Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Top Shot – 3/30/2011

We don’t watch a lot of TV around here, but the shows that we do watch regularly are reality competition shows: Top Chef, The Amazing Race, Next Food Network Star, and Top Shot.  Top Shot is a History Channel show that starts out with 16 shooters and has weekly competitions to eliminate one shooter each week until they are down to a winner.  So far, they have shot .22 pistols and rifles, bows and arrows, tomahawks, and other firearms.  The 16 participants are from various backgrounds: military, recreational shooting, and competitive shooting.

Last night’s show was particularly interesting for a couple of reasons.

1. I noticed in the last two shows that they show the guys (both women were eliminated rather early – blah) holding hands and praying before meals.  It’s really cool so see a bunch of men doing this.  I don’t presume to think that they are all practicing Protestant Christians, but at least any who might not be believers are very respectful of those who are.

2. Last night’s show was apparently filmed on November 10th, the birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps.  The men made a nice dinner and then a birthday cake.  They then did a little ceremony where the oldest Marine in the room got the first piece and the youngest Marine got the second piece of cake.  Of the final 8 competitors, there were 4 Marines, 3 members of other branches of the Armed Forces, and 1 civilian.  The majority of the final competitors had much of their training in the military, and I think this says good things about military training.  My brother was in the Marine Corps for six years, so this kind of thing is very meaningful to me.

I’m not a big firearms person.  I support strong enforcement of the right to bear arms, but I’ve never been all that interested in shooting (although I did enjoy archery at Family Camp for a few years).  Nonetheless, Top Shot is a very interesting show to watch.

Do you watch reality shows?  What kinds do you like?

1 comment:

Kimberly said...

We don't get cable, otherwise, we would probably be watching Top Shot right along with you! And C can probably explain why there are more Marines in the finals than any other armed forces. I think their sharpshooting standards are a bit higher than the others. From the little bit he's told me, he was not too far from sharpshooter status when he was in, although he probably wouldn't brag on himself to others. As far as reality shows we watch, there's only one: The Biggest Loser. It's inspirational and it's a positive thing---getting people to live a healthy lifestyle! It's really the only TV show we watch, hence why we don't have cable. LOL