The first round of TV Madness has concluded. Only 32 characters remain. Who will win? Who will die? It’s up to you to decide!
That first round had its share of drama. Comments became heated when well-known characters started dropping off. That’s the tough thing about a tourney like this. You just don’t know how it’s all going to shake out. There weren’t any huge upsets, though. Jack Bauer and Vic Mackey are still in the hunt, and they remain major favorites over the competition.
With some of the weak weeded out, we now have a stronger pool of competitors. This is where the voting gets tough. Everyone has favorite characters, and it’ll be hard to see them meet their demises as the tournament continues.
Before we get started killing off another 16 characters, let’s take a look at how the tournament has shaped up so far.
Biggest First Round Upsets
Steve Austin vs. Brisco County, Jr. – I thought for sure that Austin would take this one, even though he’s an older character. He’s pretty iconic and has a plethora of superhuman abilities. Not even that video I posted of Austin taking on Andre the Giant dressed up as Bionic Bigfoot could stop the Brisco train from running him down. I was pretty surprised by the outcome of this match.
The Tick vs. Tony Soprano – I have a huge love for the Tick and named him as one of my dark horse candidates to take home the crown. Still, I was apprehensive to see him pitted against Tony Soprano. ‘The Sopranos’ was insanely popular and still is. Even though I was sure The Tick would easily take out Tony in hand-to-hand combat, I thought that Tony’s popularity would sway the vote in his favor. But that didn’t happen, and now the big blue lovable buffoon finds himself moving on to the next round.
Seven of Nine vs. B.A. Baracus – It’s friggin’ Mr. T! It’s hard to think of him losing to anyone. Nonetheless, he lost to the universe’s sexiest Borg, by one vote. ONE! That voting ran neck-and-neck the entire time too. Crazy stuff.
Exciting Round 2 Match-ups
Buffy vs. Vic Mackey – Talk about two heavyweights. This seems like a match-up more suited for the Final Four instead of the second round. That’s just what happens with a random seeding, though. This will make for a very interesting battle. Both characters are respected all through the television world as dominating in their respective realms of existence. Buffy has super powers, but Vic Mackey is Vic Mackey. Damn, that’s a tough one.
Angel vs. Fox Mulder – I’d say that Angel has the upper hand against almost anyone else in this tournament just because of his superhuman powers. However, Mulder is the absolute worst person for him to meet right now. Mulder has more than enough experience and know-how to take care of a supernatural being. He’s done it hundreds of times.
Raylan Givens vs. Cordell Walker – We had our FBI agent throw down in the first round, when Mulder took on Dale Cooper. Who would’ve thought that Round 2 would bring us another law enforcement tussle? A Texas Ranger goes up against a U.S. Marshal. Honestly, I think Raylan is head and shoulders better than Walker, but that whole “Chuck Norris is the most unbeatable entity ever” nonsense will surely rear its head.
Tournament Statistics
Only four females remain in the tournament, which makes up only 12.5% of the remaining characters now.
Ten of the 32 characters left have some kind of superhuman abilities, whether supernatural, alien or robotic.
Five “Thinker” characters are left. These are characters who can readily use their minds and cunning to outsmart bigger, stronger foes: Ben Linus, Dexter Morgan, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Kirk and Fox Mulder.
Hulk Hogan is still in the tournament! Hooray!
Who Will Win?
Heavyweights – Buffy, Vic Mackey, Jack Bauer and Captain Kirk are the marquee names still left in the tournament. Either Buffy or Mackey has to go down in this next round, though.
Outside Contenders – Michael Westen, Ben Linus, Jonas Blane, Sherlock Holmes, Hercules, John Locke and Sylar. Westen is a trained spy who can kick anyone’s ass. Linus will outsmart and outwit anyone who gets in his way. Blane doesn’t have Jack Bauer’s reputation, but he might as well, given how easily he dispatches his enemies. Holmes is Holmes – everything said about Linus applies here too. Hercules is friggin’ half god. Locke has mystical powers and doesn’t die, even when he does. Finally, Sylar cuts open heads, takes abilities and has stockpiled so many powers that he could easily kill just about anyone.
Dark Horse Candidates – I still like the Tick. If I were making odds on this game, I’d probably say he had a 40-to-1 chance going into this tournament, but I would’ve taken that bet. Hurricane Spencer has the advantage of being Hulk Hogan and being absolutely nutso in any video clips I find from his show. Fox Mulder doesn’t have the fighting skills that most of the others have, but he is adept at taking down anyone with special powers, which should be huge in this tournament.
Below you’ll find an updated bracket. We’ll start up the Round 2 match-ups on Monday.
Click to enlarge
Alex
Aaron, just out of curiosity, have you done a breakdown of the combatants by Network? It feels like FX and Fox are producing a substantial number of Bad-A’s.
