Sacrificing yourself for someone else.

There is one thing that bugs me about reality competition shows: people giving up their chance for someone else. This comes up after watching last night's episode of The Biggest Loser: Couples. In a shift from being the strongest team on campus, the black team decided that the oldest members -- Marci, Deni and Jesse -- should throw the weigh-in and each gain weight. To my absolute show and dismay, Deni gained 8 pounds to protect "the young kids" from going home. This included a member on the red team, Jen, from being eliminated (she gained 2 pounds and was set to go home before the black team's weigh-in). 

Biggest Loser Couples 4, 2011

What bugs me about The Biggest Loser is when they play in couples or teams, because someone always gives up their chance for another because "they need it more." Often the people who make it to the end of The Biggest Loser have convinced others that they are more deserving of being there than someone else. But shouldn't you be making the call whether you're more deserving of being there than someone else? Isn't the point of this show to lose weight and become the biggest loser by staying on campus? Shouldn't you be taking advantage of the resources provided to you, making the other thousands of obese people in America mad they don't get the same chances? How do you determine that your needs aren't worse than the needs of someone else?


This problem of sacrifice extends beyond this one weight-loss show to other reality competition shows. On Survivor, many people have determined that they will be the martyr and give up their chance for someone else to win. Where's the competition in that? During the tenth season in Palau, Janu Tornell quit the game because she had enough, but later changed her tune to say that she was giving up her chance so Stephenie LaGrossa (the one who outlasted the rest of her former tribe to be the last person left before the merge) could stay in the game and fight to win. I don't call these sacrifices; I call them orchestrated quits.

An orchestrated quit is taking the control away from the game and exiting the game by your own wishes. Most contestants who orchestrate their own exit are tired of playing the game, miss home and want out of the confines of the show. To those who have done it, you just took away the chance from thousands of others (hundreds of thousands in Canada) to get the chance to play the game. To CBS, I won't ever quit Survivor, Big Brother, or the Amazing Race for anyone. 


Maybe it's just me who wouldn't do that, but would you sacrifice your chance for $1 million pay out or the chance to save your own life for someone else?