I am not a man of modern television. This could be because the bulk of my adult life has gone without television because as it turns out, modern television is expensive as hell. I still don’t understand why it still costs upwards of hundreds of dollars to pipe in mostly garbage programming and tons of advertisements. Still, we pay whatever it is we pay a month to watch probably three channels of programming. With the advent of Netflix and the internet, those combined satisfy our lust for all things animated, on the rocks, shot in the head, or otherwise. As an IT professional by profession and an avid gamer and anime nerd, one wouldn’t expect me to be traditionally aligned with interests that relate to cars, guns, or other things of traditionally manly men persuasion. But the truth is, I’d love to drive a fast car and shoot a big gun, and History’s Top Shot coming after Top Gear US has inevitably caused me to ruin my, and subsequently my fiance’s last few weeks of life.

The show’s premise is that of a reality show, sixteen people enter, one leaves the winner. Two teams, Blue and Red, are formed from the 16 and each episode they face each other in a “Team Challenge” where the winning team is safe from elimination, and the losing team has to nominate two members to go to head-to-head in an Elimination Challenge, where the winner survives to continue on, and the loser is eliminated. The weapons they feature in both the team and elimination challenges are classic and modern weapons from history ranging from current handguns, to Civil War era rifles, to grenade launchers, and even full-size cannons. In keeping with History Channel’s mantra, the show’s host, former Survivor competitor Colby Donaldson, gives a brief history of the weapons being used, and provides an expert instructor of the firearm to help the teams practice with before the completions. The underlying component of the show, being a reality show of course, is that the teams and the people in said teams must weigh various options as they seek to win, or eliminate other team members they feel will hinder their performance going forward. As such, strategy, cliques/alliances, and other sorts of drama gets folded into the show and makes it an interesting watch each week.

The first season, being new, featured mostly modern weapons, with roots in military and police operations. Some classics were shown right from the start, such as the M1903 Springfield. Later on they would even shoot arrows from a Longbow and a Crossbow, and even fire a Winchester Model 1873, which was seen again in Season Three and the Henry Rifle in Season Four. The contestants came from literally all walks of life, as the show touts in its opening. Former military officers, students, construction workers, even a plumber were among the first sixteen to compete for ten thousand dollars and the title of “Top Shot”. In-between challenges and practices, all of the contestants lived in a house near the range, another component of the show shown quite prominently. Much like Survivor, the way they interacted with each other in the house set the stage for much of the contest in the later half. One of the contestants, Kelly, was especially featured in much of the drama through the first season due to the fact that he was the youngest competitor in the house. But even being nominated for elimination three times he emerged victorious all three times until he was finally eliminated in the second to last episode. Former British Army platoon commander Iain Harrison would win overall, beating out law enforcement trainer Chris Cerino in the final challenge which marathoned a number of the weapons seen earlier in the show at once.

In the second season, sixteen new contestants came into a new house and slightly different format. Preserved was the ten thousand dollar prize, but as a bonus, winners of the elimination matches would get two thousand dollar gift cards to Bass Pro Shops, now sponsoring the show. This meant repeat winners of elimination matches could rack up serious amounts of cash to Bass Pro Shops, and Jamie Franks would be that season’s three-time winner of elimination challenges. The season’s cast of characters came again from many different fields, military, police, a golf instructor, and a server. Personalities clashes and tempers had their field days on many occasions which were always settled by a good old fashioned duel in most cases. Probably one of the most impressive episodes was episode nine’s “The 1,000 Yard Shot” where the remaining seven had to hit a one thousand yard shot using a Barrett M82A1 rifle. Most of them, especially USAF sniper George Reinas, nailed it in one shot. He would later come back on season four to instruct them in the use of the AX338 to make a fifteen hundred yard shot. Ultimately however, realtor and Marine honor graduate Chris Reed would beat out him and Brian “Gunny” Zins for the title of the season.

