Last season’s sleeper reality hit was a show that had a heart beneath its layers of reality TV fat. When “The Biggest Loser” debuted on NBC, the weight loss-focused competition series seemed to be just an excuse to torture fat people for our amusement.

In the first episode, contestants were confronted with obscenely overflowing piles of their favorite foods. For breakfast, they were tempted with huge platters of eggs, bacon, and donuts. The two trainers assigned to help the contestants lose weight seemed to be more interested in promoting their own style of weight loss than helping the individuals assigned to them. Contestants were split into teams, and the team that lost the least amount of weight had to vote a member off, sending one person each week away from the trainers and the support of their teams.

But rather quickly, the show’s emotional center emerged, and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” had some competition in the feel-good reality TV subgenre. Watching the pounds disappear as new attitudes and behaviors emerged was both inspiring and heartwarming. The trainers gave advice and discussed diets that allowed viewers to, at the very least, feel like they could take advantage of the contestants’ regimen.

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All of that led to more than 23 million people watching the season finale earlier this year. The success of “The Biggest Loser” success has led NBC to renew the series for a second season, which debuts with a 90-minute episode on Sept. 13.

NBC is also planning to produce a spin-off version of the series. “The Biggest Loser: Something versus Something,” will air as a series of one-episode specials in which groups of people will compete against each other as they lose weight. There’s also a pair of show-themed workout videos on the way. Clearly, this is a formula that works.

Men vs. women
While the cast literally carries the weight of the show, its success is also due to the three personalities who oversee the proceedings, the show’s two trainers and host. Trainers Jillian and Bob became quick celebrities as they guided their team’s diet and workout regiments, which were distinctly their own and provided an interesting counterpoint to the other.

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Part of the trainers’ appeal came from the way they filled nontraditional gender roles. Jillian Michaels is the hard-core, make-them-cry-and-bleed coach. “Training with me is aggressive, it’s challenging, it’s in your face, it’s demanding,” she admits unapologetically during the first episode of the second season.

Bob Harper’s approach is much more nurturing. In his introduction, he says, “I’m about what’s going on inside. I work from the inside out.” Both are compassionate, however, and ultimately seem to be genuinely concerned with helping their charges lose weight and change their outlook on life.

This year, “The Biggest Loser” borrows from other competitive reality shows by dividing the teams by sex. Since, as one contestant put it, “men lose weight faster than women do,” the teams will win or lose as a result of the percentage of weight they lose. Jillian’s aggressive approach will help reign in the men, while Bob will help the women hug their way to victory.

Overseeing them all will be returning host and comedian Caroline Rhea, a persistently perky mother figure. Although viewers can guess that she might have a sarcastic remark hiding behind her smile, and even though she gives the contestants unpleasant tasks and unpleasant news, Rhea stays in mother mode, comforting the contestants and always smiling.

CONTINUED: Why taunt contestants once they're on the scale?

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