So the Contender premiered tonight and it looks as if Mark Burnett has done it yet again. Besides picking some very personable, respectable fighters (Ishe Smith is the particular standout here, not only is he good on screen but he’s also a bonafide prospect) Burnett’s kept his magic editing touch. The elimination fight at the end of the show actually made my heart pound, not only was it well shot and shortened to make it look more like a Rocky scene than real, sometimes hum drum, boxing but I was also invested in the two fighters.

On the down side, I found myself missing Jeff Probst. He wouldn’t have just been walking down some street talking to lead into the intro of the show, they would have made him jump out of a helicopter or ride a motorcycle off a cliff, also Sugar Ray Leonard’s hand signal for the beginning of the challenge pales in comparison to the classic Probst *down hand goes up, up hand goes down* maneuver. And while I did like the action-movie buddy buddy dynamic between Sugar Ray and Sly Stallone (wow spell check actually knows how to spell his name right, how’s that for verification of stardom?) I could have done without the weird office scene as they were rolling credits, where the two of them and the other non-fighter personalities on the show were remarking on the episode’s proceedings. It just seemed out of place.

NBC’s going all out here to promote the show (albeit this is TV downtime with most other shows recovering from February sweeps), airing the next episode on ER’s usual timeslot and then airing a third episode in what will be its usual timeslot Sunday. I hope the series is as good as the pilot and viewers make it a hit, would be good for the sport.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, mind head of the Final Fantasy series and producer of the best iterations, speaks about his return to game development since his exile after the Final Fantasy movie.

*Almost week old news, I know, but I just thought up a good title for it, so there you go.

**Now over a week old, finally adjusted MT to the fat cow server change.