Honestly, this show is a guilty pleasure of mine. I enjoy wathing physically perfect people engage in contests reminiscent of the old gladiatorial days. I welcome a healthy old-fashioned competition show that doesn't rely on viewers phoning in for their favorites. And, I like Hulk Hogan. Season 2 of NBC's surprise hit is a lot of the same- so why does it feel so different?

Maybe it's the new gladiators. Season 1 winners Evan Dollard and Monica Carlson did indeed get their deal to be the new mainstays this season. But at 5'10", 160 lbs and 5'7", 130 lbs respectively, they are the smallest gladiators on the roster. Does that seem a bit silly to anyone else? Monica got the codename: Jet, and to her credit, she looks pretty buffed up. She may not be able to match Helga or Venom for physical strength, but she's nice and toned, and looks a lot better than Evan's scrawny Rocket. He's like the kicker of the football team, not the linebacker. As rock climbing is his only talent, it looks like he'll only be competing in one event- The Wall. (I don't think producers thought this through)

Besides the champs, AG has decided to include several other new gladiators: Phoenix, with her hot-pink hair and silly wings (wings!), Steel, who seems to have replaced Fury (my personal favorite), Zen, some sort of Asian ninja element who may even be smaller than Rocket, and the newest entry: Hurricane, who might look like less of a deusch if he got rid of the pink spiked hair. Looks like Romeo Williams and Tanji Johnson got the boot. (We never saw much of them anyway). Looks like they've decided to favor speed over muscle, but all our original goliaths were dangerously quick anyway, so I don't see the point.

On the plus side, the games themselves have been spruced up; the eliminator has been overhauled (to resemble Ninja Warrior even more) and the show has added some cool new events. Sideswipe, where contestants jump from platform to platform and the gladiators try to knock them down like human wrecking balls. In Snapback, contestants race down a lane while the gladiators pull back at them with bungee chords. Vertigo is a straight race atop 28 ft. poles, and Tilt is simply a one-on-one tug of war. All of this is promising, so lets hope they rotate the gladiators more this season and we get to see everyone do everything (Helga seems to be super-glued to the Assault cannon).

The key to this show really isn't all the brawn and athleticism, it's the endearing contestants we see every week. I'll never forget the guy who competed with ONE LEG. If you watched last night's show you got to see two great eliminator runs, twin sisters competing,  and you got to see more of Crush, the cute gladiatorette who moonlights as an MMA fighter. But if you watched two weeks ago, you got to see Gladiator team captain, Titan painted green all night in a tie-in with the release of The Incredible Hulk. Please, no more of that, guys.