'The Biggest Loser': All Muscle!

Image credit: Trae Patton/NBC

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The Biggest Loser

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It was supposed to start with a scalpel. In 2003, NBC asked production company Reveille (then run by Silverman) to formulate a plastic-surgery reality series like Extreme Makeover (the crass original version that reinvented people's faces, not people's houses). Instead, Reveille pitched back a transformation-via-diet-and-exercise series in which obese people competed to see who could drop the most digits. ''No stapling, sucking, or cutting,'' sums up exec producer J.D. Roth. Still, NBC worried: Could jaw-dropping makeovers happen without lipo? The producers thought so, and found a pair of local trainers, Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels, who ate daunting challenges for breakfast.

Once contestants were recruited — brave casting directors approached overweight folks on the street — the experiment began at the Biggest ranch in Calabasas, Calif. In October 2004, the show debuted to 10 million viewers, but was met with harsh criticism. Remembers Michaels: ''My first interview, the anchor just comes at me and Bob: 'Don't you think you're humiliating people?' We'd been working every day with these people, and I was like, 'What?! You have no idea!' People just presumed it was going to be nasty and mean-spirited.'' Making sure it wasn't, though, required some restraint. The producers and the network briefly considered challenges that would feature the contestants tangling with sumo wrestlers or being dunked in chocolate sauce and pelted with marshmallows. ''It was like, 'Nooo, that just seems like the wrong place to go,''' recalls exec producer Todd A. Nelson. ''The first year, as you got to know these people, the show found itself.''

While many reality shows shoot for three or four weeks, Biggest contestants spend about 12 weeks sequestered at the Calabasas ranch — this season it'll be 20 weeks — which results in real narrative arcs for viewers to invest in, and deep bonding between contestants. (With two marriages under its weight belt, Loser boasts a better romantic track record than The Bachelor.) And during this intense boot camp, the contestants — ''who are really looking to be rescued, as opposed to people who want their 15,'' says Sweeney — tend to hug and cry. A lot. ''We call tears the fuel that feeds the engine of The Biggest Loser,'' quips Roth. Indeed, the edit bays at HQ are stocked with Kleenex; even those hard-nosed trainers aren't immune. Says Harper, ''They have me crying like a bitch on this show.'' That doesn't mean everything's always all chunky-dory. Loser routinely walks the tightrope between what's good for contestants and what makes for good TV. Take the ''temptations,'' in which contestants are offered incentives to binge on fattening foods in exchange for prizes. ''Jillian and I vehemently hate those things,'' shudders Harper. Defends Roth: ''Temptation is everywhere. We're trying to get them accustomed to the worst. So if I have to put 25 Twinkies in a room and say, 'Underneath one of those Twinkies is $10,000 — pick one up, you gotta eat it,' I'm gonna do it. They know when they [leave the show], 'If I didn't eat a Twinkie when there was 10 grand on the line, I'm certainly not going to have this doughnut.'''

NEXT PAGE: ''On the message boards, people were looking for answers: What are they eating? What are the workouts? We were sitting on this information, and there was an opportunity to market that.''