Sunday 21 February 2010

Last Woman Standing


Hurray - combat/anthropology reality series Last Man Standing is back on BBC3, only this time it's Last Woman Standing! Same format, though: five fit amateur athletes - a boxer, wakeboarder etc - are sent off round the world to live with indigenous tribal peoples and try their hands at their local martial arts or gruelling competitive sports, with the aim of proving who is the all-round toughest competitor of the five. As with the men's competition, the contestents are suspiciously easy on the eye and wear little clothing (although to be fair, in the first episode the local Brazilian tribespeople wore markedly less). 

There are scarification rituals, ingestion (and vomiting) of herbal narcotics and lots of pain as they grit their teeth and get on with it. Rather them than me, but I love to watch. So far we've had wrestling competitions and a relay race, and I am in total awe of their fitness. For the race the teams had to run 4km carrying a 50kg log over the shoulder.

Coming up, we're promised a raft-race on the open ocean, water-buffalo chariots, and some vicious-looking Filipino stick-fighting.



I am in my happy place. Which looks like this:


If you're in the UK you can stream previous episodes from the BBC3 website, or download the most recent from iPlayer. Plus there are also clips up on YouTube. (Sorry - I've a nasty feeling these won't be available if you live in other countries, at least until the programmes appear on BBC/National Geographic channels. Look, you get better weather than us: there has to be some sort of compensation.)

3 comments:

Jo said...

I would so love to be really strong.

But I have pretty much zero interest in doing what it would take to be so, so I'll just keep standing round hoping attractive men will lift heavy things for me..

Janine Ashbless said...

Damn yeah. I'd like to be strong and thin like them. But the sheer work and sacrifice involved getting there ...
Though personally I've never found standing round and hoping for attractive men particularly effective either.
Life is a lemon, eh?

Jo said...

See, it's all about choices... lemon cupcakes, or lemon juice and hot water...