American Ninja Warrior Season 14                            Qualifying Review

Here I'll share my thoughts on American Ninja Warrior Season 14's qualifiers, I'll be covering the course, editing, competitors and overall how enjoyable and memorable the 5 episodes were. (Major Spoilers ahead)

Obstacles: I think that they largely nailed the obstacles this year with many great new obstacles introduced in the qualifiers, and an overall massive improvement on last year's courses. Rollercoaster, while lacking creativity is a very fun to watch second obstacle, Serpent is a surprisingly tricky obstacle with a really cool theme, Carnival, while not amazing is extremely creative, Salmon Roll is a very neat idea as well as being incredibly technical and creating a lot of shocking fails which helped spice things up. Despicaballs, while having a terrible name and sponsor, is actually a very good and tough balance obstacle and Final Frontier is a very nice concept, though I think it'd be better suited as a 9th obstacle in the Semi-Finals. 

As ever, there were some obstacles that weren't amazing but still not bad, such as Piston Plunge and Shattered Panes. However the courses this year still had some flaws, as at times the Split Decision had obstacles that were too similar to each other in the form of Log Runner and Burn rubber as they both have exactly the same concept, but on the whole the courses were very solid and hopefully it continues into the Semi-Finals and eventually the Las Vegas Finals. 8/10

Editing: Okay, this is where the qualifiers dramatically miss the mark, as the editing was borderline painful at times. I don't mind it when one or two big names are fast forwarded, but countless top competitors were fast forwarded and even 3 mega wall clears were fast forwarded despite having outstanding runs, but one of the worst decisions happened in episode 2 when Matt Bradley, the fastest finish of the night was given the fast forward treatment, it makes no sense to not show the best run of the entire episode? Episode 2 was generally the worst edited episode of the 5, with a lot of time spent on rookies who failed early as well as long profile pieces. I do think that some of the profile pieces are good and provide value, such as Christopher Jones, Ethan Gardulski, Barclay Stockett and Derrick Pavoni, but there was quite a few this season that were just too long and didn't add value to the episode especially when the competitor failed on just the second or third obstacle. 

The overall issue I have with the editing in the qualifiers is just how few runs are shown between ad breaks, as the show tends to follow this same formula of having an ad break, a fast forward with exactly 3 competitors, and then 1 or 2 runs and I think that the editors need to make an effort to try and switch up this pattern a lot more, firstly by fitting more full runs into a segment, 3 to 4 is about a good amount, this can be done simply by cutting down on the extra fluff such as profile pieces and random segments. Another suggestion could be to simply just increase the amount of competitors shown in each fast forward, from 3 to about 5 to 6 as the fast forward segments tend to be overly slow in American Ninja Warrior, and there is certainly ways to fit more runs in. 

Competitors: Okay, this is the part of the show that makes American Ninja Warrior stand above the rest of the world when it comes to Ninja Warrior. The competitors, especially this year were absolutely outstanding in the qualifiers, with a record number of Mega Wall clears (10) and a record amount of women moving on to the semi-finals, so much that I don't think the women's top 5 rule is even needed anymore which shows how far the women in American Ninja Warrior have come, even with Meagan Martin not competing this year, as well as Jessie Graff's injury problems. Speaking of Jessie Graff, it was very nice to see both her and Najee Richardson return to the course this season after missing last year with injuries, with Najee having a great run too, seeing Josh Levin return after 3 years out was a pretty great moment despite it being fast forwarded, and there was some outstanding teenage rookies this season such as Jordan Carr (who set a record for the youngest woman to complete a course at age 15) Jeremiah Boyd, Ethan Gardulski and Jacob Arnstein amongst others. 

This season there were many outstanding and memorable runs in qualifying, and here I'll name my personal favourite run from each episode:

Episode 1: James McGrath's mega wall clear and proposal, James hadn't competed since season 10, and seeing him get the $10K prize on the mega wall on his first un in years and then propose to his girlfriend immediately after was one of the most incredible moments on the show in recent years. Honourable mention also goes to RJ Roman, who absolutely killed it in his run, also getting the $10K mega wall prize as well as the fastest time of the night.

Episode 2: Najee Richardson's return and clear, Najee missed season 13 with an ankle injury so it was great to see him return and be back where he should be after a long recovery. Honourable mention also goes to Matt Bradley, a constantly underrated competitor who got the fastest time of the night despite being fast forwarded.

Episode 3: Levin Enright clearing the Mega Wall and getting the $10K, this run was so unexpected and him getting the Mega Wall was one of the shocks of the season, in a positive way. 

Episode 4: Katie Bone, a teenage rookie with type 1 diabetes who had a seriously impressive run on the hardest qualifier of the season, also becoming the second teenage woman to complete a qualifying course. Honourable mention goes to Austin Gray, who constantly has great performances that fly under the radar.

Episode 5: John Mack, a relatively unknown competitor competing in his second season, who ran in memory of his father and he had an outstanding run, shocking the entire Ninja world by clearing with the fastest time of the night and even getting the $10K on the Mega Wall, only the 4th competitor ever to get the Mega Wall and the fastest time of the night. 

Overall, the qualifiers were good in every department aside from the editing, which honestly needs some major work, but the qualifiers were a success and certainly ahead of the season 13 qualifiers.

Final Rating: 7.5/10