Originally published October 2018

The world must be hurting for another Ninja Warrior show that is slightly less obnoxious than the American one on TV. Or, maybe someone at Netflix is really determined to make that new Ninja Warrior show because they've already put out a third season of its international obstacle course show: Ultimate Beastmaster. A bit of a dark horse in comparison to other obstacle course shows that already exist, Ultimate Beastmaster has the potential to get better, but I certainly wonder if the benefits will outweigh the costs to Netflix. It's a fun show, but it seems expensive, and I don't anticipate it lasting forever unless it becomes very popular. I already wrote about how I thought the first two seasons of the show went, and what sort of improvements they could make to ensure the show gets better and continues to exist. So far, it seems like Netflix is eager to make this show last.

Since this is just a quick review of the season and not a breakdown of the entire show like last time, this will be a much quicker review. I mostly just want to point out the biggest improvements and smartest decisions the Ultimate Beastmaster production team has made since the last season to ensure that this show manages to remain exciting and entertaining enough to keep people watching.

Pros

• Tiki Barber returns as an American commentator

• The excitable commentators of South Korea and Italy return

• New and more countries participating to mix it up

• CM Punk is the other new American commentator and does a good job of being fun and enthusiastic

• New obstacles; designed better for people of varying heights

• New format to how participants run through the courses

Cons

• Not all countries from previous seasons return, such as Japan and China

Additional Thoughts

As you can see from my list of pros versus cons, I think that Season 3 is a big improvement for the show going forward. I imagine I wasn't alone in my criticisms of the show because it seems like a lot of my gripes I had with it by the end of the second season have gone away or have been improved. So, either the people at Netflix read my review of their first two seasons and thought it over (unlikely), or enough other people out there felt similar to how I did and voiced their concerns.

For one thing, Tiki Barber makes a return as an American commentator, which is a wise choice because he did a fine job before and was probably the most skilled at providing English commentary on the show thus far. More importantly, however, we no longer have the bored attempts at comedy by Chris Distefano as the counterpart to Barber. Distefano's presence in the last season was a real bummer. His jokes struggled to land and, every time they showed his face, he looked miserably bored to be there. His replacement, CM Punk, however, brings a lot of enthusiasm and goofiness to the show, similar to how Terry Cruz did in the first season. Being an athlete himself, Punk knows a bit more about the context of the athletic effort and the possible injuries. He's also willing to have fun and dance around in the booth like a goofball while wearing clothes that mimic the colors and pattern of the American flag. Between his obvious enthusiasm and his ability to interact with the other commentators and competitors without hitting on the women like a bored and desperate creep as Distefano did, Punk is an obvious improvement.

Another big improvement is that there's way more variety to the course. Ultimate Beastmaster had already added and removed different obstacles in its second season, but a lot of the course remained the same. This time around, there are still some returning obstacles, but there are a significant number of new ones that appear as well. What's more, a lot of these newer obstacles seemed to be designed with the height of the competitor in mind. A big problem with many of the obstacles in the previous seasons was that they required a lot of upward movement in a way that a person who was 6 feet tall or taller would have a significant advantage. In some ways, this evened the playing field more for the female competitors who frequently struggled on those obstacles that required them to make inhuman leaps upward.

It's not just the new obstacles that add to the variety of the course. They've also made sure to change the obstacles of the first section of the course with each episode so that there is at least one new challenge for participants per episode. The second and third sections stay pretty consistent between episodes, with only 2 or 3 new obstacles in the whole season, so those could change a little more often. Still, since there are fewer participants by that point, the repetition doesn't hurt as much. The fourth and final section, however, has a few new obstacles and a redesign that actually gives competitors a choice of which path they would like to take in their race to the top when they reach the halfway point. We also don't see the final section of the course until the last episode. In the first season, a lot of the tension that would add to the excitement of the finale was diminished because we had seen the final section of the course in pretty much every episode. Having seen all the contestants take on this challenge beforehand was like being given a preview into who was going to win and removed a lot of the mystery. With the final section being saved till the last episode, none of the competitors have any previous knowledge to help them through.

In addition to these new obstacles, there's a bit of a new format with how participants progress on to the finals. Unlike before where we saw semi-finalists do the same course as before like a regular episode, they now have to run as far as they can through all the stages of the course in one go. This definitely changes things a bit because the athlete doesn't get a break between stages. So a section that may not have given them much trouble before is now extremely more difficult and tiring. With this in mind, there's also the added rule that a participant gets one do-over. If they fall off one of the obstacles, they can choose to keep the points they've accumulated thus far, or they can choose to go back to a checkpoint in the course and try again with the hope of going further than before and getting more points. If they fall again before reaching that spot they fell the first time, they may end up with fewer points than before. It's risky because they are usually far more fatigued when this happens and may lose a lot of points that would earn them their chance in the finals. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. The tension that this gamble adds to the course is very effective at keeping the action interesting, even if you're seeing the same obstacles again.

Perhaps greatest of all is the fact my two favorite commentating teams return. Francesco Facchinetti and Bianca Balti of Italy, and Seo Kyung Suk and Park Kyeong Rim of South Korea liven up the commentating side of the show substantially and almost steal the excitement completely. South Korea's commentators are still party animals when they do well and great sports when they don't do so well. Unfortunately, we don't see them quite as much this season as before, but when they're having a good time, so is everyone else. We do, however, still get a lot of great moments of rivalry and hilarity from the Italian commentators. Francesco steals the show 100% of the time with his goofy antics and behavior. The man is a goldmine of humor when it comes to how he trolls the French commentators and completely loses his mind when his own country does well on the course. Even if you don't care about obstacle course shows, Francesco is still enough to make you want to watch Ultimate Beastmaster.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

I am surprised and pleased with the number of changes, improvements, and returning gems that season 3 of Ultimate Beastmaster managed to achieve. Had they just gotten a new American commentator to replace Distefano, or just brought back the Italian commentators, I still would have been very excited to watch another season of goofy antics as competitors ran the same course as before. However, they did that and more. They redesigned their obstacles to be a more universal challenge to competitors and they added some smart changes to the course's format to keep the action from getting too stale or repetitive. There could still be some new changes in the middle sections of the course to add to the variety, but if the show continues to improve and evolve in the way it's done so far, I have no reason to believe season 4 will be any less exciting or fun.

What sort of obstacle course shows can you recommend? Any favorites? Let me know in the comments here or on Facebook!

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