Gladiators 2025: The Review

25th April, 2025

The BBC's Gladiators revival was one of my favourite shows of 2024, a great production that managed to feel relevant to a modern audience and established a distinct identity, while still satisfying old fans like me. You can read more of what I thought about last year's show in my review of the 2024 series of Gladiators, but suffice to say it provided a strong foundation for continued success in 2025.

Thankfully, this year's series has maintained all of the strengths of last year's show, while addressing some of the criticisms. As a result, the praise I gave in my previous review is all still valid, so I won't follow the same review format this year – instead, I'll primarily be looking at my wishlist from last year and seeing how this year's improvements stack up against what I was hoping for, while adding extra comments as things come up.

Events

Last year, I wrote that I'd like to see three events introduced in 2025 – one brand new and two returning. The team behind the show gave us exactly three additional events, but decided to go with two new ones and one old one instead. Atlaspheres made its return, with Crash Course and Unleash appearing for the first time, and I'm perfectly happy with that. All three manage to be exciting to watch without running too close to other events from the BBC era.

I chose Atlaspheres as one of my preferred returning events and it really had to make a comeback, to be honest. After Duel, it's probably the most iconic event from the original show, and the Sky series definitely suffered for not having it. Having said that, there are ups and downs from the original presentation. I love the way the arena floor graphics indicate scoring, and the floor pods seem a little easier to navigate than those of the ITV show. However, there doesn't seem to be enough friction between the Atlaspheres and the arena floor, because you could often see the them spinning in place as shown in the gifs here.

What was interesting was seeing the introduction of Crash Course, a new race event using the Atlaspheres equipment, ostensibly to justify the cost involved. I'm not sure that was necessary, as Atlaspheres only appeared in three episodes and Crash Course in two. The event involves contenders racing two laps around the arena, with Gladiators deployed to impede them in designated zones. I do like the new event, but it does seem really swingy – Gladiators sometimes cause huge obstructions, and at other points miss completely. I do enjoy the time limit that kicks in once the winner finishes, it adds a nice sense of pressure for the other contender and reminds me of the two-player races in Sonic 2.

Unleash is a wholly new event, a short sprint course with a few obstacles. The contender gets a three second head start over the Gladiator, who must catch a flag on the contender's back. It plays out like a high speed version of Pursuit from the old days, and I think it's much more exciting, though it does suffer from one of the issues that Pursuit did – rules issues. Specifically, there were instances where Gladiators and contenders alike fell foul of the "one step at a time" ruling on the staircase leading to the finish line. The staircase is also a real pinch point where Gladiators can snag easy prey. Maybe replacing it with a slope would alleviate both issues?

I also hoped that the Gauntlet rules should be revised, but that's hardly a hot take as it was one of the biggest complaints last year. A fifth Gladiator has been added to the run with a curved shield, and the time limit has been reduced to 20 seconds. While I stated a preference for the 1994 rules, the new ones are just fine as it's no longer a walkover for contenders. There are still more stoppages than I'd like, and that ruling about Joe F jumping out deliberately in the first semi-final? A load of blonksnense, frankly. I've captured the moment in GIF form below and to me, it's clear that he's trying to stay in and is pushed out by Apollo.

Speaking of weird rules things, what the heck was up with suddenly changing the format of The Wall in the finals? I'm sure both contenders would have had to have agreed to it backstage beforehand, but given how stringently the rules have been enforced throughout the series, this felt strange and out of place. Gladiators may not offer the big cash prizes of the ITV days, but it still feels like it's more on the "legitimate competition" end of the sports-entertainment spectrum, and stuff like this undermines that.

Gladiators

Last year, I said I wanted to see two to four new additions to the team. We got two, Cyclone and Hammer. Cyclone turned up first, and she's been a great addition – she has a really distinctive look and she's been a force to reckon with in events like Duel. I think she also plays an important role in terms of her personality, as she's the closest thing the women's side has to an out and out grumpy heel, compared to Sabre's more subtle and catty nature. I know she's recently tried out with WWE and she certainly has plenty of the elements needed for success in the wrestling business, but while I wish her all the success in the world, I don't want her to leave Gladiators as she'd be a great loss to the show.

