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Related Sites: · Official Site · Sirlinkalot: Obscure Reality Shows "Okay, lecture's over — time for some Feedback!"

Back at the lair, our two costumed finalists are doing a lot of shuffling around of food in the kitchen and not much cooking. Stan appears on a wall-mounted video screen and recalls how they have both talked about their individual super-powers. "Well, today, I'm actually going to give them to you." The heroes are going to learn how to fly, Stan informs them. The transport will take them to an "average suburban house". They don't actually show the transport this time around, probably because its been reduced to a golf cart by the dwindling number of contestants. Wouldn't quite be as impressive as the flashy Hummer limo they started out with, would it?

Cast

Matthew Atherton, aka Feedback

Nel Wilson, aka Fat Momma

Stan Lee

At their destination, they are greeted in the innocuous-looking front yard by Stan’s friend John Moyo, the stunt coordinator for the motion pictures "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2". They are going to stunt school! He directs them to the back yard filled with mats, trampolines, and other assorted equipment with people testing them out. Behind it all is an enormous green screen. Feedback enthusiastically looks it over and proclaims it a "super-heroes playground". Fat Momma doesn't seem nearly as thrilled.

They start off with a little stretching, and Feedback effortlessly does the splits while my groin does a mental cringe. Fat Momma is turning a little feisty. "Look here: I'm a 42-year-old Momma wearing a corset. I don't need to be doing no stretching." Still, she does a little, with a lot of assistance from John and his crew.

John directs Feedback through some flips on the trampoline. As with the classroom challenge last week, I think the producers are quite lucky that certain former contestants are not still around. Can you imagine Lemuria jumping up and down on the trampoline? I sure can, and the thought is distracting me to... Need... to... focus... Or Creature doing arched-back slow-motion backflips? Why, the apparatus was even named for her... TRAMPoline. I crack myself up sometimes.

Anyway, back to reality. Fat Momma has a couple of disadvantages right off the bat, not including her heft. First, she's got a row of doughnuts hanging from her "utility belt". Next, her costume designers ignored the advice from "The Incredibles" and gave her a cape. There's no way she's doing any flips. Instead, with some cape-holding assistance, she successfully does a seat drop. Fat Momma is excited that she pulled off the exercise. "I did it without losing one doughnut!" That is impressive.

Next on the agenda is learning stunt fighting. Both contestants change into more suitable workout clothing and practice stage fighting maneuvers. They have a mock battle, complete with post-production punching sound effects. Just when you think Feedback is going to trounce Fat Momma, she flips him to the ground and gives him the always-reliable, always-debilitating groin kick. My groin does a mental wince. Just like it does every time I watch America's Funniest Home Videos.

Finally, they are taken over to the green screen, where a few people are launching themselves off a swing-set platform contraption in front of it and onto a field of pads. Fat Momma thoughtfully tells Feedback to go first, then nervously munches doughnuts while watching him perform some aerial stunts in front of the green screen. Feedback says it was fun until he landed. "That hurt!" The stunt coordinator turns to Fat Momma and says, somewhat reluctantly, "Let's see what happens here." She climbs aboard the platform and gives it a few tentative swings before surrendering to common sense. She steps down, hugs John and that's that! Both do some fake flying in front of the green screen as well as some acting. Feedback drops a fake rock thrown his way.

More down time back at the lair finds Fat Momma dusting the large framed poster of her comic book cover. Stan appears on-screen to inform our heroes that the challenge at the stunt school was solely about how they looked on the big screen. Feedback exhales. He's a rather tightly-wound individual, isn't he?

Stan wants to speak to each of them privately -- a little one-on-one time. Feedback goes first, and he's ushered into a large room with a chair in the middle and a big desk-like table at the front. I'm thinking we're finally going to see Stan in person, but, alas, a big screen on the wall turns on to reveal Stan's mug. Stan says he wants to find out about the person, not the character. So, he asks Matthew what characteristics in himself would make him a superhero. He answers that it's not about physical abilities and that he wants people to trust him. Stan then asks him who is his real life hero. "You are," Matthew replies. Man, does he know how to come up with the right answer, or what? He goes on to explain that after his father's suicide he turned to Spider-Man as a male role model. He says that Stan has positively impacted his life in many ways. Lucky for Stan that one of his finalists is a big fan of his.

Fat Momma is next to sit in the lone chair and Stan-on-the-wall asks to call her by her first name -- then doesn't use it until about the middle of their conversation. As with Matthew, he asks Nel who her hero is. She replies that her father has been a great role model, but as he's getting older he's losing his memory and doesn't have much time left. Stan turns things around by calling Nel his hero for all the positive characteristic she's shown through the course of the competition. I'd call Nel the winner right there.

