Digital TV Blog

Altogether now: ‘Another One Bites The Dust…’

Sky have just released a gallery of profile shots of the 12 new Gladiators who are all set to put the contenders through their paces. Redesigned, airbrushed and updated for 21^st Century Digital age combat, the tired old blue and pink leotards of the original series have been consigned to the dustbin and replaced with ultra-sharp highly stylised black and white designs, each of which bears some slight semblance to their character names.

Former British bobsledder Ice, for example, has crystalline sparkly bits on her garb, and Spartan (our favourite, right) is decked out in an approximation of Greek battle dress and the somewhat unfairly named Battleaxe is similarly dressed up like an Amazon warrior-queen.

14 pictures are up on the Sky website now – we’re not sure if Inferno’s sumptuous vital stats are going to be a help or a hindrance in the arena. The gladiatorial line up includes silver medalist Du’aine Ladejo as Predator, who some of you may remember from Celebrity Love Island.

Several other athletic stars make the line up, including 19 year old Wiltshirian heptathlete Lucy Boggis as the Tempest (”bringing furious agitation and commotion”) who is reportedly tipped to be selected for the London 2012 Olympics, and Jenny Pacey as Enigma, who along with Ice, is a former British bobsled team member.

Sky have promised that classic challenges such as Hang Tough, Duel, Powerball and the dreaded Eliminator will make a return, with some newfangled high-tech additions that improve upon, but do not radically alter the premise.

The appropriately surnamed Richard Woolfe, the director of programming for Sky One, Two and Three, told the Guardian that “the games are bigger, the contenders are stronger and the Gladiators are even more unbelievable… we’ve found extraordinary characters.”

Ian Wright and Kirsty Gallacher will preside over the contest with 32 contenders, whittled down from 20,000 applicants, who will battle the gladiators across a series of gruelling events to win a £50,000 prize. Shouting ref John Anderson will also return to the show. Gladiators is set to run on Sky One this year.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Digital TV, Sky Digital. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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