Hammer didn't arrive until later in the series, but he's also been a valuable addition to the show. Once again, he's got a great look and he's been valuable in the events. He mostly played the team games, but accounted for himself well in Unleash and Duel. Hopefully we get to see him play a wider variety of events next series, when he'll be a more established part of the team. At this point, I think we've got a nice roster and I don't think there is any need to add extra Gladiators unless we do see injuries or departures next year.

Another thing I wanted to see this year was better utilisation of Athena and Viper. In the case of Athena, that has totally been achieved – she's been participating in more solo events and has had far more microphone time, which you just love to see. As for Viper, it's been a mixed bag. When he spoke in the first heat, that crazed laugh was utterly cringeworthy, but he also got one of the best lines of the entire series in the semi-final with his "Shut your hole, you donkey!" rebuke to the always excellent Legend. Based on his amusing backstage tantrum and his Atlasphere abuse, I think Viper's starting to find his feet as a character.

I was gutted to learn that Nitro was injured prior to this series, as he was a personal favourite of mine from the 2024 series. I feel like it would have been valuable to keep him more involved as an on-screen presence, since he's charismatic and plenty capable of talking – it would have been nice to see him breaking down Gladiator tactics between events or on commentary. It was a shame that Giant also sustained an injury during the series, but these things are to be expected in highly physical games. On the flip side, it was nice to see far more of Comet in action this series after an injury took her out early last time around.

Structure and presentation

I was hoping for a longer series this year, with a simplified tournament format. We didn't get either, with the only extra episode being a celebrity special. I also wanted to see more transparency about the competitive aspects of the show, and we did get some – I appreciated that we were told who would advance as fastest runner-up at the end of both the heats and the quarter-finals, though I do still wish the Eliminator time rankings were shown. The fact that they weren't stands out even more this series, as so much was made of record times (and congratulations to the contenders for constantly pushing those times down).

Unfortunately, the tournament structure remained the same and where last year I felt like it had the potential to throw up weird situations, this year has proved it. Aneila was a great contender and her appearance in the final only came about due to the highly unfortunate injury to Zavia, so I mean no disrespect to her by pointing this out, but I do have to mention it – it's just odd to see someone win once in the heats, suffer three consecutive Eliminator defeats and end up as the official runner-up of the series.

I also hoped for either fewer scripted links from Bradley and Barney Walsh, or better writing. As before, they're both just fine when they're allowed to just play off the people they're interviewing, but the scripted stuff is still kind of weak. Having said that, I feel like some of the gags might have improved a bit as the series went on. Of course, that may just be me building up a tolerance.

Something that I think really did hurt the show this year is scheduling. The show skipped two weeks (8th February and 29th March) for FA Cup coverage, and had its time slot changed from 5:50pm to 7:00pm for two weeks for Six Nations Rugby. The skipped weeks didn't seem to hurt too much, but the time slot changes did – the 8th March episode (change to 7:00pm) and 22nd March episode (change back to 5:50pm) both suffered from major ratings drops compared to previous weeks. Schedule messing is something that has killed plenty of shows, and the BBC needs to be careful not to let it happen here.

Wishlist for next series

Better grip for Atlaspheres
Two new events, one returning/revised and one new (return preferences: Skytrak, Danger Zone or Swingshot)
A sixth episode at the heats stage, with six winners and two fastest runners-up progressing to…
Four quarter-finals, with only Eliminator winners progressing
As always, good health and good fortune for both Gladiators and contenders

Final thoughts

So, did I get every item on my wishlist fulfilled? No, but I'd have been delusional if I was expecting to, given that the production team probably didn't read my review in the first place. I think they did a great job of prioritising the most important changes, and it's of course worth remembering that they weren't trying to fix a broken show. I was already very happy with how the revival of Gladiators had gone last year, and the changes made ensured that this year's effort was even better.

The BBC has already confirmed that Gladiators will return in 2026, and I can only hope it's as good as it was this year. All of the events are exciting in their own way, and the Gladiators have really found their feet in the roles they play. It was a series filled with fantastic contests too – from Amanda dominating Powerball to Steel's dramatic takedown of Lewis on The Edge, and of course Zavia's exceptionally gutsy Eliminator victory in the semi-final. In fact, I might even go so far as to say this is genuinely one of the best Gladiators series ever.