Previously turned in their costumes
Tobias Trost, aka Levity	Darren Passarello, aka Nitro G	Chelsea Weld, aka Cell Phone Girl
Steel Chambers, aka The Iron Enforcer	Mary Votava, aka Monkey Woman	E. Quincy Sloan, aka Ty'Veculus
Tonya Kay, aka Creature	Tonatzin Mondragon, aka Lemuria	Chris Watters, aka Major Victory

Stan appears on a large monitor in front of a crowd of people at Universal City Walk and tells them that they are about to crown the world's next great superhero. The audience is about to witness "the greatest prize ever given away in the history of reality television -- immortality." Oh, don't get so melodramatic, Stan. Still, what the winner does get is nothing to sniff at. The winning superhero character gets their own one-shot comic book written by Stan Lee himself, and their character will be featured in a Sci Fi Channel original movie. Not only that, but they will receive a trip for two to Florida's Universal Orlando Resort and appear in a superhero parade.

A montage like a movie trailer of Fat Momma is shown as she is introduced on a balcony above the crowd. To say it is cheesy does not even begin to describe what follows. Fat Momma bites down on a doughnut -- with sound effects crunching like an apple -- and grows to five times her size. She's after the villain named "Chicken Man", which basically looks like a baby chick that's had a few of Fat Momma's doughnuts. The Dark Enforcer shows up, his bad breath spewing a swarm of locusts from his mouth. Fat Momma dispatches a dragon from what looks like footage from "Reign of Fire". (Must be a Universal property -- I'll have to look that one up.) In voice-over, Fat Momma vows to "rid the world of bullies -- one doughnut at a time!" Whether she wins this contest or not, she definitely has the coolest catch phrase.

Feedback's trailer is next and it's just as cheesy, with a little humor thrown in to boot. He does a lot of flying around and we finally realize that they put all that test footage in front of the green screen to good use. The Dark Enforcer is throwing rocks at babes that Feedback doesn't drop this time. The Dark Enforcer attempts to blow up Mt. Rushmore. Feedback promises to "protect the world's greatest treasures." To prove it he stands in front of a nude male statue to turn back projectiles thrown at it from the Dark Enforcer. He catches one in front of the statue's crotch and proclaims, "Fear not, these jewels are safe." Not quite as good as Fat Momma's trailer, but entertaining nonetheless.

Without further ado, we get a split-screen of the final two contestants, and Stan declares his choice. To (post-production?) groans of the crowd, a costume is turned in at the Garbage Can of Failure, and Fat Momma is eliminated, thus Feedback is the world's next great superhero! Feedback's mouth hangs open in stunned silence like he's in pain, before realization hits. He didn't quit his job in the "real world" for nothing! As he explodes into joy, he is joined on the balcony by his wife, friends and family members for the celebration. Not only that, but the ousted contestants have returned in costume to congratulate him. Feedback hugs Major Victory and Ty'Veculus but, apparently since his wife is present, not any scantily-clad females. At which point I notice the absence of Creature. Usually it's the opposite -- I notice her presence. And now that I'm paying attention the first two eliminations, Levity and Nitro G, are nowhere to be seen either. Okay, so almost all of the former contestants have gathered to salute the winner.

Fireworks soar overhead and Feedback yells out to the live crowd below, "Every dream you have ever had is possible." Fat Momma's children, friends and family arrive and the group joins everyone else in the celebration. "I can't believe this... I'm a superhero," Feedback intones as he looks around. Stan calls out his congratulations from the overlooking monitor, when it suddenly shorts out. Soon thereafter, Stan Lee in the flesh steps out onto the balcony to stand face-to-face with Feedback. Well, about frickin' time. Wow, the guy is still alive -- I was beginning to think he died long ago and was delivering his instructions through some digital manipulation.

The camera pulls back from the balcony, with "The End?" superimposed on the screen. Why the question mark? Because it's not the end. As the forthcoming advertisements would indicate, you consumers have to now buy the comic and purchase the collected episodes on DVD.

Somehow the revelation in public left me unsatisfied. The cacophony after the announcement left no room for personal thoughts to be shared, and seemed to clash with the intimacy and isolation of the Rooftop of Elimination, as crazy as that sounds. Stan offered absolutely no explanation as to why he chose one over the other, and to me it was a perfect culmination of all the arbitrary decisions that had come before. The challenges felt staged, with the "Have you hugged an inmate today?" segment being particularly irksome. Marketing and commercial aspirations aside, the series delved into the heart of what makes a superhero, even if it didn't follow its own discoveries in making elimination choices. It was a worthy endeavor that makes me want to shout out a vigorous "Excelsior!"

Past Recaps: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5