Top 3 Reasons You Should Be Watching Top Shot

For those of you unfamiliar with my writing for the St. Norbert Times, the Top 3 was a column I started to comment on various aspects of popular culture. Mostly the purpose was to let people there was more out there than what the mainstream wants people to see, hear, or read. It's something I hope to continue on this blog.

This past year History Channel has entered into the foray of reality television with shows like Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and well...I suppose pretty much anything on History could be considered a reality show right? I mean it all happened (minus the abundant amount of apocalypse shows). Anyway, this past summer History Channel offered up its first reality-competition show called Top Shot. I stumbled across it on Hulu one day over the summer and was immediately hooked, but quickly found it was a hard sell to some of my friends. The first season held solid ratings, and was renewed for a  second season that premiered this past Tuesday. With the first episode of the second season available on Hulu, there's no better time than now to jump in. So here are my Top 3 reasons you should be watching Top Shot.

1. Guns
Imagine your favorite reality-competition show, and imagine the one thing that would make that show even better. For me, I'm thinking Survivor, and I'm thinking guns. Guns make everything more interesting, and it's a wonder that no other reality-competition show has exercised their 2nd Amendment rights to spice up the competition. But it's not just the guns, its' the explosions. What's that you ask? This show has guns and explosions? Why yes, yes it does. See instead of simply shooting at wood, or paper targets, contestants often are shooting at long range targets that explode the minute a bullet hits them. This combined with the wide variety of weapons, both new and historical (it is the History Channel after all) gives the show much of its punch, and sets it apart from the more common fare of reality-competition shows.

2. Colby

Suck it Probst

Every great reality-competition show needs a great host. Enter Colby Donaldson, man, myth, Survivor: Australian Outback runner-up. To put it plainly the guy simply owns the show. He tells the contestants what they need to do and how they need to do it, with minimal small talk. But the real sell comes from the fact that Colby actually seems to enjoy what he's doing. He's not a Donald Trump or a Tyra Banks who are doing a show for their ego, and he's not a Jeff Probst (although I like to imagine Jeff gave Colby some tips at a secret reality-competition hosting school, I want to go there someday) who's been doing the gig so long the thrill has worn off. He's fresh and he's loving it, and he gets to play with guns too, so who can blame him.

3. It's so simple, it's stupid
The contestants are divided into two team: Red and Blue. That's it, no silly tribe names, no funky bandannas, just people in plainly colored polo shirts. The show is divided into two parts, first the team competition. This usually involves the introduction of a new weapon and some type of target style shootout with a twist to increase the difficulty of the challenge. Whatever team does the best wins, the other team has to vote for two members to be eliminated. The losing team goes to the Nomination range, unlike Survivor where votes are secretly cast, the losing team goes to range where the find each of there names attached to a bulls-eye. Each team member takes a pistol and shoots the target of the person they think should be eliminated. Right in front of them! It's Awesome! Plus the best part is that these contestants are so impersonal, everything is about performance to them, there are no secret alliances, you know if you've sucked in the competition you're being nominated. The 2 contestants with the most votes then face off in a head to head elimination challenge. And that's it, the person who does the best gets to stay, the person who loses goes home.

Top Shot airs at 8:00 p.m Central on History Channel, and is available for viewing the next day on Hulu