For a reality show that changes things up frequently, “The Biggest Loser” can get a tad predictable and formulaic at times. That’s why I was fully expecting the final four to have to run a marathon as they have done the last few seasons. But alas, they did not. Maybe they felt they had proved their point. Anyway, here is how last night’s episode went down….

They had the final four–Jay, Irene, Hannah and Olivia–sit in a post-eliminating-Austin pow-wow with host Alison Sweeney and kind of feign fist pumps that they were in said Final Four. Okay, we get it! But seriously, who saw this coming? Tell me you had any of these folks in the finale.

Then came the initial challenge, sponsored by Jennie-O Turkey–where the contestants had to create the best tasting turkey burger for a bunch of kids. Yikes. The winner would take home $5K as well as a 2-week trip to the Biggest Loser Fitness Ridge Resort for someone they love. Olivia tried to pass plain Greek yogurt colored with food coloring as “green slime,” but she must have forgotten to add sugar, because what kid eats plain flavored yogurt? Wait, what adult does?? Anyway, Irene made hers with turkey bacon and cheese, and hers was a dud too. It came down to Jay’s “volcano” burger in which he added ketchup and cheese that somehow spewed out like lava, and Hannah’s cheesy burger. Not surprisingly, Jay won.

Then came the main challenge, the final one on the ranch–and instead of going home and running a marathon and coming back to weigh in, they had this golf course challenge on campus. And in lieu of golf clubs, they carried golf bags with the weight numbers they lost each week, which they had to gradually shed. They usually do a variation of this challenge every season, and this one never seems to get old. Hannah won and her prize was a $15K home gym. Kaboing! Now, that’s a prize. Oh, I forgot, they had a gratuitous appearance by last season’s champ, Patrick House, who still looks great.

After the last last-chance workout, it was finally time to weigh in. Irene was first and lost 3 pounds, followed by Jay who lost 4. Olivia needed to surpass 3 pounds, and she did, losing 4. Olivia was in the finale for sure. Then it was Hannah’s turn, and she also had to lose 3 or more. She also lost 4, bringing her total lost this season to 102, and a spot in the finale with her sister. So America will vote for whether or not to put Jay or Irene up against the sisters for the title of the Biggest Loser, and which one will then compete for the $100K at-home prize.

Then they showed them all going home, which is always cool. But this group of finalists just seems really cool and deserving, as in past seasons, there were alliances and catty behavior around this point.

So there you have it, America…..next week is the finale….will you vote for Jay or Irene? Honestly, I have no clue who I’d vote for. But it’s been a long season, and we’re almost through it! See you next week…

Last night’s episode of “The Biggest Loser” on NBC was overshadowed again by “The Voice,” and that’s fine because it kept the show to one hour. It was also, finally, makeover week. “Project Runway’s” Tim Gunn rode in on a horse and buggy to the Biggest Loser ranch and announced that it was not only makeover week, but that he had two surprises.

So the five semi-finalists–Austin, Hannah, Olivia, Irene and Jay–were treated to makeovers, and most of them looked great. Hannah’s hair was dyed blonde and looked borderline hideous. Then they had their family members waiting for them back at the ranch for a celebration, including Gunn’s hiring of the band One Republic. Well, I know he didn’t actually hire them, but you get the drift.

Then they all met on the beach for their challenge, and host Alison Sweeney announced that they were giving away two Mazda 5 cars. To win, they had to dig through car-shaped sand castles and pull out a key, then run a 1/4 mile down the beach and pier to the cars and see if the key would work. Irene won after I think two tries, and then it took a long time for the next winner, who was Olivia.

Then after the last chance workout, it was time for the big weigh-in. Hannah was first and lost 2 pounds; Jay lost 3 and suddenly both of them looked like they were in trouble. Austin pulled a 7, Irene lost just 2 (but weighs in the 150’s) and Olivia lost 4. That brought Olivia to 100 pounds lost, and she had promised everyone that if she did that, she would sing on the scale (Olivia is an opera singer). But before that, they had to choose between Hannah and Jay to go home.

But wait…..Tim Gunn’s voice and image appeared and he told them all that he had that final surprise to announce–the erasure of the yellow line. No one was going home! That was awesome. But not as awesome as Olivia’s voice…holy crap. All of the contestants and trainers were open-mouthed and teary-eyed after that. Wow.

So that’s it…there are still five remaining and just a couple more episodes of the show to go. Next week we’ll reach the final four for real. See you then!

One thing I noticed about this season of “The Biggest Loser” is that there are quite a few people, mostly the ladies, who have lost a ton of weight and look like athletes now. And fatter folks like Arthur, Jay (even though he’s back), Arthur and Q get voted off. Last night that happened again.

