January's return of American Gladiators on NBC was supposed a signal a sea change of American television viewer interest: Sitcoms out, reality competitions in! Actually, Gladiators' arrival wasn't so much a sea change as a recognition, or a last ditch effort to turn the tide, that very little is pulling in the mega ratings these days. The show had the bonus effect, though, of employing former porn stars (semi-NSFW), and if there's one cause we can get behind … well. But you know what Gladiators, a supposedly steroid-free show, also did? It made outlandish, possibly illegal claims about its stars! At least one inquiring (blog) mind wants to know how NBC gets away with naming Gladiators things like "Venom," for whom "there is no known antidote for Venom" and is "lethal in any dose." Did the suits test this girl in a lab?

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Over the past week, there’s been a lot of talk about the writers strike being nearly over. Which would be great, because people like scripted television and honestly, American Gladiators is kind of retarded.

But before we count our chickens before they’re hatched or reprogram our DVRs, let’s keep it real with ourselves: an agreement hasn’t been made yet.

If you read past the first few graphs of excitement about a renewed TV seasons, you get the facts:

But interviews with more than a dozen people involved in the possible settlement described a process so fragile that many still think that Saturday’s meetings could derail it.

As recently as last Friday, producers were preparing a “doomsday scenario,” in which they were ready to declare that the talks had failed, opening the possibility of an extended strike.

And even if the strike is resolved this weekend, the networks can’t afford to pretend the last three months of canceled programming didn’t happen:

"It's not just flipping a switch and having everything come right back on," said Barry Jossen, executive vice president of production for ABC Studios. "There are a lot of factors and considerations that go into these decisions. We are trying to determine the amount of material that was finished before the strike started, the creative status of the show and the broadcast schedule needs."

So even if the writers strike ends this week, which it may not, the search for the next American Gladiator is sadly not over.

TOP GLADIATOR Ex-gay porn star and American Gladiators at large Militia nabbed an endorsement deal with
HeadBlade razors. As a former actor in the physical arts, Miltia knows a lot about shaving. [Queerty]

So far the writers strike hasn't really affected ratings at all. January is the first month when the networks were supposed to feel it or whatever, but people like reality TV and football, so people are over how everyone ended up on that island in Lost.

Writers Guild, we're all mixed up about this. On the one hand, you effectively canceled the Golden Globes and might do the same for the Oscars, which is awesome. We'd rather stab ourselves in the eye than watch those shows. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but we'd definitely rather get something caught in our eye, like an eyelash or something, than sit through them.

But now people are having conversations about American Gladiators like it's the second coming of 24. 24 was populist and a bit racist, but compared with Aggro Crag or The Eliminator or whatever it is, it's like Flaubert. So just figure out your shit with the producers so we can stop thinking about ratings and go back to just judging people for watching TV at all.

Okay, so baseball, America’s game, might be tainted with performance enhancing drugs. But what about America’s game show, American Gladiators? That reality-based programming is clean. NBC Universal gave all the gladiators steroid tests before the show and the athletes can be tested at any time. Even a subsidy of GE has more respect for purity of its game than Major League Baseball.

Sunday night's premiere of American Gladiators showed off raging gym bunnies in all their glory — as well as a coup for NBC, which scored the highest ratings for any new show this season. Sure, the WGA strike might have something to do with that, and the move to a Monday night timeslot that competes with ABC's Dancing With the Stars spin-off Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann, but target demos might just love staring at Militia's package for an hour each week.

American Gladiator Militia used to go by another pseudonym: Elian Cortez. As Cortez, Militia (real name: Alex Castro) was a well-endowed (11"!) and well-compensated gay porn model for Colt. To be fair, with a body like that, there are only so many career options.

[Queerty]

Nothing To Sell Here The Television Critics Association has canceled its annual January meeting where networks traditionally announce their upcoming schedules. In case you haven’t heard, TV stations don’t have much to promote since the writers strike began, unless you consider American Gladiators reincarnated something to promote, which we don’t. [AP]

If reality TV is a poor man’s scripted television, then game shows are a poor man’s reality TV. And with no writers to speak of, NBC is going to put out some poor television.

This January, NBC will add three more hours of reality TV to its lineup. The network will shelve Chuck and replace it with American Gladiators. (Full disclosure: One half of the Jossip team thinks American Gladiators is the greatest testament to physical prowess of American athletes since the 1984 Olympics. The other half thinks American Gladiators is greatest testament to American stupidity since "duck and cover.")

Quiz show 1 vs. 100, The Biggest Loser, Couples Edition, and Celebrity Apprentice will all start in January. NBC's reality chief Craig Plestis claims, "We're kicking off the New Year with a bang.”

Well, if he didn’t believe that, who would?

Former WWF champion Hulk Hogan is said to be finalizing negotiations to host NBC's revival of American Gladiators. Fans were originally hoping that the network might tap one of the show's original gladiators to be the new host, but were informed that Viper, Nitro and Laser's testicles were still recuperating from their ten straight years of heavy steroid dependence. [TVWeek]

• NBC announces plans to bring back campy pro-steroids infomercial, American Gladiators. "Yes!" cheers "Viper," before remembering that he's 45 and hasn't had any testicles since 1994.

• "Lindsay Lohan hasn't looked this good in years," observes OK! editrix Sarah Ivens, who diplomatically neglects to point out that Lohan's only made it to ripe old age of 21.

• And, the winner of the 2007 Air Guitar Championships at Irving Plaza is…some guy with weird chest hair who lives in his mother's basement. [Ed: Again??]

• Adrian Grenier is on a one-man mission to catch chlamydia.

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