The Biggest Loser/YMMV

Some of the more debatable material from The Biggest Loser:


 * Acceptable Targets: Guess who! Then again, that's why they came.
 * Beware the Quiet Ones: there are a few contestants who keep their heads down and rarely speak, but are not to be written off.
 * Lauren from Season 13; she was one of the few contestants who didn't stir up any drama while on campus. Though she eliminated Week 3, she came back with a vengeance in the final week where the eliminated players fought for the final spot among the finalists. She, along with Mike (who was eliminated the week before she was), made the final round, outperforming contestants who had more time on campus, and even had a better weight loss percentage at the finale than most of the other eliminated player.


 * Beware the Cute Ones:
 * Chelsea from Season 15; she may have looked like the typical cute blonde girl that often appears on the show, but she was more than capable of keeping up with some of the season's stronger players, and proved herself to be an asset to her team week after week. She even managed to go for almost the entire season without ever facing elimination, and was only eliminated in the final week due to impressive numbers from both Bobby and David (who lost 17lbs and 16lbs, respectively) despite a respectable 7 pound weight loss.


 * Crosses the Line Twice: Harassing fat people generally isn't cool. When it comes to Jillian, however, who often spouts things along the lines of "IF YOU'RE NOT PUKING OR DYING, KEEP WORKING YOUR F***ING ASS OFF", it can often flop over.
 * Dull Surprise: Anna Kournikova. Part of it may be due to English not being her native language, but she's very monotone.
 * Elimination Houdini:
 * All the girls on the Black Team in Season 4 qualify due to falling back on each other to survive eliminations, rather than their own performances.
 * Ron from Season 7; spent half of the season under the yellow line, and only taking America's vote to eliminate him.
 * Sam from Season 9; a strange variant, not because he was a weak player, far from it. Rather because he reached his goal weight while still on campus (the only player to ever do so), yet almost made it to the end. The only reason he lasted as long as he did was because of his cousin, Koli, who needed to be there more than he did. Sam was eventually eliminated in Week 16 having come off worse in a hung vote against Michael, who still weighed over 330lbs and thus needed to be on campus. To make a long story short, Sam could've gone home Week 11 or 12, and he probably would've achieved the same result come the finale.
 * Elizabeth from Season 10; it would be easier to count the number of times she wasn't under the yellow line than the number of times she was.
 * Kaylee from Season 11; put up poor numbers (even gaining weight three times) and still made it further than her more capable father, Moses.
 * Bonnie from Season 12; outside of one week where she had immunity as the highest percentage on her team, Bonnie spent four weeks on the chopping block before she was eliminated with a total weight loss of just 43 pounds as of week 9.
 * Conda from Season 13; an interesting case. In addition to facing the elimination room 7 times before the teams were dissolved, she was almost universally hated by the show's fanbase due to her bratty attitude, inconsistent weight losses, and a major source of drama, at one point accusing Cassandra of cheating during an informal challenge between them in Week 3. The only reason she made it to the last 3 was because she was able to manipulate the other players into getting rid of people she wanted gone, often for personal reasons that were petty at best, and downright childish at worst.
 * "Woody" from Season 16 can be seen as this due a constant string of less-than-impressive numbers, yet was the last player to be eliminated proper.
 * Felicia from Season 17; to the point where Roberto and Luis got in an argument over the latter narrowly missing out on immunity, with the former scolding his twin brother with this line: "You let the weakest player win immunity!"
 * Harsher in Hindsight: any time a contestant achieves tremendous results on the show, only to regain the weight years later.
 * After Season 7, Jillian Michaels was accused of giving her players performance enhancing supplements. In Season 15, she was caught doing just that, giving caffeine pills to her team without the doctor's permission, which resulted in her team being penalised for it.
 * In Season 14, Danni Allen won the opportunity to star in a national Subway commercial alongside Jared Fogle. One can only wonder if the season 14 winner regrets winning this prize later on down the line after Fogle was convicted of crimes that we won't go into here...
 * In fact, any appearance Fogle has ever made on the show is now this because of his crimes.
 * Daniel Wright from Season 7, 19 years old at the time, was informed that he would not make it to 30 at the time, at 454lbs. Sadly, Daniel passed away in June 2019 from an illness that wasn't obesity related, at age 30.
 * Irony: Season 13 was a season of "No Excuses", yet one of the biggest reasons why that season was so hated was because the cast was full of excuses.
 * Narm: as a reality show, expect plenty of over-the-top moments!
 * The theme song alone is a ten on the narm-o-meter.
 * And the bombastic music for the weigh ins, that can even turn into a freakin' choir.