The episode began as the two teams were still in New Zealand, and this time they were in Queenstown, and also host Alison Sweeney announced that the contestants would be going to singles again. No more teams, not nearly as much gameplay. And since they were doing that, Brett the trainer was brought back. But he was brought back in a parachute. That was cool. But it was just a sign of things to come, as this episode featured a lot of extreme sporting challenges and workouts.

Kaylee and Hannah decided that they wanted to go jump off a cliff, and Cara reluctantly took them. Cara was terrified but the other two acted like it was the greatest thing ever, which, maybe it was, but yikes. Then Alison joined them all at the site of the first bungee jump, and after telling them all that they would riverboard for 25 miles as their challenge, Alison jumped. Wow, I wonder what the show’s attorneys thought about all of this.

Anyway, the riverboarding even looked really difficult, and there seems to be some tension growing among everyone except Rulon toward Rulon. He crept up to Olivia in the race, but Olivia held strong and won, with Kaylee second and Rulon third. Olivia’s prize was immunity, and a helicopter/lunch prize similar to Moses’ prize last week.

Then there was more extreme stuff–Brett took Jay and Austin mountain climbing, and Bob took Rulon and Irene bungee jumping. Then after some boring last chance workouts, it was time to weigh in.

Olivia went first and lost 4 pounds, but she was taken off the board as she had immunity. Jay was next and lost 5 pounds, followed by Irene with 4. Rulon went next and lost a whopping 10 pounds, and Austin lost 5. Ken lost 4, which wasn’t a lot for such a big dude, and Hannah lost 3, putting Ken and Hannah at the bottom with just Kaylee to weigh in. Kaylee lost 5, which to someone like Jay or Rulon would have been like 20. So it would be between Ken and Hannah.

Now, I thought for sure this would be a slam dunk that Hannah would go home, but it didn’t turn out that way. Austin of course voted for Hannah and Olivia voted for Ken. Irene then voted for Ken and Kaylee voted for Hannah. Then Jay voted for Ken, saying Hannah and Rulon kept him on the ranch one more week when he had a bad week. And even though it could be no worse than a tie, that also meant Ken was going home because he had the lowest percentage of weight loss between he and Hannah.

So there you go, another large man going home while a skinny girl stays on the ranch. For some reason, I’m going to be extremely annoyed if the final four is Kaylee, Irene, Hannah and Olivia. Honestly, I’m putting my money on Austin.

Anyway, Ken has gone from 377 pounds down to 238, a loss so far of 139 pounds. That’s remarkable and it appears he had a good shot at the at-home prize of $100K.

So now we are left with 7–Olivia, Hannah, Irene, Kaylee, Jay, Austin and Rulon. Kind of an odd final 7, don’t you think? Anyway, we’re barreling toward the finale, and I think next week as “The Voice” premieres, that this show will be a more realistic one hour instead of two. Whew.

That’s it, I’ll see you all next week!

I have to ask as I do occasionally. Does “The Biggest Loser” HAVE to be two hours long every week? Last night, I swear, there were commercials between each contestant’s weigh in. Well, not really, but between every team for sure…..and there was just so much fluff and stalling for time, while this show could have been easily 90 minutes long and maybe even one hour. But thankfully I watched it on DVR delay and skipped the crazy amounts of commercials.

They began with a challenge, where the contestants had to walk a mile and place a flag on where they thought was the exact spot that constituted one mile. There were markers all over the place, but they had to put a flag on the marker they thought was the mile marker. They also only had 15 minutes to do so. The winning team won a night of luxury in Hollywood, while the other three teams had to clean the campus. It was sort of like a “Hell’s Kitchen” type prize and penalty. Well, the black team of Hannah, Jay and Rulon won…even after Hannah’s complaining the whole way that they were approaching the challenge wrong. Ha!

Then Jillian had a chat with Rulon about the fact that he scarfed down a bag of chips late at night and was caught on camera. Dude feels like he deserves something like that after working so hard, but dude…..eat like that when you’re not trying to win a quarter of a million dollars! Jillian told him so but was not mean about it whatsoever.

Then after showing the black team out on the town and a lengthy last-chance workout, it was time to weigh in. Hannah went first and lost 4 pounds, while Jay lost 6 and Rulon 7.

The blue team went next and Olivia lost 2, Moses 7 and Irene 6–they had to lose 14 to stay in contention and they lost 15. So they were all safe while the black team was not.

The green team was next–Ken lost 4 pounds, but Kaylee lost just 1 pound and Austin 2. Uh-oh. The black team was safe and the green team was not with only Courtney of the red team to weigh in. She had to lose only 2 pounds to stay at the ranch, and with Brett working her like crazy, that was very likely. But she has struggled the last few weeks to lose more than 2-3 pounds. So then………wait, there is a commercial…..okay we’re back……Courtney lost 1 pound. Yikes. So she was automatically eliminated and the green team was safe.

