'Thintervention
With Jackie Warner,' abs
She's got them to show off on the Bravo series
By Tom Conroy
Sep 2, 2010
Often the biggest criticism of a reality show is that its cast is a bunch of posers. In Bravo’s new weight-loss reality series “Thintervention With Jackie Warner” this is literally true for only one of the featured players.
The series’ star, a trainer named Jackie Warner, seems to spend her entire life tilted slightly forward, in order to optimize the definition of her truly amazing abdominal muscles. Warner’s evident awareness of the presence of cameras seems to have infected her overweight trainees. Though they’re often witty, virtually everything we see them do or say comes across as calculated, and it’s difficult to get involved emotionally in their struggle to lose weight.
Since many previous series have shown us overweight people suffering through grueling workouts and junk-food deprivation at the hands of overbearing trainers, there’s no particular reason to watch this one.
In the premiere, airing on Monday, Sept. 6, at 10 p.m., Warner, who previously starred in Bravo’s reality series “Work Out,” shows up at a gym where her subjects are already walking on treadmills. She identifies herself to us viewers as “a fitness and nutrition expert obsessed with changing people’s lives by helping them get hot and healthy bodies.”
The people in question are eight overweight men and women who suffer from another debilitating condition: They have the glib, slick camera-readiness that comes from either being on the fringes of show business or dreaming all one’s life of being a celebrity.
In fact, one participant, Jeana Keogh, who identifies herself as a former Playboy model, was in the cast of Bravo’s “Real Housewives of Orange County.” Viewers who aren’t reality addicts might know this if not for an unkind comment by another participant, an “event producer” named Joe, who says at one point, “There has to be more than a reality star underneath her. There could be three reality stars underneath her.”
Starting what will be 13 weeks of training, Jackie immediately works her charges to exhaustion. The show never addresses whether this abrupt beginning might be dangerous for overweight people. She then tells them to throw out all the sugary foods in the cupboards.
No one takes this order particularly seriously. Mandy, a housewife and former professional cheerleader, decides to make baked goods, which she claims she is planning to give away. Meanwhile, the British Nikki, an amateur “life adviser” who apparently lives off inherited money, says that if she’s going to be limited to one cocktail a day, it’s going to be as big as a martini shaker.
Jeana invites some of her fellow trainees over to dinner at her mansion, where she and the much younger Joe begin flirting in the hot tub. But since the trainees all seem to be staying in their own homes during the program, the usual reality-show relationship madness seems unlikely to happen.
The participants’ interview clips are funny, often at the expense of the other trainees. Bryan says that he doesn’t think overweight people should be working out on the beach because they tend to find sand later between folds of skin. This being Bravo, there’s much talk about sexual orientation. (Jackie’s relationships with a string of girlfriends were a major source of drama on “Work Out.”)
Jackie occasionally drops by the trainees’ homes to see if they’re sticking with the program. These scenes provide some mild comedy. Though Jackie was a strong presence on “Work Out,” she seems content to play the comic foil to her more colorful charges.
Since everyone is so glib, a group therapy session fails to provide any emotional payoff. Most shows would have viewers choking up after hearing stories of surviving cancer or being teased for being fat by one’s own children. On “Work Out,” we wait for a punch line.
The customary weigh-in scene at the end of the episode provides a little suspense and affirmation, but not enough.
At times, the show seems to be mocking the conventions of the reality weight-loss genre. There may be a more than a reality show underneath “Thintervention,” but if it’s meant to be a parody, it’s too subtle. Taken straight, it’s forgettable.
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