 * Reactions and expressions prior to each Ad Break Double Take during weigh-ins almost always fall into this.
 * Nightmare Fuel: an interview with Kei Hibbard from Season 3 can qualify as this, in which she admits that she suffered health problems after her appearance on the show.
 * Any time a contestant passes out, or goes to the hospital; a consequence of being so overweight.
 * Season 15 winner Rachel Frederickson won with a record breaking 59.62% weight loss (she lost 155lbs from her 260lb starting weight). However, she only weighed 105lbs at the finale, and at 5 feet 4 inches, this made her the only contestant in the show's history to leave the show  underweight  (her body mass index was only 18.0). Many publications suggested that such a massive weight loss for someone her height was particularly unsafe, but it didn't help that she looked unhealthy too, to where even Bob and Jillian were in shock.
 * The Scrappy: Every season arguably produces at least one.
 * Conda has cemented her place as Season 13's for her rude, obnoxious, whiny attitude, and also manipulative behaviour. The comments on the online episode streams often cited how Conda brought the show's quality down for them, and how she should've been eliminated over everyone else. Everyone within her alliance also became this to some degree, including her friend Kim, and her brother Jeremy, both of whom were just plain rude and abrasive. All three ended up as Season 13's finalists, meaning the three potential winners were among the most disliked contestants in an already despised season.
 * All of Season 13 is proving to be a scrappy season. Every comment thread is calling it out as the worst ever. This is due to the majority of the contestants being heavily disliked personality-wise, and weak performances. Out of 5 instances of players quitting the show mid-season, 3 of them came from season 13.
 * The creme-de-la-creme was when the final five were shocked that another, previously eliminated contestant would be returning. So shocked, all of them threatened to quit. This is despite the fact that this has been a staple since Season 5, and that their contracts say that this twist would happen. Two of the final five, Mark and Buddy, did end up leaving the show in protest, while the remaining three stayed to finish their journey.
 * Tracey from Season 8 got this treatment for her short-sighted decisions that ended up being rather destructive for everyone else.
 * Neil in Season 4 arguably became this when he pulled a deliberate 17lb weight gain with the sole purpose to eliminate a player on the Black team. The only reactions he got from the other players the following week where he lost 33lbs were reactions of disgust.
 * In Season 11, Q got this treatment from the other players for his poor weight losses, excuses, and lack of drive. It got to a point where the other "Unknown" players targeted him and his wife first in the Week 5 challenge, just to keep Q from getting immunity.
 * Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Arthur in Season 11. Tropes Are Not Bad in this case, though.
 * Squick:
 * The contestants, depending on how grossly obese they are and how it's distorted their bodies.
 * Shots of the contestants throwing up during workouts.
 * Tear Jerker: Several moments in every season, for the contestants and trainers as well as the viewers.
 * Even in the detested Season 13, there was Chism's shocking elimination in Week 9. In a group challenge for everyone to lose 5% of their current weight at home in 18 days, Chism had to lose 15lbs. Despite only needing 12lb to keep his team safe, he only lost 11lbs, resulting in his automatic elimination as the only one on his team to fail to hit his 5% target. There was not a dry eye in the house at that weigh-in.
 * Bob Harper had one in Season 15, Week 7; the Blue Team lost the weigh-in that week, which resulted in the elimination of Olympic weightlifter, Holley Mangold, whom he had become extremely close to. This is quite possibly the most distraught Bob had ever been towards an eliminated player.
 * Also from Season 15, David's life prior to his appearance on the show can qualify as this; this is a man who married at age 22, only to discover his wife had brain cancer. He sadly lost her 10 years later, and has struggled to cope with the loss since. It was such a tragic story, that it had the other contestants reaching for the tissues when they sat down and watched his audition video with him. You can tell that David had been through a lot in his life.
 * The Woobie: Trainer Shannon in the Australian version had a nightmare season 7 (Singles). Starting out with the male under-25's team, including Ryan, the heaviest contestant in Biggest Loser history, he knew from the get-go he'd have his work cut out for him. What he didn't count on was having one contestant leave the competition early in favor of taking a $20,000 temptation, having Ryan be eliminated the very next week, being forced to expel the only decently-functional man on his team not long after for a severe breach of the rules, and then having the other teams gang up on his last standing member just as he was starting to get the act together, resulting in his entire team being eliminated while the others all had three members apiece left in the game. The culminated in a distraught Shannon storming out of the Biggest Loser compound, remarking he felt like a failure as a trainer.