Falling as I do in the latter camp, I'm probably not the best judge of NBC's "Breakthrough with Tony Robbins," which struck me as way more Tony Robbins than breakthrough.
Certainly it's hardly one for NBC, whose increasing reliance on "The Biggest Loser" - and its annoying offspring, "Losing It with Jillian" - suggests an ambition to transform itself into a basic-cable channel.
In the two episodes I've seen, "Breakthrough" features couples with problems even bigger than the 6-foot-7 Robbins being subjected to a series of high-adrenaline "challenges" meant to show them they're capable of more than they think.
Whether they're visiting Robbins at his home in Fiji - yes, he has a home in Fiji - or at some setting in Malibu, Calif., they're taken out of their day-to-day lives for these exercises, each of which are meant to illustrate some maxim of Robbins'.
While none of what he's saying feels particularly original, I wouldn't call it terrible advice - more like common sense, forcefully delivered.
But like "Loser," "Breakthrough" comes with made-for-TV drama (including the use of some expensive-looking airplanes) that may not be so easily translated into change for most of the people watching, especially in next week's episode, which features an unemployed couple whose happy ending requires a certain amount of string-pulling on Robbins' part.
Happy endings come in all flavors, and in Fox's "MasterChef," the opportunity for an amateur cook to be declared a "master chef" by judges Gordon Ramsay ("Hell's Kitchen"), Joe Bastianich and Graham Elliott comes with a $250,000 prize and the publication of a cookbook.
So look for anyone whose friends or family ever told them they were good in the kitchen to show up and try to prove it.