The third season stuck with the same house, but sixteen new contestants again from different backgrounds. Former military and police contestants make up much of the field, but plenty of folks from the service sector and elsewhere joined the fray. The format remained unchanged from the previous season, but new weapons were introduced, such as the 1877 “Bulldog” Gatling Gun, and the “CornerShot” (Glock 18 9x19mm pistol) to keep the competition lively. This season was probably the high point in terms of “drama” as contestant Jake Zweig sparred no expense at making life for his teammates and the opposing team as difficult as possible until his voluntary resignation shortly after the individual challenges began. He would frequently clash with other people in the house and had a back-and-forth with Red Team’s Michael Marelli often. Mike Hughes, who had been eliminated the day before, was allowed to re-enter the competition if he could defeat Phil Morden, who was nominated to go against Jake before Jake quit. He won and remained in the competition before losing to Dustin Ellermann who won the season.

The fourth, and current season, threw a couple new twists out of the starting gate. The winner of this season would not only get the money and title, but a contract to become a professional marksman for Bass Pro Shops. Second, eighteen contestants showed up for the first day of competition, and immediately were had to fire a M14 rifle from 200 yard, ranking them from one to sixteen by the closest they got to the target. That left two contestants at the end who would be eliminated right from the start, which fell on Craig Buckland and Forrest McCord. The formed teams, consisting of the usual mix of trained and recreational shooters, soldiered on for nine episodes using some old and new weapons, including the Kentucky flintlock pistol, and the Atlatl. Former Venezuelan Olympian Gabby Franco became the first woman to make it to the individual competition before being eliminated in the very first challenge. As it stands, six people remain in contention for the prize, including IT professional Chris Cheng, police commander Kyle Sumpter, and federal police officer Gregory Littlejohn, all of whom faced multiple (in Greg’s case, three) eliminations to make it this far.

Probably what makes this show interesting to me is the weapons, and the people. A gun and a bullet are really very simple when you look at it from the outside, having never seen the different weapons used, or used any yourself. In video games, guns are really just about different presentations. In Borderlands, a game I’ve logged way too many (read: 250+) hours in, while there are different guns that mimic popular types used by real marksman and military/police today, the game simulates these simply by changing the way you fire it in-game. A pistol fires like a pistol, a sniper rifle has a scope to snipe with. While it may improve your accuracy, even with simulated recoil, it cannot possibly emulate a real gun in life. For guys like me, who aren’t military, police, or anything, handling these weapons is beyond the scope of our imagination. So I watch this show with a little bit of envy, because who wouldn’t want to be out there firing all these guns, even if it means competing with others? Most of the folks who’ve competed on this show and lost tend to comment that even if they lose, the experience was still worth it, and I don’t doubt that. Much like Top Gear, the other show I’ve watched all of, I would love to be able to drive those cars if given the chance. Similarly, the human component of this show fascinates me often. This is a show where most of the contestants have military or police backgrounds, and tend to be structured, disciplined, and believe in honor and integrity. Unlike other reality shows where underhanded tactics and forced drama wins the day, most of the folks on this show believed in performance-based metrics when it comes to deciding who goes to the elimination challenges, and what order they take a challenge on in. This doesn’t always work out though, as exampled most famously by Jake in season three. What’s interesting is how he seemed so level-headed and trustworthy in the beginning only to devolve into cheap tactics and whining in the end, ultimately culminating in his quitting because he was going to elimination. I probably laughed a little more than I needed to, because it felt like I was watching a pre-teen compete in a competition and stomp off mad when he lost. I was particularly pleased that Dustin stayed above all of that to win, not being a military-trained shooter. In fact, this show has had a lot of non-military or police trained shooters do extremely well throughout the competition, like Jay from season two and Chris from season four. I think it speak a lot to “ordinary people” like myself that these folks can compete with the big guys on an even field despite that social handicap. Either way, it provides amusing entertainment, and my fiance seems to enjoy it, so it’ll do until Top Gear UK is back on. US too, I suppose. If I had H2 I’d watch Top Guns, but I might have to wait for Netflix, or search the internet.

I’m not sure if there will be a fifth season, it’s still up in the air, and I don’t plan to apply if that is what you’re thinking, though I know of a couple people who should. If there is a season five, and someone I know applies and gets in, keep me in mind for the final episode if they offer the S/O and friend option like season three, right? That’d be fun to see.