Boot Camp (TV series)
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- For other uses, see boot camp.
Boot Camp was a weekly reality television show that aired on Fox starting March 28 2001.
The show involved sixteen civilian contestants participating in a real life military style boot camp 24 hours a day. Four drill instructors put the contestants through special training activities and obstacle courses to prepare them for the "missions" which they took part in on each of the first seven episodes. Every four days the contestants faced an evaluation by their peers to determine who goes and who stays. The recruit receiving the most votes to dismiss them had to leave the game immediately, but was allowed to turn around and discharge another recruit for any reason at all.
The four drill instructors:
- McSweeney - Former Marine Corps Sergeant
- Rosenbum - Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer
- Francisco - Marine Corps Sergeant Major
- Taylor - Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant
On the final two-part episode the two remaining contestants competed in a "Gauntlet" over the course of 48 hours without any rest. Each of the seven events was named for one of the dismissed recruits from earlier episodes. The winner of each event was awarded the dog tags of that recruit. Once the Gauntlet was completed, the winners of each event were revealed, and seven of the discharged recruits voted for which of the two finalists they wanted to win. (Recruit Katherine, having withdrawn from the show on the second day, was denied the opportunity to vote by the show's producers.)
| Gauntlet Events | ||
| Event | Description | Winner |
|---|---|---|
| Lauder's Last Stand | Recruits had to stand on two raised foot-shapes for as long as possible | Wolf |
| Haar's Heartbreak | Recruits had to run 1½ miles against the benchmark time set early in the show, the recruit with the best improvement was the winner | Whitlow |
| Moretti's Memory | Recruits had to look at a series of photographs and answer questions immediately after each photograph concerning its content | Wolf |
| Park's Peak | Recruits had to abseil down the side of a tower, memorize a quote written on the tower, and continue to the bottom before rewriting the quote in full. Only when the quote was exactly correct did the time stop | Wolf |
| Jackson's Hold | Recruits had to hold their arm horizontally through a ring with a set of dog tags placed on their arm. The first recruit to drop their arm below a certain level lost | Wolf |
| Meyer's March | Recruits had to march 10 miles, carrying 1/5 their body weight in a backpack | Wolf |
| Coddington's Crossing | Recruits had to complete an assault course on the first day, before being told that they would run it again on the second day, with the best improved time winning. | Wolf |
Despite winning just one gauntlet event, Recruit Whitlow went on to receive the support of all six discharged recruits to sensationally win 7-6, netting herself $500,000. The runner-up, Recruit Wolf, received $100,000. Earlier in the show, a mistake in an earlier challenge was made which the entire group was punished for. Nobody came forward for it, Wolf was generally the one blamed, and it's believed that blame was responsible for the unanimous vote against him.
The show also spawned a celebrity version, which ran over just two episodes and featured ten celebrities, with dismissals occurring at the drill instructors' discretion. Drill Instructors Francisco and Rosenbum reprised their roles along with a new female DI.