Aaron Peck
AuthorHere’s my count:
FOX: 8
FX: 3
NBC: 3
ABC: 3
CW/WB: 3
CBS: 3
HBO: 2
USA: 1
TNT: 1
Starz: 1
Showtime: 1
BBC: 1
UPN: 1
The only one left out is Worf, because ‘TNG’ started as a syndicated program so I’m not really sure what network to affiliate it with. If any.
But, yes you are right. Between FX and Fox they have 11 of the 32 badasses in the tournament. That’s overwhelming.
William Henley
TNG, when it was on, was on The Paramount Network (not to be confused with UPN, although I think The Paramount Network became UPN). That being said, I think at the time, Paramount only had a few stations across the country, so I am willing to bet that most people never even heard of The Paramount Network.
As for the Seven of Nine versus Mr T thing, I am surprised it was that close – Seven should have slaughtered Mr T. Mr T may be a badass, but Seven’s Borg implants gave her some super-human abilities. Granted, she could still be taken down, but I doubt it would have been Mr T before Seven was able to inject him with nanoprobes.
William Henley
Also do not confuse The Paramount Network with The Paramount Television Network.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Television_Network#Paramount.27s_later_involvement_with_television
Pretty much, in the late 80s, Paramount started buying up many independant stations. These were members of a loose network, which eventually became UPN.
Josh Zyber
Star Trek: The Next Generation was a syndicated program. It aired on different stations in different markets, owned by none. Some of those stations may have belonged to Paramount (and as distributor of the show, Paramount may have given preferential treatment to its own stations), but the show was not exclusive to them. In other cities, it may have aired on the affiliate of a major network like CBS, or on cable, or on an independent station at the end of the UHF dial, depending on which paid the licensing fee.
EM
The same situation applies to Deep Space Nine, Worf’s other series.
William Henley
Right. What I was saying is that it aired on a collection of stations that Paramount was buying up, which later became UPN. Before the formation of UPN, it was called The Paramount Network. However, they only had a handful of stations when TNG was on. In most areas, it was a syndicated show.
I mean, Stargate came on Showtime and later SyFy, but even when the show was on the air, it was still syndicated.
EM
Reading that Wikipedia article cited above, I see no mention of a pre-UPN ’80s–’90s “Paramount Network” by that name. According to some other Wikipedia articles (search Wikipedia for “UPN”, “TVX Broadcast Group”, and “Paramount Stations Group”—WordPress’ spam filter objected to direct links), UPN did rise out of a conglomeration of stations Paramount had been acquiring in the ’80s and ’90s; but I don’t see that those stations, prior to UPN, formed a network in the sense of carrying a common slate of programming. Wikipedia’s main article on Star Trek: The Next Generation describes that series’ successful syndication scheme.
On the other hand, Star Trek: Voyager was distributed on a mixed network-and-syndication scheme: it aired on UPN affiliates in markets that had UPN affiliates, and it was syndicated in markets that didn’t.
Stargate SG-1’s mixed network-and-syndication scheme was a little different. New episodes would premiere on cable (Showtime for the first few years, then Sci Fi [which later changed its name to Syfy]); broadcast syndication partners would air the episodes some six months later. In Voyager’s case, a syndicated episode would run the same week as the UPN telecast.
Chris
How did you decide the ties, for instance why Echo instead of Dean Winchester?
Aaron Peck
AuthorTies are decided by who starred in the longest running show by episode count.
In the case of Echo versus Winchester, the tying votes came in after the next TV Madness post was posted. Echo barely pulled out a win there. It’s just that the tying votes were a little too late. It was my fault I didn’t lock the voting. Round 2’s polls will all be locked as of 11:00 am on the day the next post is due.
CK
Choosing Eliza Dushku over Jensen Ackles needs no explanation.
Cam Sully
I joined Twitter just to comment on this downright stellar site. Great versus matches, great logical outcomes and just overall fun in the end.
You did a great job at getting 99% of the current and well remembered TV badasses but I wouldn’t judge by the channel so much as the company actually producing it, which in this case, Paramount/Viacom and Fox basically win at a tie. You’ve got the CSI, NCIS and Star Trek crews against Mackey, X-Files, Bauer, Buffy, Blane with a few ones from HBO and Sony.
Either way, here’s the character outcomes, old or new:
Blane is rather underrated; like Worf, he’s pretty subtle at what he says or does but when it comes time to go ape$h!t, he does so with pride if not joy.
Mackey would have no problem headshotting Buffy and covering it up as an act of self-defense and while she might come back to life, she wouldn’t suspect a corrupt human being out of all things and Vic’s been assaulted before with bullets so what makes you think that stakes will do the trick?
Kirk: As much as I love the man, we should probably know ahead of time whether it’s the original Shat version or ’09 reimagining (just like if we were to know which version of James Bond or Batman the other person is fighting if it were a movie scenario). Still, he unfortunately
***SPOILER***
Hit the fan in one of the underrated movie installments so why can’t we just stick with Worf or Spock, LOL?
Aaron Peck
AuthorWelcome! Glad you like what we do here.