Courtney was totally cool about it…..saying she was mentally prepared and could easily do this at home along with her mom, who was eliminated a few weeks ago. But this also meant Brett’s season was over. But Bob, Jillian and Cara were all standing there with their mouths open, and Bob was clearly angry. Hey, she lost fair and square, so I don’t know what the big deal was about–there was no gameplay at all. But they were upset because Courtney still has a long way to go while some contestants, like Kaylee and Hannah, appear to have reached their goals.

So Courtney went home and announced that she has lost 113 pounds since starting her journey on the show–but she also lost over 100 pounds before she even stepped foot on campus, because the show had inspired her so much at home. So she is now down to 210 pounds and I, for one, am so happy for Courtney. But what’s more, since her parents own a Dairy Queen franchise and she works there, Courtney brought in a regional rep and is trying to help change the DQ menu to include some healthy options. Good for her! And good for DQ for the product placement that provided.

So we’re down to three teams and nine contestants altogether. And wow, Brett’s red team were eliminated clean-sweep style the last three weeks. Too bad for him, but that’s how the tortilla chip crumbles (sorry, Rulon!). Thanks for reading and see you next week…

Now that was refreshing. Last night on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” the episode began with host Alison Sweeney revealing that this week, there would be no red team or black team, but that everyone would be wearing a blue shirt. That meant that it was one for all, all for one. And if, as a group, they lost more than 64 pounds (their combined weight loss last week), everyone would have immunity this week. If not, two of them would fall below the yellow line and the entire team would vote as one.

Well, this was a nice change of pace. There would be no gameplay or catty nonsense, only one team working toward a common goal. They then had a pop challenge in which celebrity chefs Curtis Stone and Lorena Garcia were on hand to judge their cooking ability. They broke into teams of two, with one former black team and one former red team member pairing off. The winner would get a year’s worth of The Biggest Loser meal plan meals. The two favorites were Jen and Kaylee’s turkey tostadas, and Olivia and Moses’ baked cod with asparagus. And Olivia and Moses won, with a dish that came in a whopping 170 calories, but according to Curtis and Lorena, had great flavor as well.

Then after visits from Dr. H showing how far they’ve come so far, it was time for the main challenge. Keeping with the one-team mentality, this time the group would have to pull on a giant rope to unearth big plates with a trivia question. Once they answer correctly, two more players get to join and help pull the rope. Honestly, this challenge was a bit confusing to the naked eye and mind. Anyway, if they finished in under 90 minutes, they would get a 5-pound advantage at the weigh-in. But if they didn’t make it, they were going to have a 5-pound penalty. Yikes. Well, amazingly, they made it with SIX SECONDS to spare. Wow. And so instead of 64 pounds, the group had to lose just 59 pounds this week in order for everyone to stay on the ranch one more week.

Then came the last-chance workouts, and as I normally do, I forwarded through these. Sorry, NBC. Then it was time to weigh in. Jen went first and lost 5 pounds, followed by Hannah with 4 and Olivia with 3. Uh-oh. If the contestants had to average 5 pounds each, they were not off to a great start. Justin lost 5, Rulon lost 7, and Ken lost 7, putting them back in the game. Austin lost 8, giving them more confidence. But Courtney lost 4, followed by Irene who lost 2. Uh-oh. Moses lost 6, but then Marci and Kaylee had to lose 5 pounds each. Not likely. Marci lost 0 pounds. I mean, Dr. H had told her she already reached her goal weight and that she had to now focus on adding muscle. Could Kaylee lost 10 pounds? Nope, she GAINED 2 pounds, giving the group 49 pounds lost and sending someone home.

So of course, Marci was the one who stepped up and said she wanted to go home, and it made sense all the way around as Kaylee still had some pounds to shed. She had wanted to go home last week, but had immunity on her team after losing 5 pounds. But with no more weight to lose, why stay?

Courtney, naturally, voted for Kaylee, since she couldn’t write her mom’s name down. Moses voted for Marci. Then Jen voted for Kaylee. Are you kidding me? I didn’t listen to her reasoning, because I was dumbfounded. But then Hannah, Olivia, Irene, Rulon and Justin all voted for Marci, and she was ultimately going home. So Marci went home and continued to work out and she looks great. And even if it will be difficult for her to win the at-home prize of $100K, Marci has already won.

So after all of the feel-good stuff this week, next week someone that was elminated gets to come back. Uh-oh. That should make for good TV, if anything. Thanks for reading and see you all next week…