture and history, and - you guessed it - pick fights with the natives.
The show is far more geared up for martial arts fans than Last Man Standing. While the British show is content to explain the rules and have the narrator, Richard Hammond, cast an amused and slightly superior eye over the sport's training practices, Human Weapon has blow-by-blow instructions, explanations of the physics of the art and lovingly CGi-ed illustrations of virtual men hitting each other from every possible angle.
Yet, while Human Weapon is at least as educational as Last Man Standing and the hosts equally as affable and downright pleasant as their counterparts over here, without the reality show element, we end up learning very little about them and the show seems far less involving. Yes, it's cool watching a Kali master wrestling a water buffalo, but do we know how much the hosts miss their families and want to make them proud, like Brad does (something that prompts one village to put on a birthday party to cheer him up)? Do we know what their hobbies are, as we do with Mark the salsa-dancing kickboxer? Were their upbringing and childhood as troubled as Jason's, the true Last Man Standing?
BBC3 are already recruiting for a second series, so it's to be hoped that while some cross-pollination occurs between the two shows, giving Last Man Standing something that martial arts aficionados as well as anthropologists can get their teeth into, the formula stays much the same. Because even if you aren't an attention-deficit teenager, the show is an engrossing, entertaining - and indeed - educational programme that makes you care about its contestants and shows you people, customs and sports you probably never knew about - and won't have seen on primetime BBC1 or BBC2.
Page 1 | Page 2 | All 2 Pages